“We’ll have you back in Denver in a few hours,” said the pilot.
Protocol required Brit to let her contact know she’d completed the mission. At the moment, she needed to get her jumbled thoughts together. If she didn’t send the text, that would draw attention to her situation.
Once seated, she unearthed the burner, shot off a text. “Mission complete.”
An instant reply. “Confirm you’re okay.”
That was her handler’s code for let me know you haven’t been made, arrested, or shot.
She wasn’t okay, but she wasn’t getting into that now.
As the plane gained speed down the runway, she shifted her attention out the window. When the bird lifted effortlessly off the ground, she breathed.
Her phone buzzed again with another text. “I need confirmation or I move into action.”
“Confirmed,” she replied.
She stared out the window at the peppering of lights dotting the cities and towns below, even at two in the morning.
She had no idea if she’d done the right thing bynottaking out Joaquin Dillinger, or bynotfollowing orders.
This is definitely the calm before the storm.
Joaquin
As the shooter drove by,Rebel glimpsed someone in a hoodie. While it wasn’t much, his gut told him he’d be able to spot the son of a bitch in a lineup.
Everything happened lightning fast. Three shots in less than two seconds. After the third shot, he’d bolted like his ass was on fire.
While he wanted to put his fist through a brick wall, he had to stay calm. In all the years he’d been undercover, he’d never once had a job go sideways like this. Frustration had him grinding his teeth.
He circled back around to his vehicle and hauled outta there. As he drove to the airport, he called his handler.
“You okay?” his handler answered, his voice groggy.
“I had athinggo down tonight.”
“Shit, shit, Rebel. Hold on. Go back to sleep, honey, it’s just work.” After a few seconds, his handler said, “And here I thought you were tucked in bed. Where are you?”
“Texas.”
“Dammit, Rebel. Who knows you’re there?”
“The guys I was meeting with and you.”
“What happened?”
“I was setting up the pickup with the eighteen-wheeler.”
“That’s good.”
“Unfortunately, my regulars brought a guy named TL. He wanted one of his guys to rip apart my jacket. He didn’t trust me. Thought I was a cop.”
“Backup would have been good,” his handler grumbled.
“That wasn’t my biggest problem. There was a sniper on the roof across the street. He took out all three guys. I mean, this guy was good. Head shot, all of ‘em. I went after him?—”
“What is wrong with you, Joaquin?”
