Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 68369 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 342(@200wpm)___ 273(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68369 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 342(@200wpm)___ 273(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
“I cried. ’Cause that’s what I do now.” I stopped in front of their table, and I didn’t want their topic to fade away. “What’s an HW-27 form?”
His eyes flashed with a pinch of amusement, and he carefully leaned back in his seat and adjusted his leg, which was by no means held in an upright and straight position. Goddammit.
“It’s a request to open up old case files that might help with a new one,” he replied. “Over the years, we’ve probably worked six or seven Hahn-related assignments, so…”
“I’d double that,” Darius said.
I pointed to Bo’s leg. “You can’t go shooting more Hahns with that leg.”
He grinned a little and pulled me to him, and he stuck a hand down the back pocket of my pants. “He worries about me.”
Darius smirked. “It’s a good feeling.”
Bo peered up at me. “It is.”
Well, all right, then. Good.
“You don’t have to worry anytime soon, kid,” Darius said, capturing my attention again. “Omar Said gets shit done, but he’s a meticulous planner, and there’s no way he could’ve foreseen everything going sideways the other day. He has to start fresh with a new plan, and it’s going to take months.”
I tilted my head. “How can he be in a top position if he doesn’t possess the smarts to have backup plans?”
He inclined his head. “I’ll rephrase. The plan might exist, but he operates on a larger scale. Executing it will take months. And now we know who to keep an eye on. Intel will be all over this.”
That made more sense. To set up a new drug route or whatever he might plan required land, property, manpower, and a big network. Not to mention the logistics.
It made me curious, though. “Would you let him execute any part of his plan, then?”
Bo weighed his answer. “Technically, yes. We need time to map out his routines and behaviors so we can learn how to predict them. It would also help if we could lure him to a specific location for his final days.”
Oh, we’d read about that in training. Legacy had told us about a case during the Cold War—two American agents had dug so deep into a KGB agent’s life that they could manipulate his daily schedule without raising too much suspicion. And on the day they had killed him, they’d essentially created a ripple effect, starting with a slashed tire on the KGB guy’s neighbor’s car. Not his own—the neighbor’s. Because that had prompted the KGB agent to take another route to work, then one thing led to another, and the spy had fallen into several traps that ultimately led to his death.
Tanner, always with his hand in the air, had asked why they’d gone through the hassle. Why they hadn’t just taken him out with a gun or poison or whatever. And Legacy had said, “The perfect murder is only perfect if you’ve never heard of it. Until the end of the war, the Russians believed their agent had died in a fire—an accident, along with all the intel he sat on.”
I figured it out. “You wanna take him out without Karl Hahn suspecting foul play and retaliating.”
Bo merely smiled.
“He catches on quick,” Darius noted.
I stood a little taller.
“He’s a good recruit,” Bo answered. “One might even mistake him for a Quinn.”
Damn. Just like that, my ears felt hot.
Darius smiled, and he actually looked pleased.
That was a good sign, wasn’t it?
Maybe I was dead. Maybe I’d done enough good deeds, and this was my reward, to finally be happy. In which case…
Welcome to my personal heaven.
THEIR PERSONAL HEAVEN
November 26th, 2024
Bo Beckett
“Again!” I yelled and blew the whistle.
All nine recruits sucked in some air before they went under the surface again.
Water quals were fun.
Decked out in jeans, long-sleeved tees, and boots, they’d spent the past three hours in the pool for an endurance drill that would last for however long they managed. Two junior operators on lifeguard duty, me with my pretty whistle, and Coach taking notes next to me.
“Keep an eye on Riley,” he muttered. “He stalls before touching the pad.”
I nodded in understanding. Rules were simple. Each recruit was to hold their breath for as long as they could, and when they resurfaced, they had to touch the yellow pads along the edge that logged their time.
We’d taken eleven stopwatch pads out of the supply closets last week, but then we’d lost two more recruits yesterday. Aaron had squirmed his way out by saying he’d changed his mind and wanted to become a firefighter instead, and Caleb had flunked out. His test scores hadn’t improved lately, and he’d opted to blame others.
Nine remained.
Thankfully, we felt good about all of them. They were strong, determined as fuck, and fast learners.
We’d officially reached the stage in training where the following dropouts would suck. Coach, Danny, and I saw potential in all of them. But we hadn’t gotten to the difficult parts yet.