Hard Target: Elite Ops - Book One Read Free Page A

again with a slight lessening of the thrumming bass at his feet.
    God bless America and mothers who would fuss about headbanger music played at thundering decibels.
    The burner cell phone in his pocket jangled, surprising him. He recognized the incoming caller, the only person he would have picked up for. “How the hell did you get this number, Gavin?”
    “You’re not that hard to find. This is what I do.” The CEO of Armored Extraction Guards and Investigative Security, or AEGIS, Gavin Bartholomew specialized in private security, risk management, and the recovery of people and assets in foreign countries.
    “I know. You do it all. I shouldn’t be surprised you found the number, but I just bought this thing yesterday. The only person who knows I own the phone is the checker at Walmart.”
    Gavin snorted. “Well I know now. The National Enquirer can’t be far behind.”
    “I would laugh if I thought that wasn’t true.”
    “Relax, Buddy, I lied. You weren’t that easy to find, but why did I have to hear about this crap on CNN?”
    Leland could hear the hurt in his former partner’s voice. “I didn’t want to bother you. You’ve had a lot going on. How’s Kat?” Gavin’s wife was one of Leland’s favorite people. He stared at the glass of liquor but didn’t pick it up.
    “Feeling crappy. Nauseated. She’s thrown up everything except her toenails today. She’s finally resting now.”
    Stage IV breast cancer metastasized to the liver. Just when you thought your own problems were insurmountable, someone else could remind you how much you’d rather not trade troubles with anyone.
    “She saw you on the news before she fell asleep. Asked me to check on you,” added Gavin. And that was so like Kat. To think of others even when she was . . . dying. It physically hurt to think about that.
    “They warned us it would be this way, but I never thought . . . God, I fucking hate cancer.” The fear in Gavin’s voice made Leland’s heart ache for both his friends.
    They’d treated him like family, and he’d dropped off the face of the earth. Leland hadn’t known what to say then, and he didn’t know what to say now, but his friend refused to dwell on the horror that was coming. “Sooo. How are you? Gotta say, the news cameras did not get your best side.”
    Leland forced a levity into his voice that he didn’t feel. “Screw you, Bartholomew. Every side is my good side.”
    Gavin’s deep chuckle echoed over the line. “It’s good to know you still have a rich fantasy life. What have you gotten yourself into?”
    Leland didn’t miss the unspoken subtext: How did you end up testifying for the defense? He had kept Gavin out of the loop on purpose because of everything going on with Kat, but if his friend had tracked him down—especially in the midst of his own personal crisis, he deserved an explanation.
    “The cable news folks have covered all the basics, if not the finer points of the situation. A snitch sold a civilian CPA, Ellis Colton, as a Class One Columbian drug smuggler to my supervisor, Hank Preston.”
    “How did it go down?” asked Gavin.
    Leland quit staring at the glass on the table and finally took a deep sip of the scotch. The salty vanilla taste and peat smoke were like coming home. He savored the feeling. It had been a long time since he’d allowed himself the luxury. Besides, this was hard to talk about.
    “The DEA hit the Coltons’ home with a commando SWAT team made up of local police and federal agents. They killed a sleeping toddler, critically wounded a second and severed Jan Colton’s spine, putting her in a wheelchair for life. Except they had it all wrong.”
    Leland remembered the look of devastation on Ellis Colton’s face. He took another sip and started to knock back the rest of the scotch but couldn’t. Love made people so freaking vulnerable. He never wanted to be that unprotected. It took him a moment before he could keep talking.
    “The criminal informant