Killing Time (One-Eyed Jacks) Read Free Page B

run her to ground, somebody with a connection to Operation Slam Dunk, and she didn’t have a clue who it was—or, for that matter, who had passed her the info that had put her in the crosshairs.
    But there it had been one day, the OSD file, landing smack in her lap from out of nowhere. No name, no chain of command, no nothing, just her and the death warrant that had gone into effect the minute she’d started asking questions—and she had plenty of questions. Had OSD been a bait and switch funded by black money? A major screwup that power and corruption had covered up? Or had it come down exactlythe way the file said it had and Mike Brown was responsible?
    So far, she had damn few answers. She was certain of only two things: One: Whatever had happened that night, security had been breached and a whole lot of people had died—one of whom she still missed with an ache that kept her up at night. Two: Whoever had passed her that file wanted her to ferret out the truth as badly as someone else wanted her stopped.
    The sorry piece of work cuffed to the bed had been part of it all. The OSD file had named him as the operator who had screwed the pooch and gotten his teammates killed. She needed him to talk and Mr. “Go to hell” was going to do exactly that before this night ended.
    “The legendary Mike Brown,” she said, watching him carefully, looking for a reaction, any reaction. “Or should I call you Primetime? That’s what your team called you, right?”
    He worked hard to convince her with a bland look that the use of his nickname and reference to his team hadn’t sliced him to the quick. She didn’t buy it. The man had once had a conscience. He’d been one of America’s best of the best, and he had to be feeling a little raw right now despite the lingering hold of the Ketamine.
    She’d dosed him with just enough of the drug to possibly give him a hallucination or two—it wasn’t called Special-K for nothing—and make him malleable,to get him where she wanted him. Defenseless. Vulnerable. At her mercy. Nice of him to drown himself in booze to help the process along.
    “Primetime and the One-Eyed Jacks.” She tossed out the name of his old unit like a gauntlet—or a piece of bait.
    He bit, dropping any pretense of indifference. His eyes hardened as he watched her stand and walk closer to the foot of the bed.
    And yes, she got it. Got why he had a rep for women falling all over him. She’d had no trouble picking him out in the bar. Despite the fact that he looked a little frayed around the edges with his too-long hair and several days’ growth of beard, he was the perfect male package: tall, dark, and broad-shouldered—dangerous. Add a face with ridiculously intriguing angles and planes, a touch of some ancestral Spanish blood, and thick brown hair, and he definitely lived up to his lady-killer billing.
    Even in his current state, Brown was Hollywood gorgeous—primetime TV gorgeous. The quintessential all-American male. Born and raised in Colorado ranching country, star high school and college athlete, Naval Academy standout . . . blah, blah, blah. But his wild-card rep—supported by the diamond stud in his left ear—pegged him as a renegade and a troublemaker. So did the flirty smile, laser blue eyes, and an alpha male swagger that was too natural to be staged.
    But according to the OSD file, beneath that spectacularexterior beat the heart of a screwup and a coward.
    Well, she needed his help, and he was going to give it to her, one way or the other. She had no intention of dying for the justice she would see done—and by God, she would see it done. And she would get out of this alive.
    She pulled her thoughts back together. She was on a mission and determined to make him squirm. “Let’s back up a few years. To Annapolis and the Naval Academy. You graduated with honors. Impressive.”
    “We do aim to please.”
    “Started out your military career as an E-2 pilot,” she continued, impervious to