Broken Honor

Part 2

***

“He’s leaving.” Todd Urban smacked his palms on the steering wheel of the van parked next to Quinn’s car, then reached for the door. “We need to grab him before—”

“No.”


“Sir, if we don’t—”


“Stand. Down. I’m sure the Wilde brothers have cameras everywhere around here. We can’t risk being spotted.”

Urban grumbled but released the handle and watched in the side mirror as Quinn climbed into his car. “If he’s going on another op, who knows when we’ll have this opportunity again? We have to neutralize him before he gets his memory back.”


“He’s not going on an op. Gabe and the rest of the team are still inside.”


The car started, and Quinn pulled out of the lot. Good thing they’d had time to bug his vehicle.
 Urban cursed under his breath and glanced over at Captain Cold in the passenger seat. He’d never call the captain that nickname to his face, but it was a fitting one, bestowed on him by the people that suffered under his command. “Your orders, sir?”

“I’ve never liked this idea. We’re better than grabbing a man out of a parking lot like a bunch of thugs. We need a new plan of attack.”

Urban grunted. “Like running him off the highway?”

“That was an act of desperation and never should have been given the green light. We’re better than that.”

Urban just barely managed to keep his eye roll to himself. That was Captain Cold’s mantra. He was better than this, better than that, better than everyone and everything. And Urban was starting to think he didn’t like getting his officer hands dirty. Maybe he even resented that he’d been sent on this kind of wet work with a lowly grunt. “We should have sent some guys to take him out in Afghanistan. Nobody would have thought twice about it if he ended up with a bullet in his head there.”

“Urban,” Captain Cold said after a moment and looked at him with—well, maybe not respect, but with something close to it. “That’s the best idea you’ve ever had.”

“What idea?”

“We’ll send him on another op, get him out of the country again. Preferably someplace hostile where we’ll have a scapegoat for his death. Where there won’t be an investigation when his body turns up.”

“That...might work.” At least, it solved the problem of trying to explain away a decorated ex-SEAL’s body to the American police. “How do we get them out on another op?”

“They’re mercenaries,” Captain Cold said with disdain and picked up his cell phone. “We hire them. Pull up the GPS and follow Quinn, make sure he’s going home. I have some calls to make.”

        *** 

        El Paso, TX

Now that he was here, standing in front Mara’s duplex, Quinn was starting to doubt himself. What if she’d only called to tell him he’d left a sock or something behind last time he was here? Or what if she’d only wanted to tell him off for sneaking away while she was sleeping? She had every right to rip him a new one for that act of cowardice, but that didn’t jibe with the sweet, shy Mara he knew. And her voicemail hadn’t sounded angry, but there had been a note of urgency in her tone.

        Maybe she was in trouble? If so, he’d look like an ass showing up on her doorstep with flowers. But if the Juarez Syndicate was causing her family problems again like they had been over the summer, Jesse, as her cousin, would have known about it. He had been the one who hired HORNET to protect her and her mother in the first place, and he hadn’t said a word about Mara recently, so it couldn’t be more trouble. Maybe...