Read Online Crazy Cool by Tara Janzen - Free Book Online

companies probably would. They’d love to blow the leftist bastards to hell, but even though they own half the Colombian army, they don’t run it.”
    “Our boy isn’t a hundred percent.” Hell, Kid might not be fifty percent by now. Or even ten, and he’d be running on bloodlust, not brains, which was a good way to get killed. He was young and tough and the best shooter SDF had, but they were bringing his brother home in a body bag—if the rebel forces would just give him up.
    Hawkins needed to be in Colombia. He didn’t want Kid and Dylan going up against the rebels without him, especially with the Marines who had been down there ordered out. God, the mission was so far off the books, there wouldn’t be anybody there to back them up after the Marines left—and they would leave.
    SDF operators were expendable. That was the whole point of their existence, but nobody could afford to have the Corps associated with a black ops mission where things had gone wrong.
    “Maybe you should wait for me. This thing at the Gardens with Bad Luck, give me two days and—”
    “Bad Luck?” Dylan interrupted on a short laugh. “Please, tell me you’re not calling her that to her face.”
    Hell. He just had, but that was beside the point.
    “I could be in Colombia by Sunday night.”
    “And Katya Dekker?” Dylan asked. “She’s in this up to her neck.”
    “Simple. If we don’t have a suspect in our sights by Sunday morning, we turn everything we’ve got over to Lieutenant Bradley. I’ll have a little talk with Alex Zheng and put him and”—he paused for half a second—“Ms. Dekker on a plane to Washington, D.C.”
    “Send her back to Mommy?” Dylan asked.
    Basically, yes.
    “Yes,” he said.
    “I’m sure the senator would make one helluva bodyguard.”
    “Definitely up to the job,” Hawkins said. “Darth Vader in Chanel wouldn’t have anything on her.”
    “Well, that’s a fascinating visual there—and amazingly accurate.” Dylan’s voice came back at him over the phone. “But I think you’re being overly optimistic about Sunday morning. You’re going to have to trust me and the Marines on this one, Superman.”
    Superman. Right. Hawkins wished to hell he
was
Superman.
    “You know I’ll bring Kid home,” Dylan continued.
    “Yeah.” He dragged a hand back through his hair. “I never should have left him, though, not for this, no matter who was handing out orders.”
    “We left a full squad of Marines with him—he’s not exactly alone. And if we don’t follow direct orders, you and I end up in Leavenworth with a rap sheet a mile long. You know it as well as I do.”
    Yeah, he knew it. The chain of command for SDF was short, but it was as ironclad as that of any branch of the military, and saying “No, thank you” was not an option without serious repercussions.
    “I’m going to talk with Lieutenant Bradley before we leave. Give me half an hour. I’ll stop at the gallery with Zheng on my way to Steele Street and let you know what she’s got, and you can take it from there. Do you want me to call in Skeeter?”
    “No.” That was a no-brainer. Hawkins could interview a LoDo art dealer and her gay secretary without Skeeter backing him up. His only doubt was whether he could do it without a cigarette. He didn’t think so, not tonight, and not this art dealer. Besides, moral support wasn’t really Skeeter’s strong point. Fooling around with Kid’s electrical gizmos, spray paint, and combustion engines was Skeeter’s strong point.
    What Dylan really wanted to know was whether he could handle Katya Dekker on his own. She’d broken him once, and no other person alive could say the same.
    “I’ll check in with you when I catch up with Kid,” Dylan said. “We should be back in Denver by tomorrow night.”
    Hawkins didn’t like the plan, but he didn’t have to like it—and despite everything, this might be the chance they hadn’t thought they’d ever get: a chance to find out who