Read Online Falcon: The Quiet Professionals Book 3 by Ronie Kendig - Free Book Online Page A

that?”
    “How could I not?” Sal churned the memory through his mind. So, Cassie hadn’t changed. Was this guy her next victim?
    “Crazy. I heard she was into you. Thought she had more class than that.”
    “Yeah, well, now you know.” But as Sal made his way across the base to the Boardwalk to meet up with Riordan and the rest of Raptor, something tugged at his mind. Nagged at him.
    “Hey.” Eagle hustled up to him. “Something’s up—oh! Candyman.” The two shook hands and patted shoulders.
    “Candyman’s contracting,” Sal said. “And we knew something was up.”
    Eagle was soon joined by Harrier and Hawk. “No, I mean with the SEALs.” He bobbed his head toward the Boardwalk.
    In the middle of an open area, Riordan stood alone beneath a lone lamp. Like a well-lit target. The gruesome reminder of Burnett’s death made Sal hesitate to join the party. In a wide perimeter, Riordan’s team stood around him.
    “What’s that about?”
    “Dunno,” Hawk said. “Knight’s patrolling with Ddrake but none of them are talking.”
    Interesting. Obviously Riordan wanted to talk alone. “Okay, spread out.” Sal started toward the SEAL commander.
    “A little late, Falcon?” Riordan smirked. “Heard there was some excitement over at detainment.”
    “Someone killed the shooter we captured the other night.” Sal glanced around the area, feeling exposed. Vulnerable.
    “We needed to talk.”
    “Kinda figured that out,” Sal said, spotting Knight and MWD Ddrake near some of the portable buildings that once held restaurants.
    “Any thoughts on who killed your prisoner?”
    Sal sighed. “A spook. Came in with too much information and got the job done before we could figure it out.”
    “Surveillance footage?”
    “Down.”
    “Convenient.”
    “Agreed.” Sal let out another long sigh. Then met Riordan’s gaze. “So, we’re here. You’re here.” He eyeballed the teams standing around, unsettled. “This is a lot of cloak-and-dagger stuff. What’s going on?”
    Head bowed, the late-twenties SEAL looked up through a terse brow as he nodded. His dark hair hung in straggly curls around a bearded face. Against his sun-darkened brow a white scar told of at least one battle the SEAL had seen. He looked like a homeless man, but those dark eyes betrayed him. Told Sal the man missed nothing. He took everything in like a supercomputer, processing and analyzing. Though he hated squids out of Green Beret duty, Sal had a keen respect for this one. Schmidt, with his white-blond hair and cocky attitude, was another fish altogether.
    “I think you know things are a bit whacked.”
    “That’s an understatement.”
    “I’m not entirely sure which of our COs we can trust.”
    Sal drew his gaze back to the commander, surprised at the comment. But it was one that had become painfully obvious in the last month as Osiris made impossible headway in his attack against the U.S. military.
    “They’ve already attacked CECOM, and it’ll be days, if not weeks, before we figure out what damage was done.”
    “I can just about guarantee the intel we gathered from that Tera Pass laptop is destroyed.”
    “It was a strategic, well-planned hit.” Riordan scratched the side of his beard. “They got in when they shouldn’t have.”
    “Then someone kills the only lead we have on the shooter and those responsible for the attack.”
    Riordan nodded. “I think you’re starting to see where I’m coming from.”
    “I think I’ve been there for a while, just unwilling to accept what it meant.” Accusing superiors of colluding with the enemy wasn’t a charge made lightly.
    “It’s too well coordinated. Funny that your prisoner dies while the cameras are down.”
    “Hysterical,” Sal said. “About as hysterical as watching my favorite general bleed out.”
    Riordan’s expression hardened. “So, we know the same thing—this goes up the chain.”
    Balling his fists was all Sal could do with what he felt, a tangle of