Hard Landing Read Online Free Page B

and she wanted them to work for their wages instead of sitting around on their butts all day. That's three strikes."
    I slipped the hangman's drawing out of my briefcase. I felt a tingling in my neck when I looked at it. I handed her the page. "Have you ever seen this before?"
    "Not that version. Where did you get it?"
    "Someone left it for me last night as some kind of a message."
    She shook her head. "That didn't take long. I guess they figure they'll start early with you, keep you on the defensive from the start."
    "It means they knew I was coming in on that flight."
    "No doubt."
    "And they saw where I'd put my bags, which wouldn't have been easy in all that chaos. Someone was watching me."
    She shot a stream of smoke straight up, and handed the drawing back. "They're always watching."
    I followed the smoke as it drifted up to the ceiling. This was apparently old hat to Molly, but I found it hard not to feel just a little shaken up by a drawing of a woman hanged by the neck with my name on it.
    Molly stood to go.
    "Did someone steal her pictures, too?" I asked.
    She looked where I was looking, at the bare walls. "This office is exactly the way she left it," she said. "She never hung any pictures."
    "How long was she here?"
    "Almost thirteen months."
    The walls were painted an uncertain beige, and had scars left over from previous administrations, where nails and picture hangers had been torn out. I walked over and touched a big gouge in the Sheetrock where the chalky center was pushing through.
    "She didn't leave much behind, did she?"

CHAPTER THREE
    Molly was putting the call on hold just as I walked through the door.
    "How was your first debrief?"
    "Long."
    "You've got a call on line one,'' she said, "and it must be important because he never waits on hold and he never calls this early."
    I checked my watch. It was ten o'clock in the morning. "Who is it?"
    "Your boss."
    "Uh-oh." The quick flash of nerves was like a caffeine rush. "Where's he calling from?"
    "He's in his office in D.C."
    She said something else, but I didn't hear what because I was already at my desk, bent over the notes I'd made from debrief, cramming for whatever question Lenny might think to ask about last night's operation. Someone I admired and deeply respected once told me that the best opportunities to make a good impression come from disaster-from how well you handle it. Last night certainly qualified as a disaster, and I was about to test that theory on my new boss.
    After a quick moment to gather my thoughts, I made myself sit down, then picked up the receiver. "Good morning, Lenny. How are you?" Jeez, I sounded like such a stiff.
    "Very well, Alex. And how you doin' this morning?" His deliberate Louisiana drawl sounded as if it were floating up from the bottom of a trash can, and I knew he had me on the speaker phone. I hated speaker phones. You could be talking to a crowd the size of Yankee Stadium and never know it.
    "I'm well, Lenny, thank you."
    "Can we talk about a few things this morning?"
    "Of course." I heard the whisper of pages turning and imagined him leafing through his tour reports, zeroing in on Boston's, and reading with widening eyes about the debacle from last night. But I was ready, poised to jump on whatever he chose to ask.
    "So…"
    I waited, muscles tensed.
    "…when did you get in?"
    "Last night."
    "Good trip out?"
    "Uh, yes. The trip was fine."
    "Glad to hear it."
    The pages continued to turn. I inched a little farther out on the edge of my seat, straining to hear, waiting for the real questions to start. And waiting. And… and… I couldn't wait. "Lenny, we had a few problems in the operation last night. I don't know if you saw the tour report, but-"
    "Was it anything you couldn't handle?"
    "No, we handled it. It was-"
    "Good. Listen, I need to ask you to do something for me."
    Not exactly the grilling I'd anticipated. The paper rustled again and this time the sound was more distinct, a slow, lazy arc that I