Heatseeker (Atrati) Read Online Free Page B

listening for trouble even as he sort of slept.
     
    Cowboy and Spazz were silent as they hotfooted it through the forest back toward the enemy’s compound. Neil took care of checking in with the double click that indicated all was well every quarter hour.
    The former squid might be a technology geek, but he moved with the stealth of a well-trained soldier. Just as he had when they’d been on the same team together right after they’d both been recruited into the Atrati.
    Neil Kennedy had requested and received a transfer from that team after the first year.
    Cowboy had missed the other man every day since, until Wyatt had been assigned by his request to Kadin Marks’s team after Roman Chernichenko’s promotion. Not that Wyatt had said as much to Neil. The other man wasn’t about to listen.
    Not after the way their relationship had ended, hacked to death by Wyatt’s pride and need to stay in the closet completely. So damn completely that he’d dated women as a smokescreen and let his daddy talk him into getting engaged to one before he finally came to his senses.
    But it had been too late to save what he had with Neil.
    And the sexy computer geek wasn’t giving Wyatt any signs he might be open to offering him a second chance. In fact, he’d made it damn clear he wanted nothing to do with a closeted gay man from Texas.
    Breaking into the enemy compound proved as easy the second time around as the first. Cowboy located and drugged Rachel Gannon’s captors with hypodermics, pretty damn pleased to discover a whiskey bottle that had clearly been shared before the men had taken to their racks. That promised excellent possibilities.
    Meanwhile, Neil planted his listening devices, clicking over their comm-links as each one was successfully deployed.
    This enemy organization might be a big ol’ nest of vipers, but a bite could only be as poisonous as its successful strike rate. And even the fastest snake among them wasn’t likely to win against a man with a gun.
    Or a Texan with a needle, in this case.
    Neil wasn’t there to meet him outside the building when Cowboy was done, though, and he felt dread make the hairs on the back of his neck stand straight up. Where the hell was his squid?
    It took twelve more minutes, two extra clicks, and a double-click check-in that only marginally comforted Wyatt before Neil showed up.
    “Where the hell were you?” Cowboy demanded in a whisper.
    Spazz shook his head, refusing to answer aloud. While Cowboy understood the man’s caution, he was fit to burst by the time they’d gotten enough distance between them and the compound to converse safely if quietly.
    He repeated his question, this time grabbing Neil’s arm to stop the other man from moving until he answered.
    Neil glared up through the gloom under the trees that the moonlight barely penetrated. “I was doing my job.”
    “What the hell? You only had a couple of listening devices to install.”
    “I wanted to put up a couple of spy-cams, too. They’re so tiny, unless they’ve got way better counterintelligence than security, they’re never going to find them. But I ran into the other guard and had to wait for him to move on before I could get out of there.”
    “You were only supposed to go in and get out, not host a damn tea party.”
    “I wasn’t serving tea, you redneck idiot.”
    “You tryin’ to insult me, darlin’? I remember a time when you used to call me redneck as a term of endearment.” Wyatt moved closer to Neil, letting the other man’s nearness just wash on over him.
    “I wasn’t using it as an endearment just now, asshole.” Neil’s breathless tone belied the insult.
    “You scared me, sailor-boy. You owe me something for causing me such distress.”
    “What are you, a six-year-old girl, getting all worried when your friend doesn’t meet you on the playground right when you expect?”
    “So, we’re friends again?” Wyatt asked, tugging Neil just that much closer.
    “Stop. No . . . damn