Killing Time (One-Eyed Jacks) Read Online Free
Author: Cindy Gerard
his smart-ass smirk. “Except flying the carrier-based turboprops and conducting electronic surveillance over the Gulf ended up being a little too boring for you, didn’t it? A little too routine.”
Though his face gave nothing away, he appeared to have stopped breathing. He didn’t like it that she knew so much about him. Too bad. Psych ops 101: Make ’em sweat to make ’em talk.
“So you decided to change to the C-12 King Air and then, even though it made no sense to your CO, you asked to switch to helos and ended up transporting covert-ops teams—Task Force Mercy originally—in and out of hot zones because you wanted to get closer to the action.”
He jerked hard on the plastic cuffs, then sworewhen all he got for his effort was pain. No doubt about it. He’d begun to unravel nicely. And she’d just gotten started.
She so had his number. Then as now, Brown was a loose cannon. Only now he was also a struggling, recovering alcoholic and though her research said he’d quit smoking years ago, when she’d spotted him in the cantina, an unlit cigarette was tucked above his right ear—a crutch for a weak man.
From the moment she’d committed herself to seeing this thing through, she’d made it her business to know everything about him. He was a lean, mean six foot three, one hundred ninety-five pounds, and he was her one and only living, breathing connection to Operation Slam Dunk. The file had detailed his wounds from the disastrous Afghanistan op. He’d taken some shrapnel in his leg, dislocated his left shoulder, and sustained some nasty third-degree burns on his right thigh. A small price, considering so many others had paid with their lives that night.
He made her sick. He’d once been one of the Navy’s best and brightest, but for the past eight years, since Afghanistan, he’d been hiding out in South America running a semi-legit, mostly bogus air-cargo business.
Now he was no longer anyone’s best and brightest. And like it or not, right now he was hers; he knew it, and he wasn’t having a lot of luck hiding his anger over that fact.
“All that action brought you to the invincible unit, right?” she pressed on, letting him know he had no place to hide, not from her. “An elite team, hand-picked by Spec Ops command.”
He strained against his cuffs, then swore again when the plastic strip didn’t budge from the metal head rail. “Who the hell are you?”
She ignored his question. “The One-Eyed Jacks, a multibranch military task force formed in 2002 and disbanded in 2005,” she stated from memory. She’d read his jacket so many times she knew every line of it by heart. The One-Eyed Jacks had been loosely patterned after Task Force Mercy, a highly classified covert unit that had operated all over the Middle East and Africa right before the Bush administration took the reins.
“Got your nickname because of the uniqueness of your experimental unit, your tight camaraderie, and your reckless reputation. Oh, yeah, and you all loved to spend your down time playing cards. Poker. Spades. Blackjack. You name it. You played it.”
“Let me guess,” he interrupted. “With your winning personality, Old Maid is your game, right?”
A wiseass to the end.
But when she held up the jack of hearts she’d lifted from his pocket, all that bravado folded. The worn playing card was tattered around the edges and faded with age. A 9mm round punctured it dead center.
“You all made a pact. You all carried a one-eyedjack—either a jack of hearts or a jack of spades. The cards were a sign of unity, and your lucky charms.” She paused a beat, then flipped the card toward him. It landed on the chest that heaved rapidly beneath his black T-shirt, making it clear he wasn’t nearly as calm as he wanted her to think he was.
“Only your luck ran out eight years ago, didn’t it, Brown?” She moved to the side of the bed and leaned in close. “Ran out big-time during Operation Slam Dunk, when you
Though his face gave nothing away, he appeared to have stopped breathing. He didn’t like it that she knew so much about him. Too bad. Psych ops 101: Make ’em sweat to make ’em talk.
“So you decided to change to the C-12 King Air and then, even though it made no sense to your CO, you asked to switch to helos and ended up transporting covert-ops teams—Task Force Mercy originally—in and out of hot zones because you wanted to get closer to the action.”
He jerked hard on the plastic cuffs, then sworewhen all he got for his effort was pain. No doubt about it. He’d begun to unravel nicely. And she’d just gotten started.
She so had his number. Then as now, Brown was a loose cannon. Only now he was also a struggling, recovering alcoholic and though her research said he’d quit smoking years ago, when she’d spotted him in the cantina, an unlit cigarette was tucked above his right ear—a crutch for a weak man.
From the moment she’d committed herself to seeing this thing through, she’d made it her business to know everything about him. He was a lean, mean six foot three, one hundred ninety-five pounds, and he was her one and only living, breathing connection to Operation Slam Dunk. The file had detailed his wounds from the disastrous Afghanistan op. He’d taken some shrapnel in his leg, dislocated his left shoulder, and sustained some nasty third-degree burns on his right thigh. A small price, considering so many others had paid with their lives that night.
He made her sick. He’d once been one of the Navy’s best and brightest, but for the past eight years, since Afghanistan, he’d been hiding out in South America running a semi-legit, mostly bogus air-cargo business.
Now he was no longer anyone’s best and brightest. And like it or not, right now he was hers; he knew it, and he wasn’t having a lot of luck hiding his anger over that fact.
“All that action brought you to the invincible unit, right?” she pressed on, letting him know he had no place to hide, not from her. “An elite team, hand-picked by Spec Ops command.”
He strained against his cuffs, then swore again when the plastic strip didn’t budge from the metal head rail. “Who the hell are you?”
She ignored his question. “The One-Eyed Jacks, a multibranch military task force formed in 2002 and disbanded in 2005,” she stated from memory. She’d read his jacket so many times she knew every line of it by heart. The One-Eyed Jacks had been loosely patterned after Task Force Mercy, a highly classified covert unit that had operated all over the Middle East and Africa right before the Bush administration took the reins.
“Got your nickname because of the uniqueness of your experimental unit, your tight camaraderie, and your reckless reputation. Oh, yeah, and you all loved to spend your down time playing cards. Poker. Spades. Blackjack. You name it. You played it.”
“Let me guess,” he interrupted. “With your winning personality, Old Maid is your game, right?”
A wiseass to the end.
But when she held up the jack of hearts she’d lifted from his pocket, all that bravado folded. The worn playing card was tattered around the edges and faded with age. A 9mm round punctured it dead center.
“You all made a pact. You all carried a one-eyedjack—either a jack of hearts or a jack of spades. The cards were a sign of unity, and your lucky charms.” She paused a beat, then flipped the card toward him. It landed on the chest that heaved rapidly beneath his black T-shirt, making it clear he wasn’t nearly as calm as he wanted her to think he was.
“Only your luck ran out eight years ago, didn’t it, Brown?” She moved to the side of the bed and leaned in close. “Ran out big-time during Operation Slam Dunk, when you
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