SPY IN THE SADDLE Read Online Free Page A

to follow if she didn’t want to be left behind.
    She snapped on her seat belt, keeping the gun out. “What happened to standing still long enough to think and come up with a plan?”
    “No time.” He turned the key in the ignition.
    “I’m not a sheriff. I can’t deputize people,” she said through her teeth as he gunned the engine. “You just left a crime scene to a civilian. Is this the kind of Wild West law enforcement your team is running here?”
    “It’s called doing what it takes.” He stepped even harder on the gas pedal and shot down the lane at twice the speed she would have recommended, people scampering out of his way.
    A grim, focused expression sat on his face, his weapon ready on his lap, rules and regulations the farthest thing from his mind, obviously.
    He was a different man from what she remembered. He belonged on the battlefield, not among civilians. She pushed the thought back. She’d barely been here; the determination was too early to make. She’d give him a fair shake. He deserved that much from her.
    But she would have to make that determination at some point. Her mission here had an extra component his team wasn’t aware of. She was to make recommendations whether to keep the SDDU’s Texas headquarters in operation or have one of the domestic agencies take over their duties.
    The law forbade U.S. military from being deployed inside the borders of the United States. The Special Designation Defense Unit didn’t technically belong to the military—their top secret team reported straight to the Secretary of Homeland Defense—but they were a commando team, no matter how they sliced and diced it.
    The few FBI and CIA bigwigs who did have knowledge of the SDDU were more than uncomfortable with them being here. And then there was, of course, the rivalry. The very existence of the SDDU seemed to imply that the bureau and the agency weren’t enough to handle the job.
    She was supposed to write up an evaluation and recommendation based on her experience here. But her judgment of the small Texas headquarters would have implications for the entire SDDU team. There was some pressure on her to come up with recommendations that would restrict their operations to outside the borders, like the military.
    Pressure or not, however, she was determined to keep an open mind. Even if Shep wasn’t making that easy for her.
    He drove like a maniac. The Mustang was nowhere to be seen. It’d gotten too much of an advantage. Not knowing where it was headed, they would have little chance of catching up.
    She cleared her throat. “We would have been better off staying and searching the trailer, I think.”
    Instead of responding, Shep made a hard left without hesitation when they hit the county road, and without yielding to oncoming traffic.
    “How do you know they went this way?” she asked over the blaring horns and squealing tires, her right hand braced on the dashboard, her blood pressure inching up.
    “Burned rubber on the road. Wasn’t there when we came. They didn’t slow to take the turn.”
    She glanced back but, of course, they’d long passed the spot. Burned rubber... She should have picked up on that. Would have, normally. She needed to snap to instead of allowing him to distract her.
    He overtook a large semitrailer and nearly ran a car off the road in the process.
    She had to brace herself again. “You can kill someone like this.” She might have raised her voice a little. “What happened to waiting for backup? Also known as standard procedure. ”
    Back in the day, he’d been a lot more balanced—the sane voice of authority and all that. Rules used to mean a lot to him. He’d had a ton of them. But not anymore, it seemed.
    Which he further proved by saying, “We don’t run things by the company manual here.”
    “No kidding.”
    God help her if the other five were like him. She pushed that depressing possibility aside and put on her business face. The bureau had sent her here to