Threshold Read Online Free Page B

people wanted to know. King took the gun from her hand. “Killing someone isn’t something you should want to do.”
    “But when they’re bad guys—”
    “Killing is a last resort.”
    “But you guys joke about it.”
    King shared a guilty glance with the others. They were prone to raucous retellings of old missions. King was hoping someone else would join in, but they remained silent. He was Dad now, after all.
    “Don’t confuse happy to be alive with taking pleasure in someone’s death.” He looked her in the eyes. “Death is never fun.”
    For a moment King thought Fiona was going to cry. Her eyes grew wet and a slight quiver shook her lip, but she fought it down and tightened her jaw. King fought a grin. The kid was growing a thick skin.
    Before the following silence grew awkward, King’s cell phone rang. He walked away and flipped it open. “Jack Sigler,” he said into the phone. The person on the other end spoke for ten seconds. What was said in that short time stopped King in his tracks. After five more seconds, his head hung low.
    King offered a quiet, “Thanks for letting me know,” and closed the phone, slipping it into his pocket. When he turned around, the others were waiting, standing around him in a silent semicircle. They knew something dire had happened when they saw a completely foreign emotion on his face: defeat.
    “What happened?” Bishop asked.
    King looked at each of them, knowing they wouldn’t judge him for weeping. But he fought the growing wetness in his eyes, until his eyes met Fiona’s. His foster daughter hadn’t met her yet. Now she never would. Twin pairs of tears broke free and rolled down King’s cheeks. He turned away from the team and said, “My mother is dead.”

Three Days Later

    “C’mon, Stan, you know this.”
    Rook leaned back in the yellow leather chair and pushed his legs into the floor to keep his body from sliding out. “Knight, these chairs have got to go. They’re like frikken Slip ’n Slides.”
    “Watch the language, Rook,” Queen said. “There are virgin ears in the room.”
    “The pip-squeak has heard everything there is to hear out of my mouth at this point,” Rook said.
    “Doesn’t mean you should repeat it until she starts talking like a mini-Rook.” Knight entered the small living room from the kitchen of his modest on-base home with an apron around his waist and flour covering his black designer shirt. He smiled, which turned his almond-shaped brown eyes, courtesy of his Korean heritage, to thin slits. “I think you’re just trying to squirm your way out of the question.”
    Knight headed back into the kitchen. “We’re a go for dinner in five.”
    Rook rubbed a hand through his blond hair, which was two inches shorter than his long goatee, and closed his eyes, rerunning a year’s worth of history lessons through his mind. After the last two years of run-ins with creatures straight out of mankind’s darkest history and wildest mythology, coupled with advanced genetics, microbiology, and linguistics, it was clear the team needed an educational upgrade. The team’s handler, Tom Duncan, call sign Deep Blue, whose true identity as the president of the United States was known only to the team and a handful of others, had arranged for their highly advanced adult learning schedule.
    Professors from Harvard and Yale taught history and language, while professors from MIT taught physics, astronomy, and robotics. George Pierce, lifelong friend of the team’s leader, King, who’d been rescued by the team after being abducted two years previous, taught mythology. Sara Fogg, from the CDC, who also happened to be King’s current girlfriend and a former Pawn (temporary team member) on the mission to Vietnam, taught genetics and microbiology. They were now the most highly educated team in the U.S. military, and as they threw themselves into learning just as readily as they threw themselves into battle, they were beginning to develop