Free Forged in Fire by Trish McCallan

death. Hell, you couldn’t afford fear in his line of work. Fear paralyzed faster than a round to the spine. Besides, there were some things worth dying for. Forget that clichéd crap of love and the American Dream. Love wouldn’t buy you a handful of stale peanuts. As for the American dream—that sucker had long ago withered into selfishness and a sense of entitlement. For every poor sod who appreciated the sacrifices endured in mosquito-infested swamps while your brothers-in-arms disintegrated into bloody chunks all around you, there was some other motherfucker burning the American flag.
    Still, while the U. S. of good ol’ A had a host of problems, when it came right down to it, this country was worth the sacrifices made for her.
    Mac believed that with every fiber in his heart, as did the men he served with, but then they were a special breed, his warriors—a dying breed, he sometimes thought in his darker moments, which was the big difference between him and Lieutenant Commander Zane Winters. Winters didn’t have black moments. Moments in which he wondered when those motherfucking terrorists, domestic or foreign, would stop trying to hijack American jumbo jets full of innocent people.
    Scowling, Mac glared at the phone.
    Zane Winters was one of the calmest, rational, but surprisingly intuitive men he’d served with. One of the few people, on a very short list, Mac trusted implicitly. Hell, Winters had been the one who’d talked him into stepping up and accepting this fucking desk job—which also happened to be the only grudge he held against the guy. As for those freaky visions of his … well, fuck. They’d saved their asses more than once.
    So if Zane said something was going to happen on that plane, then something was going to happen. He’d been on the receiving end of Winters’ intuitive flashes enough to trust his LC’s judgment. Yeah, this might be the first time his buddy had actually dreamed an event, and hell yeah, that might make it even freakier than normal, but if Winters said there were guns on that bird, and six men intending to grab it and divert to Puerto Jardin, then Mac would get the FBI and DHS out there pronto.
    Because Zane Winters didn’t lie.
    Which made it a fucking bitter pill to swallow knowing his best friend had just spent the better part of the past five minutes lying to him.
    Oh, he didn’t doubt for an instant that there were guns stashed beneath those seats and six motherfuckers intending to escort the passengers into the afterlife. No, he didn’t doubt the bulk of what his LC had told him, but something about that conversation didn’t ring true.
    Winters wasn’t the only one with kickass intuition. And Mac’s bullshit meter, which had been fine-tuned through the years, had warped into the red zone. Although what, exactly, he was picking up on, he didn’t have a clue.
    Staring down, Mac picked up a pen and glared at his stained, battered and scuffed steel desk. His one and only contact in the FBI had retired the previous year, which meant he had absolutely nobody to call from the Rolodex in his mind. However, he had HQ1’s secret weapon a push button away.
    He reached out to punch the intercom button as the conversation with Zane played through his head. Something niggled at him, but he couldn’t put his damn finger on it and considering the plane was due to lift off in an hour, he didn’t have time to pin it down.
    “Get hold of someone from the FBI,” he said the moment he heard the door open, “and not some fucking junior agent. I need someone with clout, someone who can get things done.”
    The measured footsteps across the room paused, as though he’d managed to startle the old goat for a change. Mac glanced up, hoping to see surprise on that weathered face, but not a chance. His assistant, Radar, had his intractable image to preserve.
    “What division?” Radar asked. With his ears sticking out the way they did, and his triangular face and thickened,