Free dark ops 3 - Renegade by Catherine Mann

it right there. Who the fuck gets time off to play putt-putt with their kids these days? That’s reason enough to make me suspicious of the guy.”
    Vince thumped him on the back. “Jealousy is an ugly emotion, my brother.”
    “But we’re talking putt-putt here,” Werewolf said, as if describing a week on a Caribbean beach.
    What a sorry state when they started jonesing over the possibility of a free day to play miniature golf. They loved the job, believed in the mission, but there just weren’t enough people to complete all the test projects in a regular forty-hour workweek. If they didn’t do it, it didn’t happen, which meant more people could die overseas because they didn’t have the best equipment. Deployments would last longer with less efficient options. More civilian casualties could rack up when even one was already unacceptable.
    And he wasn’t talking about just the best planes or tanks or intel, but biochem gear, flak jackets, weapons. This list was long and far from complete.
    So yeah, dreaming about sunscreening up with a hot date on the beach would have to be put on hold for now. They couldn’t dream bigger than an evening away at a two-bit park, and he couldn’t afford to feel guilty about overworking his people.
    “Gentlemen and ma’am.” Rex gripped the edge of the podium. “I’ll do my best to schedule our next squadron brief at a putt-putt palace or perhaps even a water park. Now, can we get back to the business at hand? We don’t have answers on the crashed car today, and I’m afraid we’re not going to get top priority from the security police on that. They’re maxed out working with local authorities on the whole Killer Alien scare.”
    The room went silent. No smart-ass comments ricocheted around now. Three killings linked to the base was nothing to laugh about. “If we’re done with jokes, we need to debrief the in-flight incident and see what we can put together from what others observed.”
    Vince scrubbed a hand along his shaved head. “Boss, there really isn’t much to say. I reviewed the telemetry data, and we were within fifty feet of the planned altitude and only a tenth of a Mach under speed.”
    Jimmy leaned forward, fists clenched. “The winds were well within limits, too. If the PhDs remembered to carry all their naughts and whatnot, then this should have gone like clockwork. Right, Vince?”
    “Roger that. We finished up our quick-look report, and it has all the numbers in there. The problem has to be either bad math from the eggheads or some kind of equipment failure. The contractors are going over the aircraft inch by inch to try to find a point of failure. It’s a hurry-up-and-wait game.” Vince spread his hands and sighed. “Basically, sir, all we’ve got for you is a heaping helping of jack shit.”
    Rex pinched the bridge of his nose under his glasses, then tucked them in place again. “Sergeant, do you have anything to add?”
    Mason stood again. “Now that I’ve had time to deslime my brain, some things have come to mind worth noting. The camo dude—Jill Walczak—wasn’t cruising the perimeter. She was miles deep into Area 51.”
    Rex glanced down at the chart for referencing. “Not unheard of or out of her jurisdiction, but certainly unusual.” Still . . . “It wouldn’t hurt to look into what she was doing there.”
    “That’s what I was thinking, sir.”
    “Especially in light of next week’s gathering. Anything else?”
    “Well, sir, actually, there is.” Mason hesitated briefly before continuing, “I don’t want to sound paranoid, but it sure seems like I have a bull’s-eye on my back with the in-flight incident, the blister agent scare, and a car gunning for me, all in two days. My gut tells me something’s wrong.”
    Rex searched the sergeant’s face for signs of stress and just found hard frustration. “I can see why you would feel that way. There’s a lot of luck and gut that goes into this job. It bears listening to