Free Weather the Storm (Security Specialists International #3) by Monette Michaels Page A

haven’t done anything yet,” she said, confusion in her tone. “There’s no guarantee the man I saw is the same man you’re after.”
    “He is. I had a chance on the flight to D.C. to read the statement you made to the D.C. cops. It’s our traitor.” He checked out the mirrors and the traffic on each side and ahead of them.
    “Are there local cops on our butts? Is there a tail?” she whispered.
    Elana was very observant and more alert than he’d thought. What in her past had molded Elana to be hyper-aware of her surroundings?
    “Ren’s handling the local cops. No tail at the moment. No worries. Okay?”
    “I’ll try—but you need to know I’m a world-class worrier.” Her lashes lowered again. A little whimper followed by a sigh, and just that quickly Elana had shut out the world for the time being.
    But he was darn sure she wasn’t fully asleep. She still didn’t trust him enough…yet. Did she ever feel safe enough to fall completely asleep while a man was close?
    He bet not. She would with him.

Chapter 5
    Saturday, December 3rd, 2:00 P.M. (EST), a bar in the Benning Heights area of D.C.
    “Are you nuts? I told you to never call me on this line.”
    The big-ass-wig in the Defense Intelligence Agency sounded pissed. Crocker could care less.
    The sound of a car’s motor was in the background along with traffic noise. Son of a bitch was in his car. Good, it would make the call harder to isolate.
    “Your men fucked up a simple job…on the National Mall no less. I’m driving in to attend an emergency meeting about this shit.” Crocker’s employer spat out the words like bullets. “The bitch can identify me—and if I go down, you go down. Kill her…or kiss life as you know it goodbye.”
    God, Crocker hated this fucker’s guts.
    “The guy who picked her up was driving a Hummer,” Crocker barked into the land line located in a seedy bar in an even seedier D.C. neighborhood, a guaranteed NSA-less zone. “It had plates from one of those rental agencies catering to the diplomatic crowd.” He related the company’s name and plate number. “I need the GPS code to track them.” He’d been lucky to catch the plates on the Hummer in the online videos.
    He glanced toward the bar where his two men sat watching a basketball game as if they had no cares in the world. The moronic peckerheads had lost the fucking librarian. And they’d lost her publicly. Their grainy images and more than a few fucking videos were plastered all over the fucking Internet. The two had become expendable. Crocker had already called up his other team after seeing the You Tube videos.
    The DIA asshole cursed under his breath. Crocker had heard and said worse.
    “I’ll work on getting you the code and anything I can get on her rescuer,” his employer said, “but you take care of her…soon.”
    The unspoken “or else” rang loudly in Crocker’s head.
    “Understood,” you stupid mother-fucker candy ass , “I’ll handle it personally,” Crocker snarled. Since my ass is on the line as much as yours.
    “That’s what I thought I’d paid for…your personal service.” His employer paused, then added, “I’ll send the intel to the Internet mailbox.” The sound of the car motor ceased. “I have to go. Don’t call me on this line again. Use the mailbox.”
    Hell no. “I’ll contact you however I damn please.” Crocker always used throw-aways and the odd landline—and NSA could chase electrons all the damn day trying to find him. Using an e-mail box wasn’t quick enough turnaround when decisions needed to be made ASAP. And this situation was damned fast and fluid at the moment.
    Crocker hung up on his employer’s creative use of the f-word. He returned to the two losers and sat down. His back to the bar, he stretched his long legs out in front of him and crossed them at the ankles.
    Taking a sip of his beer, he pinned the bozos with a glare. “Bad shit is happening at DIA. We need to find the bitch and her