Free Breaking Creed by Alex Kava

everyone: the authorities, his friends, his family, even his wife. He was using his kids and the storm as a cover to make a drug pickup in the middle of the Gulf. O’Dell and her partner, R. J. Tully, had been sent to rescue Ramos and his kids. Instead, they ended up arresting him.
    “I didn’t mean to interrupt,” O’Dell said.
    “Yes, you did.” AD Kunze glared at her. “Or you wouldn’t have barged into my office.”
    “I’m so sorry, sir,” his secretary said. “I did tell her—”
    “That’s fine, Ms. Holloway. I’m sure it must be something terribly important.” He continued to glare at O’Dell before he shifted his attention back to the senator. “I’m sorry for the interruption, Ellie.”
    “No, not at all. I should let you all get to your work,” Senator Delanor said. “Raymond, perhaps you can call me later.”
    He nodded, and O’Dell could swear she saw a look exchange between the two, one that seemed more intimate than professional. Nevertheless, Senator Delanor headed for the door, brisk, confident steps in three-inch heels. O’Dell couldn’t help thinking that the junior senator from Florida looked like a model, which probably caused some to underestimate her. The woman carried herself like a CEO for a Fortune 500 company, but she was still a politician, and O’Dell didn’t trust politicians.
    Self-preservation seemed to trump everything else with them. O’Dell had stuck her neck out for this one’s family, and the senator’s presence here today only made O’Dell more suspicious of Kunze’s motives for sending her to oversee the retrieval of the package in the Potomac. Was he using her again to repay some political favor?
    Raymond Kunze had been O’Dell’s boss for less than two years.He would never be able to fill the previous assistant director’s shoes. Kyle Cunningham had been an icon at Quantico. To O’Dell, he had been a mentor and, in some cases, even a father figure. His death had left the entire department feeling his absence. Perhaps Kunze came into the position with a chip on his shoulder, knowing he could never replace Cunningham.
    Whatever the reason, he appeared to take it out on O’Dell over and over again, as if making her prove her worth. He had sent her into the eye of a hurricane to investigate a cooler full of body parts. Last fall he had her “stop off” in the Nebraska Sandhills to check on cow carcasses that had been mysteriously ravaged. And then there was the storm on the Gulf that he sent her into to retrieve Senator Delanor’s husband and children. Each and every time, O’Dell stumbled onto something murkier, uncovering secrets and even conspiracies—and in Senator Delanor’s husband’s case, illegal dealings. She no longer trusted her boss’s motives.
    The door had barely closed and O’Dell continued her march to Kunze’s desk. Instead of slapping the sheets of paper down in front of him, she placed them respectfully on the desktop, her compensation for barging in and interrupting.
    He glanced at the papers and shook his head. “So what is it that has you all hot under the collar?”
    She bit her lower lip to stop a comeback. Every time she thought she had made some headway with this man, he erased it with another degrading comment like this.
    “Why don’t you just tell me what you know and save me a bunch of time?”
    “What are you talking about?”
    “The package in the Potomac.” She pointed for him to take a closer look. “It’s a drug hit, isn’t it?”
    He rubbed his square jaw and took a deep breath, glancing at the top copy of the mangled driver’s license. In another life, RaymondKunze could have been an NFL defensive back. Probably where he got his witty repartee. Usually he wore blazers that fit him a size too small, emphasizing his massive shoulders and tight abs. But the colors he chose—today’s was a shiny emerald green—made him look more like a cheap bouncer at a nightclub.
    “What makes you think it’s a