INTO DANGER (Secret Assassins (S.A.S.S.) Book 1) Read Online Free PDF Page A

dependence on CIA training and he was a SEAL, an action-oriented operative. Not only that, he was a member of the STAR unit, a top-secret SEAL assault team “Standing and Ready” for any deployment. What he’d learned from various STAR operations was to trust his instincts first, not depend on by-the-book training.
    After last night they’d wanted to just go in and take in Marlena Maxwell, sit her in some cell, and play a waiting cat-and-mouse game with her. That was standard CIA mode—sooner or later the target would talk, and if not, let her rot. Task Force Two was convinced that Marlena would talk rather than rot.
    Steve wasn’t so sure. His instincts told him the woman, who had last night given the men in that room a visual spanking, was a master when it came to mind games. A part of him, one he hoped wasn’t obvious, was filled with reluctant admiration. Beauty and brains. What a deadly combination.
    He finished his coffee, set the cup down, considered for two seconds, then picked up the pen and signed off on the report. This could either make his life hell or...make his life hell. He smiled wryly. Either they transferred him back to what he was more suited to do—back to assault teams with black-and-white options—or they would do nothing, and leave him there to prove to them he was right.
    He straightened and took a deep breath. He wasn’t mistaken. He knew what had gone wrong last night, why the others were so adamant about going after Marlena immediately. Their sexual egos had been deflated, challenged, and they wanted a confrontation. It was difficult to yell back at blank screens.
    Steve’s mind was still on that scene as he headed for Marlena’s apartment. He grinned, recalling the lurid words hurled at the screens as Marlena, with apparent ease, located all the important micro eyes and bugs. There were a few left, but they weren’t in prime locations. Hadn’t that CIA operative said that these were practically undetectable? His grin widened. He wondered whether the poor operative still had his hearing after receiving a call last night.
    He hadn’t yelled. He’d been trying very hard not to laugh out loud. That last bit wouldn’t have gone over too well. Not when he’d insisted he would still show up at the apartment at 0900 hours. Unarmed.
    “Do you freaking know what you’re doing?” Cameron had asked incredulously. “She will blow your water-clogged brains away.”
    “I don’t think so. I think she doesn’t know what’s happening and will want to see whether I know or not.”
    “Oh, so you just walk in there and she’s going to ask you nicely, is that right?”
    “You like her,” Harden clipped in coldly, “too damn much. Is your head in this?”
    Steve didn’t like the insinuation that he would let emotions rule his job. So he had, in as polite terms as possible, pointed out they were the ones red-hot under the collar about the incident. Even if she sang in her cell, how would they know she wasn’t lying? And the contact would just as easily hire another to do the job, whatever it was. All they knew from communications interception was that someone wanted the famed Marlena Maxwell to handle a sensitive case in D.C., and with so many VIPs around here, they needed to know all the details. How was it going to sound in debriefing if they had no names or details other than the intercepted information? The look in the others’ eyes almost had him laughing again. Oh yeah.
    So now he was to make the report. Let the new guy hang himself. Even after a year and a half, he was still the outsider here in D.C. He thought of the admiral, and the copy of the report he’d just faxed to him. Maybe he still was.
    At 8.45am, Steve parked the car, the butter-yellow speedster that Marlena had ordered. Security garage. Security passes. Stationed agents at each corner of the street. Information and files up the wazoo about the woman. And she could slip away like smoke. After getting off on the