US Marshall 01 - Cold Ridge Read Online Free PDF

one day- sometimes one minute-at a time.
    At Air Force Survival School he learned basic survival skills, evasion-and-escape techniques, what to do if he was captured by the enemy. Then it was on to the Special Operations Combat Medic Course and, finally, to the Pararescue Recovery Specialist Course, where, over a year or more, all the previous training got put together and more was added-advance EMT-paramedic training, advance parachute skills, tactical maneuvers, weapons handling, mountain climbing and aircrew recovery procedures. They worked through various scenarios that tied in all the different skills they'd learned, seeing their practical application for the job that lay ahead.
    Then came graduation, the PJ's distinctive maroon beret, assignment to a team-then Ty thought, the real training began.
    PJs had been called SEALs with stethoscopes, ninja brain surgeons, superman paramedics-if people knew what they did at all, since so many of their missions had to be done quietly. It wasn't a job for someone looking for money and glory. Ty cringed at all the nicknames. He thought of himself as an average guy who did a job he was trained to do to the best of his ability. He'd become a PJ because he wanted an action-oriented career where he could save lives, a chance to "search and rescue" instead of "search and destroy."
    But he could "destroy" if he had to. PJs were direct combatants, and, as such, pararescue was a career field that remained closed to women.
    Ty was currently assigned to the 16th Special Operations Wing out of Hurlburt Field in the Florida panhandle. As the leader of a special tactics team, he had performed a full range of combat search-and-rescue missions in recent years, but it was seeing Carine Winter under fire last fall that had all but done him in.
    The "incident" was still under investigation.
    The only positive outcome of the whole mess was that Hank Callahan and Antonia Winter had met and fallen in love. Ty had missed their wedding a month ago. Antonia was too damn polite not to invite him. His behavior toward her younger sister had put a crimp in the budding romance between his friend the ER doctor and his friend the helicopter-pilot-turned-senate-candidate-fortunately, they'd worked it out.
    Senator Hank Callahan.
    Ty shook his head, grinning to himself. He and Hank had damn near become brothers-in-law. They would have, if Ty had gone ahead and married Carine in February. Instead, he'd cut and run.
    It was the only time in his life he'd ever cut and run.
    "Have you decided whether or not you're selling the house?" Gus asked him.
    Ty pulled himself from his darkening thoughts. "No. I haven't decided, I mean."
    He'd been on assignment overseas when his mother took a walk in the meadow and died of a massive stroke. Carine had found her and tracked him down to make sure he got the news, to tell him his mother had painted that morning and died in the lupine she'd so loved. But Saskia North had never really fit in with the locals, and few in Cold Ridge knew much about her, beyond her skills as a painter and a weaver-and her failings as a mother.
    "You should sell it," Gus said. "There's nothing for you here, not anymore. What do you want with this place? You're never here long enough to fix it up. Basic maintenance isn't enough. It'll fall down around your ears before too long."
    Now that Ty had broken Carine's heart, Gus wanted him to clear out of Cold Ridge altogether. The man made no secret of it. It hadn't always been that way, but Ty knew that was before and this was now. To Gus, Carine was still the little girl he'd loved and protected since she was three years old-the little girl whose parents he'd helped carry off Cold Ridge.
    People make mistakes.
    It was the way life was. You make mistakes, you try to correct them.
    North frowned at a strange ringing sound, then watched Gus grimace and pull a cell phone out of his back pocket. He pointed the cell phone at North. "Just shut the hell up. I've never