Rogue Commander, Leo Maloney [classic books for 11 year olds TXT] 📗

magazines. Then the front door of the farmhouse opened. Another guy came out, wearing his tactical gear like the rest, but Morgan could see no weapon, and his hands were held high over his head.

“I surrender!” the last sentry yelled in a heavy accent as he stepped off the stoop. “No more!”

Morgan looked around to check his perimeter, then rose to his feet, keeping his red dot trained on a spot just above the Korean’s chest plate. A prisoner might be useful, he thought. But odds are, he won’t talk. The guy was wearing black gloves at the ends of his bare arms.

“Stop right there,” Morgan called as he advanced. But the guy kept coming as if he didn’t understand. Between him and Morgan, the two wounded sentries were writhing on the ground.

“I give up!” the Korean yelled out again.

“Stop right there,” Morgan shouted this time, and then he saw the guy was clutching something in his up-thrust right hand. Morgan pulled the trigger, and his bullet smacked into the Korean’s chest plate, lifting the bastard off his feet, but he also heard the familiar pop of a hand grenade firing pin. Its spoon went twirling up in the air as he slammed himself down face-first. Then the damn thing exploded with a heavy crump and a blinding flash.

Nobody was screaming anymore. The last guy had killed himself, along with his two wounded buddies. Morgan got up on his knees and sat back on his haunches.

What is this? Guadalcanal? Or, maybe more accurately, Inchon?

He spent fifteen minutes checking over the corpses—gathering up their guns and tossing them out in the high grass, just to make sure. He was surprised and pleased to find the old water pump still working, and he sucked down half a gallon before splashing it over his stinging face and his neck.

Following that, he walked over to the towering white silo. The door wasn’t locked, so he took a breath, opened it up, stepped inside, found a light switch, and flicked it on. He took out his cell and tapped some numbers.

“Collins,” a sleepy growl answered.

“Guess who?” Morgan said.

“Sounds like a hissing Cobra.”

“That’s right.” Morgan looked up at three enormous Tomahawk missiles, racked on mobile gantries and with their vicious noses pointing at the silo cap. “And I’m looking at three big red dildos.” He heard General Collins sitting up in bed.

“Out-freaking-standing,” Collins said.

“As I remember, sir, that’s your highest compliment.”

“That is correct, Mister Morgan. Fine job. Where are you?”

“Ass end of Kentucky. I’ll text you the coordinates so you can send in the cavalry and be a national hero again. But you’d better make it a spook team, ’cause I made a little mess here.”

Of all the things Morgan thought, or hoped, his ex-commander would say, he never imagined the man’s next three words.

“No can do.”

“No what do?” Morgan blurted.

Collins’s voice remained even, in control. “We need one more thing.”

“We do?” Morgan frowned at the phone.

“I do. Without the tracking logs, there’s nothing to prove I wasn’t involved in this.”

Morgan regained his equilibrium as fast as he’d lost it. “Okay. What do they look like and where do I find them? Some sort of maintenance hatch on the birds?”

“They’re not with the birds. The logs are all digital, on a chip.”

Morgan resisted the urge to roll his eyes. “All right, let me have it. Where do they keep these chips?”

“Utah. A place called Coldcastle Mountain. Technically, it doesn’t exist.”

“You know what, Jim?” Morgan growled. “If I didn’t owe you some debt of honor, I’d tell you to go screw.”

“After this one, Dan, I’m the one who’ll owe you.”

“Small comfort. All right, so you text me those cords instead, and I’ll let you know when I’m close.”

“Roger,” Collins said, and he clicked off.

Morgan turned off the light, left the silo and closed the door. The air still smelled like gunfire residue and blood. He started trudging his way back to the Shelby.

“Blast it,” he muttered, well aware of the choice of words. “I’m so sick of driving.”

At least Neika was happy to see him.

Chapter Twenty-Four

The engraved bronze plaque on the door to Paul Kirby’s office was etched with the bold capital letters D.O.

The initials stood for “Director of Operations,” but Alex couldn’t help but smirk as she knocked softly on the door. Some tactical team members always made fun of Kirby’s sign, claiming that he actually didn’t “DO” anything except kiss Mr. Smith’s ass and try to undermine Diana Bloch. Others wanted to add another o and another doo—separated by a dash.

“Come,” said the imperious voice from the other side of the door.

Alex pushed it open and walked in. Kirby was seated at his large L-shaped Staples office desk, which Alex figured he’d selected to prove he was “low-budget.” The desk had a phony veneer, sort of like Kirby’s face. He was leaning back in his chair, reading an open manila file that had a dark red stripe on its border. Alex stood there at attention until he looked up over his thick glasses.

“This isn’t the army, Morgan,” he said, “which you haven’t been through anyway. Sit.”

Kirby’s guest chairs were a pair of metal folding types, probably chosen because he never wanted people to feel too comfortable. She pulled one over and sat. She’d motorcycled all night from D.C. to Boston, grabbed a short stack at a Pancake House, and cruised right over to headquarters. She was physically wiped, but her mind was still sharp. She was definitely Dan Morgan’s daughter. Her leathers creaked on the chair.

Kirby dropped the file and stared at her, with that weasel-like expression—as if he was poking his nose from a burrow. “Where have you been, Morgan?”

Alex shrugged and gave him her college girl smirk. “It was my day off.”

“You were recalled.”

“Yeah, I came as soon as I got the word. But I was down in D.C.”

Kirby picked up a pencil and let the eraser drum on the desk in triplets. “And what were you doing in