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

“I was in Arlington,” she said, which was partially true. She didn’t know if Kirby might have had her tracked, so she hung her hat on one of her dad’s spook wisdoms: If you have to lie, take the truth and just twist it. “Tomb of the Unknown Soldier,” she added.

“You don’t say.”

“Uh-huh. One of my uncles is buried there.” That was true too.

“Very touching,” Kirby snapped, then dropped the pencil, put his elbows on the desk, steepled his fingers, and propped them under his bony nose.

“You don’t really understand this organization, do you, Ms. Morgan?”

Alex resisted the temptation to snap back, “Maybe better than you,” and chose to say instead, “Well, I’m new, but I’m learning...”

“This is not like a job at Target. We don’t call in sick; we don’t show up late or crave the ends of our shifts. We don’t commiserate with our fellow employees about the stressful conditions or paltry benefits. And we never, ever have a genuine day off.”

“Okay, I know.” Alex lifted her palms in partial surrender. “I just thought, you know, the regulations manual talks about stand-down intervals and rest...”

Kirby smacked the desk with his palm, and Alex purposely flinched. If Kirby wanted to put on a show of dressing her down, who was she to deny him?

“This is a tactical intelligence and special operations organization!” he barked. “We follow orders here, daytime, nighttime, anytime. And we are never off comms, even if we’re banging our boyfriends!”

Alex jerked her head back. Did he mean her boyfriend, which she didn’t actually have, or his?

“Are we clear, Ms. Morgan?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Uh-huh?” His wispy eyebrows flared up.

“I mean, yes sir, we’re clear.”

He wagged a bony finger at her. “You have a strain of genetic malfeasance, Ms. Morgan.”

“Excuse me?”

“Your errant father. He didn’t want you involved here, and frankly, neither did I. This isn’t some mafia crime family where all the progeny must make their bones. However, Ms. Bloch overrode our objections, apparently seeing some raw potential.” Kirby laced his fingers together and loomed closer. “All I see is a renegade cobra’s slithering snakelet.”

With that, Alex’s cheeks flushed rosy pink, and she fumed. You’re about to cross the line, a-hole. Her brown eyes slitted.

“Let’s leave my dad out of this, sir.”

Kirby’s thin mouth twisted up. “Yes. You’re a big girl. In a few years, you’ll be able to order a drink. But for now, you’re going to stay right here at HQ and busy yourself with some admin work until I task you otherwise.” He flicked a hand, picked up the file again, and opened it. “Dismissed.”

Alex got up, her fingers clenching her sweaty palms. She moved toward the door and turned back. “I don’t really have any admin work.”

Kirby rolled his eyes. “Then go clean your sniper rifle.”

“It’s spotless.”

“Then go clean someone else’s!” he snarled. “Out!”

Alex was still steaming inside as she walked past a row of open cubicles reserved for the wizards and worker bees. Paul Kirby was no different than any other corporate slob, throwing his weight around and making himself feel bigger by stomping on his underlings.

You’re right, Kirby, she thought bitterly. This isn’t like Target. It’s worse. We don’t actually make or sell anything. And there’s tons of bureaucratic bullshit.

She saw Lincoln Shepard glancing at her over the top of one of his monitors. He looked paler than usual.

“Hey there, hotshot,” he muttered.

“Hi, Linc.” She flicked a weak wave. She liked Shepard, more than most of the people at Zeta.

“You’re not looking too chipper today,” he observed.

“I’m as happy as a kitten in a dog kennel,” Alex grumbled. “You look a little burned out yourself.”

“Brain fried,” Shepard said. He would have liked to commiserate with Alex about the horror of Lily’s capture, but different mission threads were strictly compartmentalized.

“Hey, do you know where Cobra is?” Alex asked.

Shepard glanced around and dropped his voice. “Nobody knows.”

“Figures,” Alex huffed. “Just like home.”

She walked down a hallway and pushed through the door to the Team Room. It was mostly the purview of Tactical—a large space with a long table in the middle for preparing gear braced by wooden benches. Then there were rows of wide, tall, steel-gray personal lockers on either side. The lockers were intended mostly for Tac operators’ gear, clothing, and weapons, but a few were reserved for the “lesser” operatives such as herself.

Nobody was around, so she sat down on a bench and brooded. She sure as hell wasn’t going to clean her rifle, again, or anyone else’s for that matter. “You shoot it, you preen it.” That was the rule. Another rule was “Never stop thinking.”

So she did. Where the hell was her dad? He’d left Kadir Fastia’s with that spring in his step of ridiculous boundless energy, off to tear up the world like some pit bull. That stuff had annoyed her all the time as a kid, but now she knew she’d inherited that strain. Sitting around made her nuts.

He was running down this thing for his old pal, General Collins, determined to clear his name. But after he’d left, Fastia had shared with her that the cause of Collin’s career crash was a much bigger fish, namely, one Lieutenant General Sheldon Margolis. So, who was going after him? Nobody? It sure seemed that way, though she couldn’t exactly ask. Then go clean your sniper rifle. Bullshit!

She was hunched on the bench, picking bug residue off her leathers, when she looked at her locker across the room. Then she slapped her knees, got up, left the Team room, and cruised back down the hallway. Shepard was gone, probably off to lunch, and most of the other cubes were empty as well. She spotted Karen in the back, sitting alone. She adopted a phony brightness.

“Hi, Karen!”

“Well hi there, Alex.” Karen smiled. “You seem chipper today.”

Alex grinned and rolled her eyes. “Actually, I’m fried. But it’s cool ’cause Mr. Kirby told me to just do some admin stuff today.”

“Admin stuff?” Karen cocked her head. “Like what?”

“Oh, just some file clearing and