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

No dog. Things were looking up.

He crouched in the shadow of the wall, scanning the old colonial. The house was dark, except for one soft light in the downstairs den that seeped out to the right and onto an empty side porch. Collins was expecting him, so he wouldn’t be facing the general’s nasty . 38 Python. He trotted softly across the back lawn and tiptoed up the back stairs. The door was supposed to be unlocked. It was.

Morgan slipped inside, closed the door quietly and stood in the darkened hallway, just listening. The low strains of something classical, maybe Beethoven, wafted in from the den beyond, but he heard nothing else. He opened his jacket and walked.

Collins was sitting on the sofa just below the front bay window, the blinds drawn tight. Next to him on a side table his . 38 gleamed in the dim light of a bronze lamp, along with a tumbler of Scotch, no ice. The general was dressed in laced leather boots, twill trousers. And one of those L.L. Bean oil jackets with a corduroy collar. He was freshly shaven and looked a lot healthier than during their last tête-à-tête.

Morgan nodded. “General.”

Collins nodded back. “Dan.”

Morgan walked past him to the side of the window, tipped the edge of one blind down, and peered out with one eye. “I don’t see your tail.”

“They’re out there,” Collins said. He picked up his tumbler and sipped. “Probably making a pizza run.”

Morgan walked back and took a seat across from Collins in a puffy, flowered old chair. “You going duck hunting, Jim?”

“Nah.” Collins smiled, but it didn’t touch his eyes. “Was thinking about going outside for some air.”

Morgan glanced to his right. The sliding glass doors to the porch were partially open, and a cold breeze drifted inside. He leaned to the right, dug into his left-hand coat pocket, and pulled out the three plastic file cards with the chips inside. He stretched his hand out. Collins leaned forward and took them.

“Well done.” Collins slipped the chips into his hunting jacket. “You were always a good soldier.” He took another swig of Scotch and put it down.

“Well, you always had my back.” Morgan sat back and twirled the pepper spray tube in his fingers.

Collins looked at it. “Whatcha got there?”

“Lipstick. With a kick.” Morgan smiled, but a tiny alarm was going off in his gut. It was something about Collins’s stiff demeanor. “Figured I might run into that dog again.”

Collins smiled back, raised his voice, and called out, “Otto.”

Morgan heard something clicking on the floor of the kitchen. Then the huge muscled Doberman walked into the den. It was the same canine that had nearly torn his foot off, if not his ass. It turned toward Morgan, stared at him, and growled.

“Platz,” Collins said to the dog. It sat. The general looked at Morgan again. “Otto only speaks German.”

“He’s your dog?”

“Affirmative.”

“You didn’t mention that last time.” Morgan looked at the dog. “Guten Abend.” The dog bared his teeth—they were long, white, and sharp. When he turned back to Collins, the general was pointing the .38 at his chest. Morgan’s pulse quickened. “Looks like you forgot to mention more than just that.”

“Sorry about that, Morgan. Fortunes of war.”

It wasn’t a good sign. People tend to get fatalistic when they’re about to kill you. He understood immediately that he’d been betrayed and used, and it was like a mule kick in the balls, but he wasn’t going to show it.

“So what’s in those chips, Jim?” Morgan asked. His action options were flipping through his mind, but they were few. That . 38 barrel looked like a tank cannon, and it was rock steady in Collins’s right fist. “They’re not property logs, are they?”

“Nope,” Collins said. “They’re launch codes.”

“Nice.” Morgan hissed. “You sent an old friend into a dragon’s mouth to commit a federal crime.”

“Friend?” Collins made a noise that sounded like a tire going flat. “I don’t have any friends. I sent a subordinate who took pride in never questioning his own judgment. And it was a federal crime even if I had told you the truth, Einstein.” Collins’s expression went granite cold. With his thumb, he pulled the revolver’s hammer back. He was ready.

“What about General Margolis?” Morgan returned, grasping at straws.

“That bastard’s next.”

“And then you, Jim.” Morgan raised his chin in defiance. “Whatever the hell’s gotten into you, think it over. You pull that trigger and the people I work for’ll strip your skin from your bones.”

“I’m scared,” Collins sneered. “They couldn’t even find you, and you might as well have been covered in neon.” Then he tipped his gun barrel down and up. “And don’t bother going for your piece. What did I always teach you? Trigger pull’s always faster than draw.”

“What’d I ever do to you?” Morgan said. “Is this some beef I missed?”

“Nope. You’re a good troop. Honorable, brave, loyal to the point of stupid. I just needed a dupe who could execute the task, which you always did. But now you’re a loose end.”

“You’re bruising my ego. What are you gonna do with those missiles?”

“That’s need-to-know,” Collins said, “which you don’t. And if you’ve got a last prayer, now’s the time to say it.”

Morgan took a deep breath and nodded, as if resigned to his fate. Collins wasn’t going to issue one of those long, exculpatory speeches like the villains always did in the movies. He lowered his head, his calf muscles bunching as he envisioned his only option. He’d start the prayer, then launch himself to the left, and try slapping the revolver off-center. He didn’t expect to make it, but it was his only chance.

He was just on the verge of exploding from the chair when a female voice from behind echoed Collins’s last words.

“If you’ve got a last prayer, General, it’s time for you to say it.”

Morgan lifted his face and twisted around. Standing in the gloom of the hallway was Commander Alicia Schmitt, and she looked like hell. Her