Page 39 (1/2)

"Fuck personal Spit it out, Captain"

David was hesitant to talk to Monroe about his relationship with Noelle It wasn't that he worried about getting his ass chewed for breaking protocol He couldn't care less about that What he did care about was tainting what he and Noelle had shared by airing it in public He liked re only they shared

Still, David knew that itthe data on the disk, and that alone orth tarnishing goodabout the first time we made love"

If Monroe was surprised by that news, he didn't let it show in his face "What about it?"

David sla circuit boards jump "Dammit, I don't know!"

"Try to remember What were her words?'

David tried His ave him--the one so full of love it da about if "She said I had to reht"

"What did she say?"

"A lot of things She talked to herself while she orking Most of it was garbage to me"

"What did she say to you?"

They hadn't sharedat those scribbles on his arive in to his lust, but he'd failed He'd pulled her under his body and that look on her face--so open and eager--he was doomed But, he'd made sure it hat she'd wanted He'd demanded that she tell hi her face in front of hireen Her skin was flushed and her rets," whispered David

"What?"

He looked at Monroe, shattering the sweet irets'"

David flew across the roorets'"

A short, pimply-faced kid who couldn't have been ht flashed across his blelasses he wore "That's it We're in"

David felt the rush of victory give hiram and print out the results"

The tech did David pulled the sheet out of the printer before it could finish spitting out the white space The printer crashed to the floor behind him, but he didn't care He was already out the door

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

David saw the ar a perimeter of the old cootten here first

Night cloaked the movement of his team They wore black and had parachuted in over a mile away That hike had been the fastest of his life He could still hear a couple of theup the grueling pace he'd set His arm burned where the bullet had hit hier existed•»

Caleb and Grant flanked hirateful to have the on to rational thought knowing Noelle was inside that building with the Swaret her out It was only the knowledge that his iet Noelle killed that kept him restrained

"I count fifteen," whispered Grant, looking through his night scope

"Me, too," confirnatures show another six inside"

David grabbed the scope that could see through theThere were indeed six figures inside Two of the in a cluster, and one was off to the side, seated and un and smaller than the rest

Noelle

David realized he was trying tohiether or she doesn't stand a chance Don't go getting stupid now"

Grant checked his watch and pinned David with a look of understanding "Thirty-eight seconds, Wolfe We all ht seconds"

They were the longest thirty-eight seconds of his life

Noelle was freezing to death--literally She could no longer feel her fingers or toes, and the shivers that wracked her body were so extreof the dozens of shallow cuts over her arnts and legs

They hadn't even hurt her to gain inforiven her had made it impossible for her to keep silent about the coordinates she'd seen on the screen before the ood ive them the coordinates, but in the end, she'd had no choice

And still they had cut her The scarred man said he just liked to hear her screaive him the satisfaction, but in the end, she'd failed there, too

She was naked, gagged, soaked with a bucket of icy water and left bound to a metal chair in the center of a roo heater in more than a decade Her stomach cramped and she was so physically exhausted that even the involuntary shivers were beginning to subside After so ht any longer