Page 3 of Sergeant's Christmas Siege

“Not quite mercenaries,” Templeton said, and she thought she saw something in his gaze then, some flash of heat, but it was gone almost as soon as she identified it. “I can’t say I like that word.”

“Is there a better word to describe what you do?”

“We like to consider ourselves problem solvers,” Templeton said, sounding friendly and at his ease. He looked it, too. Yet Kate didn’t believe he was either of those things. “You start throwing around words likemercenary, and people think we’re straight-up soldiersof fortune. Soulless men who whore themselves out to the highest bidder. That’s not us.”

“And yet Alaska Force has, to my count, been involved in no less than six disturbing incidents in the past six months.” Kate replied in the same friendly tone he’d used. She even sat back a little, mirroring his ease and supposed laziness right back at him. “There was a member of your own team, if I’m not mistaken, who presented at the hospital in Juneau with injuries consistent with being beaten over the head and forcibly restrained. He claimed he tripped and fell.”

“Green Berets are notoriously clumsy,” Templeton replied blandly.

“Right around that time, an individual known to be a self-styled doomsday preacher, who Alaska Force interfered with years back—”

“If you mean we made sure he couldn’t hurt the women and children he was terrorizing.”

“—stole a boat and then rendezvoused with your team this past spring. And with you, if I’m not mistaken.” Kate knew she was not mistaken about anything involving this case. She didn’t even have to glance at the notepad in front of her to refresh her memory, though she pretended she did. “This interaction involved a high-speed chase in the middle of the night, followed by an explosion.” Kate nodded toward the front windows but didn’t take her eyes off Templeton. “You claimed he blew up his own boat a few yards outside this harbor and then jumped in the water. Where you saved him out of the goodness of your heart. His story has always been more complicated.”

“His story changes every hour on the hour.” Templeton’s smile struck her as more edgy than before, his eyes more narrow. “We happened to be in place to contain a potentially far more threatening incident. You’re welcome.”

“Since then, there have been four more incidents involving property damage in and around this island andthe surrounding area. Culminating in what happened two nights ago, when a boat that shouldn’t have been in the harbor in the first place blew up within sight of the ferry terminal. The anonymous tip that we received suggested Alaska Force was responsible.”

Templeton looked unconcerned. “We’re not.”

“That’s it? That’s the whole defense you intend to mount?”

“I’m not going to waste my time defending something we didn’t do,” Templeton said in that amiable, friendly, excessively mild way that was beginning to grate on Kate’s nerves. “A reasonable person might ask herself why Alaska Force would blow things up right here in our own backyard. If we were the kind of mercenaries you seem to think we are, that would only draw unwanted attention. Like this meeting.”

It was the first hint of anything other than excessive friendliness in his voice. Kate was delighted she was finally getting somewhere.

“You claim you’re not that kind of mercenary,” she said. “So what kind of mercenary are you? The kind who thinks it’s fun to blow things up, maybe? Just because you can?”

“Are you accusing me of something?” Templeton looked and sounded as if he were asking for a menu. Not as if he was facing down an officer of the law and defending himself, whether he wanted to admit that was what he was doing or not.

“Who are the other members of Alaska Force?” Kate asked, instead of answering his question.

Templeton studied her for a moment.

“We tend to be a reclusive bunch,” he said after a moment. “I wouldn’t want to give you any false impressions. What if I told you what a man calls himself only to be accused of making up a name for villainous purposes? That strikes me as a quagmire I’d be better off avoiding.”

Kate smiled. “Isaac Gentry, your leader. BenjaminHendricks, otherwise known as Blue. Jonas Crow. Rory Lockwood, the former Green Beret who lied about how he got his injuries last spring. Alexander Oswald.”

Templeton laughed. “Who?”

“Otherwise known as Oz.” Templeton blinked, and Kate made a show of looking at her notes as she rattled off the rest of the list of names she’d memorized. Then she lifted her gaze to his again. “Up to and including Alaska Force’s latest and first female hire, Bethan Wilcox, who joined your team in late August. Did I miss anyone?”

“I don’t know why you asked me for a roster when you already have one memorized.”

She couldn’t tell if that was a figure of speech or if he knew she wasn’t really checking her notes. “Are you a doomsday cult of your own? Is Alaska Force involved in some kind of territorial squabble with other less-than-savory groups?”

“A doomsday cult,” Templeton repeated, and then let out that laugh again. It was big and bright, and most irritatingly, it seemed to lodge itself inside Kate’s chest. She told herself that was the strong coffee the surly Caradine had brought her, warming her from the inside out. “I can’t wait to tell everyone you said that.”

Then he angled himself forward a little, which seemed to make him that much bigger. That muchmore.

Kate did not allow herself to betray so much as a flicker of reaction. Or to shift herself back at all.

“I’ve always wanted to be in a cult,” Templeton told her, as if they were sharing their hopes and dreams. “Seems like it would be one of those can’t-miss life experiences.”

“It’s not a life experience any reasonable person would want.”

For the first time since he’d sat down opposite her, Templeton Cross looked intrigued. “You were in a cult? And they let you be a trooper?”

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