Page 95 of Under Cover
Chadwick and Carlyle stared at her. “But—”
“And then she threw a knife at the guy at my back,” Manny said dryly. “Which she then had to retrieve, and—”
“Yuck,” she muttered. “Fortunately we were in one of those alleys where bodies are sort of a regular occurrence. Our two guys might be found in the morning.”
Harding gave a pained look. “I don’t know if I have to say this or not, but—”
“Don’t worry, Chief,” Joey told him. “We’ll do the paperwork on our air-gapped units at home so they can’t be hacked. Then we’ll print out a hard copy that you can keep in your desk or submit in triplicate or whatever you have to do when one of us makes a kill.” He looked at Garcia and Crosby. “I know that our paperwork goes up the federal food chain, am I right?”
They all nodded.
“Then its fine. On a federal level, a supervisor you trust knows your agents were forced to defend themselves. On the state level….”
“The local po-po knows nothing,” Crosby said. “I remember seeing kills like this—ones the old guys took in stride but us new guys were sure were hinky. Hello, now I’m on the other side of that mirror.”
“I never wanted a hit squad,” Harding told them soberly. “But that said, better them than us.”
Gail laughed and misquoted “March of Cambreadth,” “How many of them can we take out!” complete with accent. There was a scattering of laughter, and Natalia spoke up.
“But we can’t do this forever, Clint. I’ve got my wife and kids living with my in-laws. We have got to put this thing to bed.”
Harding gave a grim smile. “And Garcia thinks he has a way to do that. Garcia?”
They were standing in the kitchen, and Garcia made a pained sound. Crosby had the pizza waiting for them when he arrived, but Gail and Manny had gotten there first, and in the excitement over her run-in with her suddenly aggressive tail, nobody had eaten.
“Cap?” Crosby spoke up, and Garcia blessed him. “Food?”
Harding took a deep breath, as thoughhecould barely contain himself from running out onto the street, guns blazing.
“Fine. Everybody get food and something to drink and gather around the coffee table.Thenwe talk about how to end this shit.”
At that moment there was a knock on the door, and Harm showed up, looking tired in his sweats with a battered gray hoodie, and something in Harding’s expression eased up and they were ready to roll.
A FEW MINUTESlater, they were in position—Crosby in his “big and tall” chair with Garcia sitting on one side of him, not exactly clinging, but within casual touching distance. Gail was on the other side, and shewasclinging. Garcia couldn’t be mad or jealous or anything, though; they had been Olaf and Elsa long before he’d shown up, and they hadn’t even texted in the past month. It had made sense to have Garcia be the one point of contact, but Crosby had obviously missed his team.
“Hey,” Natalia said softly. “First, can I just say how glad I am to see Crosby not looking dead? Kid, you gave us a helluva scare.”
Crosby shrugged in that way he had, the way that drove Garcia crazy in two completely opposite ways. “Thanks, Tal. I, uh, would rather not do that again.” He made his eyes big and earnest. “Drugs arebad, kids. Don’t do them!”
There was some strained laughter, and then Gail and Manny shook their heads, and Gail tightened her death grip on Crosby’s leg.
“Man, don’t even joke about it,” Manny said with a shudder. “You didn’t see you when Garcia shoved you in the car.”
“Worse than the dog?” Crosby asked, obviously trying to pull up the sudden pall on the room.
“Worse than the dog,” Gail whispered.
He stroked the tight braid down the back of her head. “Sorry, Elsa.”
“Don’t scare me like that,” she murmured, resting her head against his thigh.
“Yeah, I’ll do my best. It sort of sucked.”
Garcia and Manny met eyes. They’d sworn a pact between them to never bring up Gail’s screaming, half-hysterical moments, straddling Crosby and slapping his face, urging him to breathe. Swan had pulled the SUV into the ambulance bay by then, and they were waiting for Harding and the medics to show up, and Crosby had seized, the breath stopping in his chest. Garcia had gone to the faraway place in his head by then, someplace cool and isolated where nothing happening in the SUV had any relation to him or Crosby or the fact that the boy he loved was dying in his arms.
“We’d appreciate it,” Manny said gruffly.
“Indeed,” Harding murmured. “Okay, then. Crosby, good to have you back for the moment—”
