Page 125 of Deadly Strain

A glad sort of fierceness filled him at knowing she would have fought for him. He smiled savagely. “Good.”

He hugged her for another moment, then pulled away to frown at her. “You promised not to take risks.”

“I didn’t.”

“You climbed a couple stories and anyone looking in your direction would have seen you.”

“There was a sniper up there taking shots at you.”

“I knew he was there.”

“He was trying to flush you out so his friends could kill you.”

“I knew that too.”

She growled at him. “So, I’m just supposed to stay out of sight, stay safe, while you play hide-and-seek with a bunch of men who are trying their best to kill you?” She poked him in the chest. “Fuck that.”

Her growl and willingness to have his back had his cock at fucking attention. “You promised you’d take no unnecessary risks. That risk was unnecessary.”

“I can’t read your mind, Sharp. I saw a situation and knew I had to do something. The least you could do is trust me enough to know what I’m doing.”

“I do trust you.”

“Oh yeah? Then what’s with the I’m-the-soldier-you’re-the-asset routine?”

“Grace—” He cut himself off. They didn’t have time to argue. “Just leave it for now. We’ve got to get back to the base.”

She scowled at him for a second, then nodded her head once in agreement. “I thought a helicopter was going to pick us up?”

“The base came under fire about ten minutes ago. No one can land or take off. We’re on our own for now.”

“Our friends,” Smoke said, “left a couple of trucks.”

She stared at him, then at Sharp. “But we didn’t accomplish anything here.”

“We know this was a trap that almost worked.”

“It did work. Clark, Runnel, and March are dead.”

“Grace. We expected to find a lab here. We didn’t. I think this whole place was intended as a distraction at the least or a deadly trap at best.”

“So, if we didn’t find the lab here,” she said slowly. “Where is it?”

“Exactly.”

She looked at him, tilted her head to one side and asked, “If it were you planning this attack with anthrax spores inside grenades, how would you do it?”

Both men froze, their gazes unfocused, considering her question.

Sharp answered first. “The boy who cried wolf.”

“Yes,” Smoke agreed.

“Distraction. Distraction. Distraction. Direct attack,” Sharp explained.

A simple plan.

Simple plans work more often than complicated plans.