Page 21 of Under Cover

“Who’s Natalia going to run with?” Garcia could do math. There wasn’t anybody left. They’d released the feebs the week before, and Chadwick and Carlyle were back in each other’s pockets again, where apparently they belonged.

“She’s going to survey some new recruits so we have a permanent point person and another team,” Crosby said. “I, uhm, freed up some money while I was stuck behind a desk—”

“What he means,” Harding said, coming into the weight room and looking around at the men, “is that he applied for some grants and wrote emails and did some serious good work and got extra money in our budget so we’re not operating on a shoestring anymore. There’s food in the meeting room. Swan, go get some and meet Gail Pearson, your new partner.”

Crosby and Garcia were left looking at Harding expectantly.

“Sir?” Crosby asked.

“You two….” Harding shook his head. “You two need to keep each other out of trouble,” he said after a moment. “I mean, I’ve approved our personnel placement, and I know it’s coming, but you two….” He let out a breath. “You two could either get each other killed or save the city. Maybe find a compromise between the two extremes, you think?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Crosby replied cheerfully. “I’m just looking forward to working with Garcia some more.”

Harding’s eyes—flat cop’s eyes—went round. “Sure,” he said. “Garcia, I’ll expect you to report to me if he starts taking unnecessary risks. Do you understand?”

“My pleasure,” Garcia said, giving his best ass-kissing smile. He’d had inscrutable bosses before. This was no exception.

“And you know that expression ‘Don’t fire until you see the whites of their eyes’?”

“Yessir!” they both said.

“Fire way, way before then. You hear me?”

“Yessir,” they repeated.

“Good. Go eat. Natalia got the really good pastries to make the paperwork go down.”

“Sir.”

And on cue, like in the military, they saluted. Harding stalked out of the room in disgust, and they waited until he cleared the door to crack up. Crosby bumped Garcia’s arm as they turned toward the conference room.

“We’re gonna have so much fun,” he promised.

Garcia shook his head and tried not to think about his ulterior motives. “My God, I hope so.”

COMBAT TRAININGwas the best and worst, Garcia thought the next day.

They had no cases, so Harding sent them to the gym for a refresher course on nonviolent takedowns given by the local branch of the FBI. It was also, Harding had confided to Garcia before they left, a way for the team to check on Crosby, make sure he was 100 percent since he wasn’t doing light duty as Gail had.

But that didn’t mean the combat training was awesome. The feds had said very seriously in their brief of the class that it was hard to get information from a dead suspect, so it was important not to kill unless necessary. Garcia had heard Harding tell Natalia that deadanybodywas a bad thing, but he’d take dead suspects over dead task-force members any day.

But the upshot was running through takedown methods that didn’t block airways or threaten breathing in any way and hopefully kept the suspect comfortable in case they were innocent but jumpy. Because that happenedwaymore often than law enforcement ever wanted to admit.

Their instructor was even taller than Crosby, and Garcia was probably typecasting, but he sort of disliked the guy on sight. Maybe he just didn’t like buzzcuts, or maybe it was the beady little eyes. Or the extreme muscles or lack of neck. The guy screamed attitude, and Garcia tried to overcome his aversion to blond, blue-eyed boys in law enforcement before he dug his own grave here. He liked Crosby, right? And Gail was his friend. Clint Harding, Gideon Chadwick, Joey Carlyle? They were all okay. But as the instructor—Morrison—had them line up military style while he paced in front of them and shouted instructions, Garcia caught Crosby’s eyes.

Crosby crossed his eyes behind the instructor’s back and pulled his chin in to mimic having none.

Garcia didn’t even let his lips twitch, but Manny Swan wasn’t so lucky.

“Do you have a problem with that?” Morrison yelled in his face, and Manny, being the new guy, recoiled.

“No, sir,” he responded calmly. Not afraid—Garcia liked that—and not subservient or sarcastic. Just quiet. Mild.

“Then what was that smirk about?”

Manny opened his mouth to respond, and Morrison yelled in his face again.

“You don’t got an answer to that, do you, smart guy?”