Read Operation Zulu Redemption: Hazardous Duty - Part 3 for Free Online

on Sam Caliguari.
    “Did you talk to Caliguari before they took him?”
    Frankie turned the silver fashion ring on her thumb as she considered the man. She’d been a fool years ago to find Varden attractive. It wasn’t his looks—tall, dark, not-so-handsome. It was his power that had drawn her like a moth to the flame. And telling him what Sam said wouldn’t compromise anything. At least, she didn’t think so.
    “You’re wondering if you can trust me,” Varden said, leaning on the table with his forearms.
    “We were all trained to ask that question, often and repeatedly with every target and asset,” Frankie said.
    “You have to imagine I know more than you.”
    “You’d like me to imagine that.” Frankie shifted in her seat, pushing into the neutral space he was already invading. “But you came to me, Varden. You sent me after Sam.” Why? What had he hoped to accomplish with that? “Why didn’t you go yourself?”
    “The man I work for is too powerful and in too delicate a situation to dirty his hands.”
    “Ha.” Frankie scoffed and dropped back against her seat. “Lazy answer. And a lie.”
    Those black eyes probed her. His lips went flat and his brows tugged together.
    Good. About time she’d managed to tick him off. He’d done that to her more than once in the years they worked together.
    “What do you want?” Varden asked.
    Frankie’s heart flipped. “Me?” She closed her laptop and folded her arms over it. “
Me?
I don’t want anything except the truth about what happened in Misrata. You knew that the day you had me shut down and turned out.”
    Varden glanced to the side as a bubble of laughter erupted near the coffee bar. He was annoyed to say the least—with the noise, with her. Maybe even with Misrata. Or Trace Weston. “I can guide you to the information, but I can’t give it to you.”
    Well, that was juicy. “Why?” She had the good sense and insatiable nature to question everything.
    “I have another name for you.”
    Frankie arched an eyebrow and huffed. “You gave me Sam and he knew nothing.”
    “He knows more than he realizes.”
    “Doesn’t matter now, does it?”
    “Find Boone Ramage.” He tapped the table. “Find him and you find a tenable trail that will lead you right back to Weston and this mess.”
    “Are you—” Frankie bit down on the tongue lashing she wanted to unleash. She’d had Boone on her radar since day one. “He’s a dead end, Varden. I’ve tried—”
    “Seems to me you talked to a good-looking EMT in Lucketts.”
    Unease slithered through Frankie’s belly. She should know better than to be surprised by anything Varden said or did. But she suddenly felt like she had strings attached to her arms and legs and should start talking to a cricket.
    “D’you catch his name?”
    She hadn’t. At the time, it hadn’t been important.
    Varden winked. “See you around, beautiful.”
    As he strutted out of the coffee shop, Frankie grew sick to her stomach. Varden had said her father shut down her life, but she wondered now if the culprit behind all that was in fact Varden and his overlord. She also knew in that instant that they’d been following her, tapping her phones and had probably bugged her apartment, too.
    She had this crazy, uncontrollable urge to take a stainless steel pad and scrub her body down in a hot shower. They’d tagged her. Somehow, they tagged her and were monitoring her every move.

Annie
Salamina, Greece
2 June – 0115 Hours EEST
    Annie cursed herself for not thinking to wrap her feet in something protective before escaping the storage area. Forest litter and debris dug into her soles as she pushed up the slope. Though not a steep grade, after the night’s adventures, the hill was enough to sap the remnants of her strength. But she’d been hiking for well over fifteen minutes. Pressed against a trunk, she took a breather and glanced back through the trees.
    She’d blown a propane tank and it’d lit up the night like