Read The Edge of Trust: Team Edge for Free Online

American and Navy flags stood at crossed staffs against one wall.  Books on history, economics and world politics marched along an adjacent wall.  The whole place screamed ‘major sucking up goes on here’. 
    Nothing at all like the offices back at EDGE.  But then nothing could be.
    Dillon lived in San Diego.  The admiral lived in San Diego.  The admiral had an office there, just as imposing, and a hell of a lot more convenient than this.  Yet here they were, both sitting, oh-so-nicely, in the friggin’ Pentagon.
    And Dillon in a suit.  With a tie around his neck.  He would’ve preferred fatigues.  “Why the formality?”  Leaning back in the wide leather guest chair, Dillon gave up on his temples and folded his hands in his lap, patiently waiting for an explanation.
    He eyed the SEAL Trident on the admiral’s chest, then let his stare drift up to the steel gray eyes watching him.  Dillon had a Trident too, somewhere.  In his desk at home maybe.  Or tucked away in Sara’s jewelry box.  When he’d joined EDGE, he’d handed the pin over to his wife and never looked back.
    Now he couldn’t seem to look forward.
    John steepled his fingers.  “I had to break a lot of rules and lie my ass off to get you back on the inside.  As for not getting reprimanded, I gave everyone a hands-off order.  This time.  But next time keep in mind the Command doesn’t like its people going UA.  Especially not for six very long, non-communicative months.”
    “I was absent, yes.  But hardly unauthorized.”
    “You could’ve checked in.  Returned my calls.”
    “I’m here now.  So what’s up?”  Something was, for damn sure.  Something clandestine or covert, he was sure, and something he probably wasn’t going to like if the severe look on John’s face was anything to go by.
    Like Night Shield and Gray Dawn, Admiral Edge’s Tactical Security Team (TST) didn’t officially exist.  Sanctioned by the president, the TST was a clandestine unit of special forces operators who worked under the radar, off the grid, and could strike with a kind of cunning that would knock the CIA on its ass.  If the team was compromised during a mission, the U.S. government would deny their existence.
    They were all a part of SPECWAR.  Black ops.  And so deeply buried only a handful of men in the Pentagon had even the slightest awareness of them. 
    Dillon did what his country asked—provided justice, security, protection, hoodoo voodoo if need be.  Anything and everything no one else either provided or allowed. 
    That was his job, and at one time he’d loved it.  Then Sara had been killed and then his family, all of them wiped out within two days, and now, well now he had other, more important things on his mind.
    Vengeance being foremost.
    And wasn’t that an ugly word.  Apt, considering what he’d lost, but still ugly.
    John took a sip of coffee from his stainless steel mug and grimaced.  “Over forty-five hundred cups of coffee served daily in this place, and I’ve probably got the only cup that tastes like sludge.”  He ran a hand through his close-cropped, gray hair.  “Hell, I don’t know.  Maybe it’s just my mood.  I want to get back home to San Diego and out of this endless maze of bureaucratic bullshit.”  He tapped a newspaper.  “Read this.”
    Dillon ignored the paper a second time and frowned.  Thought about closing his eyes and plunking his feet up on John’s desk long enough for the pounding in his head to back off. 
    Probably not the best move. 
    He settled for saying, “Look, John, my brain is dissolving inside my skull, so if this is a Come-to-Jesus meeting, let’s do it in San Diego next week, okie dokes?”  He started to stand.
    “Commander.”
    And there it was.  The Tone.  Dillon sighed and placed his butt back in the chair.  “Coffee and politics aside, I wasn’t exactly UA.  I had time coming and I took it.  Since when is drinking my butt into the ground any of