Mackie's Men by Lynn Ray Lewis Read Free Book Online Page B

importance around. These people were not boardroom minions, and the General himself let him know it.
    “Mr. Klinger, on behalf of the United States of America, I apologize for any inconvenience that this ordeal has caused you. You will be receiving a formal letter of thanks in the mail to frame and put on your wall. I don’t have time or the patience to deal with your curiosity right now. I need to see to Ms. Vaught and her needs before stroking your ego. Go with the Lieutenant please, before I decide to make inquiries into how our vendor got shot in the first place.”
    There was nothing for him to do or say. The verbal slap down was stinging his pride, but he would back off for now. Whatever rat’s nest they’d stumbled into was obviously not for public consumption. He saw Fielding and Reynolds standing by the door and decided to quit before things got ugly. His father would find out what was going on. It would have to be enough for now.
    “All right, General, thank you for the hospitality. I hope Ms. Vaught recovers with few lasting effects.”
    He turned toward the door and walked out with his men. The small electric vehicle they all piled into zipped them through pitch black tunnels with the only light coming from the headlights. Liam tried to start a conversation with the lieutenant, but the man was barely civil. His one word answers grated on Liam’s nerves and it kept his temper on simmer. He had no idea where they were when they drove into daylight. They followed a path through some dense brush and stopped back at the site where Mackie’s house had been. Klinger’s helicopter was already waiting for them and the lieutenant pulled in close. He waited until they were in the air and drove away. Liam watched him from his seat next to the pilot, until they turned north.

Chapter Five
     
     
    Thomas Hurrell, Thom to his family and close friends, was sitting by her bedside when she finally surfaced from the medically induced sleep. Her shoulder and arm felt like they were on fire, and she couldn’t contain the gasp of pain that alerted him that she was awake. She was too busy trying to breathe through the pain to listen to his barking orders for the nurse to give her something to ease her suffering.
    “Tell that nurse to get her ass in here with a shot for her now, the woman has been through enough for the protection of others, she shouldn’t have to suffer even more.” The warm feeling that his words gave her wasn’t enough to stop the pain, but it allowed her to focus on him instead of her shoulder.
    She wanted to ask how his wife was doing, but kept her teeth gritted to stop herself from screaming like a sissy. Screaming only got more attention and she hated it when she was the object of that attention. Especially in a hospital where everyone seemed to have access to her scars and sooner than later some well meaning person would ask her how she got them. Some called them battle tats, some drew back in revulsion, and some were fascinated in a sick way with the scars themselves. The latter ones were usually men with bent minds. Most were still in the service because they had nowhere else to go where they would find peace. They were the ones that felt they had nothing to lose, so they volunteered for the most dangerous missions that needed men with their expertise.
    General Hurrell had a vested interest in her for a couple of reasons, the first was that his wife was Senator Downs, the lady that she’d been mistaken for, and was shot for the sniper’s ignorance. The second and probably the most important reason was that she helped his efforts to keep important people the Government needed to hide from being discovered. Her property had an elaborate bunker deep underground, in the middle of nowhere. The place had been built back in the 1940’s and once the war was over, the bunker had been forgotten.
    “You can’t resist, can you? The cameras picked up the way you saved those kids. Don’t you ever get tired