Patriot by M.A. Rothman (summer reading list TXT) 📗

Connor re-read the text and shook his head. You’re considering throwing it all away for free.

He switched off the screen and slid the phone back into his pocket. “Come on, Sloane, what are you thinking about?”

He reached back into his car and grabbed two plastic grocery bags from the passenger seat. The scent of the rotisserie chicken had filled the Honda’s interior, reminding him of how hungry he was. He straightened and shut the door. As he fumbled in his pocket for the key fob, he sensed a motion behind him and turned to look over his shoulder.

Two men in black suits approached. Both had short haircuts, clean-shaven, and dark sunglasses.

As Connor turned to face them, he slowly moving his free hand from his pocket to the small of his back where his single-stack Glock nine-millimeter was holstered.

The man on the right raised a hand. “No need for that, Mr. Sloane. We’re not here to steal your chicken.”

“You know who I am?” Connor asked. It was a dumb question; it was obvious they knew that. But that didn’t stop him from wrapping his fingers around the handle of his pistol.

The second man removed his sunglasses. “We know a lot about you, Mr. Sloane. In fact, I’d be willing to bet we know more about you than anybody else on the planet. Including your teacher, Mrs. Vaughn.”

Connor frowned. How did they know about Mrs. Vaughn?

She was one of his high school teachers—and the person he’d confided in more than he had anyone else in his entire life. His foster parents had been less than involved in most aspects of his life, and Mrs. Vaughn was the only person who’d ever really taken an interest. She was the reason he joined the army; she’d served for twenty years, and had started teaching later in life. And she was the one who first encouraged him to try out for the Special Forces.

But he’d never told anyone about her. Ever.

The fact that he was still standing here—not dead or in handcuffs—told Connor these men probably weren’t here to do him harm. But for them to know this nugget of information from his history… that sent up a red flag.

They definitely weren’t from the agency. If Pennington had wanted to talk to him, he could’ve just called or sent Christina. And as much as the movies liked to portray “G-Men,” the FBI didn’t make a habit of contacting agents of sister agencies without first going through their chain of command. Which meant it would’ve been Pennington again.

“You have me at a disadvantage,” Connor said, his fingers still on his pistol. “You’re not with the bureau.”

The first man laughed. “The FBI can hardly keep track of their own people, much less anyone else.”

“Well, you’re not CIA, and the vampires in the NSA wouldn’t dare be caught out in the daylight. So who are you?”

“We’re… with a different agency,” the first man said, putting his hands in his pockets.

The second man grimaced. “Honestly, we really shouldn’t call it that. It’s more like… let’s just call it the Outfit. Would you mind taking your hand off your gun?”

Connor canted his head to the side. “Agency or Outfit, neither tells me anything about who you are or what you want. If you know who I am, then you know what I’m capable of doing. So until we’re on the same playing field, my hand stays right where it’s at.”

The first man laughed. “Fair enough. I’m Thompson, that’s Richards. And we’re not here to do you any harm. In fact, we have a proposition for you.”

“Proposition, huh?” For the second time in less than twenty minutes, images of Robert Hannsen flashed through Connor’s mind. He frowned. “Don’t you people usually do this in seedy bars or back alleys?”

Thompson raised an eyebrow. “You people?”

“Come on, you’re going to try and get me to come work for your government, right? Selling secrets and crap, right? Not very original. Haven’t you guys had enough bad publicity? Not bad on the accents though.”

The two men exchanged a confused glance. Thompson cleared his throat. “I think you have the wrong idea. We aren’t foreign agents, if that’s what you’re thinking. Though sometimes Richards drinks like a Russian.”

“All right then… what are you?”

“Before we get into that, we’d like you to take a ride with us.” Richards motioned to a black Lincoln parked behind them, the engine still running.

Connor tightened his grip on the Glock. “Jesus, you guys really are bad at this.”

Thompson held up his hands, palms out. “Don’t. One hundred percent, we just want to talk. There are just certain things we can’t say out in the open like this.” He tapped his ear. “You never know who might be listening. Five minutes. If you don’t like what we have to say, you can walk—no questions asked. I trust you as a fellow operator. You can keep your gun, but we’d rather nobody gets any more holes than they already have.” He nodded at Connor. “De oppresso liber.”

Connor clenched his jaw at the reference to the Special Forces motto. So they also knew about his service.

He held their gazes for a long moment, trying to decide if they were putting him on or not. If they were, they’d certainly gone to a lot of unnecessary trouble. If they’d dug that deep, they should have known that Connor Sloane was a patriot first; every other consideration in his life was secondary. They weren’t Bureau or CIA or NSA, which really didn’t leave a lot of options. The secret government alphabet soup only went so far. And if they weren’t foreign agents trying to recruit him…

He had to admit, he was curious.

“Can I put the chicken in the fridge first?”

Chapter Fourteen

“All right, we’re here,” Connor said, sliding into the Lincoln’s spacious back seat. Thompson took the seat next to him and Richards got behind the wheel. “Now what’s this all about?”

Richards pulled out of the lot and merged into traffic. The