Diesel (The Mavericks Book 13) by Dale Mayer (read books for money .txt) 📕

“Well, that’s what we’re hoping for, but, of course, it could just as easily be extortion.”

“And we don’t know.”

“Well, that’s for you to find out,” he said. “In the meantime, we’re still tracking her movements. Please bring her home.” And, with that, Shane went to hang up.

“Wait,” Diesel said. “When am I leaving?”

“I thought I made it clear that you’re supposed to be packing.”

“Not only am I packed, I’ve locked up my apartment, and I’m standing outside.”

“Oh, well, do you see the little red car parked in front of you?”

He looked at the parking lot and found it. There appeared to be no driver. “Yeah?”

“The keys are under the floor mat.”

“Where am I going?”

“Head to the Coronado base. You’ll take a bit of a convoluted route.”

“Why is that?”

“Because the Chinese government says they don’t know anything about it, yet they’re obviously involved. So we’re staying under the radar.”

“Hey, that’s … We’ve still got to get there fast.”

“Yep. Don’t worry. You’ll get there fast. Your flight’s leaving in about forty minutes. Make sure you’re on it.”

And, with a laugh, he hung up, leaving Diesel to hop into the little red Mustang and to hurtle toward the airport on the base. He didn’t know whose car this was, but it was a hell of a way to leave town.

And, with that thought uppermost in his mind, he hit the gas and went forward to whatever life would bring.

Chapter 1

Diesel Edwards stood on the surface of the destroyer and watched the land approach.

When Shane had said Diesel would be flying really fast, Shane had meant it. Diesel hadn’t quite expected his flight to be this fast, but he’d taken a base flight and was even now sitting on the destroyer, as they came upon the Chinese coast. The Chinese government wasn’t happy to have them as close as they were and had put out their own navy ships.

“Where to from here?” he muttered to himself. He pulled out his phone and the material he had on file. Eva Langston was still missing, and nobody had seen any further signs of her.

The latest intel found her disembarking the junk boat onto a vehicle traced to a lab just outside of a major Chinese port city. After that, she disappeared.

He figured she had been moved into some secret Chinese government lab, where they hadn’t let her out, so her face would not be picked up by facial recognition off any street cams or satellites. Diesel would go to the last-known location and see what he could find.

As he stood here on the destroyer, someone spoke from behind him.

He turned in surprise and watched as Jerricho Hickory walked toward him. “Jerricho?” He reached out a hand and shook the other man’s hand.

With red hair and a bright grin and enough freckles across his cheekbones to make him look like a fourteen-year-old, Jerricho was every bit the big capable seaman Diesel knew well. Besides, at six-two and two hundred pounds of lean mean fighting machine, no one could mistake Jerricho for an adolescent anymore. “What are you doing here?”

“Well, I might say that a Maverick called me.”

At that, Diesel’s eyebrows shot up. “Shit, really?”

Jerricho gave him a lopsided grin. “Yeah, really,” he said. “I just arrived. I saw a ship come in on the other side. I wasn’t exactly sure what that was about.”

“I landed on the other destroyer,” Diesel said, “but I’m here now.”

“I think we’re taking off soon too,” he said, as he turned to look back at the helicopters getting ready.

“Yeah, I hear that as well,” he said. “I’m ready to go.” He looked at him and asked, “How’s your Chinese?”

“Not bad,” he said. “How’s yours?”

Diesel winced. “Actually I suck.”

“Maybe that’s why they asked me to join in for this one?”

“Maybe, I’m glad to have you here regardless. Been a long time.”

“Well, let’s go see what kind of damage we can do.” Just then a shout came behind Diesel. He raised a hand in acknowledgment, turned, and snatched his duffel bag. He looked at Jerricho. “You ready?”

“Always,” he said, “you have to be in this business.”

“Isn’t that the truth,” he said.

The two raced over and boarded the Black Hawk helicopter that would take them closer to their target location. This US Black Hawk supposedly looked like the Chinese version. Diesel hoped so, for the safety of them all. It would be a short trip, which helped them too. As soon as they landed, the two disembarked and disappeared into the streets.

“That was pretty easy,” Jerricho said. “If we had landed and had to report to somebody, that would have taken us forever.”

“Definitely an advantage of this new system,” he said. “We report to nobody.”

“I like it,” Jerricho said.

“I mean, that’s why the Mavericks name,” he said. “None of us are particularly good at following authoritarian orders anymore.”

“I follow the orders that make sense,” Jerricho said, “but lately it just seems like some of the brass aren’t making any sense at all.”

“If they don’t have boots on the ground or haven’t had in a long time,” Diesel said, “it’s pretty hard to accept some of the stuff that they tell us to do. I wasn’t quite ready to quit, but I was thinking about it when I was approached.”

“Same here. I was trying to figure out what came next. I’m not sure that this is even the answer as much as, right now, this is what’s next,” he said. “I did hear talk about bigger jobs with the whole teams.”

“I think there are bigger jobs with multiple members. These are all smaller jobs with two men,” Diesel said. “But, if we need more manpower, of course, more men are available. The issue is that sometimes you need six or eight guys to do a job.”

“Got it,” he said. “And I’d be okay with that, as long as I respected the guys I was with.”

“And that’s always the answer,” Diesel said. “The last thing we want is to have somebody we don’t trust on the