“I wouldn’t worry, Brody. This is an easy fix, but maybe next time, you tell your guys to use their fucking heads. Big, huge difference between a picnic cart and an equipment trailer. A weight limit is a limit—not a suggestion.”

Remy shook her head at the canine crew’s dumbassery. Lazy idiots strapped a bunch of shit and a few dirt bikes to something that was little better than a utility cart and then somehow dragged it behind an ATV. The frame was now bent, and she would have to see if she could find replacement wheels. Would it have hurt their stupid male pride to ask for an ATV trailer? Fuckers.

Well, she thought with a sigh, at least Jensen has the good sense to know when his crew act like shitheads. She would not want to be in the canine team room when he went off on them. Brody was a nice guy, but he had no time for slackers or know-it-alls. As a boss, he had a reputation for ruthlessness. Step out of line and you were taken off the canine team.

“Let me take the hit with the Major.”

She guffawed loudly and directly into his smirking face. “What? You think I can’t handle Alex?”

Brody made a face. “Dude,” he croaked with laughter. “If I was you, I would be real fucking careful about the way I phrase that. Nobody handles Alex.”

They snickered, said, “Meghan,” at the same time, and then high-five hooted.

Brody’s assistant was a sanctimonious little twerp who Remy barely tolerated. Now that she knew he’d been part of Finn’s turn to the dumbass side she disliked him even more. Richie Zimmerman operated under the assumption that his shit did not, in fact, stink. He brought out all her uncharitable, bitchy impulses, so when he came running around the side of the building at an unusual rate of hurry, her first reaction was to groan. And then she saw his angry expression and how out of breath he was.

“Brody!” he yelled. “It’s happening again.” Richie held up a walkie-talkie. “Marty. Three klicks northeast.”

“Fuck.” Brody turned to her and said, “Call it in.”

He barked a series of orders at Richie. Something about a speeder and a rifle. The speeder she understood. Brody had a modified dirt bike that ate up the desert and spit it right back out. The beastly machine appealed to his Harley-Davidson mentality. The gun reference was a mystery, but she knew enough about Jensen’s backstory to know if he was calling for a rifle, this was not a drill.

Her brain screamed that something was off but she was swept away by the unfolding drama and took off at a faster than fast clip, running into the garage to leap around and over an obstacle course of stuff. At the security panel on the wall, she slapped the call button and tried to catch her breath.

“Station one,” a voice barked.

“One niner seven.” She used her Justice call number. “Alert. Aerial incursion. Sector four.”

Her mind was racing. Three klicks northeast would be …where?

“Base camp five. Jensen in pursuit.”

The voice on the other end muttered, “Shit.”

She added one last important piece of information. “He’s locked and loaded.”

Grabbing a pair of high-powered binoculars, she was about to head for her truck when something told her to hold up.

On autopilot, she ran to the lockbox in her desk drawer, opened it, and hurriedly checked out the pistol that until now she had barely even looked at. Slipping it into the back waistband of her jeans, she took a deep breath, remembered to take the binoculars with her, and sprinted to her truck.

In a spray of dirt and gravel as she floored it away from the garage complex, Remy put her foot on the pedal and headed after Brody.

* * *

The anxiety pumping through his body spurred him on.

Faster.

Faster.

The high-powered sniper rifle slung across his body felt like a boa constrictor moving into position. Each time he flew over a bump and the thing smacked against him, he gritted his teeth harder. The low growl of the bike kept him focused. This was not a good time for his anxiety to fire up.

Less than a mile from the ravine base camp where his team was training a pack of less-than-friendly attack dogs, he idled to a stop and searched the landscape. Ignoring the dull throb in his head—the psychosomatic result of his internal stress—his eyes swept side to side. His heart beat faster as his body mobilized for action. The familiar surges of cortisol and adrenaline that transported him to another time made his stomach queasy.

Overhead, a cloudless blue sky stretched to the horizon. He squinted and consciously slowed his breathing. It was harder to detect movement in the sky without cloud shadows. His right hand revved the motorbike’s engine.

There!

The bike sped off and banked to the right. He continued a short distance and then dropped the bike on dismount. Without taking his eyes off the target, he readied the rifle and peered through the telescopic lens. A glint from sunlight hitting the object appeared in the scope. He shifted for distance and pulled the trigger.

He might have held his breath—he wasn’t sure—but another flash let him know he hit the sucker. Continuing to peer through the scope, he saw something blow apart and fall. Ten seconds later, he was back on the bike, zooming toward the fallen object.

A noise over his shoulder drew Brody’s attention. He glanced back and found Remy in her monster truck racing across the desert floor. He was not going to admit this to anyone but Heather, but seeing the determined badass flying alongside as wingman greatly lessened his anxiety.

They got to the crash site at the same time. After dropping the bike, he ran to the mangled object. Remy pulled a pistol out of her waistband and covered him. He knew right away this wasn’t a Justice drone. This was something else. Something unfriendly. He stepped around a piece of debris and quickly took a series of cell phone pictures for forensic analysis.

His eyes swept the area several times but detected nothing. No movement. No warning signals.

“At ease, Remy.”

She stood down and put the safety on her pistol. “What the hell is that?”

“Surveillance drone.”

“Doesn’t look like any drone I’ve ever seen,” she remarked.

“Yeah, no shit. This is some next level tech. We need to get it to Alex right away. Back the truck up and let’s try to lift it.”

Brody stepped out of the way while Remy maneuvered in reverse. Just as she put the truck in park, the center part of the drone exploded. They ducked for cover with matching astonished expressions.

“Did that thing just self-destruct?” she asked.

Okay. This was not cool. Not cool at all. Drone sightings near the compound had increased enough that they were all on high alert. Last year, Drae shot a camera drone out of the sky that ended up belonging to a journalist looking for dirt. The agency sued the shit out of the guy, and Parker Sullivan made sure the proceedings hurt as much as legally possible.

But this was different. All of the most recent sightings were obvious surveillance, and this had trade craft stamped on every single piece of debris. Fancy professional drones cost a bundle but did not come with a self-destruct feature. And neither did the toy drones sold at WalMart. Whoever was doing the spying went out of their way to remain anonymous.

He grimaced at Remy’s question and nodded. “Any chance you’ve got a tarp in the monster truck?”

“I do,” she muttered. “And a camping shovel. I’ll get them.”

Brody surveyed the drone carnage with hands on his hips. A scowl set up camp on his face.

Whatever the fuck this turned out to be, it was not going to be good.