Zombie Team Alpha by Steve R. Yeager

done with the business anyway. Flush it. He didn’t care.
    She sighed. “We’ve almost closed up shop ten times already, but this latest job dropped in our laps and was tied up with a neat little million-plus dollar bow on it. We can do it, Jack. I know we can. We can do it and put Ecuador behind us.”
    He wasn’t so sure. In fact, he would never be able to forgive himself for what happened there. He reached for the bottle again, and she blocked him.
    “Believe you me, I’ve considered the heck out of leaving and getting a corporate gig on my own, but thanks to my record, I’ll never be able to hold another security clearance again. No clearance in my line of work means no job. Unless, of course, I want to turn rogue again. You hear that, Jack? What you did when you abandoned us here affected more than just you, you selfish—”
    “Prick,” Gauge added
    She nodded her approval.
    Cutter remembered what she’d done. It had been done on his behalf well over two years ago. She’d been caught hacking into the Federal Reserve for him, a huge no-no. If it weren’t for his prior governmental connections—thin and shaky as they were at the time—she would currently be spending a long stretch wearing nothing but orange, which, with her hair color, was not a shade that flattered her.
    “So you found that doctor lady attractive, didn’t you?” he asked. “And now you are looking to hookup with her then?”
    Morgan shoved him hard, knocking him from the barstool to the grit-covered floor. He rolled sideways and curled up on the dirty linoleum floor. Holding his belly, he coughed, which turned slowly into a chuckle, then a full-blown laugh.
    “Goddamnit, Jack! You really are an assho—a real jerk!”
    Slipping off the barstool, she shifted until she was towering over him.
    She glanced at Gauge. “Hold him down.”
    Gauge shifted positions and pinned Cutter against the floor with a knee to the chest. Morgan climbed on top him and grabbed his hand and tugged at his wedding ring. Cutter panicked and tried to snatch his hand away from her, but Gauge held him in place as she twisted and yanked to get his ring off. Finally, she got the white-gold ring off his finger and stood triumphantly, then staggered back on her heels.
    “Give it back,” he growled from the floor.
    Gauge lifted his knee and Cutter attempted to rise, doing so unsteadily, wobbling on his feet. Tiny pieces of grit and broken peanut shells had stuck to his face. He wiped at them with the back of his hand.
    Morgan frowned. “You’ll get this back when you grow the heck up, Jack.” Fetching Gauge by the arm, she added, “We’ll be at the shop getting everything ready. We expect you to sober up and be there shortly.”
    Like hell, I will.
    He watched Morgan and Gauge walk out of the bar and not look back. As the door closed behind them and shut out the light, he sank to the dirty floor, curled up, and buried his face in his knees.
    “You gonna be all right there, pal?” the bartender asked.

 
    ~9~
    FBI-ED
     
    By the time the plane touched down at Hartsfield-Jackson in Atlanta, Georgia, Cutter had managed to pull himself together to a reasonable degree. Reasonable for him, at least, which meant that he was not immediately planning to kill the next person who pissed him off.
    Well—maybe .
    He’d slept for a good, solid, four hours, which was also just enough time for the buzz to wear down to a nominal level and leave his mouth as dry as cotton in July and his head humming show tunes.
    Morgan had returned to the bar and convinced him, finally. Yeah, he’d made it difficult for her. But she’d won out in the end. She was relentless and never seemed to give up no matter what, which was something he both admired and hated about her, often at the same time. She’d scooped him up off the floor and dusted him off and got him to the airport on time. He’d been a complete asshole about it, too, and had called her a bitch , which went so far beyond