Zombie Team Alpha by Steve R. Yeager Page A

wrong that it left him feeling ashamed of himself. Perhaps that was why he caved in the end. That, and she’d given him back his white-gold wedding band.
    Half of him appreciated the close friendship they had. The other half resented it. The argument over coming along for the ride was one he was in no mood to continue. It was too late and would be pointless to even bring it up, as he had nowhere else to go, and it was clear that she’d just keep chipping away at him until he eventually folded, no matter how big a tantrum he threw.
    All he could do now was try to do better.
    Gauge sat in the seat across the aisle from him, still bleary-eyed and half-dozing. The guy could sleep through a death-metal rock concert and wake up fully refreshed when the cleaning crew arrived to mop up all the blood.
    Morgan closed her laptop and came to join them. Cutter glanced down at his hands. He didn’t want to look her in the eyes just yet.
    “Gentlemen,” she said, “we’ve got company coming. And they don’t appear to be friendly.”
    Cutter peeked out the porthole-sized window beside him on to see what had caught her interest. He saw flashing blue and red lights and men spilling out of shiny black sedans and SUVs. There was a lone woman shouting commands at the men, who appeared to be a whole host of suited-up seriousness. About half of them were cupping their hands over earpieces to hear each other over the roaring noise of the jet’s twin Rolls-Royce engines. The group was moving quickly and importantly, all wearing dark blue windbreakers with three blocky white letters emblazoned on their backs.
    FBI.
    “Dang,” Morgan said, shuffling back to her seat, muttering, “Not the best time for this.” She swung into a chair before a tiny table and flipped open her laptop and began typing furiously. “Jack, can you do something about this? Maybe go and do a meet and greet with our guests?”
    “No,” he said. He wasn’t ready yet.
    She glanced up from her screen at him. “How about calling in a few quick favors from your contact list?”
    Most of his governmental connections were no longer on speaking terms with him.
    “Can’t,” he said.
    “Okay,” she breathed. She sighed and started typing even faster. “I just need a few minutes. Can you at least buy me that?”
    Cutter sighed back at her. His head was pounding again, and he attempted to blink away the pain. It didn’t help.
    “Screw you, Jack.”
    Rubbing his temples, he tried to think. This is just great . What in the hell do those government monkey-suits want this time? It was always something with these statist types. Could hardly do business anymore in the US without some damn bureaucrat sticking their goddamned nose into it and wondering just how badly they could screw it up, and often doing it just out of spite.
    America—the land of the free.
    Yeah, that .
    But it could be it was not any of his many pending legal issues they were going after. It could be related to Morgan. Though, he thought he’d cleared up those problems over a year ago after their last job had soured. It was the one good deed he’d done before heading south for his extended vacation. And all his favors had been used up on that one. Where is this new hassle coming from? Someone obviously still had a beef. He also figured that with all the guns and the half a ton of illegal high-tech they had tucked away in the plane’s cargo hold, things could get real messy, real fast.
    “Morgan?” he grunted in annoyance.
    “Shhh, I’m working,” she fired back, typing with a ferocity he’d rarely seen before.
    Cutter grunted, deep and guttural, putting the pounding in his head out of mind. Then he collected Gauge and started to deplane. Gauge stopped him, and they shared a confused look, and then they both glanced over their shoulders at Morgan before stepping out into the cold. Cutter was still wondering what he was going to do and how far he was willing to go. He assumed Gauge was thinking