It wasn't going to be that easy.
* * *
"To what doI owe the pleasure of this visit?" I asked Kaisall as we followed Will through the house.
He started up the stairs, one hand braced on the railing as he forced his opposite leg to comply. I hadn't been there and I didn't know the particulars but I knew Jordan Kaisall's SEAL career ended on his first mission. I'd always viewed his busted leg with the small store of shrugging, side-eyed patience I kept on hand for people who couldn't handle the reality of this work but now it looked more like a fucked-up party favor. Now it looked like I had a party favor of my own.
"You're a special case," Jordan called over his shoulder as I trailed his gradual ascent.
My brother had his own career-ending injury too. It wasn't obvious from looking at him, not the way it was with Jordan and his pronounced limp, but a helicopter crash, some shrapnel, and a few other extraordinary circumstances left him with a world of nerve damage in his shoulder. Surgery had resolved most of it and I was positive he could've returned to the SEAL Teams if he'd wanted, but that injury was the end of his time there. He was done and he wanted out, and while I'd fed his decision more of my shrugging, side-eyed patience, I saw it differently now. I saw the impact of having someone waiting for you on the other side.
"I must be real special for you to come all the way up here," I said. "Do you drive? Train? Ferry? A bit of each and some hang gliding just for fun?"
"Anything more than fifty miles, Kaisall takes his jet," Will said from the landing.
When we joined Will, Jordan's face was red and his chest heaved from the exertion. I should've glanced away and given the man a moment to collect himself but the reminder of my not-so-distant struggles to get a sweater over my head without assistance ran down my spine like ice water. "That's a rather large carbon footprint for you, sir."
Waving me off with some muttered noises about me being a pain in his ass, Jordan led the way into Will's home office though calling this place ahome officewas a failure of the language. This room was what would happen if Pottery Barn had a merchandising agreement with James Bond's R&D team. Bookshelves and locked cabinets swallowed up one wall. Another wall was composed entirely of screens, all displaying maps, satellite images, CCTV arrays, with a narrow desk and chair tucked under the bank. A leather sofa with some linen and twill pillow he couldn't have selected by himself. Another desk with three computer monitors, a keyboard, and not a single scrap of paper in sight, not even a stray Post-it, extended out from a wall unit that looked an awful lot like a secret firearm safe.
"It's always fun to catch up but you're due on a secured line in five minutes," Jordan replied, shutting the office door behind him.
That heavysnicksent a shiver through my shoulders. It was too weighty to be the sound of any ordinary door closing but more than likely an armored door, the sort that refused entrance or exit without fingerprints and retina scans and forty other biometric conditions.
I swung a glance between them. "This is"—I gestured to Jordan—"you know what's coming. That's why you're here. You know what'sgoing on and it's bad. You wouldn't be here otherwise. How bad? Dishonorable discharge bad? Judge Advocate General bad?" Jesus Christ, I really didn't want to go to military prison. I really did not want that on the table. "War crimes bad? Is that why you brought the jet? What—"
"Quiet down," Will ordered, waggingget your shit togetherhands at me. "You can't listen if you're busy inventing worst-case scenarios."
"Jordan fucking flew here so you two could hold my hands through a call you didn't dare tell me about until right now. If it's not the worst-case scenario, you guys need to work on your staging because this setup is weak."
Jordan stepped in front of Will, saying, "They're not sending you to the Hague or any other criminal proceeding but they have to put this multi-agency program to bed as quickly and soundlessly as possible. You know what happens anytime covert work makes headline news. There are questions and inquiries and hearings. Programs get shuttered."
"I'm aware of that," I snapped. "The last three programs I've been in have been shut down. They reorganize under a new name and then carry on business as usual. I know how Washington works, Jordan. I don't need that lesson from you."
"And somehow, you know all of this but didn't know it was time to get the fuck out before your cover was blown," Will said. He had his arms crossed over his chest, his hands bunched into fists as if he was working hard at restraining himself. He probably was. If there weren't babies down the hall and my parents in the kitchen and a wife who'd tear a stripe off his ass for it, he'd knock his brand of sense into me the old-fashioned way. "For fuck's sake, you didn't even know which agency you were working for. They don't give a fuck about you. They're not going to shuffle you into a new program, Wes. They're going to leave you out in the cold. It's a damn good thing Jordan was the one to provide your exfil because you know what would've happened if one of these agencies had done the job? It would've ended the only way it ever ends for exposed operatives."
"Oh, great. We've reached the portion of the performance where Will says, 'I told you so,'" I drawled. "And it's only taken"—I made an exaggerated show of studying my watch—"four minutes. This might be your personal best."
"They're not going to tell you this but they're recalling all the assets operating in this program's portfolio," Jordan said, ignoring the steam coming out of my brother's ears. "Like you said, they'll turn some into assets for other programs and other agencies. Some will be turfed. They've already burned a few too but my sources suggest that was coming regardless."
"You wouldn't be here if they were turning me over to the SEAL Teams or an intelligence agency, so I'm being released. That's why you're here. Because I'm done. Because my partner is dead and my arm is too fucked-up for active duty as a SEAL and I missedonesurveillance camera and now I'm fucking done."
It was funny to think how much I'd embraced this idea no more than an hour ago and now I was prepared to raise hell over it. This wasn't a path I'd chosen because I was ready for a detour, it was the open-handed slap I'd cowered against since waking up in Nova Scotia.
Funny.Yeah, that was one word for it. I didn't recognize any of the emotions I'd contemplated on the drive up here. I didn't want this. I didn't want a shove out the door when I'd sacrificed the past fifteen years of my life, my identity, my vital organs to this work. I'd given up everything and I had nothing to show for it. I was thirty-six years old and my CV was a Sharpie's paradise of redactions and I was starting over. It didn't matter whether I could translate insurgent chatter or lure college students away from the sweet, sterile life of finance or law in favor of hard targets and surveillance teams and interrogation resistance techniques. Nothing mattered. Not the years or miles or injuries or false personas. Not the threats I'd neutralized or the crises I'd helped avert. And it didn't matter whether anyone was waiting for me on the other side. In so many ways, I was as alone now as I was on that tanker. My arm wasn't in a million pieces anymore and I wasn't bleeding to death but I was lost and so fucking angry all over again.
Will snapped his fingers, pointing to a chair in front of his computer screen. "We don't leave the deputy director waiting."
"Super cool how you two have invited yourselves to listen in while I get fired," I said, flopping into the chair and scowling at the screen.
"Do me a favor, would you? Find some discipline," Will ordered. "Don't be a dickhead to your commanding officer. They might be releasing you into civilian life and you might not like the predictable way in which this is going down but that's no reason to be a dickhead."
"Would you like to tattoo 'I told you so' down my arm? Would that make you feel better?" I asked him. "Or would you rather brand it on my chest? Just tell me which you'd prefer and we'll get it done."
Jordan, aiming hard at a casual tone from his perch on the sofa, said, "Strange thing I noticed on the flight up here, Halsted. Background profiles on the signals intelligence contractors we're looking at came back and one of the lead analysts has a connection to your sister."
Will shifted enough to face Jordan while still keeping an eye on me, as if I'd try to flee the armored room filled with weaponry and a pair of former SEALs. "He's connected to Lauren how?"
He made a looping gesture with his hand as he said, "Not entirely clear from the material Shaw sent me but he has history with one of her employees. A teacher, I think it was. Audrey something. They go back all the way to high school."
