But now the word floated back, stubborn and sweet.
Was that what this was?
Could someone have a crush on another person after seeing them only once? For barely a minute?
The thought made me both embarrassed and a little lightheaded.
I imagined the girls again, their whispers, their laughter. Was this what they’d meant—the flutter in your chest, the ache when you remember someone’s smile, the way your thoughts circle back no matter how you try to stop them?
If it were, it would be dangerous. I knew that much.
The thought sent a prickle of fear through me.
I sat up, pushing my hands through my hair, whispering the words Father had taught me, “Light of Heaven, burn away desire. Let no shadow take root in me.”
But my pulse still raced, and the darkness didn’t feel any lighter.
I didn’twantto feel this way. I didn’t even know whatthis waywas.
I pressed my palms together until they ached.
“I’ll cure it,” I decided. “Before Father finds out. Before it makes me stray.”
I lay back down and stared into the dark until my eyes began to grow heavy.
Outside, the crickets kept singing, oblivious to my turmoil.
4
Jace
The Omaha field office was a world away from Headquarters in D.C. Same stupid fluorescent lights that never failed to trigger a migraine, though.
Close to five months ago, I’d just finished up working a case on a gang trafficking drugs and guns when I got the news that they were sending me out here. Getting detailed out of state was a new one for me, but I went where they sent me—no questions asked.
It took me a good few weeks to nail down all the religious terminology needed for the job and to catch up on what we—we, being the field office and the Nebraska Information Analysis Center—knew about the Covenant.
From there, I’d been focused on gaining the leader’s trust. After my visit the other day, receiving an official invitation fromMalachi to stay at the compound had propelled us to the next step in the operation.
Infiltration.
I sat at the conference table with the file on the Covenant of Light open in front of me and tried to look like I hadn’t been awake since three a.m. The Special Agent in Charge, or SAC for short, Natalie Whitmore, perched at the head of the table. Across from her, NIAC analyst Rosa Kim worked on a laptop with the calm focus of someone who pursued these cases from a safe distance.
“Agbayani,” Whitmore said, without preamble. “You’ve done a great job getting us this far. You ready for this?”
“You know it,” I answered, getting a bit of an eyeroll from her.
Rosa tapped the spacebar on her computer, and the projector on the wall flipped to a satellite overlay of the compound. With a nod from Whitmore, she began the rundown. “We’ve pulled everything NIAC has—financial flows, phone dumps that intersected affiliates near the market, social service records on people who left the compound and then stopped showing up. There’s nothing that screams terrorism yet, but there are red flags galore. We’re treating it as a criminal investigation pending anything violent.”
Whitmore tilted her head. “If at any point you see indicators of violence or organizational intent toward extremist action, we’ll bring in JTTF. But for now, local takes the lead.”
Translation: If they start talking about blowing shit up, the real pros take over.
Rosa slid me a printout. “We’ve got surveillance teams staged in two positions. One mobile unit is about ten minutes out on County Road 7, then a static overwatch on an elevated farm road twenty minutes away. We’ll need you to collect predicate evidence for legal to grant the warrants you guys need in order toget in and shut it down. We’ll be listening to tips routed through us and will alert you if anything involving your safety comes up.”
“Good,” I said. Practical. Sounded like a plan. “What’s the contact protocol? How long can I be inside without check-ins? Am I going in clean?”
Whitmore nodded. “You’ll be going in with just a cell. Anything else is going to look too suspicious to them. If they find the phone, you can at least explain it away easier. I wouldn’t doubt that other converts have had issues giving up their phones, so just go with that. You have prearranged check-ins. You call Agent Patel at 0900 and 2100 local. If you can’t call at those times, you move to Plan B, which is a visual sign at the old windmill on the east property line at 1800. If you fail both, backup moves within twelve minutes.”
