More noises rose from around the table. It wasn’t often they had a guest on base. If the person wore the blackout hood, they didn’t have very high clearance.
But when the suits walked in with a woman between them, Sinner straightened without meaning to.
The hood had been removed. She wasn’t wearing a suit, and she didn’t match the Charlie team either. She existed in her own category.
The room went still.
Con nodded to the agents, then the woman. They all took a seat at the table.
A beat of silence stretched, but Con wasn’t one for pleasantries. “Who the hell gave you permission to come here?”
One of the agents rested his arms on the table. Sinner automatically studied him, taking in the lightweight Italian wool of his suit and his soft, never-worked-a-day-in-his-life hands.
He pulled off his dark glasses to address Con. “We request a private meeting.”
A rustle ran through the team spread out like a wall of muscle and irritation.
Con fixed the agent in his stare. “What you have to say can be said in front of my guys. I like private meetings even less than I like surprise visits. State your purpose.”
With his ear on the conversation, Sinner’s attention shifted from the two agents to the woman. Black hair, ink-dark and glossy. Eyes just as dark, absorbing light instead of reflecting it. Her skin was pale, spattered all over with freckles, suggesting she spent a lot of time in the sun but her complexion didn’t approve.
Though she didn’t sport a suit, she wore all black too, her long-sleeved top molded to her lean frame. She didn’t speak and barely even blinked. He’d seen the tactic before.She was minimizing the attention she drew while assessing her surroundings.
Her eyes swept the room, not with curiosity but with calculation. Her gaze darted from SEAL to SEAL as if she studied their weaknesses in order to stay alive. When her gaze slid to him, he felt her entire focus drill into him.
Their stares locked. She didn’t blink, flinch or give him the satisfaction of looking away.
He didn’t either. He was trained never to give in.
Apparently, so was she.
In his peripheral vision, one of the agents set a file on the table. A very thin file.
Judging by the way the agents and Con spoke, the file was hers.
“When you two are finished with your stare-off, we can get down to business.” Con’s voice cut through the tension, and Sinner jerked his gaze away at the exact moment she twitched hers aside too.
The lead agent settled in as if preparing for a long conversation Charlie team didn’t want to have with a person they didn’t take direct orders from.
“We’re here to initiate a joint operation between the FBI and your unit.”
Con’s expression hardened. “We don’t do joint operations. Ghost ops is the opposite of federal procedure. We don’t answer to the Bureau.”
One corner of the woman’s lips lifted in a brief smirk that would have faded too quick for Sinner to catch if he wasn’t watching her.
The agent’s eyes flicked from her to the file, bringing all the pieces into sharp focus.
She was the joint operation he spoke of.
“This comes from brass above both of us,” the agent continued.
Sinner studied the woman’s posture. She didn’t fidget. Her expression gave away nothing. She just…waited. Like a shadow that shouldn’t exist in a room with no light source.
The second agent began outlining the mission. “We’ve picked up chatter about Cipher.”
That name got heads turning. Cipher—the terrorist the Blackout team and every military and intelligence asset in the country had been hunting.
“Cipher is escalating again. Several government officials have received threats.”
