“We didn’t,” she said, shaking her head. “And he didn’t have remote access to it. I checked that with Specs. She hasn’t sent him the after-action report—we’ve been stalling, not wanting to give him access to anything until we know more. Not to mention, he doesn’t know we left San Antonio yet.”
“He knows. He just doesn’t know where you are,” Grady said. “He’s also pissed. But I told him, since he put you on administrative duty and chose not to bring you in, I felt it was best to put you in a safe house.” He arched a brow. “He didn’t like that. Didn’t feel it was necessary. Only I reminded him that we’ve got missing men. Missing AI. And that someone took outLark’s team. Shot at her. Shot at SEALs. I told Lorre, until we knew more, it was best to put you somewhere safe.”
“Interesting,” Pipe said. “What about the security footage?”
“He said it was a security scrape sent anonymously through internal channels.” Grady shook his head.
“Bullshit,” Pipe said. “No one scrapes secure feed without authorization unless they’re doing something they’re not supposed to be doing… or they’ve been watching from the very beginning.”
“Exactly,” Grady said. “And since then, Lorre’s been dodging every question I ask. He keeps citing his pending retirement as an excuse to stay out of field matters—which makes no sense—except that he’s trying to wash his hands of this one.”
Lark narrowed her eyes. “He’s still cleared. Still active. And he benched me.”
“And unfortunately, he had every right to do that,” Grady said. “But the man’s got one foot out the door and still walks around like he’s the ghost of black ops past. But I can’t prove he’s pulling strings without access to his backend clearance logs.”
Thor grunted. “Don’t you have those?”
“This is where bureaucracy becomes a pain in the ass,” Grady admitted. “Lark’s unit, while technically under JSOC command, also operates a clandestine initiative called Ghost Tier. Not highly creative, but it does the trick.”
“We’ve all heard of it,” Kawan said. “Especially since we’ve all worked with Lark before.”
“Yeah, well, when ops like this one go sideways, the government is already backpedaling. Scrubbing documents. Redacting the shit out of everything. Covering their collective asses. That includes making sure a general, even a bottom feeder like me, doesn’t have marks on his record.” Grady arched a brow.
“So, we’re on our own,” Lark said flatly.
“You always were,” Grady said. “That’s how these ops are built. How your team operates. However, I’m not letting anyone scrub you, and I fear that’s where this is headed.”
“I don’t like the way you said that, sir,” Kawan said.
“I meant Ghost Teir, not her personally, though the latter had crossed my mind, which is why I sent in you guys,” Grady admitted quietly. “The AI prototype is missing. We’ve got two operatives who’ve gone dark. Maybe they’ve flipped. Maybe they’re injured somewhere. Maybe they’re protecting the AI. I have no idea. But the government needs two things to happen. The AI to be found, and someone needs to be held responsible. It doesn’t have to be public. But they won’t be taking it sitting down.”
“What about Lorre?” Kawan asked. “Because he’s not looking squeaky clean.”
“And it’s possible that Lorre’s flipped, too.” Grady leaned forward. “But there’s something that only I know that could be in our favor in terms of saving Lark’s career.”
“And what’s that?” Brick asked.
“Bradford.” Grady clasped his fingers together and leaned forward.
“Jonas Bradford?” Kawan clenched his fists. “That fucking idiot? He was a slick son-of-a-bitch back when he was with JSOC. I can’t imagine he’s any better in the private sector.”
“Back when he was with the CIA, he worked ISA (Intelligence Support Activity) and he worked under my command on a dozen JSOC missions,” Grady said. “He was known for being a little rough around the edges.”
“That’s putting it mildly,” Thor muttered. “If you think Kawan here has issues with rules, Bradford has more. I’m all for taking initiative and bending rules, when it makes sense.” He glanced at Kawan. “But I don’t think Bradford has ever looked at the rule book.”
Grady chuckled. “I won’t deny that, but Bradford got the job done.”
“What are you implying?” Pipe asked.
“Yeah. I’d like to know that, too, because Bradford was also at the buy,” Lark said.
“Technically, Bradford never left the CIA. He’s been undercover for three years. Bretton isn’t the reason we were able to set up that buy meeting,” Grady said. “It was Bradford.”
“Jesus.” Lark rolled her shoulders. “That would’ve have been nice to know.”
“Bradford was working on more than just setting up that buy. He was working on learning about that AI system as a whole. He was our eyes and ears inside Senatrix Global. And it’s more than the battlefield AI. It’s wargames . Shit that only Specs and Jupiter would understand.” He met her gaze. “You don’t know how deep this goes. We’re not just talking foreign buyers and stolen code. We’re talking about people on our side—people inside defense contracting, inside procurement, maybe even inside oversight committees—willing to sell tech that hasn’t even been cleared for integration yet. And now Bradford is dark as well. I don’t know if he’s been compromised or if he’s hiding. But I know for damn fucking sure, he hasn’t turned. He’s as good as they come.”
“I, for one, find that hard to believe,” Kawan said.
