“Appreciate you doing this,” McGuire said.
“Not a problem. It’s what I’m here for,” Darius replied. “Though I went down some interesting rabbit holes the second I started digging.”
Fenmore gave a short nod. “We don’t know all the details, but I’ll tell you now—whatever this is, it’s bad.”
Savvy offered a polite nod. “We haven’t met. I’m Savvy and the reason we’re all here.”
“I’ve heard a few stories about you,” Darius said. “You saved a couple of friends a few years back. It’s nice to meet you. Let’s get into it.” He shared his screen. Documents. Redacted logs. A few grainy surveillance stills. “Official CIA line is that your team isn’t dead. You’re all listed as MIA—missing in action.”
“That doesn’t make sense.” Savvy stiffened. “That’s not what happened. I saw and heard my men die. Patch watched the enemy—six of them—try to take me out. It was utter chaos.”
“Regardless, that’s not what the CIA is putting out there and it’s not the first time we’ve seen that,” Darius said. "Riven helped us get official confirmation of that."
Savvy rubbed the back of her neck. “But when the government lies—and trust me, I’m often the one coming up with those lies—it’s to help ease pain and suffering, or because the government fucked up. What I don’t get, because this was my plan, where is the fuckup?”
Patch tilted his head, giving her an odd look, as if he couldn’t believe the words that had just come out of her mouth. “They’re making you the screwup.”
“I get that, but in order to do that, they need bodies. Having an entire team go MIA, that just doesn’t make sense.”
“It does if someone’s rewriting the script,” Fenmore said. “I watched people do that with my husband’s team. And that kind of move only makes sense if someone’s still looking and that person, or people, want to send a clear message. My best guess is they want it to appear you’re in charge of a rogue team. Not to the public, but to the inside.” Fenmore leaned forward. “They have boots looking in one place for a group, but the rest are looking for you. And if they’re looking, it’s not to rescue. It’s to clean up.”
The room fell quiet. Not because they hadn’t thought of that, but because Fenmore just made it a little more real than anyone had wanted.
“It gets worse,” Darius continued. “Jenkins? He’s back in the States. No press release, no official documentation, but I traced a classified clearance log showing he came through Andrews this morning. And guess who’s debriefing him?”
McGuire didn’t blink. “Deputy Director Vance.”
Darius nodded.
“What about West?” Savvy asked. “He’s my direct boss. Only he and Vance knew of this op. Well, them and the team I assembled.”
“No mention of West. And from what I can see, West has been sidelined. Either voluntarily or otherwise,” Darius said. “I don’t mean to be an asshole, but you’re sure your entire team was killed?”
Savvy leaned forward, pressing her palms against her cheeks. She closed her eyes and let that scene play out in her head. “I heard it on comms, but I didn’t go looking for bodies. I should’ve. But the second I poked my head out from the brush, I was fired at. I had to duck and weave to get to the extraction point, and even then, I was nearly killed.” She blinked, thankful her training and years of experience in not letting her emotions get the better of her had kept the tears at bay. “No man left behind is usually the motto, but?—”
“There wasn’t time,” Patch offered. “And Booker and I circled over that area as we headed to the evac location. We didn’t see any bodies. No carnage. All we saw was the fire. And we looked. I’m a medic, so I always believe someone could be hanging on by a thread.”
“How well did you know your team?” Darius asked. “There’s no judgment in that question. I’ve been burned by my own brothers. It stings. It sucks. But it happens.”
She leaned back. She resented the question, but not the man asking it. Someone, or a group of people, burned her and the op. Actually, she wasn’t even sure that was entirely true, based on the intel she’d been gathering about a quiet group of shadow warriors who’d been working off the books, or going rogue, not following orders. But the only one she’d been able to put a name to anything had been Jenkins.
That information had been hard to come by, and what bothered her was that she’d stumbled onto Jenkins’ name through an encrypted message—one that she wasn’t supposed to see—but it came flying across her computer screen. Thinking about it now, it felt like a setup. But considering what she’d just gone through, everything came into question.
She ran what was known as Division 73. That was if anyone dared to say the name out loud, but no one did. The 73 did the missions that no one else could. The majority of their missions were technically unsanctioned, even though they took their orders from the highest men and women in the land. Thing was, if the mission went sideways, it wasn’t going to be the government that took responsibility.
Or even Savvy and her division, because it didn’t exist. It would be the men who and women who took on the op. That was a big ask of those teams and it required trust, secrecy, and above all else… loyalty.
She thought the teams she assembled had that.
Or at least she’d thought they’d been.
“West assigned Ramirez and Mendoza to me. I’ve worked with them before, but not in the field. Just planning and evac stuff. I’ve sent them in and brought them home,” she said in a monotone voice. The same one she’d used when she’d been in briefing rooms. The one that always drove Vance nuts. “Hale and I’ve worked together on numerous ops. He’s been with the…” She sucked in a deep breath and let it out slowly. She glancedaround the room and then back at the computer screen. “What I’m about to say can’t ever be repeated.”
“Division 73,” Darius said, nodding his head.
“How do you know about that?” she asked.
“You’re behind Division 73?” Cross asked. “You were the one giving us the orders?”
