Brodie took out his phone and texted Taylor:I’m at a bar called The Clover near our gate having a German beer as part of my cultural immersion training.He didn’t invite her to join him, though it was implicit, given that he was the senior officer.
The bartender returned with the Radeberger. Brodie drank it and watched the NFL playoff game on the TV above the bar. The guys who had sucked all through the regular season were actually playing a strong game, which was encouraging. Sports, like life, allowed room for redemption.
After a few minutes his phone vibrated in his pocket. He took it out and saw a text from Taylor:Don’t get too immersed. See you in a few.
Brodie flagged the bartender and ordered another beer as he waited for his partner to arrive.
He thought about the last time he’d seen her, as they’d walked to their cars outside of the Quantico CID headquarters following the intense and unpleasant back-to-back meetings with General Hackett and Colonel Dombroski.
They had both been silent, their post-mission adrenaline having given way to exhaustion and then to something approaching despair. It could have been a moment for coming together. Two soldiers back from the field who had risked it all, getting screwed by the rear-echelon higher-ups who had risked nothing. A story as old as armies.
But that’s not how it had felt—because it wasn’t just that their superiorshad failed them. In going along with the cover-up, they had failed themselves and each other, and it was hard to move on with someone who reminds you of what you’re trying to forget. As they had both driven away from headquarters, Brodie had a feeling he would never see her again.
“Scott.”
Brodie turned around to see Maggie Taylor standing in front of him. She was dressed smartly in a blouse, slacks, and a sweater-vest. She had wireless headphones around her neck and a leather satchel slung over her shoulders.
Brodie slid off the barstool, forgetting the cool and clever lines he’d rehearsed.
“Hi.” She said with a smile, “Reporting for duty.”
They stared at each other for an awkward moment.
Brodie said, “You look great.”
“You too.” Then, “I’m sorry I never returned your messages.”
“Don’t be.”
“Dombroski told you why?”
“He got around to it yesterday.”
“That’s cruel.”
“It’s fine.” Brodie gestured toward the barstools, and they both sat. Taylor threw her headphones in her satchel and put the bag by her feet.
For a moment they just looked at each other. And Maggie Taylor did look great. Big brown eyes, shoulder-length flaxen-blond hair, perfect features. But something about her looked different to Brodie. Something in her eyes. Added confidence, maybe. Brodie assumed her last five months had been better than his.
He asked, “How was it being back at Fort Campbell?” Which was their last assignment together before the Mercer case sent them to Venezuela. They’d been at Campbell operating undercover as clerks in the adjutant general’s office while they worked to expose a methamphetamine ring.
“It was all right,” said Taylor. “My partner was great. Steve Lassiter. Know him?”
“I don’t think so.”
“He knows you.”
Well, every CID agent at Fort Campbell knew about Scott Brodie after the meth case, mostly because it culminated in Brodie accidentally shootinga mule in the ass in the back hills of eastern Kentucky. But that was another story.
Taylor added, “Steve’s also a CW2. So we were a junior team. We did some petty larceny. Occasional domestic violence. One case where a PFC blew his buddy’s toe off with his service weapon while they were both too drunk to see straight.”
Brodie nodded. Taylor might have ended up with a better partner than he did, but it sounded like her caseload was the same JV crap as his.
Taylor eyed the beer sitting in front of her. It wasn’t her preferred drink, he knew. She liked wine and knew more about it than fermented grape juice really warranted. She was also a sour mash whiskey drinker, a result of her upbringing in the Appalachian Mountains of eastern Tennessee—not too far, in fact, from where Brodie had plugged the mule.
Wine and whiskey. The two sides of Magnolia Annabelle Taylor, a girl from Appalachia who’d graduated at the top of her class at Georgetown, was fluent in multiple languages, was a decorated combat veteran—and whose family tree was a stump. Well, maybe that last part wasn’t fair.
Brodie asked, “Did you get a chance to see family?”
