Psychological a novel, p.5
PSYCHOlogical: A Novel, page 5
I glared.
“In the grand scheme of things, how does Shephard’s absence change things?” she asked. “I realize you were close to him, but I don’t see how his reassignment changes things for you. Help me understand why you’re so frustrated.”
I needed to know what changes came about to warrant his reassignment. Convincing her to reveal that information wasn’t going to be easy.
“I have an assignment in a few days that will require me to take two men with me. Shephard was one of those men assigned to that mission. Shephard’s saved my ass more than once. Of the four men that are left, none have his combat experience, his courage, or his uncanny ability to identify and eliminate a threat.” I stood and turned toward the door. “I’m not happy about this. Not at all.”
“Don’t do this to me,” she said.
“Do what to you?” I faced her and glared. “You did this to yourself.”
“You have a job to do, and I have a job to do,” she said. “My job is to prepare accurate reports on the mental health of the men in the program, and then provide the reports to Wallace for review. What happens from there is out of my control.”
I took a step toward the door.
“Briggs…”
I took another.
“Briggs, please.”
I took two more.
“Mister Briggs!”
Door handle in hand, I paused. “What?”
“Sit down, please.”
“I’d rather—”
“Sit down!” She let out a sigh. “We’re off the record.”
“Pfft.” I chuckled. “Does that even mean anything?”
“To me, it does,” she replied. “I guess it gets down to whether you can be trusted to keep your mouth shut. I’m of the opinion you can be trusted. I guess time will tell.”
I wasn’t thrilled about her implications regarding my trustworthiness. I forced an exaggerated sigh. “I’m listening.”
“What information did Shephard share with you about his assignment in Philadelphia?”
I shrugged. “Nothing.”
“Not one thing?”
“Correct. Nothing.”
“He was assigned to eliminate the threat away from his home, because of the consistent presence of the target’s wife. Contrary to orders, Shephard chose to do it at the target’s residence. In doing so, he also eliminated the target’s wife, and the neighbor, another woman.”
In the fog of war, things happen. If anyone knew it, I did. Rarely did an assignment go exactly as planned.
“What’s your point?” I asked.
“Are you aware of his assignment in Henderson, Nevada in the spring?”
“I guess not.”
“The target had the VX nerve agent in his possession. Intelligence indicted he intended to use it in a Las Vegas casino, through the air conditioning system. The outcome would have been catastrophic. Shephard was to use the nerve agent on the target in a warehouse where the chemical was being kept. It would look like an accident, and keep the chemical confined to a remote location.” She lowered her head and let out a sigh. When she looked up, she was visibly shaken. “Instead, he used a knife. A folding knife he carried on his person. According to the filed report, Shephard’s weapon malfunctioned, and the knife was his last resort. He killed the target, his wife, and two children, both of which were in high school. Each victim had antemortem ligature marks on their wrists and ankles. The autopsy revealed they didn’t die from damage to their internal organs.”
She looked like she was going to vomit. She swallowed heavily and looked away before meeting my gaze of disbelief.
“They bled to death,” she said. “Seated in a circle on the master bedroom floor, they died a slow, mentally excruciating death while watching their loved ones do the same. Shephard is a sociopath. He is also a sadist. He derives pleasure out of seeing people suffer. I’m sorry, but many of his recent actions while on assignment put this program, and the men and women in it, in danger.”
Shocked beyond belief at what she revealed, I stared blankly out the window. In hindsight, I knew Shephard was slipping into a dark place, but attributed it to combat-related stress. Had I known the true extent of his problems, I would have looked at matters differently.
“I have several more stories if you’d like to hear them,” she said. “His sociopathic tendencies have worsened in the last twelve months.”
The damage was done. Shephard dug his own grave. I shook my head. “I’ve heard enough.”
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“So am I.” Shephard knew how to kill with a knife. He’d been trained to do so. Allowing anyone to bleed to death was not only cruel, it put the program and the men in it at risk of exposure. The thought of him watching a family bleed out sent a chill the length of my spine. I shifted my gaze to meet hers. “I had no idea.”
“I’m not surprised that he kept those things to himself,” she said. “As disturbed as he is, he’s aware of what society deems as right and wrong. He didn’t want you to shut him out. He was protecting you.”
I exhaled a deep breath of regret. “What causes someone to do such…”
“There are brain-based causes for sociopathy, but we’re not sure where they’re derived from. He’s also a psychopath. And, he’s a sadist. It’s not his fault. Emotion is something he knows nothing about. Remorse, empathy, and shame are things he doesn’t feel. It makes the acts he commits different, in his eyes. For him to kill is no different than opening a door or eating a sandwich.”
I lowered my head. Despite it being a necessary step in the program’s progress, Shephard’s reassignment wasn’t an easy thing for me to digest. We’d been together since his inception in the Marine Corps.
“I know you care about him,” she said. “It’s caring that makes this so hard to accept.”
I gazed out the window. The sight of Wallace’s car reminded me of what an absent-minded idiot he was. As I felt my blood pressure begin to rise, I faced Doc Rhoades. “I appreciate it, Doc.”
“When is your next assignment?” she asked.
“Headed out Friday morning. It’s in Arizona. Should be back Sunday, if all goes well.”
“Will you do something for me?” she asked.
“Possibly.”
“Will you call me when it’s over?”
“Will you be here?”
“No, but you can reach me on my cell phone,” she said. “I’d appreciate it if you called me when the mission is complete. I’d like to know you’re safe.”
Emotion washed over me. It was Doc Rhoades’ responsibility to keep my mind cleared of all combat-related clutter.
My safety wasn’t her worry.
I grew up the son of a prostitute. I came and went as I pleased without ever being questioned about my whereabouts. My mother cared very little—if at all—about my welfare. Earning enough money to support her drug addictions was her only concern.
My childhood was spent longing for her affection. Filled with the belief that the only thing she would ever love was drugs, I grew up frustrated and angry that she couldn’t find a morsel of value in having a child. Her addictions eventually took her life—and my chance of salvaging a relationship with her.
Doc Rhoades’ simple gesture of concern gave me hope for what the future might hold. Before any progress could be made between us, there were many changes that would have to take place. They were changes, however, that I believed I was now willing to make.
I smiled. “Okay.”
Chapter Eight
Doctor Rhoades
Three sides of Quantico, Virginia are surrounded by one of the largest U.S. Marine Corps bases in existence. The base houses the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, United States Army Criminal Investigation Command, Air Force Office of Special Investigations, US Marines Officer Candidate School, United States Drug Enforcement Administration's training academy, FBI’s training academy, the FBI Laboratory, and the FBI headquarters.
Despite the amount of people on the base, the town of Quantico was home to less than 500 people. I chose to live ten minutes away, in the town of Triangle, Virginia, which had a population of roughly ten thousand.
One of those occupants was my best friend and neighbor, Jordan. She worked off-base and was the first girl I met after moving to the Washington, D.C. area. She knew nothing of what I really did for a living and could care less about what happened on the military base.
Our relationship wasn’t filled with questions I couldn’t answer. As far as she was concerned, I had an on-base job doing something I couldn’t discuss with anyone else, and she respected that. Her husband, Jack, on the other hand, didn’t. He asked questions if for no other reason than to antagonize me. It was something he seemed to enjoy.
The three of us sat in their living room, watching the movie Jack Reacher and drinking away our frustrations from the work week.
“How many FBI agent’s minds did you un-fuck today?” Jack asked.
“I’ve told you over and over, I don’t work with the FBI.”
He took a drink of beer, tilted his head back, and belched. “Who do you work with, again?”
“It’s classified.”
“When you have a classified job, is it okay to lie to people and tell them you do something that you don’t do, like, I don’t know, say, ‘I’m a whale watcher. I count whales and track them with sonar fin tags on my hand-held GPS device as they travel throughout the Atlantic Ocean?’ Or, are you supposed to just say, ‘it’s classified,’ and say nothing else?”
“I prefer the it’s classified and say nothing else option,” I said. “But that doesn’t satisfy one hundred percent of the people one hundred percent of the time.”
He stroked his unruly beard. “Me being one of those people?”
I offered a complacent smile. “Exactly.”
He stretched his massive arms into the air and yawned. He wasn’t what I would describe as muscular, but most who met him gawked at his size. He was naturally big from head to toe, and tall enough he had to duck beneath low-hanging light fixtures. Jordan was the opposite. She was blond, short, petite, and quiet.
They had been together since high school, attended college together, and married immediately following graduation.
Jack’s degree was in interior architecture. He worked from home as a freelance architect, redesigning the interior of century-old homes to be more user friendly.
Jordan had a degree in law, but never took the bar exam. Instead, she worked from home as a graphics designer, receiving most of her work from internet sites like Fiverr. Jack liked it that way, because she was always available when he felt the sudden urge to have sex. According to Jordan, it happened every time he was stumped with design ideas, which was quite often.
According to him, she was his inspiration.
Jordan loved Jack with all her heart, but she’d learned to dismiss most of what he said as being nothing more than gibberish and nonsense. Nearly immune to his incessant jabbering, she tuned him out while he constantly pestered me.
I envied her, her relationship, and her friendship with Jack. I wanted a similar relationship but knew having it would require me to make career changes I wasn’t prepared to make. At least not yet.
“I don’t think you can say you’re doing what’s in the public’s best interest if the facts need to be guarded,” Jack stated. “If an agency’s actions need to be kept secret, more than likely it’s controversial. If it’s controversial, it may be in someone’s best interest, but it’s not in everyone’s best interest. I’ll never be satisfied with secrets.”
“Leave her alone, Jack,” Jordan deadpanned.
He shifted his eyes from me to Jordan. “I don’t know how many times we’ve talked about this. Secrets kill a relationship. Agreed?”
“You never stop talking,” she said, rolling her eyes jokingly. “We’ve talked about everything. I can’t remember everything—”
“Secrets!” he barked. “In a relationship. They kill it. Right?”
“Yes. But Val’s not talking about a relation—”
“I have a relationship with our government,” he argued. “Them keeping secrets from me causes me to lose trust in them, no differently than if they were a woman keeping secrets from me in a conventional relationship.”
“I’d agree with that,” I said.
He looked at me. “Then why do you keep secrets from me?”
“I have to,” I said. “I’d be fired if I told you anything. Maybe prosecuted, I don’t know.”
“Only if I told someone. If you tell me, and I keep the secret…” He shrugged. “Nobody’d know.”
I sipped my wine. “Nice try.”
With persistence, Jack pressed me for information regarding my employer. He was one of those people who didn’t trust the government, always felt like someone was watching him, and took exception to the government’s desire to keep anything secret.
Despite his three years of prying, I had yet to tell him anything about New Dawn, what I did for a living, or who I worked with.
Jack gestured toward the TV with the remote and paused the movie. The scene, which we’d watched no less than half a dozen times, was when the main character, Jack Reacher, singlehandedly beat five men who had been harassing him in a bar. Prior to administering the ass-kicking, he warns the antagonistic leader of the group, “just remember, you asked for this.”
People like Jack Reacher’s character fascinated me. The bad-ass persona, exaggerated swagger, and confidence that Reacher had—when combined with his cloak and dagger missions—was enough for him to suck me into his fictional life for two hours and wish that was where I resided full-time.
“Do you think there’s really anyone that is capable of shit like this?” he asked.
“I think so,” I responded.
He glanced over his shoulder. “Based on what?”
“Based on my belief of the military’s abilities.”
He arched an eyebrow. “So, you work closely with the military?”
I forced a sigh. “No, but I’m aware of their presence, their training, and their abilities. At least I think I am.”
In my mind, the men in New Dawn’s program were just as able as the movie character. They were Jack Reacher and Jason Bourne, all wrapped up into one. I doubted that was actually the case, but I liked thinking it was.
“You ought to start dating one of those guys,” Jack said.
“One of what guys?”
“One of the guys that can win in a five-on-one fight.”
“If such a man existed, why would I want to date him?”
He took a drink of his beer, looked at Jordan, and then at me. “Several reasons.”
“Like?”
“It’d be cool, for one. Two, if you ever got in a situation where someone needed their ass kicked, he could do it with a nail file and a set of car keys. And, three, you’re single as fuck.”
“Jack!” Jordan hissed. “Leave her alone.”
He shifted his attention from me to Jordan. “We’ve known her for, what? Three years? She comes over here every weekend and drinks wine by herself. She’s cute. She’s intelligent. As far as I know, she’s heterosexual. Wait…” He looked at me. “Sometimes, you have one of your nights, and you stay until two in the morning, and then stumble home.” He stroked his beard while arching an eyebrow. “You’re not hot on my wife, are you?”
I, like Vincent, couldn’t be in a healthy relationship. Having a man in my life on a permanent basis wasn’t going to happen until the program was disbanded, and I didn’t see that happening for a long, long time.
“Yes,” I said. “I’m a lesbian. I want your wife.”
“I knew it,” he said. “The attractive single girls are always lesbian.”
“According to who?” Jordan quipped.
Jack turned to face the TV. “Statistics.”
“Whose statistics?” she asked.
“Mine.”
“Give me an example.”
“Ellen.”
“Ellen’s in a relationship, and the world knows it,” she argued.
“I’m just saying. One of these days, Val’s going to come out of the closet. Now, be quiet. I want to watch Tom Cruise kick these five guys’ asses.”
I looked at Jordan and rolled my eyes.
Jack started the movie. In a minute and a half, Tom Cruise whipped all five of the drunken idiots that challenged him. The police promptly showed up and arrested him. Jack paused the movie and set the remote aside.
He rose from his position on the couch with a groan and turned toward the bathroom. “Duty calls. I’ll be right back.”
My thoughts drifted to Vincent’s mission. I wondered if one day an overzealous police officer might shoot him, or if one of his targets might get the upper hand. Vincent’s nervous nature about his weekend assignment had me troubled.
Jordan finished her wine and stood. After a moment, her looming presence caused me to look up.
A concerned look washed over her. “What’s wrong?”
I gulped wine and stood. “Nothing.”
“Something’s bothering you,” she argued.
She was right. Nevertheless, explaining that I was concerned with the welfare of one of my clients—who just so happened to be a government hit man—was impossible. Even if I could talk about it she wouldn’t understand, nor would I expect her to.
I sighed. “Just work.”
“Can you talk about it?”
“Not really.”
The concern in Vincent’s eyes when he realized Shephard wasn’t going to be able to assist him on the assignment was etched in my mind. If he was worried about it, I knew I should be, too.
The thought of something happening to him made me feel ill.
I swiped my thumb across my phone’s screen. No missed calls. No text messages. I pushed my phone into the pocket of my jeans. The next eight hours were going to be excruciating.
“Grab another bottle of wine,” I said. “I think this is going to be one of those nights.”
Chapter Nine
Staff Sergeant Briggs
“In the grand scheme of things, how does Shephard’s absence change things?” she asked. “I realize you were close to him, but I don’t see how his reassignment changes things for you. Help me understand why you’re so frustrated.”
I needed to know what changes came about to warrant his reassignment. Convincing her to reveal that information wasn’t going to be easy.
“I have an assignment in a few days that will require me to take two men with me. Shephard was one of those men assigned to that mission. Shephard’s saved my ass more than once. Of the four men that are left, none have his combat experience, his courage, or his uncanny ability to identify and eliminate a threat.” I stood and turned toward the door. “I’m not happy about this. Not at all.”
“Don’t do this to me,” she said.
“Do what to you?” I faced her and glared. “You did this to yourself.”
“You have a job to do, and I have a job to do,” she said. “My job is to prepare accurate reports on the mental health of the men in the program, and then provide the reports to Wallace for review. What happens from there is out of my control.”
I took a step toward the door.
“Briggs…”
I took another.
“Briggs, please.”
I took two more.
“Mister Briggs!”
Door handle in hand, I paused. “What?”
“Sit down, please.”
“I’d rather—”
“Sit down!” She let out a sigh. “We’re off the record.”
“Pfft.” I chuckled. “Does that even mean anything?”
“To me, it does,” she replied. “I guess it gets down to whether you can be trusted to keep your mouth shut. I’m of the opinion you can be trusted. I guess time will tell.”
I wasn’t thrilled about her implications regarding my trustworthiness. I forced an exaggerated sigh. “I’m listening.”
“What information did Shephard share with you about his assignment in Philadelphia?”
I shrugged. “Nothing.”
“Not one thing?”
“Correct. Nothing.”
“He was assigned to eliminate the threat away from his home, because of the consistent presence of the target’s wife. Contrary to orders, Shephard chose to do it at the target’s residence. In doing so, he also eliminated the target’s wife, and the neighbor, another woman.”
In the fog of war, things happen. If anyone knew it, I did. Rarely did an assignment go exactly as planned.
“What’s your point?” I asked.
“Are you aware of his assignment in Henderson, Nevada in the spring?”
“I guess not.”
“The target had the VX nerve agent in his possession. Intelligence indicted he intended to use it in a Las Vegas casino, through the air conditioning system. The outcome would have been catastrophic. Shephard was to use the nerve agent on the target in a warehouse where the chemical was being kept. It would look like an accident, and keep the chemical confined to a remote location.” She lowered her head and let out a sigh. When she looked up, she was visibly shaken. “Instead, he used a knife. A folding knife he carried on his person. According to the filed report, Shephard’s weapon malfunctioned, and the knife was his last resort. He killed the target, his wife, and two children, both of which were in high school. Each victim had antemortem ligature marks on their wrists and ankles. The autopsy revealed they didn’t die from damage to their internal organs.”
She looked like she was going to vomit. She swallowed heavily and looked away before meeting my gaze of disbelief.
“They bled to death,” she said. “Seated in a circle on the master bedroom floor, they died a slow, mentally excruciating death while watching their loved ones do the same. Shephard is a sociopath. He is also a sadist. He derives pleasure out of seeing people suffer. I’m sorry, but many of his recent actions while on assignment put this program, and the men and women in it, in danger.”
Shocked beyond belief at what she revealed, I stared blankly out the window. In hindsight, I knew Shephard was slipping into a dark place, but attributed it to combat-related stress. Had I known the true extent of his problems, I would have looked at matters differently.
“I have several more stories if you’d like to hear them,” she said. “His sociopathic tendencies have worsened in the last twelve months.”
The damage was done. Shephard dug his own grave. I shook my head. “I’ve heard enough.”
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“So am I.” Shephard knew how to kill with a knife. He’d been trained to do so. Allowing anyone to bleed to death was not only cruel, it put the program and the men in it at risk of exposure. The thought of him watching a family bleed out sent a chill the length of my spine. I shifted my gaze to meet hers. “I had no idea.”
“I’m not surprised that he kept those things to himself,” she said. “As disturbed as he is, he’s aware of what society deems as right and wrong. He didn’t want you to shut him out. He was protecting you.”
I exhaled a deep breath of regret. “What causes someone to do such…”
“There are brain-based causes for sociopathy, but we’re not sure where they’re derived from. He’s also a psychopath. And, he’s a sadist. It’s not his fault. Emotion is something he knows nothing about. Remorse, empathy, and shame are things he doesn’t feel. It makes the acts he commits different, in his eyes. For him to kill is no different than opening a door or eating a sandwich.”
I lowered my head. Despite it being a necessary step in the program’s progress, Shephard’s reassignment wasn’t an easy thing for me to digest. We’d been together since his inception in the Marine Corps.
“I know you care about him,” she said. “It’s caring that makes this so hard to accept.”
I gazed out the window. The sight of Wallace’s car reminded me of what an absent-minded idiot he was. As I felt my blood pressure begin to rise, I faced Doc Rhoades. “I appreciate it, Doc.”
“When is your next assignment?” she asked.
“Headed out Friday morning. It’s in Arizona. Should be back Sunday, if all goes well.”
“Will you do something for me?” she asked.
“Possibly.”
“Will you call me when it’s over?”
“Will you be here?”
“No, but you can reach me on my cell phone,” she said. “I’d appreciate it if you called me when the mission is complete. I’d like to know you’re safe.”
Emotion washed over me. It was Doc Rhoades’ responsibility to keep my mind cleared of all combat-related clutter.
My safety wasn’t her worry.
I grew up the son of a prostitute. I came and went as I pleased without ever being questioned about my whereabouts. My mother cared very little—if at all—about my welfare. Earning enough money to support her drug addictions was her only concern.
My childhood was spent longing for her affection. Filled with the belief that the only thing she would ever love was drugs, I grew up frustrated and angry that she couldn’t find a morsel of value in having a child. Her addictions eventually took her life—and my chance of salvaging a relationship with her.
Doc Rhoades’ simple gesture of concern gave me hope for what the future might hold. Before any progress could be made between us, there were many changes that would have to take place. They were changes, however, that I believed I was now willing to make.
I smiled. “Okay.”
Chapter Eight
Doctor Rhoades
Three sides of Quantico, Virginia are surrounded by one of the largest U.S. Marine Corps bases in existence. The base houses the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, United States Army Criminal Investigation Command, Air Force Office of Special Investigations, US Marines Officer Candidate School, United States Drug Enforcement Administration's training academy, FBI’s training academy, the FBI Laboratory, and the FBI headquarters.
Despite the amount of people on the base, the town of Quantico was home to less than 500 people. I chose to live ten minutes away, in the town of Triangle, Virginia, which had a population of roughly ten thousand.
One of those occupants was my best friend and neighbor, Jordan. She worked off-base and was the first girl I met after moving to the Washington, D.C. area. She knew nothing of what I really did for a living and could care less about what happened on the military base.
Our relationship wasn’t filled with questions I couldn’t answer. As far as she was concerned, I had an on-base job doing something I couldn’t discuss with anyone else, and she respected that. Her husband, Jack, on the other hand, didn’t. He asked questions if for no other reason than to antagonize me. It was something he seemed to enjoy.
The three of us sat in their living room, watching the movie Jack Reacher and drinking away our frustrations from the work week.
“How many FBI agent’s minds did you un-fuck today?” Jack asked.
“I’ve told you over and over, I don’t work with the FBI.”
He took a drink of beer, tilted his head back, and belched. “Who do you work with, again?”
“It’s classified.”
“When you have a classified job, is it okay to lie to people and tell them you do something that you don’t do, like, I don’t know, say, ‘I’m a whale watcher. I count whales and track them with sonar fin tags on my hand-held GPS device as they travel throughout the Atlantic Ocean?’ Or, are you supposed to just say, ‘it’s classified,’ and say nothing else?”
“I prefer the it’s classified and say nothing else option,” I said. “But that doesn’t satisfy one hundred percent of the people one hundred percent of the time.”
He stroked his unruly beard. “Me being one of those people?”
I offered a complacent smile. “Exactly.”
He stretched his massive arms into the air and yawned. He wasn’t what I would describe as muscular, but most who met him gawked at his size. He was naturally big from head to toe, and tall enough he had to duck beneath low-hanging light fixtures. Jordan was the opposite. She was blond, short, petite, and quiet.
They had been together since high school, attended college together, and married immediately following graduation.
Jack’s degree was in interior architecture. He worked from home as a freelance architect, redesigning the interior of century-old homes to be more user friendly.
Jordan had a degree in law, but never took the bar exam. Instead, she worked from home as a graphics designer, receiving most of her work from internet sites like Fiverr. Jack liked it that way, because she was always available when he felt the sudden urge to have sex. According to Jordan, it happened every time he was stumped with design ideas, which was quite often.
According to him, she was his inspiration.
Jordan loved Jack with all her heart, but she’d learned to dismiss most of what he said as being nothing more than gibberish and nonsense. Nearly immune to his incessant jabbering, she tuned him out while he constantly pestered me.
I envied her, her relationship, and her friendship with Jack. I wanted a similar relationship but knew having it would require me to make career changes I wasn’t prepared to make. At least not yet.
“I don’t think you can say you’re doing what’s in the public’s best interest if the facts need to be guarded,” Jack stated. “If an agency’s actions need to be kept secret, more than likely it’s controversial. If it’s controversial, it may be in someone’s best interest, but it’s not in everyone’s best interest. I’ll never be satisfied with secrets.”
“Leave her alone, Jack,” Jordan deadpanned.
He shifted his eyes from me to Jordan. “I don’t know how many times we’ve talked about this. Secrets kill a relationship. Agreed?”
“You never stop talking,” she said, rolling her eyes jokingly. “We’ve talked about everything. I can’t remember everything—”
“Secrets!” he barked. “In a relationship. They kill it. Right?”
“Yes. But Val’s not talking about a relation—”
“I have a relationship with our government,” he argued. “Them keeping secrets from me causes me to lose trust in them, no differently than if they were a woman keeping secrets from me in a conventional relationship.”
“I’d agree with that,” I said.
He looked at me. “Then why do you keep secrets from me?”
“I have to,” I said. “I’d be fired if I told you anything. Maybe prosecuted, I don’t know.”
“Only if I told someone. If you tell me, and I keep the secret…” He shrugged. “Nobody’d know.”
I sipped my wine. “Nice try.”
With persistence, Jack pressed me for information regarding my employer. He was one of those people who didn’t trust the government, always felt like someone was watching him, and took exception to the government’s desire to keep anything secret.
Despite his three years of prying, I had yet to tell him anything about New Dawn, what I did for a living, or who I worked with.
Jack gestured toward the TV with the remote and paused the movie. The scene, which we’d watched no less than half a dozen times, was when the main character, Jack Reacher, singlehandedly beat five men who had been harassing him in a bar. Prior to administering the ass-kicking, he warns the antagonistic leader of the group, “just remember, you asked for this.”
People like Jack Reacher’s character fascinated me. The bad-ass persona, exaggerated swagger, and confidence that Reacher had—when combined with his cloak and dagger missions—was enough for him to suck me into his fictional life for two hours and wish that was where I resided full-time.
“Do you think there’s really anyone that is capable of shit like this?” he asked.
“I think so,” I responded.
He glanced over his shoulder. “Based on what?”
“Based on my belief of the military’s abilities.”
He arched an eyebrow. “So, you work closely with the military?”
I forced a sigh. “No, but I’m aware of their presence, their training, and their abilities. At least I think I am.”
In my mind, the men in New Dawn’s program were just as able as the movie character. They were Jack Reacher and Jason Bourne, all wrapped up into one. I doubted that was actually the case, but I liked thinking it was.
“You ought to start dating one of those guys,” Jack said.
“One of what guys?”
“One of the guys that can win in a five-on-one fight.”
“If such a man existed, why would I want to date him?”
He took a drink of his beer, looked at Jordan, and then at me. “Several reasons.”
“Like?”
“It’d be cool, for one. Two, if you ever got in a situation where someone needed their ass kicked, he could do it with a nail file and a set of car keys. And, three, you’re single as fuck.”
“Jack!” Jordan hissed. “Leave her alone.”
He shifted his attention from me to Jordan. “We’ve known her for, what? Three years? She comes over here every weekend and drinks wine by herself. She’s cute. She’s intelligent. As far as I know, she’s heterosexual. Wait…” He looked at me. “Sometimes, you have one of your nights, and you stay until two in the morning, and then stumble home.” He stroked his beard while arching an eyebrow. “You’re not hot on my wife, are you?”
I, like Vincent, couldn’t be in a healthy relationship. Having a man in my life on a permanent basis wasn’t going to happen until the program was disbanded, and I didn’t see that happening for a long, long time.
“Yes,” I said. “I’m a lesbian. I want your wife.”
“I knew it,” he said. “The attractive single girls are always lesbian.”
“According to who?” Jordan quipped.
Jack turned to face the TV. “Statistics.”
“Whose statistics?” she asked.
“Mine.”
“Give me an example.”
“Ellen.”
“Ellen’s in a relationship, and the world knows it,” she argued.
“I’m just saying. One of these days, Val’s going to come out of the closet. Now, be quiet. I want to watch Tom Cruise kick these five guys’ asses.”
I looked at Jordan and rolled my eyes.
Jack started the movie. In a minute and a half, Tom Cruise whipped all five of the drunken idiots that challenged him. The police promptly showed up and arrested him. Jack paused the movie and set the remote aside.
He rose from his position on the couch with a groan and turned toward the bathroom. “Duty calls. I’ll be right back.”
My thoughts drifted to Vincent’s mission. I wondered if one day an overzealous police officer might shoot him, or if one of his targets might get the upper hand. Vincent’s nervous nature about his weekend assignment had me troubled.
Jordan finished her wine and stood. After a moment, her looming presence caused me to look up.
A concerned look washed over her. “What’s wrong?”
I gulped wine and stood. “Nothing.”
“Something’s bothering you,” she argued.
She was right. Nevertheless, explaining that I was concerned with the welfare of one of my clients—who just so happened to be a government hit man—was impossible. Even if I could talk about it she wouldn’t understand, nor would I expect her to.
I sighed. “Just work.”
“Can you talk about it?”
“Not really.”
The concern in Vincent’s eyes when he realized Shephard wasn’t going to be able to assist him on the assignment was etched in my mind. If he was worried about it, I knew I should be, too.
The thought of something happening to him made me feel ill.
I swiped my thumb across my phone’s screen. No missed calls. No text messages. I pushed my phone into the pocket of my jeans. The next eight hours were going to be excruciating.
“Grab another bottle of wine,” I said. “I think this is going to be one of those nights.”
Chapter Nine
Staff Sergeant Briggs
