“It would’ve went smoother if we’d had some backup,” Tailor said.
Hunter shook his head. “Gordon had the rest of your chalk on a wild goose chase. We sent a dozen men to hit a building, and no one was even home. Complete waste of time, unlike your next job, where I can promise you’ll have a target-rich environment.”
“Roger that, Colonel,” Tailor said.
“Outstanding.” Hunter turned to the medic. “Hal, you’re coming with me. Singer’s chalk is coming back from a mission tonight, and they’ve got some injuries. The doctor could use your help.”
Hal nodded and began to pack up his jump bag. “Valentine, make sure you change that bandage in the morning,” he told me. “I’ll check you out when you get back to the fort.”
“Sarah, do you want to come back to the compound tonight, or do you want to come back tomorrow?” Hunter asked.
“I, uh, need to pack my stuff, Colonel,” Sarah said, seemingly surprised by the question.
“That’s fine,” Hunter said. “You can ride back to the fort in the car that brings Hudson and Wheeler here. Let’s go, Conrad,” he said, addressing his security escort. It was the first time I’d heard him name one of his bodyguards.
After a few moments, Hal finished packing up his bag and shouldered it. With that, Hunter, his security, and the medic left, leaving the three of us alone in the big house. Sarah flopped down on the couch where Gordon had been sitting.
“This isn’t looking as good now,” I said after a long moment.
“At least we’ll have full chalk this time,” Tailor said. “What happened today was bullshit.”
“What are you going to do?” Sarah asked.
“What can we do?” I said. “We’re going to do the mission and hope we don’t get killed.”
“I don’t know about y’all, but I’m going to bed,” Tailor said, standing up. Without another word, he disappeared up the stairs, leaving Sarah and me alone in the dimly lit living room. I stood up and sat down next to her on the couch. The metal folding chair was making my butt hurt, and I was still sore from the crash.
“Where’d you get the tattoo?” she asked, breaking the awkward silence after a few moments. She’d seen it while I’d had my shirt off. “Were you in the military?”
“Air Force.”
“Really? Me, too. What did you do?”
“Security Forces. You?”
“Radio Communications Systems. I cross-trained as a Cryptologic Linguist after four years. Did three years of that after a year at the DLA,” Sarah said, referring to the Defense Language Academy in California.
“So that’s how you speak Arabic,” I said. Sarah nodded. “Hell, I was all proud of myself for learning Spanish. And I only did that after all the time I spent in Central America.”
“In the Air Force?”
“Uh, no. I was in Afghanistan for six months, but I got out after that. I was hired by, um, a contractor, after that.”
“You did construction?”
“No, not that kind of contractor. I worked for Vanguard.”
Everyone had heard of Vanguard. We’d been in the news a lot last year. “You were a mercenary?” she asked incredulously.
“Basically,” I said. “Tailor hooked me up here. How ’bout you?”
“I . . . This is embarrassing, but I ran into some financial problems. I had this boyfriend that . . . well, he was an asshole. Basically, he spent all of my money, ran up my credit cards, stuff like that. He got into drugs. I tried to help him. Before it was over, my credit was ruined. The cops arrested him, found his cocaine in my apartment. I lost my security clearance. My career was over. I got out last year. There’s plenty of work out there for people with my background. Almost none for people who can’t get a clearance, though.”
“So how’d you end up here?”
“I was living in a crappy apartment, working a crappy job, when I was contacted with this offer. How could I refuse? A chance to go do something again, to use the skills I learned.”
“And make a pile of money while you’re at it,” I suggested.
“Obviously,” she said, smiling again. “I don’t know why I’m telling you all this. You’re easy to talk to. So, where’d you get the tattoo?”
“What? Oh. I got it in Nevada.” I turned toward her and rolled up my left sleeve, showing her the tattoo on my shoulder. It was a skull clutching a switchblade knife in its teeth. It had the words “Abandon All Hope” written around it. “It was after we got back from Bosnia. This is the Switchblade logo.”
“Switchblade?” Sarah asked. “Didn’t you just say you worked for Vanguard?”
“Vanguard Strategic Solutions International,” I said. “But the Switchblade teams were the best the company had. We were the lifers. Most guys worked short-term contracts, six months to two years. A few of us stayed full-time. We got better training, better benefits, better equipment, and much better pay.”
“Sounds good,” Sarah said, sounding unconvinced.
“It was dangerous as hell,” I said honestly. “But my team was lucky. We did really well. Then Mexico happened.”
“You were there?” Sarah asked. “During the fighting, I mean?”
“You could say that. Our last mission was an absolute clusterfuck. We lost . . .” I trailed off for a second. “Well, we lost damn near everybody. Our chopper was shot down in Cancun, and the UN came after us.”
“Wait, what? Why?”
I paused for a moment. “It’s . . . complicated.”
It must have been obvious I didn’t want to talk about it. “I’m sorry,” Sarah said. “How are you feeling? You had a pretty rough night tonight.” She lightly placed her hand on my leg.
“I’m . . . fine,” I said, my heart rate suddenly increasing.
“I was worried about you.” She didn’t break eye contact.
“This isn’t the first time I’ve been shot. I got lucky. This will heal up okay. It’ll just be another scar,” I answered, obviously full of shit.
“Whatever you say, Mr. Tough Guy,” she said, that devilish grin appearing on her face again. A moment later, the smile faded. She stared into my eyes for what seemed like a long time, her mouth open slightly. “Hi,” she said, leaning in a little bit closer. The tone in her voice was ever-so-slightly different now. Then she leaned forward and kissed me, hard.
“Sarah, I—”
“Just relax,” she whispered, her mouth inches from mine. “It’ll be fun. I promise.” This had all come out of nowhere. I was so dense about stuff like this and was never much of a ladies’ man. I wasn’t sure what to do. But as Sarah pushed me back onto the couch and climbed on top of me, it became pretty clear what she wanted to do. I wasn’t about to argue.
LORENZO
March 26
Reaper was clicking away madly, his Rob Zombie T-shirt stained with energy drink, head bobbing back and forth rhythmically to whatever was on his iPod as he glared at the gibberish on Falah’s laptop screen.
“He looks kinda like a galinha when he does that,” Carl said from the kitchen table. Then he moved his head back and forth, except Carl had no rhythm to speak of, and no neck, either, so it was more like he moved his face back and forth in a very poor imitation of the scarecrow-like Reaper.
“He does have that chicken vibe going on,” I replied as I moved the ice pack to a different spot on my face. That airbag had really clocked me. As soon as the swelling went down enough, I was going to go shave. The police were already looking to question Khalid about today’s events. Too bad he no longer existed.
“I can still hear you guys,” Reaper said without looking up from his multiple screens. He had been engrossed in those since we had gotten back.