As soon as she said it, I knew Kurt was here about Amena. And Jennifer knew that she wouldn’t be able to fight whatever he was going to say, but I sure as shit could. It was sort of my specialty.
I nodded and said, “I’m on the way.”
Kurt Hale and I had a unique relationship. On the one hand, he was my direct superior—the commander of Project Prometheus and the one who gave me my operational orders. On the other, we were almost as close as brothers, with a deep friendship that had lasted for decades. We’d first met when I was assigned to his troop in a special mission unit, and we had both been promoted up the ranks, serving together multiple times. When he’d created Prometheus under a previous presidential administration, he’d recruited only the best of the best for the teams, and I was his original hire, the first person to go through Prometheus Assessment and Selection. Kurt trusted my judgment, going so far as to allow Jennifer to attempt A&S as a female civilian when everyone else said he was crazy, and I trusted him as a commander. But that didn’t mean I wouldn’t fight him on Amena.
Like I said before, that was sort of my specialty. While we were closer than blood on the friendship front, when he wore the commander hat, I was more than willing to tell him he was full of shit—and I was one of the few who could get away with it.
Two minutes later I was pulling in behind a late-model rental car, our little drive now three-deep in vehicles. I exited, looked up, and saw Kurt Hale on my second-floor balcony, leaning on the rail and holding a beer. He said, “Running errands for the partner. How domesticated.”
I smiled, reached in to grab the two small bags I had, and said, “Yeah, well, it pretty much ended in failure. I’ll be right up.”
A minute later I’d given my bags to Jennifer. Kurt was still on the balcony with the door closed. She said, “He’s going to take Amena. That’s why he’s here. He pulled all those strings with the Oversight Council, and now he has to make it good.”
The Oversight Council was the board that oversaw all Project Prometheus activities, which included my team. Nobody ever mentioned the program name out loud, calling everyone associated with it an innocuous nickname: the Taskforce. While GRS was doing pretty well on the commercial front—enough to let us buy this house—it’s primary purpose was as a cover to allow penetration of denied areas for one reason: to drive a stake into the heart of threats that could affect US national interests.
I knew the Council was not happy with my decision to bring Amena to the United States because it had caused too many questions about how she jumped the line, potentially exposing the cover of GRS. How does a barely there company bring home a refugee and pass through customs and immigration without a hitch? The answer was because I had some people on my side, very important people who’d greased the skids. And that was making the Oversight Council nervous, since it would take only one thread to unwind the GRS cover, which would then unwind Project Prometheus and jeopardize the careers of anyone associated with it. Because Project Prometheus was decidedly illegal. An extrajudicial killing machine that was sanctioned at the highest level.
I passed Jennifer the bags and said, “I couldn’t find the damn cheese you wanted.”
Amena came up, pointed at the balcony, and said, “Why is he here? Is it me?”
She was like an animal that could smell a threat, having lived on the edge of survival for much of her short life. I looked at her and saw the pain of losing the first bit of sanctuary she’d ever experienced. And I realized I didn’t want her to leave. For the first time in close to a decade—really since the loss of my family—I was content with my life, and I wanted that feeling to remain.
I brushed her cheek and said, “Don’t worry about it. At least for this trip.”
“Promise?”
I said, “Yes, doodlebug. I promise.”
Jennifer heard me use the nickname that was once my daughter’s and smiled. Amena relaxed. I turned to Jennifer, saying, “Just keep getting ready. I’ll see what’s up.”
I grabbed a couple of beers and exited onto my upper balcony. I shook Kurt’s hand, handed him another beer, and he said, “I hear Kylie is your new nanny.”
I said, “I guess that depends. What’s up with the sudden visit?”
He demurred, saying, “Looks like GRS is making more money than I remembered. This is a pretty nice house.”
Which wasn’t really true. It was an old row house that required enormous maintenance against plumbing leaks, pests, and electrical problems, but it was on the peninsula of Charleston, which was pretty cool.
I said, “So you want to cut my pay? Is that it? Because the Taskforce doesn’t pay me nearly what I’m worth. I get a fortune helping some university do nothing more than excavate a dig. Shit, the last three jobs I did bought this house. I get peanuts from you dodging bullets.”
He laughed and said, “I should have never let you two go find that temple in Guatemala. I’ve never heard the end of it.”
“You never would have had GRS without it. We’re the deepest cover organization you have.”
He turned serious and said, “What’s the status with Brazil?”
I said, “We’ve got the contract locked in with the university for the Jesuit UNESCO site, and it’s a stone’s throw from the triple frontier. Easy for us to work there and penetrate the area.”
The triple frontier—or tri-border region—was the juncture of the borders of Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay, a Wild West area heavy with Hezbollah activity. GRS always had to have a reason for operating, and we’d found one in the Rio Grande do Sul state in southern Brazil, an ancient Jesuit church called São Miguel das Missões that was slowly falling apart. A university, in coordination with the United Nations, wanted to stop the passage of time, and they’d hired us to help facilitate. Which was perfect, because we were going to use it to put some Hezbollah heads on a spike.
Kurt said, “Sounds like it’s tracking.”
“It is. Knuckles and Brett are already down there, prepping the battlefield. They head to Salvador in a couple of days, and Jennifer and I will link up with them there. But you know that. You’re the one who fought to keep them on my team.”
I was unique in the Taskforce in that I was a pure civilian now. Brett was a paramilitary member of the CIA and Knuckles was in the Navy. It had been a fight to allow me—now a civilian—to be the team leader of active-duty guys, but neither Brett nor Knuckles would have it any other way. We were a family that had bled together when I was on active duty, and while others in the government fought the decision on purely bureaucratic grounds, Kurt understood what teamwork meant.
In the end, the Taskforce was a strange beast, and it was just one more permutation from the norm. Kurt Hale had fought for me, and I’d regained my leadership position after I’d left active duty. After I’d crawled out of the abyss.
He just nodded, and I could tell he was thinking about something else.
I said, “Okay, sir, what’s the point of this visit? It isn’t our trip to Brazil, because you see those SITREPs. Just get it out.”
He sighed, then looked at me, saying, “The Council has found a place for Amena. But you’re not going to like it.”
“What’s that mean?”
“They want to repatriate her into the system. Put her into the refugee flow back in Syria.”
He saw my face and said, “Wait, wait, she won’t be put back into danger. She’ll just be placed in a camp outside of Syria, either Jordan or Lebanon, and she’ll get preferential treatment. She’ll be back here in a year, maybe less.”
I looked at him and said, “Are you fucking serious? Is that what you would do?”
He frowned and said, “Pike, there is more at risk here than her. I’m trying to do the best thing for her, but you short-circuited that. Don’t blame me. You’re the one who brought her here on a covert aircraft after a covert mission. It’s hard to explain.”
I leaned back and said, “So she’s not worth the destruction she will cause if anyone makes the connection.”
He nodded and said, “That’s about it. I’m here on behalf of the Oversight Council. They wanted to jerk her ass outright. I told them to hold off.”
I said, “How much time do I have?”
“What? You have no time. This is it.”
“Bullshit. I’m going to Brazil in the next few days. How much time can you get me?”
“What do you mean?”
“Let me get this mission done first. Give me some time to cushion the blow. Don’t take her tomorrow. Sell it as ‘Pike’s gone on a Taskforce mission. Can’t take her now.’ How hard is that?”
He said, “I don’t know if I can do that.”
I said, “Sir, I’m asking. I have never asked before. Give me this. I’ve given you my blood. She’s given you her blood. All I’m asking is for a trip. Fuck those assholes in the Oversight Council.”
He nodded, not looking at me. He said, “Okay, Pike. I’m with you. I’ll delay it, but it’s going to happen. You need to get your head around that.”
I said, “I’ll get my head around it when I need to. She’s not going back to Syria. That’s the end of it. Fuck the Oversight Council.”
He looked at me to see if I was serious, and Jennifer came out on the balcony, saying, “Pike, I have to go back to the store. You didn’t get everything I needed.”
She’d clearly heard what I’d said and was trying to defuse the situation. And it worked. Kurt and I stared at each other for a beat, then he said, “I’ll go. You guys stay here.”
I said, “Sir, you don’t want to try to find what she’s making. It’s impossible.”
He laughed and said, “Not everyone is a Neanderthal. Let me go. You guys need to talk.”
He walked back into the house, and Jennifer looked at me. I shook my head. Amena peered at me behind the door, and I felt crushed. All I’d done was give her hope, and now that was going to be devastated.
Jennifer followed behind him, and I could see her giving him instructions on what to buy, the things that I’d missed. I watched him go down the stairs, and then saw him appear below me. He looked up and said, “I can’t get out.”
I said, “Take my Jeep.”
I tossed the keys down, and he caught them, looked at the Jeep, and said, “This is probably the biggest risk I’ve taken since I was running shotgun with you in Iraq.”
I laughed and said, “And I kept you alive then.”
He crawled into my CJ-7, stuck in the key, turned the ignition, and an explosion erupted, shredding his life in a fireball that turned the Jeep into a shrapnel blast of flying parts.
I was thrown back, feeling the shock wave of the explosion and dully hearing the tinkling of auto parts spackling the roof.
I sat up, staring in shock at the inferno below me, the Jeep burning furiously. It made no sense. I couldn’t get my mind around it. I saw the body in the driver’s seat, slumped over with its hair on fire, an arm dangling outside the door by a piece of tendon still connected to the shoulder, and felt a helplessness. I placed my hands on the railing and began to squeeze, a white-hot rage coursing through my body.
Kurt Hale was my mentor, my protector, and the man I always wanted to emulate. The one man I had always wanted to be. He had been family, and now he was dead. Because of me.
Because I was the target.