The secretary of defense, Rear Admiral Elaine Becker, sat down for a rare quiet dinner at the Boatyard Bar and Grill not far from the United States Naval Academy, her alma mater. It was early for dinner, blue-plate-special hour, and her security detail had effectively shut down the restaurant to all other visitors, save for her predecessor, Admiral Henry McCray, also a Naval Academy graduate. McCray lived in Annapolis, where he was taking a year to write a tell-all memoir about his time at the White House and his work as a contributor to Fox News.
Though he’d been the one to ask for the meeting, he’d arrived late enough for his successor to have a glass of wine and get annoyed. When he finally arrived, he was wearing khaki pants and a T-shirt and entered the restaurant carrying a glass of rosé. After greeting his former bodyguards, he gave the current secretary a kiss on the cheek and slid into the chair across from her. “Elaine, good to see you.”
“Likewise.”
“Sorry I’m late. I was just wrapping up a fly-fishing class.”
“Fly-fishing?”
“Yep. Never had time for a hobby,” he said, fanning the white dinner napkin across his lap. “Figured I’d pick one that was time consuming and photogenic.”
“You like it?”
“Mehhh.” The former two-star admiral shrugged. “I spend a lot of time swearing and getting my flies out of hairy messes. Kinda like being the secretary of defense.” He winked.
“Well, I have a few messes. That’s for sure,” she said.
“From what I’ve read, it sounds like you’ve been cutting the messes out. Heard you shut down some black sites.”
“Cleaning up what you left behind has taken me several months, but that’s the easy part. That’s not what’s keeping me up at night. Our homegrown terrorist is doing that.”
McCray looked into her eyes. “This Encyte—does anyone in any of the agencies have any leads?”
“Classified,” the SecDef said with a flat smile. “If I knew, I couldn’t tell you, but the truth is—no. No one has any clue. I need some suggestions, Henry. I gotta find this guy.”
McCray tapped his fingernail on the table. “Wish I could help you there,” he finally said. “My only advice—be careful what programs you cut. The job of today’s military is like fishing. And you’re not going to catch anything without three things: time on the water, numbers, and luck.”
“Thanks for the tip,” Elaine said dryly. “Nice catching up, but why did you want to meet?”
“Nothing like getting to it,” he said. “So you’ve heard the story of Khrushchev? The two letters he was given by his predecessor which he then gave to his successor?”
“Yes, Khrushchev wrote two letters to his successor that he should open when things got really bad. The first one read, ‘Blame it on me,’ the second one said, ‘Sit down and write a letter.’” Elaine rolled her eyes. “You here to give me that advice?”
“No.” McCray leaned in. “But I’m going to tell you something my predecessor told me, and it’s far more valuable than the Khrushchev trick.”
“What’s that?” Elaine raised her thin eyebrows.
McCray looked over his shoulder, then whispered, “Are you recording this or being recorded?”
Elaine could smell his breath—summer sausage and wine. I never want to retire, she thought. His breath smelled like wasted time.
“No,” she said. “I’m going to need to get going.”
“There’s an elite training program the United States has been secretly developing and covertly funding since 1941. Its existence is only known to the president—though some presidents are not informed—to the secretary of defense, to those who’ve attended the camp, and to a handful of people in the espionage business. But it must be kept secret. If its existence were public, it would be incredibly damaging to the program and to the administration.”
“Is it legal?” Even after a second glass of wine, she’d suddenly straightened up in her chair.
McCray tossed another look over his shoulder. “Not by a long shot.”
“So why are you telling me about it?”
“Because it’s an incredibly powerful tool for you to deploy or destroy. But know that it can also destroy you.” McCray swigged his rosé. “Remember the rumor last year that the Glowworm Gaming Network, which had been blackmailing politicians, was broken up by a group of covert operators?”
“Yes, I remember being debriefed on that.”
“The threat was real and it was dismantled by these warriors I’m talking about.”
“Sounds great,” Elaine said. “So what’s the problem?”
“They’re kids. Teenagers. Some younger.” He leaned back and shot her a squinty-eyed smile.
“Children?” she said, her voice loaded with indignation. “And you supported this effort?”
“Absolutely. They’re not just kids. They’re bad kids. Juvenile delinquents given a second chance. And they deliver.”
“I’m not sure I want to be hearing this.” She started to rise.
He reached out and touched her wrist. “Wait. Sit down.”
She wanted to slug him, but she sat. “What?”
“I’m old school,” he said, tossing back his wine. “So I don’t get rattled like some of the new blood does when a couple rules are broken. Members of this organization have assassinated world leaders on behalf of the U.S., they’ve collected intelligence, prevented horrendous crimes and catastrophes.”
She scoffed. “As the United States of America, we can’t have children doing that on our behalf. I can’t let our president be exposed to something like this. I can’t condone—”
“Shhh.” McCray held his finger to his lips.
Elaine glared.
“It’s your right to shut it down. But before you do, I strongly suggest you take a look. Eighty years of your predecessors have supported this program.”
“And ninety years of U.S. presidents chose not to abolish slavery!”
“Listen, Elaine,” McCray said, rising to his feet, which she noticed were in flip-flops. “One thing you’re going to learn if you haven’t already is that this country is not made secure by laws—because we’re playing everything safe and fair—it’s because a select few chose to defend our freedoms. This group deserves medals, not your disdain.”
“You must be drunk.”
McCray belly laughed and rose to his feet. “You betcha.”
“What’s the group called and how do I find it?”
McCray swiveled his head at an unassuming man standing in the back of the restaurant. Even across the room, she could see the pit rings on his button-up shirt. “He’ll take you when you’re ready.”
McCray walked out, and the man came over to the secretary’s table and handed her a card, all black with a golden CV embossed on the front and only a phone number on the back.