WHEN HER PHONE rings, Marsha Gray answers it before the second tone chimes through.
“Yes,” she says, flipping on the recording function on her phone.
“You know who this is,” comes the voice of the President’s chief of staff.
She yawns. “We’ve shared so many intimate moments, how can I forget?”
“Stow it,” he says. “I’ve got information—what you call actionable intelligence.”
She swings her legs out of her bed, grabs a pencil and notepad from the nightstand. Pencils always write, they never run out of ink, and they never freeze in cold weather.
Marsha says, “Parker, I love it when you try to talk macho and all, but get on with it.”
She senses he’s trying to contain his temper, and that makes her smile. He says, “East Dominion Road, number fourteen. A rural farmhouse. It’s in a town next to where the horse farm is located. Walton.”
Marsha quickly writes it down. “Good intelligence?”
“Excellent intelligence.”
“Nice change of pace,” she says. “What do you want?”
“I think you know.”
Marsha checks the time. “Remind me, sir. I need to have clear and crisp orders.”
“Whoever’s in that house…they don’t get out.”
“All right,” she says. “And Grissom?”
“If that gets the job done, then do it.”
She looks at the time again. “I’ll get there as soon as I can.”
“Just get there,” he says. “And report when you do so.”
Parker hangs up and so does Marsha. She yawns, gets out of bed, and goes to her closet. It seems this particular weird and important job is about to come to an end, and that’s when things can get hairy indeed. It’s one thing to get to a point and make the shot.
Getting out in one piece is just as important.
Marsha opens the closet, switches on the light, notes the various bits and pieces of gear she’s accumulated during her career in the Corps and then her freelance life.
Time, she thinks, to go full battle rattle.