Chapter 7 #2
"He enlisted at nineteen right after he got into the kind of trouble that could make or destroy a kid.
I guess someone decided to give him a chance, and the Army turned out to be the only thing that ever fit him.
He thrived and flew through Advanced Individual Training.
Same with Airborne School. He became a candidate for special forces quick and landed in Fort Bragg two years in.
I see no flags through his Qualification Courses. "
Juniper leaned back and drummed her fingers on her knee. "I sense a but coming."
"Once he became a Green Beret, and in the field on his first team, he started having authority issues. Not big ones. But ones that went all the way up the ladder."
"He worked under Sterling in JSOC," Juniper said. "What I read about Sterling was that he liked men who questioned the mission tactics. He wanted men on his JSOC teams who helped him poke holes. Find the weak spots. Make sure the mission was tight before they pulled the trigger."
"That's true, but Doyle took that kind of questioning to new levels.
Just about every team leader he worked with had something to say about Doyle's push back.
Not necessarily a big deal. Happens a lot in JSOC.
" Bea shuffled a few pages in the file. "However, Sterling wrote, and I quote: 'Exactly who you want in the field. Not who you want in your ear.'"
"That's a bit of a contradiction." Juniper thought about those words and what they meant for a minute because out in the field, Sterling had to trust the men he worked with.
He had to put blind faith that those on his six would protect his back.
But how could he do that if he didn't believe in what they told him?
"I'll send these, but the after-action reports Sterling wrote on Doyle are carefully crafted.
He states in one that he wouldn't request Doyle but wouldn't ask to have him replaced if assigned.
That Malone never once put a mission at risk, but in the same breath, he could be insufferable doing it.
Butted heads in the planning when a quieter road would've gotten him there.
Good ideas buried under the arrogance. Sterling called it a delicate dance, because at the end of the day, Doyle did get the job done.
Honestly, Doyle doesn't raise a red flag except for arrogance. "
"Is there a version where Malone's here to watch Sterling, like me, on a different leash."
"Anything's possible. While Sterling's only employer was the CIA, the JSOC missions put him in direct contact with many branches.
However, this why the National Security Division runs these ops.
To avoid second channels, because nobody wants two crews tripping into each other in the same town.
But I'll look into it. Ask around. Maybe there's something mission-specific that would warrant sending someone like Doyle. "
"Sterling's having breakfast with Doyle, right now."
"I did some digging on Meridian Tactical," Bea said. "I don't have much time, so I'll forward you the brief, but I don't see any glaring red flags."
"You're scratching your neck, which means something is bothering you."
"I do agree Doyle being there can't be random," Bea said. "Works even less when one of their clients is Granger Frost of Ashbourne Holdings."
"Who's that?" Juniper asked.
"I'm going to send you an encrypted folder on them. But the short version is that Granger has been on a watch list regarding The Shrike Collective for years," Bea said.
"You've got to be kidding me." It had been a long time since Juniper had heard those words.
The raid that killed Mark and four other agents had Shrike written all over it, but no one could prove it.
Shrike was essentially a ghost organization that would pop up in some corridor, the government would get close, but no sooner did they have what they believed was good intel, Shrike disappeared, only to resurface somewhere else.
"I wish I was. I know how triggering that must be for you."
"I've looked into them and haven't been able to find anything," Juniper said.
"How adjacent is this client of Doyle's to Shrike, and what does Sterling know about Shrike?
" Juniper leaned back and stared at the ceiling fan rotating in a slow loop.
Shrike had always been a strange anomaly, and no one in the FBI or the CIA had a good handle on what the organization's goals were.
She'd only heard of it because she'd been working a joint case with Homeland Security and the CIA regarding an offshore account that had been flagged for illegal transfer of funds. They believed the tagged money linked to the sale of mission plans.
Except, the money never reached the account, and someone found the digital plans in a locker at a DC bus terminal after a hot tip.
The only explanation? Shrike had been tipped off, or they'd been chasing a dummy lead while the real bribe money went somewhere else, and a different objective had been sold.
"The short version is he came out of the Colombia-Panama-Miami corridor," Bea said. "Granger had been legal but was paying on both sides. They had no information on the individuals we couldn't arrest. Shrike wasn't listed as part of the mission, and from what I've read, it's not being backlogged."
"You know that doesn't mean The Shrike Collective didn't have their fingers in this one." Juniper leaned forward, planted her elbows on the desk, and rubbed her temples. "We don't know exactly when Shrike started. They would've needed start-up capital, and that's one way to get it."
"You'd already need money and power to set up something like that," Bea said.
Shrike had never been in Juniper's main wheelhouse. It had landed on her desk three or four times during joint missions. She’d never given it much thought until Mark had died, and only because Mark and his team had intel that the operation had something to do with Shrike.
Juniper leaned back and snagged a pencil.
She tapped it against the desk. Mark had become fascinated by The Shrike Collective.
He had a couple of buddies over in DEA, Homeland, and the CIA who were also obsessed with the shadow organization.
So much so, they’d formed their own rogue investigation because when it was brought up behind closed doors, it was either shut down or redirected to a blind committee that was already looking into it. Mark's buddies had been skeptical.
The problem was that Shrike hadn't become loud enough in government circles for anyone in power to raise it beyond a low to mid-level threat.
"You haven't said anything about Sterling and Shrike," Juniper said.
"Because to my knowledge, there's nothing to tell. But Sterling trusts you. Use that."
Juniper closed her eyes and squeezed the pencil. She knew what Bea was leaning into, and she didn't like it.
"I gotta get to work," Juniper said.
"When are you seeing Sterling next?"
"We haven't set up a second date, if that's what you're asking," Juniper said. "But I'm sure I'll see him tonight."
"It's good that you're getting closer. The closer you are to Sterling, the more you can find out about Doyle, his organization and if any of this is connected."
Bea cut the line.
Juniper closed the laptop and locked it in the drawer.
She'd spent the first few months of this assignment eavesdropping on everyone's conversations.
She made friends faster than rabbits multiplied.
She became part of the fabric of this community, and the good citizens trusted her with their secrets.
And Calusa Cove had plenty of those.
Earlier, she couldn't wait for shit to happen.
Now, she wanted it to stop. She wanted front porch sitting, rainbow-colored skies, and gators making noise. It was a nice life. She hated that it was fake, and that surprised her.
She'd been lying for a living for years. She'd worked undercover before she'd met Mark. This wasn't her first rodeo.
But it was the first time she'd held a cover for more than a few months. And she'd never developed feelings for her assignment or attachment to her location.
This was what she'd been trying to pretend hadn't happened. Falling in love with Calusa Cove was one thing. She could say goodbye to a place. That wouldn't be the worst. She'd done it before. But leaving the people would be something entirely different.
And Sterling was more than a file. He'd become the first thought that entered her conscious mind and the last image her brain let go of before she drifted into dreamland.
Admitting that wasn't easy, especially to herself.
Up until this moment, it had been a job.
Now, it felt like a lie, and she wasn't sure if she could look Sterling in the eye now that everything had changed.