Chapter 2
The beige Chevy Malibu rental car felt like a coffin after twenty years of military vehicles.
Too quiet, too civilian, too normal. Jasper Creek looked exactly like the postcards Jase used to send.
Tree-lined streets with actual trees, not the scraggly things that passed for vegetation in Kabul or the manicured perfection of Fort Gordon.
Real houses with porches and swings, not compounds with blast walls.
The kind of place where people probably knew their neighbors' names and didn't run background checks on them first.
Three in the afternoon, and I was in Jase's driveway.
A bike lay on its side in the front yard next to a skateboard and scooter. The house stood two stories, white with black shutters, basketball hoop in the driveway with the net half torn.
Normal.
Everything so aggressively normal.
The front door burst open before my hand reached the doorbell.
"Code?" A blonde woman stood there, hair in a messy bun, wearing yoga pants and an oversized Navy SEAL team shirt that had to be Jase's. This would be Bonnie. "According to Jase, you're early. Really early."
"This is the time I told him to expect me."
She sighed. "How come I'm not surprised? If something is about work, he nails it. Home life? Not so much."
The corner of my mouth twitched. First time all day. Hell, maybe all week.
"Jase! Your cousin's here."
"Mom!" A girl's voice echoed from somewhere deeper in the house. "Tell Lachlan to keep Scout away from the robot! He's going to break it!"
"I'm trying!" A boy's voice shot back. "He thinks it's a toy!"
A golden retriever bounded past Bonnie, nearly knocking her into the doorframe. Apparently, Lachlan had kept the dog away from exactly nothing.
"Code?" Jase appeared behind his wife. His expression shifted the moment he saw me. "You're early."
"He's on time." Bonnie's smirk could have cut glass. "He told you three o'clock."
Jase glared at me. "You said six."
A shrug seemed safest.
"You definitely said six."
"Three."
Scout shot back into the house, something metallic in his mouth.
Jase pulled out his phone, scrolled through texts. His face went sheepish. "Oh."
"Oh." Bonnie stepped aside. "Come in, Code. I'm sorry about... everything."
Chaos.
Pure chaos.
The robot sat on the dining room table with one arm hanging off. A girl who looked like a miniature version of Bonnie stood with her arms crossed, glaring at a boy who was wrestling the golden retriever. My chest tightened. Too much noise, too much movement, too much everything.
"Kids, this is Uncle Code." Jase's voice cut through the mayhem. "Code, that's Amber and the other terror is Lachlan."
"He's not our uncle." Amber didn't uncross her arms. "He's your cousin."
"Close enough," Jase said.
"It's not close at all. That would make him our first cousin once removed."
"I don't care what he is." Lachlan still struggled with the dog. "Can someone help me with Scout?"
Military training kicked in. Grab the objective, secure the perimeter. The dog's collar was warm under my fingers. Scout immediately sat, tongue out, tail wagging.
"Of course he listens to you." Bonnie shook her head. "Amber, please help your brother fix the robot."
"No." Those crossed arms didn't budge. "He hasn't done any of the work. He was supposed to unpack the kit the school provided and inventory all the parts, and he didn't. He was supposed to test the battery connections, and he didn't. Why should I do everything?"
"Because it's due Monday," Bonnie said.
"I don't care."
"You're cutting off your nose to spite your face."
"I don't care."
"Yes, you do."
"No, I don't."
Lachlan picked up the robot's detached arm. "I checked over the parts! I even put some of it together!"
"You did it wrong, I had to fix it.”
"The robot works fine now!"
"It waves backwards!" Amber’s voice rose an octave.
"Kids." Jase stepped forward.
"And you." Amber turned on her father like a tiny prosecutor. "You said you'd help us last weekend, but then Mr. Clark called and you went to help him with his deck."
"That was an emergency."
"Staining a deck is not an emergency." Bonnie's voice stayed quiet but carried weight.
"It’s important to stain it right after it’s built, otherwise the sun will fade it."
"Dave was already helping him."
My hand stayed on Scout's collar while my cousin's household management crumbled. Twenty years of leading SEAL teams, useless against nine-year-old twins and a broken robot.
"Look." Bonnie took a deep breath, closed her eyes, opened them.
"Code just got here. The house is a disaster.
We have no food prepared. And this project needs to get done.
So here's what's going to happen. Jase, you're taking Code to Maverick's for a snack.
Kids, you're going to work together on that robot, and if I hear one more argument, nobody's getting screen time for a week. "
"But Mom—" both kids started.
"One. Week."
They exchanged glances. Robot. Mother. Robot again.
"Fine," Amber muttered.
"Fine," Lachlan echoed.
"Good. Jase, go. Now. Before something else breaks."
Jase grabbed his keys. "Come on, let's get you a beer and some food."
Scout launched himself at the robot the second my grip loosened, but Lachlan managed to intercept this time.
"Sorry about that." Jase started his truck. "Saturday afternoons are usually calmer. Actually, no they're not. But Bonnie wanted to make a good impression."
"She seems nice."
"She is. She's also probably stress-cleaning the entire house right now and planning a five-course dinner because that's what she does when she's nervous."
Downtown Jasper Creek passed in two blocks. Hardware store, diner, coffee shop, antique store. The courthouse in the middle of the square with its clock tower. Like a movie set for Small Town, America.
"How are you doing, really?" Jase kept his eyes on the road.
"Fine."
"Right. That's why you showed up three months earlier than planned with a beard that screams 'I've given up on civilization' and that thousand-yard stare I recognize from guys coming back from bad deployments."
"It wasn't a deployment."
"Russia or China?"
Silence seemed like the best answer. Twenty years of TS/SCI clearance meant some things stayed buried, even after retirement.
"Right. Classified. Got it."
Maverick's Bar and Grill occupied a corner brick building that had probably been there since the town was founded. Dark inside. Beer and fried food smell. Perfect simplicity. No chaos, no broken robots, no arguing children. Just low conversation and college football on TV.
"There's Renzo and Roan." Jase nodded toward a back table.
Renzo stood when he saw us, that easy smile from family gatherings spreading across his face. The years had treated him well. Still had that Peruvian complexion that made everyone assume he was younger than his thirty-five years.
"Code." He pulled me into a hug without hesitation. "Good to see you, man."
"You too."
Roan nodded a greeting when we sat. Former military, definitely special operations from his posture. Cataloging exits, checking faces, hand positioned for a concealed carry that might or might not be there.
"Roan, this is my cousin Code," Jase said. "Former Army cyber."
"How former?" Roan asked.
"Three months."
"Twenty years?"
I nodded.
"Hell of a time to get out. The world's going to shit with what Russia and China are pulling."
"World's been going to shit for a while." Jase observed.
The waitress appeared. Beer and burgers all around. Universal former military food orders.
"How's Millie?" Jase asked Renzo.
Pure happiness transformed my cousin's face.
"Amazing. She just landed a fifty-thousand-dollar donation from some tech company for the burn victim fund.
They kept it anonymous. She figured out the CEO's daughter was in a car fire.
Millie spent three hours on the phone with them, explaining treatment options, connecting them with specialists. "
"She still leaving the property more?"
"Twice this week. Drove herself to town yesterday." Pride colored every word. "A year ago, she couldn't leave the house. Now she's talking about flying to Nashville for a conference."
"That's great, man."
Our beers arrived. The tension in my shoulders eased slightly. Four guys having beers on a Saturday afternoon. No crisis. No operations.
"What brings you to Jasper Creek?" Roan's question was casual, but his eyes weren't.
"Visiting family."
"For how long?"
"Haven't decided."
We locked eyes. Both recognized the deflection. I could see Roan deciding whether to push.
"Must be tough leaving all that training cold turkey." So he decided to push.
"Anything's possible if you put your mind to it."
"Jesus Christ, you two." Jase set down his beer hard enough to slosh. "Just say what you're thinking instead of doing that spec ops dance."
"I don't know what you're talking about," Roan said.
"Bullshit. You," Jase pointed at Roan, "are wondering if Code's the solution to your cyber security problem with Onyx. And you," the finger swung to me, "are wondering if small-town security work would bore you to death after twenty years of hunting terrorists online."
"I said nothing about a cybersecurity problem," Roan said.
"You mentioned it last week. Hart's great for a lot of things, but when it comes to the dark web, he's lost. Then there's that contractor you hired who couldn't handle the encrypted files from that stalking case."
"That's confidential."
"It's also exactly the kind of thing Code could solve in his sleep.
" Jase turned to me. "Roan's company handles everything from personal security to corporate investigations.
They're getting national cases now. They're good, but Hart only knows so much.
He's also tried to teach this knucklehead some things, and it's been impossible. All he knows is Google and Facebook."
"I understand the internet," Roan protested.
"You called it 'the Google' last week."