Chapter Victor
Victor
Mac completed all of his online training, scoring mastery of subject matter, plus checked off every box on Cooper’s skills checklist within two and a half weeks of his hire date.
Shepherd had negotiated with Beauregard Mason, the Deputy Director of the CIA and his contact, that one comprehensive assessment test was all that would be necessary for Mac’s credentials to be issued.
Mac passed the test with flying colors.
The two and a half weeks passed quickly for Mac, and he’d enjoyed the time with Yvette, opting to work a similar schedule as hers when possible.
They made love nearly every day, which further bonded them.
The real connection occurred in the everyday moments of doing laundry together, cooking, and shopping.
They went on runs together several times over the two and a half weeks and worked out in the Shepherd Security gym together, but usually with other team members in the room.
Mac ate lunch in the office with other team members most days, getting to know more of them and getting to know those he was acquainted with better.
By the end of the two weeks, he really felt as though he was a part of the team, which surprised him after operating solo for so long. It was a feeling he liked.
It was November 18. There was one more week until Thanksgiving, when the agency would officially shut down for the holiday, Wednesday through Sunday, unless there was an emergency.
On an immediate call-in standby status were Delta Team plus two volunteers from Echo Team, BT and Roth.
Bravo Team plus Garcia was the secondary standby team with a two-hour call-in status.
And of course, it was understood by every team member that if something major went down, they could all be scrambled.
Shepherd had not listed them as unavailable to the DoD.
He’d do that over the Christmas holiday for several days, though.
However, before the Thanksgiving holiday, there was one more mission scheduled for most teams. It would be Mac’s first mission, deploying with Bravo Team plus Cooper.
Prior to the mission briefing, he had one last onboarding hurdle.
A meeting with the team shrink, Dr. Joe Lassiter.
It would be his first time meeting the man he’d heard so much about.
Usually, he would have had a meeting with him within a few days of his hire date, but Joe had been on vacation, a rarity, Mac was told.
Mac took the public stairs to the fourth floor and pushed through the heavy black door with gold lettering that led into Lassiter’s office. The door to the inner office was open. He went to it and knocked against it. “Hello?” he called into the space.
He recognized Joe Lassiter right away from Yvette’s description of him as he stepped into the hallway from a room across the short hallway. He had many scars on his face and neck.
“Hi sorry about that, come on in.” He took a step towards Mac with his hand out. “I’m Joe Lassiter. Nice to meet you, Mac.”
Mac shook his offered hand. “Nice to meet you too. I’ve heard a lot about you.”
Mac followed him into the room, a small kitchen, noting the slight limp Lassiter walked with. The smell of fresh-brewed coffee was in the air. A cup sat on the dispensing area of a Keurig coffee maker on the counter. It was nearly done dispensing the hot liquid.
“I was just brewing myself a cup. Can I make you one?” Joe asked.
“Thank you, yes.”
Joe pointed to the upper cabinet. “Grab yourself a cup.”
Mac swung the cabinet open, overwhelmed by the number of cups stacked on the shelves.
He grabbed the one closest to the edge on the bottom shelf in front of him, a solid black mug.
He handed it to Lassiter. Joe switched it out on the platform where the cup sat and put in a fresh pod. Then he sat his own cup onto the table.
“How do you take it?” he asked Mac.
“Black is fine, thank you,” Mac said.
“Most of the Operators take it black,” Joe said. “Have a seat.” He pointed to the far side of the table.
Mac wandered over to the window and looked out. It was a cloudy fall day. The sky looked like it wanted to snow, but none was in the forecast. There had been a few flurries one day the previous week, but it wasn’t cold enough for them to stick or accumulate on the ground yet.
“So, you’re getting ready to deploy on your first case with the agency,” Lassiter said, setting his cup onto the table. He took a seat across from Mac as Mac settled into his chair.
“Yes. We have the mission briefing a bit later this morning, and we’ll leave shortly thereafter,” Mac said.
“As I’m sure you’ve been told, I’m on staff because Shepherd appreciates that mental health is just as important as the physical health of his people.
The job you guys do is hard, physically and mentally.
You see a lot of shit that most people don’t, shit that can really mess up your head. That’s where I come in.”
Mac’s lips unconsciously ticked into a smirk.
He’d never had any mental health counseling, and he’d seen a lot in his decades of working in intelligence.
“So, how does this work?” He couldn’t see himself spilling his guts about his feelings of seeing anything while working. You deal with it and move on.
“I have regular meetings with everyone just to get to know them and for them to get comfortable with me. We touch bases occasionally. After a rough mission, I come in and meet with anyone who is referred to me immediately upon the team’s return or the next day depending on the situation.
And I do have full mental health oversight over the team.
I can have anyone removed from duty if I don’t think their head is screwed on straight. ”
“I see,” Mac replied, though he really didn’t understand the need for a team shrink. Most men he knew were mentally tough and didn’t require someone’s shoulder to cry on.
“You can reach out to me at any point as well to schedule an appointment if you want to talk. The meeting requests go both ways.”
Mac smiled and nodded. Yeah, that probably wouldn’t be necessary.
“So, how are you liking the team environment? It has to be different from the solo work you’re used to,” Lassiter said.
And now came the part of the meeting that Lassiter was going to evaluate him and try to get inside his head.
He was ready. “I’m surprised at how comfortable it feels.
It is a different atmosphere, akin to what active duty members experienced, I’m told, which I’ve never experienced.
As you know, I never served in the military, went to work as a field agent for the CIA right out of college. That was a very different environment.”
“You had quite the record with them, pulled off a lot that no one else could have. You were known for achieving the impossible,” Lassiter said. “You had to have had counseling when you came in after assignments with the CIA.”
“I guess you could call it that, but it was more like monitoring to be sure I was still loyal and had disengaged from the undercover persona, the Legend. I was usually sent back out pretty quickly. For the last five years I was with the CIA, I was at London station in the embassy. It was a pretty normal, safe environment for me.”
“You oversaw assets in the former Soviet bloc countries.”
Mac wasn’t sure how this man knew that. It was all quite classified. “You have a high security clearance to know that.”
Lassiter nodded. “You tendered your resignation after a young woman you’d advised was not ready for her undercover assignment was killed after your superiors over-ruled you.”
Mac took a drink of his coffee to stall. “Yeah, she wasn’t ready, and I knew it.” He hadn’t thought about her in years.
“That’s one thing that will never happen at Shepherd Security,” Lassiter said, eyeing him closely.
“I have a lot of respect for Shepherd. People die in this business. That’s a given.
But having a command structure that factors in acceptable losses is not palatable to me.
That’s why I worked solo for so long. I know Shepherd isn’t one to calculate for acceptable losses in his people or in civilians; that’s one of the reasons I’m here. ”
“One?” Lassiter asked without missing a beat. “And the others?”
Mac smirked again. The man was good. He’d give him that. “Obviously, Yvette. I know you know our history. We made the only decision we could decades ago based on the jobs we did. Had we gotten together back then, it surely would have ended badly and probably pretty quickly.”
“The flame stayed alive for a long time,” Lassiter said.
“I’d like to think we saw each other often enough to keep it burning, or maybe it was that we rekindled it each time we saw each other.
Either way, I think we both got to a point in our lives that we’re no longer willing to say the job or the bad shit in the world is more important than exploring the relationship we’ve put on hold for so long. ”
“And how is that going? Has to be an adjustment, living together.”
“It’s very comfortable,” Mac said. “Yvette’s made it easy for me, welcoming me at her home so I feel like I belong there and am not a guest.” He paused and chuckled. “She made it clear that cleaning the toilet is my job as she doesn’t splatter when she pees.”
Lassiter laughed with him. “You still have your apartments in both Greece and London, don’t you?” he asked.
“Yes, and I’ll have to get back to them both and ship some of my belongings here.
I’ll probably sell my flat in London, but I’ll keep the place in Greece.
It helps keep my dual citizenship, owning a place there and having an address.
Besides its view is beautiful, the little town it’s in is quaint.
It’s where my mother was from.” And that was as far as he wanted to go in talking about his parents.
“As far as Yvette is concerned , these last few weeks have gone well. I’m optimistic.
Shepherd said I’ll have about fifty percent of my time working from HQ and fifty percent deployed on missions.
I think that will be a nice balance, so we don’t get sick of each other,” he said and then laughed.
“I also get that having me live with her has to be an adjustment for her.”
“I’m glad you realize that,” Joe said. “Just keep communicating with each other so minor issues don’t become major and allow each other space. You’ve both been alone for a long time.”
“Thanks, that’s good advice,” Mac said.
“Our time is just about up. Anything else on your mind you’d like to talk about?” Joe asked.
“Not that I can think of,” Mac said, relieved that their meeting was drawing to a close.
Lassiter stood. “I’ll walk you out. Good luck with the mission, and I’ll send a meeting invite for shortly after the mission, depending on what happens on it, but we will touch bases within a few days after you return. I usually do that with everyone after their first mission with us.”
At the door of the outer office, Joe shook his hand and sent him on his way.
Mac had about an hour before the pre-mission briefing.
He took the stairs up one floor and entered the Shepherd Security office through the public entrance.
Angel wasn’t at her desk. He passed it and went down the hall to the stairs.
He’d spend the time waiting for the meeting in his office, going over the mission info again.
Shepherd’s door was open as he passed, and he saw and heard Angel talking to Shepherd within. He found all four of the members of Bravo Team in Flores’ office.