Prologue
Prologue
C ameron Ridge knew it was bad news the moment The Colonel stepped into his office.
“How’s Maggie?”
“Uncomfortable,” Ridge answered, his chest tightening with anxiety. The Colonel never began with personal questions. They were always secondary, after whatever the day’s crisis might be.
“Heading to Texas anytime soon?”
Two personal questions. Ridge did a quick mental inventory of how many nuclear codes must have leaked for things to be this dire. “Not until after the baby. Apparently women aren’t allowed to fly this close to the end.”
“Not commercially, but I could probably pull some strings, get you on a military flight, if Maggie wanted. I know Bailey would love to see her again, Cal, too.”
Oh, sweet mercy, the world must be ending. Finally Ridge could take it no longer. “Sir, what’s this about?”
The Colonel took a breath, reached inside his jacket, and placed a picture on the table between them. Ridge studied it, not certain what he was looking for. There were two pictures, one atop the other, a street scene with a few subtle differences between them.
“I’m sorry, sir, what am I looking at?” he asked after not being able to figure it out.
“A contest.”
Ridge’s answering frown became mixed with confused blinks. “A contest, sir? I’m not certain I understand. Terrorist recruitment?”
“Something like that. Some lame brain at the CIA had the clever idea to open a contest to civilians, to see how many could spot the differences in these two pictures.”
“You must be joking,” Ridge said. Espionage was about so much more than being observant, although that helped.
“Yes, Lieutenant, I’m a laugh riot,” The Colonel groused. He pushed the picture closer to Ridge. “How many differences do you spot?”
Ridge picked it up and studied it a minute. “Ten, no, eleven.”
“I caught thirteen,” The Colonel said.
Ridge blinked at him, waiting for more. He didn’t have to wait long.
“The person who won the contest found twenty seven.”
Ridge looked at the picture again. No. No way were there twenty seven differences between the two pictures. “That’s not possible.”
“She looked at it under an electron microscope and counted pixels,” The Colonel said. “And that only counted as one of the differences.”
“Wow, okay. Good for her, I guess? But by your presence here, I’m somehow guessing it’s bad for us.”
“You know I haven’t made a lot of friends on Capitol Hill.”
Ridge nodded his agreement. The Colonel straddled the gap between Congress and the military, trying to bring street sense and a hands-on approach to politicians and bureaucrats who often had zero understanding of what it was actually like to be a soldier or spy. He was a ruthless bulldog when it came to speaking his mind, trying to work in favor of the person who had to do the hands-on work of intelligence gathering. Often this put him at odds with the politicians.
“As a way to take their revenge, they’ve put this on me, handed me their civilian like some kind of untrained pet.”
“I assume she’s been to Quantico,” Ridge said. Everyone had to go to Quantico, even his librarian wife had spent twenty weeks there.
“You assume wrong,” The Colonel bit out.
“Wait a minute, they’re giving us a civilian fresh off the street and expecting us to train her on the job? A job that could get her killed?” Ridge said, incredulous. Politicians came up with some doozies sometimes, but this was a reach, even for them.
“Oh, it gets worse.” The Colonel took a breath. “They’ve given her a handler.”
“A handler,” Ridge repeated. Obviously he knew what a handler was, but his incredulity made him unable to process the word as it related to his current situation.
“Someone to babysit her fulltime and keep her safe, make certain she doesn’t stumble into trouble for a while until she gets acclimated,” The Colonel said.
“Please tell me they’re not pulling someone from my team to babysit,” Ridge replied. Their team had finally reached a level of cohesive perfection he hadn’t felt since he left the SEALs. It would be like the government to mess it up when things were finally perfect.
“No, they’re not pulling someone from your team to babysit. But I will be adding the rookie and her handler to your team. With Maggie leaving soon, she might be an asset here, if we can get her properly trained.”
“And the handler?” Ridge said.
The Colonel met his look without blinking. “Is someone you already know.”
Ridge sifted his mind for possibilities. By now he knew The Colonel well enough to understand this was bad news, dire even. Who would be such a bad addition to his team it was enough to make The Colonel sound apologetic? And suddenly Ridge knew.
“No, sir, not him.”
“Yes, Lieutenant. Him.”