Chapter Two
MIA
I woke the next morning to what sounded like someone dropping a refrigerator somewhere outside my window.
For several seconds I stayed put, staring at an unfamiliar ceiling, trying to remember why my mattress felt like it had been designed as punishment.
Another metallic crash came from somewhere beyond the building, followed by a man’s voice shouting something I couldn’t understand and a second voice answering him considerably louder.
Germany returned to me in pieces after that: ARC, the room, the communal bathroom and Wolf informing me within minutes of meeting me that accepting help with luggage had revealed some deep personal weakness.
I reached for my phone on the desk beside the bed and squinted at the screen.
5:47 a.m.
“Jesus Christ.”
Another bang carried across the compound, followed by Jackal yelling. “That’s cheating!”
Someone farther away answered him, and although I couldn’t make out the words, the lack of enthusiasm sounded enough like Viper that I could already imagine the expression accompanying them.
I considered putting the pillow over my head and trying again, but jet lag had left my body with very little understanding of what time it believed it was.
Going back to sleep while several military operators competed to destroy government property outside my window seemed unlikely, so I dragged myself out of bed and collected the white button-down and black cargo pants I’d set aside the night before.
I dug the little pill organizer out of my toiletry bag and swallowed my birth control with the handful of vitamins I took every morning, chasing everything down with the last of the water beside my bed.
One more piece of my normal routine completed in a place where almost nothing else felt normal yet.
The hallway was empty when I stepped out with my towel and outfit tucked beneath one arm.
I had deliberately put on enough clothing to make the walk to the bathroom without risking an international incident, which seemed like a reasonable precaution considering everything Raven and Jackal had told me about the living situation.
The bathroom door was closed, and running water came from inside.
Of course it did.
I stood there for a moment considering whether coffee was worth postponing basic hygiene when the door opened and Bear stepped into the hallway.
His buzzed head was still wet and dripping, darkening the shoulders of his t-shirt.
He looked much too awake for a person I’d seen complaining about someone stealing his food less than twelve hours earlier.
“Mornin’,” he said in a distinctly southern accent.
I glared at him. “Is it?”
Bear smiled and glanced at the clothes under my arm. “Depends who you ask.”
“Anyone else in there?”
“Hawk.”
Whatever expression crossed my face made him laugh quietly.
“He’s shaving. You’re safe.”
“That is a very low standard for safety.”
Bear leaned one shoulder against the doorframe as though he had nowhere else to be.
“Look, if you’re planning to wait until the bathroom is completely empty every morning, you’re going to spend a lot of your assignment standing in this hallway.
Last two stalls have the best water pressure, and everybody knows you’re here now. Nobody’s going to bother you, alright?”
“Your attempt to make this sound normal isn’t working.”
“I’m not trying to make it sound normal. I’m trying to make it survivable.”
Strangely, the lack of reassurance worked better.
I stepped inside and found Hawk standing at one of the sinks with shaving cream along his jaw, a towel around his neck and his blond hair pushed away from his face.
When he saw me in the mirror, he instinctively glanced down at himself to make sure he hadn’t forgotten an important piece of clothing.
“Morning,” he said, keeping his attention carefully on the mirror afterward.
“Apparently that’s what everyone has decided.”
Hawk smiled around the razor. “I told them we should’ve put you in the other building.”
I stopped halfway across the room. “There’s another building with bedrooms?”
“No. Another bathroom.”
Hope disappeared as quickly as it had arrived.
“It’s in the garage,” he added.
“Jackal already offered me that one.”
“Then you know why I didn’t lead with it.”
At least Hawk seemed appropriately aware that adding a woman to their living arrangement changed something. He finished shaving without dragging it out then rinsed the razor beneath the faucet and wiped the last of the shaving cream from his jaw.
“All yours,” he said, gathering the toiletry bag from beside the sink.
“Thank you.”
He gave me a small nod and headed for the door. I waited until it shut behind him before crossing to the showers.
I chose the stall farthest from the entrance, taking note of Bear’s advice, and pulled the curtain closed.
The material was thin enough that the overhead light passed through it, which did very little for my confidence in the arrangement, but at least there was nobody standing on the other side of it now.
I arranged my clean clothes across the top of the partition where I hoped they would remain dry, undressed and stepped beneath the water. The shower turned out to be surprisingly hot, which almost made the situation tolerable.
Almost.
I had shampoo in my hair when the bathroom door opened again.
I stood completely still.
“W-Who is that?”
There was a pause.
“Me,” Viper finally answered.
“Can you give me ten minutes?”
“I need my gear.”
“You keep gear in the bathroom?”
“Locker.”
Through the thin curtain I could make out the vague shape of him crossing toward the wall opposite the showers.
Metal scraped as he opened one of the lockers, and I remained beneath the water wondering whether any amount of professional experience could prepare someone for negotiating shower privacy with a Swedish special operator before breakfast.
“This place is insane, right?” I laughed, trying to make whatever this was considerably less awkward.
Viper closed the locker and replied in a monotone voice, “You’ll live.”
The bathroom door shut behind him a few seconds later, and I finished showering faster than I would have preferred.
I stepped out, wrapped myself in a towel and stood in front of the long mirror, looking at the cloudy edges of the glass and the row of military lockers.
Yesterday I had asked Wolf for a lock and received a no so immediate that I suspected he had rejected the idea before I’d finished speaking.
Twenty-four hours suddenly felt like an ambitious estimate for how long I could tolerate the arrangement without committing a crime.
◆
The kitchen occupied one corner beneath the loft beside the operations floor, although calling it a kitchen was definitely generous.
There was a refrigerator, a sink, two cabinets and a microwave that looked older than Raven.
Someone had added a hot plate on the counter, and Bear stood in front of it cooking eggs while Raven hovered over a small glass coffee setup with enough concentration that I assumed disturbing him might violate British law.
Jackal was seated at the table nearby with one boot propped on the empty chair across from him, eating cereal directly from the box.
I stopped beside Raven and watched him slowly pour hot water over the grounds. “That’s an impressive amount of effort for caffeine.”
Without looking up, he said, “This is why Americans have bad coffee.”
“I’m pretty sure France would like to participate in that conversation.”
“France can join the queue.”
Behind us, Jackal reached into the cereal box for another handful. I looked at him and then at the cabinet where several perfectly functional bowls were stacked.
“No bowl?”
“Less washing.”
Bear glanced over his shoulder from the stove. “He says that like he’s ever washed anything.”
“I contribute to the household in other ways.”
Raven looked toward him. “It’s a unit.”
Jackal gestured around the cramped kitchen with the cereal box. “We have one bathroom, Bear is making breakfast four feet from an intelligence workstation, and Viper threatened me over yogurt yesterday. We’re a household.”
Bear finished the eggs and slid them onto a plate before putting it in front of me, cutting Jackal off. “You eat eggs?”
“I do.”
“Then eat.”
I accepted the fork he offered and sat down. “You always feed people without asking?”
“Only the ones who look like they forgot food exists.”
I hadn’t realized how hungry I was until the first bite. Raven finished whatever careful ritual he’d been performing and poured coffee into a mug, then pushed it across the table toward me. I took a sip and immediately understood why he had been willing to insult an entire country over it.
Unfortunately, it was excellent.
“Damn it.”
Raven smiled as he sat beside me. “You can say it.”
“I’m not giving you that.”
“You don’t need to. Your face already did.”
Jackal pointed toward him with the cereal box. “Do not compliment the coffee. He becomes unbearable for the rest of the day.”
“I’m sitting directly beside you,” Raven said.
“Exactly. I know what I’m talking about.”
Raven took a drink from his own mug. “Chai is better anyway, but I’m not attempting that before seven.”
“Finally,” Jackal said. “A flaw.”
Breakfast told me more about the unit than the personnel files had.
Bear cooked because nobody trusted Jackal near the hot plate after what everyone kept calling the Budapest incident, which Jackal insisted had been caused by defective cookware rather than anything he had done personally.
Raven had claimed one cabinet for coffee and tea and labeled it with his name, only to discover that men trained in intelligence and special operations considered labels an invitation rather than a deterrent.
Hawk came through halfway through my eggs with an apple already in his hand. He stopped at the end of the table when Jackal immediately looked between him and the operations floor.
“Where’s the other one?” Jackal asked.
Hawk took a bite of the apple. “Other what?”
“You know exactly what.”