Chapter One
Protocol
Jameson Bishop
I was halfway through a stack of reports when my phone rang, an ominous tone to my otherwise monotonous day.
Listening to the endless droning that was becoming increasingly unbearable.
Attending meeting after meeting. And now a pile of things that needed my attention. I couldn’t focus on any of it any more.
I was ready to tear everything in my office to shreds anyway.
These days I am hanging on by a very tenuous thread. I didn’t look at the screen right away. I should have.
I should have known.
“Bishop,” I answered.
“Sir,” The voice on the other end was tight. “We’ve lost contact with Agent Rourke.”
The words hit me like a punch to the ribs.
“About eighteen hours ago. Remote Appalachian sector. It’s possible that there is no signal. But he hasn’t missed a check-in since arrival last week. They are searching for his vehicle.”
I closed my eyes, the building headache reaching alarming heights.
I’d sent Rourke out alone. I’d signed off on it. I’d told myself it was routine; a simple recon, a preliminary sweep before sending out a team.
Just to prove that it warranted investigation.
I’d been wrong.
“Define ‘lost,’” I said, my voice lower than I intended.
“Sir…” the voice said nervously now. “He’s missing, he never returned to his cabin. The Park Ranger said that he was supposed to meet with him this morning but never showed.”
The office suddenly felt too small, too loud, too suffocating. The fallout with SAIC Winters had already drained me dry. The hearings, the politics, the betrayal. I’d needed space from all of it. I’d needed something that wasn’t the bureaucratic hell I’d been drowning in.
But not like this. Not at the cost of one of my agents.
I hung up without another word. I don’t trust myself to speak now.
For a long moment, I sat there, staring at nothing.
The guilt settled in my chest like a stone.
Rourke was capable. He was steady, reliable, smart. But the Appalachians were unforgiving, and the missing-persons case had already shown signs of being something far worse than a simple disappearance pattern.
I should never have sent him alone.
“Damn it, Justin,” I muttered, pushing up from my chair.
My thoughts drifted unwillingly, inevitably to Gemma.
My daughter.
Our relationship was new, fragile, stitched together with apologies that came too late and truths that hurt both of us too much.
I didn’t know how to be her father without breaking something.
I didn’t know how to be in her life without pushing too hard or not enough. I lost her mother, another failure.
I wanted to call her. I wanted to hear her voice. I wanted to know she was safe.
But I didn’t want to intrude. Didn’t want to be another weight she had to carry.
I wasn’t sure how to be a part of her life in a way that she wanted, and too ashamed to ask.
I’d spent years looking into her, being a quiet shadow in her life.
Even going as far as having another agent keep an eye on her when I couldn’t.
I looked at the phone again.
Later. I’d deal with Gemma later.
Right now, I had an agent missing in the mountains.
I grabbed my jacket and strode out of my office, already dialing.
“Rachel,” I said when she picked up. “I need logistics for a field deployment. Appalachian sector. Missing agent. I’m taking the case.”
She didn’t hesitate. “Yes sir, who is the assisting agent?” She sounds half asleep. I check the time. Its 10:35pm. I didn’t realize.
“Im going alone,” I tell her, digging for my car keys, trying to ignore the image of her home alone in bed that is currently spinning in circles around my head.
I have a bag packed for a last minute trip ready to go. I was planning on going to New Orleans at some point, but it sat there in the closet like a reminder.
Rachel is quiet for so long, I think the call had dropped or she had fallen back to sleep.
Finally, she ventures a tentative, “Sir that isn’t protocol.”
She sounds genuinely concerned. But caught between confusion over her reaction and picturing what her bed looks like with her sprawled out in it, I snap without thinking.
“I wasn’t asking permission.”
Predictably, it bounces right off of her. She has worked with me for too long to be bothered.
“I know, but, Sir, Bishop, listen to me. That area is dangerous. We don’t know what’s out there. You need backup.”
“I don’t have time to wait for a team.”
“You don’t have time not to,” she snapped. “You’re not invincible. And if something happens to you, we lose two agents instead of one.”
I clenched my jaw. I hated that she was right. I hated that I needed help. I hated that I’d let this happen at all and I was on the phone with a woman I needed help not thinking about but all I can think about now is what she is wearing.
I debated putting my fist through the door just to let out some of the tension that was coiling inside me, fighting to get out.
“Rachel,” I warned. I do not always insist on rank, and I give her leeway because she is invaluable to me. And I secretly enjoy it.
But she is crossing a line. And I need that fucking line. I need lots and lots of lines to remind me why I can’t cross them.
“No. I’m not letting you walk into that alone.” She insisted.
My patience snapped. “Fine. Then find me someone.”
She didn’t flinch. “I already have one.”
“Good. Get them to the airport and get the flights booked.”
I hung up again, already moving, already planning, already preparing to go into the woods.
It feels like Im running away from the problems I have to find new ones, but I refuse to lose another person because of my failures or inaction. Its already cost me dearly in the past and I have resolved never to allow myself to stand by again.
Something is going on in that mountain range.
And Im going to find my Agent.