Chapter 4
DECLAN
Well, this doesn’t happen often. But I was wrong. I don’t plan on admitting it aloud any time soon.
I grimace at the memory of leaving Oliver’s new assistant locked outside in the midday heat, then try to cover it by cracking my knuckles.
She should have clarified who she was. And Oliver should have let me and Ian interview her as well. There were a lot of mistakes along the way that led to this situation.
Ian gives his update: “Our new servers have been installed and the team is making sure we have more than enough capability for all our events this season.” The need for new servers does support the race-day app that will allow loved ones to track their athletes on course.
They also support the new massive firewall we had to install after a series of hacks into our secret database compromised our encryption.
At least Ian’s update doesn’t require him to lie or carefully place his words.
Nothing the new assistant can’t hear without revealing our clandestine operations.
Charlie is across from me, taking notes. She is focused. That’s a positive. I assess her once more. Instead of seeing her as a potential threat, how could she be as a coworker? A possible asset for our covert operations? But first, can we even trust her?
She has changed her attire. The forest green looks good on her. Not that I care what she looks like.
Finn is boasting about the bottom line: “The latest merchandise campaign has boosted quarterly revenue.” Good. We need all the extra revenue we can get if we are going to combat the Order.
Each of the executives provides their update. I’m debating how to handle mine. We have sensitive items to address and with a new person on the team who has not been read in on our covert operations this will get tricky.
“Declan, can you update us on your trip to Helsinki?” Oliver prompts.
I relay the same information I told him over the phone to the rest of the team. The permits for our midnight finish have been secured.
“Are all the documents signed?” Ian asks.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Charlie’s head pop up. She must have caught this question. Because to the uninitiated it sounds like Ian wasn’t listening to my update and is asking a redundant question. But I know what he is really asking. He is confirming the peace treaty.
“Yes,” I reply, my tone clipped. “Can you catch me up on Kandy?” I could wait until Ian, Oliver, and myself can connect. But Oliver decided to have his new assistant in here. He can find a way to talk around it.
“Minister Atapattu will meet with us when the team arrives for the race. We’ll work closely with his team and see to it no details slip. Ensure a seamless event,” Oliver relays.
It sounds like our usual jargon. But the words Oliver has used clue me in.
Slip – as in someone is letting information slip. Based on our past conversations with the minister of defense, I can guess there is someone in Atapattu’s department who is slipping information to a local cartel that is terrorizing segments of the capital city, and they need to be stopped.
Seamless – no loose ends. As in, we will engage with each member of his team to determine who the leak is and identify them.
From there, we can assume the minister of defense will dismiss them from their post. Or will follow the leak to identify members of the cartel.
Either way, we’ll have enough people on site, enough eyes on the course and his team, to make sure we find the answer.
Charlie cuts in. “Should I add any specific meetings to the agenda for when the team arrives for the triathlon?”
First day. Only female in a room full of men. At least four years younger than me, which means she’s two or three decades younger than everyone else. She’s speaking up right away. That takes confidence. I have to admit I’m impressed.
She isn’t hiding behind any “it’s my first day” excuses. But she hasn’t been fully vetted. Oliver hired her without talking to anyone else. Did he check that she wasn’t sent by the Order? Has she already been briefed on us by her handler?
“Yes,” I say at the same time as Oliver says, “Exactly. We’ll confirm details with his team over the coming weeks.”
The thought of these missions used to give me a thrill. My time in the navy gave me the skills to do this job. I loved serving my country, but I couldn’t shake the feeling I was expendable. An interchangeable cog. At FIRE, I thought I could really make a difference.
My mood sours thinking of how I started here.
Xander Caruso recruiting me. X.C., my mentor.
My friend. My final memory of him flashes in my mind.
His confusion just seconds before we were both blown into Osaka Bay.
Fighting the waves only to realize X.C. wasn’t next to me.
We’d been betrayed on that mission and X.C.
paid with his life. If I had been faster, my thoughts sharper, I could have saved him.
Saved us both. The guilt is as suffocating as the frigid water he never surfaced from.
It was Oliver’s faith in my ability to help stop the Order and hold their members accountable that kept me going. My trust is still in tatters.
It makes me a better agent, I tell myself. Trust was a weakness.
That’s why I’m still here at FIRE. To stop the Order.
Everything else? It’s just another contract signed.
Another city to host an ultra-marathon, an endurance triathlon, some new spin on a death-defying open-water swim.
Meet with the head of local police to help weed out an informant selling secrets to organized crime.
Make sure the weak link in a local crime family is intercepted by the authorities. And on and on and on.
I used to think we were making a difference, a dent in the evil in the world. Now it’s like an arcade game of whack-a-mole with no prizes to be had. Only more work to be done, more ruin to unravel.
I eye Charlie and catch her assessing me. She looks away quickly, suddenly engrossed in her notes. And now I have a new challenge. To root out if she is, in fact, just a new executive assistant or if she is here to sabotage our mission.
I add one more to-do onto the pile.