Golf
A s expected, Tessman gave Wilson shit about bowing out the previous evening with the girls. It was short-lived though as their dive boat reached the reef quickly and the diving was exceptional that morning. They were supposed to have an early evening flight back to Chicago, which as it turned out, turned into a late evening flight due to delays.
Wilson came back tanned and refreshed. He hadn’t had a second flash of the scene that had disturbed him the previous evening. He hadn’t reached out to Lassiter, and at this point, didn’t plan to. The episode would remain his little secret. As he had an early report time at the office the next morning for the next CIA Referral Case he was assigned to, he showered in the locker room facilities in the gym at HQ and then planned to sleep in his office on the couch. He slept there more often than not on the rare occasions he was in town. It was comfortable, and he slept well on it.
It was just past one hundred hours as he settled in to go to sleep. That was when a priority alert hit his phone. He bolted upright and turned a light on. He hurried to Ops to see what was going on. Brad ‘Circles’ Dupont and Garcia were on duty. “Hey,” he greeted them as he came through the door. “Can I help pull ammo or get anything ready for the alert?”
“No, Requisition Ryan is on it. Shepherd’s already in the conference room. I’m headed there now too,” Garcia answered. He stood and stepped towards the door.
“Good luck,” Dupont called after the two of them as they left the Ops Center.
“I’m not going on this one, but will run it from Ops,” Garcia said. He shook his head. “Coop will run lead on site.”
“What kind of mission is it?” Wilson asked as they pushed through the door into the stairwell.
“A hostage-rescue situation. Shepherd hand-picked the team.”
Wilson knew he was picked because he was a sniper. As expected, he and Garcia were the first to report to Shepherd in the conference room. Wilson sat and studied the info on the monitor. It looked like Miami was their destination. It didn’t take long for the others who’d been scrambled to arrive. First Cooper and Madison entered with Jackson. Roth entered a few minutes later. Then Lambchop, Sherman, and Sloan arrived. Shepherd motioned for Lambchop to close the door.
“Thank you for reporting so quickly.” He clicked a few keys on the keyboard in front of him and the picture of a twenty-something young woman displayed. She was of Middle Eastern descent but dressed in western clothing. “We’ve been contacted to run an off-the-books hostage rescue for SecDef. The last proof of life was obtained twelve hours ago, and the general vicinity of the ransom and release exchange location has just been received. We were only just brought in on this case half an hour ago. This is Puja Kumar. She is the daughter of Mitesh Kumar, one of the principals of CCS Enterprises, a prominent and profitable private Indian company that supplies IT contractors worldwide to organizations in all industries. Puja was kidnapped in Washington D.C. while visiting her father five days ago. The ransom demand was received immediately after she was taken. It was for information from specific organizations where CCS contractors are working, including the DoD.”
Several of the men at the table cursed.
“Son of a bitch! Why does the U.S. government continue to put themselves in this situation by using contractors? Edward Snowden anyone?” Madison demanded.
“Shep, has the demanded info been given to the kidnappers yet?” Lambchop asked.
“Some, yes. We’re told no sensitive US intelligence has been turned over yet. Luckily, as soon as she was taken, Kumar reported it to his contact at the State Department even though the kidnapper stipulated no police. Kumar had hoped the Feds would be assigned. With guidance from FBI hostage negotiators, Kumar has dragged out providing any DoD data until the exchange for his daughter takes place. SecDef doubts she’ll be turned over.”
“Yeah, why give up a goldmine in future intelligence?” Cooper said.
“Do we know who orchestrated the kidnapping? Or where she’s being held?” Madison asked.
Shepherd clicked a few more keys. “Yes. This is J.R. Percy. He’s been identified as an information agent who deals in corporate secrets and brokers various nefarious acts of espionage between contractors and buyers.” He was a normal-looking, middle-aged Caucasian male with a great tan. “But he won’t be at the exchange. He doesn’t get his hands dirty.”
“Please tell us we’ll be authorized to take him down as part of this mission,” Lambchop pled.
Shepherd nodded. “And it’s believed that she is being held in the Miami area. Percy’s current location is his luxury condo in the Continuum, a high-rise condo building in South Beach. The exchange location will be someplace in the Miami or South Beach area, most likely someplace he can see from his cushy and safe condo. The exact location will be transmitted to Mr. Kumar one hour before the exchange is to take place. Per the kidnapper’s instructions, Kumar is flying to Miami from D.C. It’s anticipated that the exchange will take place sometime tonight or tomorrow.” He paused and glanced at Sloan. “You may be back in time for the medical appointment on Wednesday.”
“Thanks, Shep, but if it goes over, it goes over. This is important. Kaylee will understand,” Sloan said.
Shepherd nodded again. “With the short notice we’ll have on this, we need to be flexible and agile to position and reposition as needed. The exchange will take place in public is all we know, which runs the risk of collateral damage if things go south.” He paused and clicked the keys on his keyboard. The monitor changed to the schematics and a map of the high-rise complex their target lived in. “What we can anticipate is that Percy will be in his condo, as he rarely leaves the grounds. From there, he has a good view of two directions. There are several good possible exchange locations in his view. One being the marina. The second the city streets below, and lastly this park.” He zoomed in on all three locations.
“He can also see the beach from his condo, but we think that location is unlikely due to the long walk to parking,” Garcia chimed in. “They’re going to want to show her to her father, get the delivery of the efile, and then duck back out of sight and get away with the girl still in their custody.”
“Another scenario we think is plausible is that they will position Kumar on a street corner and pull up in a car. Show him his daughter, get the file, and then drive away with the girl,” Shepherd said. “We’re going to have an hour’s notice. That’s all. So, we plan for the most likely scenarios.”
Within the hour, the team was already en route to O’Hare International Airport where an unmarked government Cessna Citation X waited to transport them to the government hangar in Miami. After transferring their gear quickly to the aircraft, Wilson settled into his seat. Sloan sat beside him.
The team was heavy on snipers: Sloan, Jackson, Cooper, himself. Lambchop and Roth weren’t bad either. Shepherd had not indicated if taking out the bad guys was the plan, but Wilson highly suspected it was. He was to be situated in another high-rise with line of sight to Percy’s condo.
“So, what do you think the odds are we can get this girl without eliminating all the bad guys?” Sloan asked Wilson.
“Slim to none,” Wilson replied. Obviously, Sloan was thinking the same thing he was.
Sherman poked his head around Sloan. “Percy’s marked the second he receives that file with DoD data. There’s no other reason Shepherd would have put you on him. The paid help on the ground with the girl, they won’t have access to the file. They’re not a threat. They may come out of this alive.” He leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes.
Wilson settled back in his seat. Yeah, that was what he’d thought too. It was nice having confirmation that someone else had deduced the same thing. He’d never second-guess Shepherd, but he longed for the old days when he was told up front that he was on a kill mission. He popped in his earbuds and turned on his classic rock playlist, and then he too leaned his head back and closed his eyes.
Just three hours later, they were on final approach to Miami International Airport. It was nearly dawn. All members of the team had slept during the flight. They’d be ready to hit the ground running. The landing was smooth, the taxi to the hangar short, the air humid and hot when they deplaned, and the drive to the location in South Beach that would be their onsite headquarters for the duration of the Op, gnarled in heavy traffic.
All of them except for Lambchop were transported in a white panel van, driven by a man who identified himself as merely Dip. Wilson knew that Dip was a Fed. Lambchop was handed keys to a sedan. During the briefing, it was disclosed that Lambchop would remain at the airport and be Kumar’s driver and bodyguard, sticking by his side, for the duration of this Op.
The panel van pulled into a single unmarked garage door entry in the back of the Portofino Tower, which was another high-rise luxury condo building that faced their target’s building, the south tower of the Continuum complex. The door rolled closed before someone on the outside opened the van door. The team grabbed their gear and followed the man in maintenance coveralls down the narrow hallway.
“This will be your group’s rooms,” the man said with a heavy southern accent. “We have privacy film on the windows and outer door. Try not to use the street level door if you can help it.” He pointed back in the direction they came. “There’s a street access back door by the garage door, which is more hidden from view.” He handed them all keycards.
“These give you full access to all doors in the complex.”
“Thank you,” Cooper said. “Are you our point of contact?”
“No, go through your normal command structure. I’ll be vacating the premises now.”
“Are there vehicles onsite for us?” Cooper asked.
“Yes, the two sedans in the garage have been designated for your use. Keys are in them. But traffic is normally so fucked up you’re not going anywhere faster by car than walking.” Without another word, he turned and left them.
Wilson glanced around the room they were standing in, set up as a makeshift office. There were two six-foot tables with metal folding chairs. On the wall above one of the tables was a detailed map of the South Beach area. On the east wall were the blacked-out windows and one glass door. A door on the far side of the room was open, revealing a bathroom. The door along the west wall was closed. Wilson opened it. Inside were barracks style beds lining the wall, four of them.
“They only provided us four bunks,” Wilson said to the others.
“Hopefully the exchange will be today, and we won’t even need them,” Madison said. “If Percy is as paranoid as I think he is, he’s not going to let too much time elapse before he calls Kumar. He won’t want there to be much time to get counter-assets in place.”
Cooper’s phone chirped. He checked his text messages. “Okay, game on. Kumar landed and Lambchop has him. He’s driving him to the hotel. Hopefully our intel is dead on, and he doesn’t get contacted by the kidnappers and diverted from this area. In this traffic, we’ll never make it to another location in time.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised if Kumar gets notified of the location for the switch before he reaches the hotel,” Madison said.
“Then you better change into your tank top and Daisy Duke shorts right now, Blondie,” Cooper said, giving his wife a wink.
Madison’s role was slotted to be a bystander on the street wherever the exchange would take place. Wilson had operated with the husband-and-wife team before and was always surprised by how much Cooper had relaxed since Madison joined the team. Cooper used to be a by the book, rule-following pain in the ass. Now he was human, and Ops were so much more relaxed, which fit Wilson’s style better.
“Yeah, I’ll do that,” Madison said. “I’m that confident of my assessment.” She shot Cooper a cocky look with a grin, and then sealed herself in the bathroom.
“Okay,” Cooper said, dropping his backpack onto one of the tables. It had been laid out with a diagram of the target building as requested. “There’s easy access to the immediate area via foot. Not so much with rifles.”
“Where’s the info on the unit I can set up in? I’d like to check out my sight lines,” Wilson said. His location would be the thirty-third floor, even with Percy’s unit.
“Me too,” said Sloan. Sloan and Sherman would be deployed to a corner unit on the tenth floor. His aim would be on the possible exchange locations.
“The units are vacant. You might as well get set up now,” Cooper said.
“Roth and I are going to take a walk around the area to be familiar with it,” Jackson said. Both of them had been assigned to be in the vicinity on ground level. They both needed to identify locations they could observe from undetected, as well as fire from if needed, with clean sightlines. Roth would also be onsite to render emergency medical care if needed.
“Go on comms,” Cooper ordered before the two men left.
Cooper sorted through several folders that were on the table to find the correct packets of information regarding the units they would use that were prepped by the onsite lead team SecDef had arranged. And then he, Sloan, Sherman, and Wilson checked out the building schematics. The service elevator was close to the unit Wilson would set up in to surveil Percy. Sloan and Sherman had a bit longer of a walk to get to theirs.
“I’m going to go up to my unit,” Wilson announced once he’d studied the map and got his bearings. He brought his backpack and rifle case with him and left the room. Sloan and Sherman exited behind him, carrying their gear as well.
They found the service elevator and used the cardkey to call it. They rode it to the tenth floor where Sloan and Sherman got off. Up on the thirty-third floor, Wilson made it from the elevator to the door to the unit he’d occupy without anyone seeing him.
The cardkey allowed him access to the unit. He stepped into a marbled entry with a ten-foot ceiling. He walked through the cavernous entry, the sound of his footfalls echoing in the silent space. Stepping onto the polished hard-wood floor of the living room, he gazed at the far wall. The entire wall in front of him was windows that overlooked the two buildings that made up the Continuum complex, the north and south towers. Percy’s condo was in the south building.
He went over near the window and set down his rifle and pack. From his backpack, he retrieved his rangefinder. He consulted the schematic in the folder to determine which set of windows on the building he was looking at were Percy’s. It didn’t have four clean sides. The building had a different number of floors on different levels, resulting in a staggered edge of the building, allowing for multiple corner units on most of the levels.
He pinpointed the windows that were Percy’s, and he gazed through the rangefinder, determining the distance. Then he broke out his Barrett M82A1sniper rifle, a .50 caliber long-range weapon, and set it up at the window. He focused through his Nightforce MIL-SPEC ATACR 5-25×56 F1scope, bringing the windows and inside Percy’s unit into view.
Sweeping across the windows, his gaze settled on the man standing at the window beside a tripod with what looked like binoculars, or a scope mounted to it. His phone was pressed to his ear. J.R. Percy. Percy’s gaze was towards the south. Consulting his map, Wilson saw that the park was south, though to see it, Percy would have to look down, which he wasn’t. Straight due south was the channel, the exit from the port of Miami, with Fisher Island forming the southern end of the land mass before the channel spilled into the Atlantic Ocean.
Wilson refocused through his scope at the man and the realization hit him that if Percy had Kumar go to Fisher Island for the exchange, he’d have a front row view of any and all boats going to the island. His team would be seen boating over, which was the only way to access the island.
“Be advised the target has been acquired,” Wilson broadcast through comms. “I’ve identified another possible location for the exchange based on the target’s current view out his window. He’s staring right at Fisher Island.”
“That island is a fortress, accessible by invitation only by someone who lives there,” Garcia chimed in. “The Digital Team already discounted that location due to the security on the island. And we could not find any known associates of Percy’s who have ties to the island.”
“He’s probably dreaming of living over there, jealous as hell of the rich and famous who are paying through the ass to live on that little hunk of rock,” Sherman broadcast.
Wilson chuckled.
“Just in case, Undertaker, do you have a line of sight to the island?” Cooper asked. “Specifically, the dock area.”
“Negative, Coop,” Sloan replied. “Razor, I sure hope your team’s assessment is correct. If the exchange goes down over there, we’re blind from up here and I don’t see us getting over there in time, if at all.”
“Well, the target also has binocs on a tripod that is currently pointing down,” Wilson said.
“Keep him in your sights, Taco,” Cooper ordered.
“Affirm,” Taco replied, just as a woman entered the room Percy was in. “Who’s this? The target has female company, blonde, beautiful.”
“That would probably be the target’s personal assistant. She’s privy to all his business dealings. She’s not an innocent,” Garcia reported. “Sorry she wasn’t in the briefing packet. We only just learned of her. We didn’t get much lead time on this mission.”
“Understood, Razor,” Cooper said. “All units, be advised that Xena has gone out to survey the area as well.”
“I’m on comms,” Madison reported. “I’m going to go over and check out that park. Then I’m going to wander around the streets that are in the target’s line of sight.”
“Roger that, Xena,” Cooper acknowledged.
Wilson remained at his post; his gaze trained on the target building across the way. The blonde stood near the target with an iPad or other digital device poised in her grip. It appeared she recorded whatever the two of them discussed. How Wilson wished they could get a bug in Percy’s condo! It had been deemed not possible by whoever SecDef had running point on this.
The morning dragged by. Wilson kept his vigil surveilling Percy. By eleven hundred, he was digging in his pack for a protein bar. Kumar was in his hotel room, a mile away, pacing according to Lambchop. This was the boring part of the job, the watching, and the waiting.
Refocusing his view at Percy’s windows, Wilson watched the blonde leave. Percy had been on and off his phone all morning. He currently was back on it. Finally, at eleven twenty-five hours, he went to the window and gazed through his binoculars, down towards the street level.
“Target is at the window, checking out the street level view on his binocs,” Wilson broadcast.
Five minutes later, Lambchop made the transmission they’d been waiting for. “Game on, instructions have just been received. The meet is to take place at the southwest corner of the parking at Inlet Boulevard. I do believe that is in our target’s line of sight.”
“It sure is, Lambchop,” Coop answered. He was still in the control room consulting the maps.
“What timeframe was given to the father?” Wilson asked.
“Within the hour. He’s to call back when he arrives at the designated location.”
“Xena, Crash, and Jax, make your way over there and figure out how you can blend in,” Coop ordered. “And Jax, find me a concealed location as well. I’ll head over at the last minute with one of the vehicles in case we need to pursue.”
In preparation, Wilson cut a circle in the glass window. Then he coated the hole and surrounding glass with clear tape. His silencer was already attached to his weapon. He positioned his tripod so that the barrel just barely penetrated the hole he’d made. If he had to shoot, the round should cut neatly through the window in front of Percy as it penetrated it without shattering the entire window. The prepping of his window would prevent it from shattering as well.
The minutes ticked by while they all waited for Lambchop and Kumar to arrive. Kumar, told to come alone, drove. He dropped Lambchop off a few blocks before he would enter Percy’s line of sight. Then he proceeded to the parking lot, parked, and positioned himself on the corner as instructed. He made the phone call to tell the kidnapper he was in position, and then he stood and waited. Again, the minutes clicked by.
Kumar had comms in his ear. Lambchop kept a running dialogue of reassuring and calming thoughts flowing, not his normal pre-mission prayer, but needed messages of having faith, and that it wouldn’t be much longer as he made his way towards Kumar’s location. “You’re doing great, Mr. Kumar,” he said, even though Kumar desperately studied each car that passed him. He looked like a mad man.
Finally, a silver sedan with tinted windows pulled up and stopped right next to Kumar. Madison had a clear line of sight to see what Kumar did. The back window rolled down and Kumar’s daughter sat beside it. She appeared unharmed. Madison studied the man in the backseat who sat beside Puja Kumar. He held her and Madison could see a gun pressed into the girl’s side. Madison broadcast her observations.
“I’ll transfer the file as soon as you let my daughter out of the car,” Mitesh Kumar said bravely.
“Transfer it first, and then we let her out as soon as we get confirmation it is what was requested,” the thug in the backseat said. The driver was turned in his seat, a phone pressed to his ear.
“It is, I promise,” Kumar stammered. “Okay, transmitting the file.” His shaking fingers stabbed at the keyboard of his phone. He waited, his eyes locked on his daughter’s.
“Target should have his eyes on his phone or a tablet,” Shepherd broadcast. “The file has been opened.”
“Roger, his finger is busy on the surface of his iPad,” Wilson confirmed.
“Neutralize the target, Taco,” Shepherd ordered.
Wilson released his breath and gently squeezed the trigger, taking the shot as ordered. The round left his weapon traveling at 2800 feet per second. Direct hit, center mass. Percy dropped to the floor. “Target neutralized,” Wilson reported.
At that moment, the car pulled away from the curb. “Puja!” Kumar yelled.
“Target vehicle on the move,” Lambchop reported. “Undertaker, blow the tires.”
A split second later, Sloan took the shot and blew out one of their front tires and then one of the back. The car careened into a park car just as Cooper pulled out of his parking spot and moved to block the intersection to prevent the kidnapper’s car from exiting the parking area. He stopped with the nose of the car pressing against the driver’s side door of the silver sedan, pinning it in place.
“Get the girl by any means necessary,” Shepherd broadcast a beat later.
Wilson listened through comms as the team moved in to rescue the girl. He operated with the team for so long that just from the bursts of dialogue through comms, he could clearly envision the takedown. Jax moved in on the driver’s side of the car and broke the car window with the barrel of his Sig. He then pressed it into the man’s chest through the broken window.
At the same time, Lambchop moved in on the passenger side of the car and leaned in through the open window where the girl sat, pointing the barrel of his weapon, with silencer attached, at the man in the backseat who sat beside her. He no longer held her in place thanks to the impact of the crash. “Give it up,” he told the man, who looked undecided about his next move. “Your boss is dead. Get your hands up.”
The man still looked undecided.
“I’ll shoot you right here, right now. You’ve got three seconds, two, one,” he counted down.
The man raised his hands into the air, still gripping the pistol in his right hand. Lambchop reached past the frightened girl and ripped the pistol from his hands. Madison moved in as well, and she removed Puja Kumar from the car. She walked her back to her father, who was just catching up with the runaway car. Kumar and his daughter shared a lengthy hug, exchanging words of love, and Kumar professing how sorry he was she’d been taken because of his job. Madison would stay with the pair until the Feds moved in.
“Big Bear, be advised hostage is free, two ready to be turned over to law enforcement,” Lambchop broadcast.
“Roger that team,” Shepherd transmitted.
With the mission concluded, Wilson stood at the window and allowed himself a moment to admire how the light played on the tide. It danced across the ripples created by the current flowing from the channel into the Atlantic Ocean. Glancing further out from the beach, a few clouds cast shadows on the water, creating varied colors of dark blue. The sun reflecting further out made the water shimmer. It was beautiful and peaceful.
“Okay, team, reconvene at the garage. We’re out of here in ten minutes,” Cooper broadcast, ripping Wilson’s thoughts from the ocean to the post-mission withdrawal.
They’d debrief later.
First, they had to get the hell out of there now that the Feds had moved in to secure the scene. The Feds would deal with the aftermath, the arrests, a medical eval for Puja Kumar, the retrieval of the file from Percy’s phone. A team of Feds was already breaching his unit. Wilson was sure Percy’s pretty blond assistant would be in custody within the hour, too.
They boarded the jet after they’d fought midday traffic to get back to the airport. Cooper brought Shepherd up in the video meeting room on his tablet with the rest of the team huddled around.
“Good job team,” Shepherd said. “SecDef sends his thanks.”
“Was there any sensitive info in that file transmission?” Lambchop asked.
Wilson doubted it. There was no way SecDef and the federal authorities would let Kumar pass any classified info to Percy. That was why Percy’s elimination didn’t seem to be imperative based solely on the need to protect data.
“No sensitive info was transmitted,” Shepherd confirmed. “Percy’s elimination was based on other criteria.”
Wilson nodded. It was as though Shepherd had read his thoughts. At the end of the day, it had just been another job. He didn’t particularly care why the decision had been made to take Percy out rather than arrest him. He had confidence in the chain of command that had made the decision. The day he stopped having that faith would be the day he’d walk away from the job.
The remainder of the debrief was textbook. The video chat was shut down and each person on the team would complete their mission report on the flight back to O’Hare. Not a bad outcome. On the ground for less than ten hours and the case was wrapped up.
They arrived back at HQ just after sunset. After they stowed their gear, the other members of the team left to go home. The CIA Case had been pushed back. They would deploy on it the following afternoon. Wilson opted to again sleep on his office couch. First, he went to the fifth-floor kitchen to raid the leftovers in the fridge. Angel always kept food on hand at the office. He found several cartons of Chinese food and a tray with sandwiches from a local deli. He heaped a serving of the Chinese onto a paper plate and placed it in the microwave.
Joe Lassiter entered the kitchen. “Hi, how’d it go?” he asked casually as he entered.
Wilson knew Lassiter never asked anything without a motive. “Good. You read the mission report, I assume.”
Lassiter pulled the tray of deli sandwiches from the refrigerator and pulled two of the servings onto a paper plate. “You know I did. I’m not up here on an official capacity regarding your mission. I’m waiting for several members of Echo Team to get back. They’re running one of the Briana Woods’ rescue missions with her. Shepherd needs to come up with a label for those cases other than a Briana Woods’ mission.”
“I thought she was to be in the office for a few weeks for training,” Wilson said.
“This one came into the contact form of hers and was hot, immediate threat of death. Shepherd green-lighted it. It was local, the Chicago area. It was a good first case to have under the Shepherd Security umbrella.”
“Who was staffed on it?” Wilson asked.
“Woods, Saxton, BT, and Bubbles,” Lassiter replied.
“Was it successful?” Wilson asked.
“It was,” Lassiter said, without explaining what successful meant.
Wilson didn’t press him. His microwave dinged its completion of reheating his meal. He pulled it out and planned to bring it up to his office to eat.
“Sit, keep me company,” Joe said.
“Sure,” Wilson agreed, already regretting that he hadn’t just grabbed a sandwich and left the room before Lassiter arrived.
Lassiter sat across from him. “You’ve had an active few weeks. I’m glad you got in the St. Thomas trip in between these last two missions.” He chuckled. “It had to feel like the old days, two unplanned missions back-to-back.”
Wilson chuckled with him. It was forced, and he was sure Lassiter knew it. “It’s comfortable territory. It was easy to fall into the routine of the PGP Installs, but this feels like home.”
Lassiter took a big bite of his sandwich. “That’s good to hear,” he said after he’d chewed and swallowed. “You’re flexible. Shepherd appreciates that. He’s operating in new territory too, you know, making allowances for the men with families and staffing cases based on it.”
Wilson hadn’t considered that. Yeah, when had he ever known Shepherd to make assignments based on a team member wanting to attend a medical appointment with their wife like he had with Sloan? “Luckily, he has multiple team members with similar skill-sets. Though this last mission proved that the job overrules personnel requests when needed.”
“And it always will,” Lassiter agreed. “I know it’s been said before, but right now is such a time of flux within the organization. You have no conflicts with the modifications made for the men with families, do you?”
Ah, so that was what this was about, Wilson realized. “You’ve asked me before, and my answer is still the same. No issues whatsoever. They’re still putting in their time, be it in Ops or running other missions. It’s not in my job description to keep track of everyone’s assignments and evaluate the fairness of them. It all pays the same and I trust Shepherd. Besides, missions like the last two are what I signed up for.”
“Good enough,” Lassiter said. “If that ever changes, I expect you to initiate a conversation with me about it.”
“You know I will,” Wilson agreed.
When Wilson settled in to try to get some sleep, his thoughts drifted to Rae and his last conversation with her. Not tired enough to sleep yet, he tapped out a text message to her. “Hi, how’s it going?”
Her reply was immediate. “Good. I should be sleeping, but I’m wide awake.”
“Me too,” he said. “I just got back from a job, and I leave tomorrow morning on another one.”
“Do you like all the traveling?” she asked.
“I don’t mind it,” he answered. “You have to go where the job is.”
“So, you’re not just like assigned to the Chicago area?” She knew that wasn’t the case as she’d met him in Norfolk and when she flew back with them, she learned their home base was some place in the Chicago area. She knew they weren’t a regular unit of federal agents. She knew several of them were DEA and others were FBI. She didn’t buy that they were just a federal task force of multiple agencies, as she’d been told. But she was smart enough to not ask more.
“No, it may be our home base, but we do get deployed to various areas when the job is there,” he said, phrasing it carefully to not give her any info she shouldn’t have.
“It’s amazing to me to hear how all this goes, given which side I was kind of on for so long, LOL.”
Wilson laughed aloud. “Yeah, I bet. It’s a whole different world that most people don’t know about. Just like I’m sure the world you were a part of was the same. Most people aren’t privy to the world you lived in.”
“Yeah, I’m sure my coworkers at the school would be shocked to learn what my life was like before, not that I’d ever tell them.”
“Yeah, that would be a really bad idea, LOL,” he wrote.
“LOL, I know. I can never tell anyone who I really am. That’s why I do like talking to you. You know and know how much my life has changed. Our conversations can be real, with no explanations of anything needed.”
“I like that we talk, Rae. I wish, though, that I could be as open with you, but the classified nature of my job makes that impossible.”
“I know and I understand,” she wrote. “I guess that puts us both in the same position when it comes to any possible relationship. Neither of us will ever be able to be completely honest with a potential partner. Kind of dooms any relationship, don’t you think?”
Wilson didn’t know how to respond to that. He’d really never thought about it before, because he’d never thought about a person as a potential partner, never wanted that type of relationship. Even as his teammates married and had children, proving it was possible in their job, he still didn’t see himself in a committed relationship, didn’t see himself wanting one.
“I don’t know. Many of my teammates have successful relationships. But they can tell their significant other some about the job after she’s passed a background check when their relationship becomes serious, so it’s not quite the same as your situation.”
“Oh, really? I guess I just assumed you could never tell anyone what you do,” she said.
“Not everything, but more than you’d think,” he replied. “And there are some things I wouldn’t share, wouldn’t want to either burden someone with how horrible something was or how scary a situation was. I know my team mates never share the close calls. They don’t want their wife or girlfriend to worry about them every time they’re out working more than they probably already do.”
“That makes sense,” she agreed. “If Garcia had a wife, I’m sure he wouldn’t want her to know how close he was to me when I got shot and have her worry it could have been him.”
Wilson wouldn’t correct her assumption that Garcia wasn’t married. He was sure Rae would be shocked to hear that he was married and had a son. “Yes, none of the team members share that kind of thing.”
There was a lapse in their texting that lasted nearly a minute. “I should probably try to get to sleep now. My alarm is going to go off way too early.”
“Before you go,” he tapped out, “I wanted to say that I think you should not assume you can not have a successful relationship because you can’t share anything about your past with someone. If he’s the right person, the good person you are will be enough for him. He won’t need to know everything about who you used to be.”
She thought about that for a minute and suddenly felt emotional. She wanted to debate him, insisting that if someone didn’t know her past, they wouldn’t truly know her. She’d feel like she was not being honest. And the fact that he was urging her to be open to a relationship with someone proved he didn’t think about her in romantic terms at all. That made her sad. She knew she shouldn’t think of him in those terms, but she couldn’t keep herself from having feelings for him beyond appreciation and friendship.
As if she thought he could read her mind, she then felt embarrassed for the thoughts she had. He’d never indicated he thought of her that way or had any intentions beyond friendship. It almost made her feel guilty that she was attracted to him and wondered what it would be like to be with him.
“Okay, thanks, Jimmy,” she tapped out, realizing she’d waited too long to reply. “I better try to get to sleep now.”
“Okay, sleep well. I’ll talk to you later,” he tapped out.