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He gives my arm a quick tug to pull me back down. I sit beside him again, but I stay on the edge in case he makes any sudden moves.
“I went to Europe for a vacation, figured I’d get a rail pass and wander around for a bit. See the world and whatnot,” he explains. “Some bastard pick-pocketed me in London and I had to improvise. I didn’t have money to go home or stay in hotels, so…” he pauses, searching my face, “I started breaking into houses and sleeping on couches while the owners were gone.”
I smirk. “You’re a vagrant?”
He laughs. “I’m a drifter.”
“Same thing.”
“I didn’t do anything super shady,” he says. “Just went in, got some food, and caught a few Zs. I didn’t steal any valuables. I left no trace besides a few missing slices of bread and a beer. Or two.”
I shake my head, but I can’t hide my amusement. “How did you not get caught?”
“It’s actually really easy to tell who’s out of town. Newspapers pile up. Mail doesn’t get taken inside. Closed curtains. No lights. Once I was inside, I just tried to find out when they’d come back. Usually, there’d be a clue or two but if not… just hope for the best.”
“And how did you go from drifting around Europe to trapped in a warehouse in Afghanistan?”
“Oh, right. That.” He winces. “I got caught.”
“Of course, you did.”
“I was in Paris and I stumbled on this gorgeous house outside of the city. Best of all, the owner obviously traveled a lot. So, I made myself at home for a little while… until…”
“Busted.”
“I woke up to find two very large men standing over me with two very large guns,” he continues, holding his hands up at least two feet apart to show their length. “I’m talking assault weaponry. The kind you don’t typically see on civilians in France.”
“What did you do?”
“I said a damn prayer and hoped it’d be quick.” He laughs. “Then, this woman walked in. Tall, blonde, older — probably in her fifties, but I got kind of a cougar vibe from her—”
“Carson.”
“Right.” He clears his throat. “Obviously, she asked what the hell I was doing there. I explained everything. Just a poor boy with nothing on him but lint and a computer, looking for a way back home.”
“And?”
“And… she offered me a job.”
I blink. “What?”
He pats his computer. “She was really interested in knowing what I could do, seeing as how I managed to override her home security system and disable the alarms so I could get in. Which was not easy, by the way. By far the most advanced system I’ve ever stumbled upon. The conversation quickly turned kind of scary, but I wasn’t about to piss off the woman with the two hired guns standing behind me, watching my every move.”
“What kind of scary?”
He takes a breath and his eyes shift around us for prying ears. “She started talking about United States military servers and whether or not I’d be able to crack into them to gather personnel files.”
I furrow my brow. “What kind of personnel files?”
“Mission debriefings. Confirmed kills. Pretty much anything I could find on active duty soldiers currently deployed,” he says, his voice low. “Soldiers like you guys.”
I pause. “What did she want with that?”
“Honestly, I was too scared to ask,” he says, “but it seemed like they were recruiting for something.”
“Any idea what for?” I ask. He shakes his head. “Why didn’t you say no?”
“I got the feeling I didn’t have a choice.”
