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She put her hands on her hips and glared at me. “Don’t just stand there. Go get them.”
I could hear them talking as I rushed off, but not what either was saying. No doubt, my mother knew the exact right words to put Ali at ease, and for that, I was grateful.
I hurried back, bottle of pills and glass of water in hand, and saw the door was closed. Seconds later, it opened, and my mother reached her hand out. “That’s all for now, Sumner,” she said, closing it again as I stood stupefied.
Not knowing what else to do, I went back to the kitchen, opened the refrigerator, grabbed a beer, and walked over to the window. The streets below were crowded with people no doubt rushing to get lunch during the mid-day break. Every so often, a runner would weave their way through the crowd or a bicyclist would whiz past the cars stuck in traffic gridlock.
How long had it been since I did any exercise outside? I couldn’t remember. Maybe that’s why, when I saw the bike in the window of the building across the way, I’d gone out and bought my own. At least I could look out to where there was fresh air, even if it wasn’t blowing in my face.
“She’s asleep.” My mother’s voice was soft.
“Thanks for coming over, Mom.”
She put her hand on my shoulder and leaned against me. “She seems nice.”
I waited for a barrage of questions that didn’t come. Instead, after a few minutes, my mother asked if I thought I’d be okay on my own. After I assured her I would be, she left, leaving me feeling perplexed.
I pulled out my laptop and sat on the stool at my kitchen counter. I needed to get a message to Warrick. I knew him well enough to predict he was in full panic mode. I was just about to call Hammer when I got a message from one of the men Decker had assigned.
In position, the text message read.
Copy, I responded and pulled up Hammer’s number.
“Hey, Cope.”
“How’s Irish?”
“Fucking pussy,” Hammer muttered.
It was an opinion many in the intelligence community shared, but it wasn’t a fair one. Until recently, no one but Irish and me knew exactly what I’d asked the man to undertake for the last seven years. Upon his arrest, Warrick had been vilified from every direction, and yet he hadn’t cracked. Even to Rage, who was the Invincibles’ man on the inside, making sure no one could get to him.
“Tell him I’ll get with him as soon as I can.”
“You got it. Anything else?”
I wanted to tell Hammer to reassure Irish, but that would only piss him off more. The last thing Irish needed was the attorney giving him shit.
No one knew Irish better than I did, inside the CIA or out.
He and I met at Camp Peary—known within the agency as “The Farm”—where we both underwent training for the Clandestine Service Division. We’d spent eighteen months at the highly classified, nine-thousand-acre military camp where the lead instructor was known for telling every new recruit, “It doesn’t matter who you used to be or who you are. All that matters is who we teach you to be.”
Irish had arrived a couple of months before I did, but lagged behind me in his completion of several of the milestones. When I was approached to become his training partner, I didn’t know what they really had in mind was for me to become his handler.
In hindsight, it was easy for me to understand why the company had chosen that role for me rather than put me out in the field. I’d been too green back then to realize the kinds of risks that would present themselves if it became known who my father was.
From then on, Irish and I were a team in a way I never had been with the other agents I handled. It was probably harder on me than it was on Warrick, when people like Hammer gave him shit. I was the one who’d created the reputation he had, and it had served us well in the missions we’d run together.
The mission now, though, outweighed every other and was dependent upon Irish being able to hold his shit together without my constant attention.
By three in the afternoon, I was hungry. I eased my bedroom door open and was relieved to find Ali still asleep, especially after what Chloe had said about her not getting any rest last night.
Rather than going downstairs and placing my order in person, I called the café. “Hey, Cope, how’s the patient?” Lindsey asked.
“Asleep for now, but when she wakes up, she’s going to be as hungry as I am.” The line was quiet on the other end. “Linds?”
“I’m here. Don’t get me wrong, I really appreciate your business, but…doesn’t the hospital have food? Or isn’t there somewhere closer you can pick something up?”
“We’re here. She was released this morning.”
