My happiness didn’t last long.
With one set of memories instigating the wish for more, I dragged an old shoebox full of photographs from the headboard of my bed to my desk. The six-strip of condoms my mom had snuck inside the day after Melody and I had given each other our virginities had been reduced to five, and an empty package was sitting in the waste-bin under my desk.
I’ve never once in my life craved a violent, all-in rage as I did that afternoon. I wanted to demolish my room as the arborist was doing to the oak tree. I wanted to smash every piece of furniture I owned before dragging my mattress outside to set in on fire. I wanted my room to feel as bare and as hollow as I felt, and I was willing to lose everything to do it.
But instead of doing any of those things, I shoved the box of pictures under my arm, paid the tree chopper the exorbitant fee my father negotiated to have evidence of Joey’s death removed from our lives as soon as possible, then left my family ranch without so much as a backward glance.
I’ve never been back since.
It was that afternoon that Tobias caught me expelling my rage on a defenseless paper target. I was in the process of reloading the Sig Sauer P226’s magazine when Tobias said, “Liam always recruited the best officers, so how come he never mentioned you?”
Unaware his question was rhetorical, I replied, “The Bureau requires a degree. I was also too young.”
Tobias smirked a smug grin before he turned away and mumbled, “I wasn’t talking about the Bureau.”
His reply stumped me for days. I was truly lost. It was only while pondering over a decade of stories did pieces of the puzzle start falling into place.
After a quick google search, I discovered the university Wren and my mother attended is one of the highest CIA recruited universities in the country. Mr. Gregg attended the same university as his wife four years prior. He possessed as bachelor’s degree in political science that I can’t find payment for, had a 3.4 GPA, was an American citizen, and his tax records for his senior year stated he was a military operative who hadn’t left campus for more than a few days at a time.
It could have been a coincidence, but Tobias’s lack of denial when I brought it up the following week all but confirmed my suspicions. Tobias is quick to tell you when you’re wrong. His lectures last as long as my father’s, and sometimes, he even goes as far as using a spreadsheet to show you exactly where you went wrong, so for him to keep quiet, I knew I was on the money.
Furthermore, despite what the movies portray, US-born employees recruited and trained to work as Intelligence Officers for the National Clandestine Service (CIA) are never referred to as ‘agents.’ They’re called ‘Operations Officers’ or ‘Case Officers’ or some go by ‘Officer’ for short.
Tobias said ‘Officer.’ He doesn’t fumble over his words, and he has never cracked under pressure, so to this day, I’m confident he didn’t make his remark for no reason. Between cleaning urinals with a toothbrush, and making beds like I was an army cadet, I gave my theory a little more thought.
AKA—I snooped while Tobias and his team were sleeping.
Without Grayson’s help, it took me eight weeks to unearth information that now would take me six minutes. The evidence wasn’t damning, but it did add a stack of wood onto my claims that Mr. Gregg was an Operations Officer for the CIA.
He was either that or a mobster.
I prefer my earlier theory.
Just like Tobias’s relationship with Henry Gottle gains criticism, so has links between the CIA and certain mafia syndicates. For decades, conspiracists have alleged connections between the CIA and organized crime. Rumors range from reputed members of the Chicago mob being killed days before government inquiries into the conspiracists’ claims to CIA officers colluding with members of the Bureau to cause gang-related violence. If the head of one crime syndicate takes out another, who’s going to mourn the loss?
Once again, I’m not a fan of rumors, especially ones that alter the more they’re disclosed, but from the photograph Grayson shared with Melody and me in the dress shop years ago, to the many phone conversations between Henry Gottle and Mr. Gregg noted in confidential FBI records, I can conclusively say they knew one another. I just haven’t deciphered how or why.
If Wren had been a defense attorney, their contact could have been brushed off as an acquaintance by association, but that isn’t the case. The meeting Tobias’s team intercepted between Mr. Gregg and Henry Gottle wasn’t the only one they had in the weeks leading to Liam and Wren’s death. They met a handful of times, including the night Melody said Crombie had tailed her mom from Mary’s Diner.
My focus returns to the present when Tobias says, “James and Rogers will run communications while the rest of you enter via the south entrance.”
No one blinks an eye at Tobias referring to me by my middle name because as far as anyone in this room is concerned, my name is Brandon James. I was born in Cleveland, Ohio, and my father isn’t Vincent McGee, recently appointed Governor of New York. That would only make things awkward when rookie agents connected the dots. It’s not every day a federal agent is on the team hunting down his father.
I’ve known since I was young that my father is an evil man. Years of service reveal I am right. The only thing is, just like many of his ‘associates,’ he’s clever enough to keep himself out of jail. He hides bank records, keeps his hands clean by ensuring his name isn’t associated with anything shady, and believes his position of Governor makes him untouchable.
I’m determined to prove him wrong.
He got away with admissions fraud by stating the car he purchased with campaign funds was for his campaign leader. That’s how arrogant my father is. He doesn’t believe the authorities are smart enough to realize Florida and New York aren’t the same state, but because the Bureau would rather catch him for something bigger, they let his misdemeanor slide.
I won’t let a second slip-up pass without prosecution. It will only be a matter of time before he stumbles, and when he does, I’ll be there with my foot propped out, ready to aid in his fall.
As the agents check their weapons in preparation for the raid, Grayson scrubs at the beard that no longer looks like bumfluff while mumbling a curse word under his breath. He’s pissed, wrongly believing he is being excluded from the sting because he’s too close to the case to work it properly.
It’s not true. He’s one of the best field operatives in Tobias’s team, but his hacking skills are even better than that. He is the equivalent of three black hatters, and with Tobias needing eyes and ears in every room of the fortified warehouse to ensure his team isn’t walking into an ambush, he has to exclude Grayson from the raid.
Me, on the other hand, anticipated being seconded to comms. I fucked-up four years ago by letting my past affect my future. Tobias is a great team leader, but he can hold a grudge as well as he can down a bottle of vodka and not get a hangover.
My error almost got me kicked out of the Bureau before I was even an official agent. It brought me back onto the straight and narrow, but the hit it caused my personal life is still being felt. The incident took Melody from being the girl I once loved to a girl I no longer know.
