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It was time to let go.
Time to move on.
“Try not to kill yourself with those weights, all right?” Ice said softly, listening to the sounds of Jack slamming the weight-plates back onto the bar. “Look, I have to go. Good luck with the hunt for Diego.”
“Yeah, you too,” came Jack’s somewhat distracted voice through the speaker. Another grunt, then Jack moved closer to the phone. “Wait, listen. I get that Benson wants you to stay silent about the mission. But at least tell me if there’s a woman involved.”
“Bye, Jack.”
“Come on, man. You’ve seen the other Darkwater guys with their wives, you’ve heard about how those other missions went down for them. And the names, Ice. You’ve got to admit, there’s something weird about how those names line up. Hell, Mom and Dad would have gone ape-shit over how the Darkwater names match. Especially if they saw howournames fit in. Hogan was the last guy. Now it’sIceandJack. YouknowMom and Dad would have loved that shit.” He chuckled. “Remember that poem they made up when we were kids?” Jack’s voice took on a sing-song tone. “No such thing as a lucky break. No such thing as a meaningless mistake. No such thing as misfortune or luck. So just follow your heart and you’ll never be stuck.” Jack howled out a laugh. “That was it. Still remember every word, and I bet you do too. Now tell me if the name lines up, Ice. You know Mom and Dad would say it’s a sign from the universe.”
“Here’s a sign from the universe.” Ice tapped his phone and hung up on his brother for the second time today and probably the millionth time in their lives.
Ice was just three years older, but sometimes it felt like Jack was still a kid. Especially when he talked like a head-in-the-clouds idiot, spouting nonsense of the kind Mom and Dad subscribed to, bullshit ideas that belonged in children’s fairy tales.
Not that either of them had read many fairy tales growing up. They’d been too busy playing in the dark woods past their backyard in Upstate New York, not far from the Hudson River. As kids they’d follow the river to the bend, from where they could see the grand old buildings of West Point. They’d talk about how they were going to go there someday, become soldiers in the U.S. Army, grow up to be action heroes, superheroes, kicking ass and taking names, hunting enemies and destroying villains.
Of course, Mom and Dad had solidly opposed any sort of violence. They wouldn’t even kill mosquitoes. So it wasn’t an easy conversation when Ice informed them he’d been accepted to West Point and he was going to join the Army. It was only when Ice explained that the whole point of having a strong military was topreventviolence that his hippie-hearted parents finally relented.
Not that they could have stopped Ice anyway. He wasn’t a hothead like Jack, but Ice was equally bullheaded, an absolute lock to do whatever he fixed his mind on, no matter what anyone said, no matter what anyone did, no matter what anyone thought.
But now Ice wasn’t sure what to think as he stepped out of the Jeep and closed the door quietly. His instructions had been brief. He was to meet the local CIA asset Edwin Moses at this safe-house. Moses should already have brought the girl here.
Moses was just an asset, not officially CIA. He’d married an Indian woman and had been living in Mumbai as a U.S. expat for decades. He was mostly eyes and ears, an enabler rather than a doer. Benson seemed to trust him well enough, assured Ice that Moses would give him a weapon and answer any lingering questions about the mission.
And there were a lot of lingering questions.
Benson had been frustratingly secretive from the beginning. Clearly the wily old CIA dog didn’t want to brief Ice on all the details while still in America. Ice was new to Darkwater, and Benson was covering his bases, making sure that Ice didn’t know enough to say anything to Jack or the other Darkwater guys.
All Benson had said was that it was an internal CIA problem which Director Martin Kaiser did not want handled by the CIA.
It involved a woman, a low-ranking CIA analyst assigned as an attaché to the U.S. Embassy in Mumbai, India.
Her name was O’Donnell.
India O’Donnell.
“India like the country?” Ice had asked when he and Benson met for an early breakfast at Carson’s Diner on the Hudson River in Rye, New York.
“India like the character,” Benson had said as he sliced his bacon and dipped it into some very orange egg-yolk before wolfing it down and looking up with a half-grin. “Haven’t you readGone with the Wind?”
Ice had grunted as he finished his bacon—which looked a bit rare but seemed salty enough to kill any microbes. He drained his coffee, tapped the spoon against the rim of the empty cup and nodded at the waitress, who was watching him from the corner of her eye—perhaps because it was six in the morning and he was wearing his sunglasses indoors like either a movie star or a serial killer.
“But India Wilkes is a relatively minor character inGone with the Wind, and since India O’Donnellishalf-Indian, you get points for the connection to the country,” Benson had continued. “India’s mother was born in New Delhi, moved to the U.S. for law school, got knocked up by the Dean of the school in her third year, then died during childbirth because she insisted on delivering the baby at home without medical help. The heartbroken Dean named the kid India, put baby India up for adoption, then promptly drowned himself in Chesapeake Bay.”
Ice had taken off his sunglasses so as not to scare the waitress, and he’d stared at Benson as the former CIA man rattled off India O’Donnell’s tragic history like it was a fake biography manufactured by some overly enthusiastic CIA intern trying to come up with a clever cover story for a spy.
“You messing with me, Benson?” Ice had inquired with a raised eyebrow. “Like my brother says, I don’t have a sense of humor, so if that’s a joke I’m supposed to get, tell me so I can laugh.”
Benson had chuckled, reached for his coffee, raised it to his lips, sipped and then shrugged.
“I agree it sounds made up, but it’s all true. You’ll have her basic CIA personnel file on your phone in a few hours once Kaiser gets it to me.” Benson took another sip of coffee, then put the cup down and picked up his water-glass. “Her background is almost comically tragic, but that describes half the damn CIA. You do know that the Company actively seeks out folks like her. Orphans are a great start. People scarred and damaged from birth. And O’Donnell has mental chops to complement those psychic scars. Add to it that she could pass for not just Indian but Hispanic or Mediterranean or Arab, and you’ve got a textbook CIA recruit.” Benson had grinned. “Smart like cancer, dedicated like a disease, damaged from the inside out.”
Ice’s normally cool blood had risen up along his neck at the pointed mention ofcancer. He’d looked dead ahead into Benson’s gray wolf-eyes, wondering if Benson was itching to get his face bashed in over breakfast.
Obviously Benson was fucking with him, pushing his buttons, testing Ice to see if he really was as cool as his nickname promised. Why else would he use words likecanceranddisease, words intended to trigger Ice into losing his cool, showing that perhaps he wasn’t ready for this mission, maybe not ready for Darkwater at all.
Which would have been all right with Ice. He’d only joined Darkwater to keep an eye on Jack, who’d been dead-set on doing it ever since that spectacle with the movie star Diana Jackson down in Somalia had sent rumors around the Special Forces community about this new outfit headed up by the legendary John Benson.
