Randall frowned. “Excuse me? What-what are you talking about?”
“About me...I’m talking about me. I’m not sure I have what it takes to do this job.”
“I don’t understand. You were great out there...in the field.”
She righted her head. “I haven’t felt this,” she faltered, “this unsure of myself since I first started with the Marshals Service. As a newbie, I felt like I didn’t know what I was doing back then, and I’m feeling the same way now.”
“Where’s this coming from? You’re one of the most capable agents I know—man or woman.”
Devlin faced him. “I’m not cut out for these secret, clandestine missions where I’m on my own. I’m a marshal. I know who the bad guys are. I know how to track them down. And I have the law on my side.” She shook her head. “But this ‘black ops’ stuff is...it’s a whole other world.”
Randall eyed his partner, his mind taking him back to when he graduated high school.
“Here—in the U.S.—I know my job. And I’m damn good at it, too. But, when we were in Norway, I found myself off balance...not knowing what to do next. And I didn’t like it.”
He smiled to himself. Perfect segue. “You know,” he crossed his legs, looked upward, and eyed the tops of the Thuja trees, “right before I graduated from high school, I went into a funk. I was days away from becoming an adult, and I had no freaking clue what I was going to do with my life.”
“You and millions of other teens.”
“True. But none of them had my Pops...to share with them some of his insight. I remember him...”
Devlin let out a truncated, barely audible groan before she could stop herself.
He pointed at her. “I heard that.”
“I’ve been wondering when you were going to drop another Pops story on me.”
“You pretend you’re annoyed; however, deep down inside, you know you love my stories.”
“I know I would’ve loved your Pops. That’s for sure.” She extended an upturned hand toward Randall. “Please continue, King Solomon.”
Hearing his full call sign, he grinned. “Anyway, Pops must’ve seen me sulking around the house, because he pulled me aside and asked what was troubling me. When I told him, he looked pensively at the floor for the longest time. I could see the wheels of wisdom spinning.”
Devlin leaned forward, her eyes never straying from Randall.
“Then, after nodding his head a couple times, he stood, patted me on the shoulder, and said to me...”
Not having blinked in the last fifteen seconds, Devlin waited for the kernel of truth.
“...‘You’ll figure it out, son.’ Then,” Randall raised his arm, “he walked into the kitchen and grabbed himself a beer from the fridge.”
She recoiled, her head going back a little further. “That’s it? You’ll figure it out? That’s all he said?”
Randall held up a forefinger. “It wasn’t what he said so much as how he said it...matter-of-factly. He doled out that insight as if he were telling me two plus two equals four.” Randall shrugged. “He wasn’t worried about my future. And, if Pops wasn’t worried, then that told me I shouldn’t be either. I’d figure it out.”
“No offense, but,” Devlin rolled a finger at her partner, “your delivery didn’t exactly instill in me the same confidence as Pops’ tone apparently did for you.”
He chuckled. “How’s this then? Do you remember when we were aboard that helicopter and you said to me, ‘What if I hadn’t figured out your crazy plan and didn’t have the chopper in place?’”
“I believe I said crazy ‘A’ double ‘S’ plan. But, yes, I remember. Go on.”
He smiled at her humor. “To which I replied...‘We’d have found another way. We always will, Jessica.’”
Her eyebrows came together.
He put both feet on the deck and listed closer to her, his face turning stoic. “You’re not alone in this. You have me. And the two of us will...figure it out.” He paused. “We always will, Jessica.”
Mulling over his words, Devlin drew her lips into her mouth and stared at the decking. The uncertainty that had been dogging her all day seemed to have faded a bit. She regarded Randall and gave him a thin grin. “Thanks for the pep talk. I think it may have worked...somewhat at least.”
“Glad to hear it.”
“And, at the risk of inflating your ego, your Pops stories—while I wouldn’t go so far as to say I love them—they are...”
Randall’s eyebrows went higher while he tilted his head a half inch. “Yes?”
“They are,” she hesitated, “pretty cool.”
“That’s because my Pops was pretty cool.” He claimed his beer and tipped the opening toward her. “To King and Raven...and all our wild adventures ahead.”
Devlin picked up her husband’s near-empty bottle but stopped short of clanking it against Randall’s. Half-smiling, a gleam in her eye, she amended the toast, “To Raven and King,” before clinking the vessels’ glass necks together and taking a sip.
∞=∞=∞=∞=∞=∞=∞
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Chapter 1
Sixty Seconds
14 MAY—4:34 P.M.
Swinging an AR-15 rifle to his left, a six-five, muscle-bound man dressed in black tactical clothing—including helmet, goggles, black balaclava, and a chest rig loaded with spare magazines—glimpsed the watch face on his inner wrist. “Sixty seconds!”
Standing on Six-Five’s three o’clock, also wearing tactical clothing and gear, a short and slim black-clad individual pivoted right while scanning the prone customers from behind the sights of an identical AR-15.
*******
FIFTY FEET AWAY...
Her right cheek pressed against the cold tile, her palms flat to the floor on either side of her head, Julia stared wide-eyed at her boyfriend. Don’t. Don’t do it, Todd.
In a mirror opposite pose from Julia, Todd spied her and clenched his teeth while sliding his right hand across the tile and down to his right ankle.
The terror she had felt a minute ago now eclipsed by a newfound fear, she managed to shake her head
