“Hey, squirt,” said Cord, brother number three in oldest to youngest in our family. “You hangin’ in there okay?”
I looked up from the book I was reading.
“You need anything, you let me know. Understand?”
“I understand.” I wouldn’t go to him, though, if I needed anything. I’d either ask my brother Holt, since he was closer to my own age, or Johnny, the head cook at the dining hall where my father usually had me hang out when he and my brothers were busy on the ranch.
Since I started kindergarten, Holt and I had gone to the same school and he always looked out for me. Next year, he would go to middle school and I’d be left on my own. Just thinking about it, made my stomach hurt. Now, I was only made fun of when the other kids knew my brother wasn’t around. Once he was in a different building, it would be all the time.
“Hey, heifer!” they’d shout and then moo at me when there was no teacher within hearing distance. I hated it, but less because it hurt my feelings. It was the humiliation that made my cheeks heat and my stomach ache.
I’d begged Holt not to say anything about it to our older brothers or our dad, and he never had. Maybe he was afraid, like I was, that our father would think it was funny. Worse, he might start calling me that himself. Every so often, I could swear I heard him making pig sounds when he caught me in the kitchen, getting a snack.
My dad was all about perfection. At least the outward appearance of it. I was anything but perfect. I hated the jeans and western shirts he bought for me. I might as well be his fifth son, the way I looked in them. And my hair? I kept it tied back in a ponytail all day and night. When he thought it was too long, he’d just cut part of it off.
“Whatcha doin’?” I heard my brother Buck ask.
“Nothing,” I said, barely turning my face from the pillow I’d been crying into.
“You know if there was any way I could take you to college with me, I would, Flynn.”
I dried my tears on the pillowcase and looked up at him, relieved he thought I was crying over him rather than feeling sorry for myself.
3
Irish
Hong Kong
Nine Years Ago
The mission we were assigned was standard reconnaissance. As the person with the least seniority, I was given the worst shifts and shittiest jobs. I didn’t mind. I knew one day there would be someone else below me. Fair was fair.
My three partners for tonight’s duty were Peter “Dingo” Samuels, Albert “337” Baker, and Eric “Julius” Berg. The three had a lot more seniority than me, but since they were looking to leave the mission early, they’d volunteered for the “swing” shift.
The man we were watching, a Chinese-born Canadian national, was the suspected kingpin of a vast drug network that was raking in upwards of fifty million dollars annually.
He wasn’t on our watch list because the CIA wanted to bring him in. Our mission was to determine who his main points of contact were in Hong Kong and who was laundering his money.
As danger went, it was relatively low risk, given we had no authority whatsoever to act, only to report information.
The streets were empty but for a few vagrants as we waited for our relief team. Two men, though, caught my eye as they rounded a corner and stood there, looking in our direction long enough that it raised my concern.
“Dingo—” I’d no more said his name than a vehicle sped past, taking out all three of the agents I was on duty with. Samuels fell face-first into the alley from which we’d been conducting our stakeout. The other two were farther away, but there was no question they were dead. All that prevented me from meeting the same fate was that I’d been standing in the shadows, hidden by the corner of the building.
“Agents down,” I hissed into my mic. “Repeat. Agents down.”
What happened over the course of the next three days left my head spinning. No one asked me for an account of what I saw or heard. The entire mission was scrubbed, then burned.
And Dingo, 337, and Julius? I never heard their names mentioned again.
My mother used to say every person dies three deaths. The first is when the body ceases to function. The second is when that body is put in the grave. The third is when your name is spoken for the last time. Seemed to me that all three happened on the same day for the three men I’d been working with.
When I returned Stateside, I asked Cope to meet me away from the office.
“It came way too close, man,” I told him. “It was a low-risk mission.”
“What I don’t understand is why it was burned at all, let alone so fast.”
“I agree.”
Cope said he’d dig around and see if he could find any other information, but I could tell he was as skeptical about his success as I was.
4
Irish
Washington, DC
Seven Years Ago
Exactly when I’d started keeping track of agents’, operatives’, and assets’ deaths, I couldn’t remember. As I added names to my ongoing tally, I added more details. Soon, I began adding photos along with as much information as I could about how and where they had been assassinated.
That’s what I called it. These men and women didn’t “die in the line of duty,” as was sometimes reported, and then only within the company. The general public never knew a thing about those who had given their all to protect our collective freedom. I did, though.
The spare bedroom of my condo became a cross between a shrine and a war room. The walls
