I’d get up at four in the morning every day and prep both breakfast and lunch, which some of the ranch hands would help serve on the days I had school. The minute I got home, I’d get dinner going. The downside was, the whole time I cooked, I tasted whatever I was making—and I’d also sit down and eat with my father and brothers.
Being in the kitchen and around food gave me comfort and allowed me to forget, at least for a little while, about the pain of being mercilessly teased every single day. The side effect was I was gaining more weight. It was a vicious cycle.
Most evenings, like tonight, my father and brothers ate in the dining hall with the rest of the hands. I was just about to sit down to join them when my father rushed from the table and hurried outside, covering his mouth with a bandanna.
“His cough is getting worse,” I said to Porter.
“Yeah.”
“You have to make him go to the doctor.”
Cord looked up from his plate. “Did you say make him?” Both he and Porter laughed.
I clenched my fists. “I’ll do it, then.”
Holt looked from our two brothers to me and shook his head.
“Someone has to,” I said, staring him down. I knew my three brothers, who were bigger, stronger, and outnumbered my father, were afraid of our “old man,” as they called him. I wasn’t. What could he or anyone else do to hurt me that would be worse than the pain I’d endured for as long as I could remember?
“I need someone to take me to get my license.” I’d been driving since I was ten or eleven. Everyone on the ranch learned how once they could reach the gas pedals. Now that I was sixteen—almost seventeen—I could start doing it legally.
“I’ll take you,” offered Cord. I’d rather Holt do it, but he didn’t speak up. “Maybe we’ll get Pops to go with us and dump his ass at the hospital instead.” The last part, he’d said under his breath, but I heard him.
As it turned out, we didn’t have to trick our father to get him to go to the hospital; an ambulance delivered him there when Porter found him passed out in the barn.
After running several tests, the doctor came in while I was in the room and gave my father his prognosis. Perhaps if he’d seen a physician sooner, something could have been done to slow the cancer that had spread throughout his body. As it was, my father wasn’t expected to live as long as six more months.
“We need to get Buck home,” I said to my brothers when I told them what the doctor had said.
“He won’t come,” said Porter, walking out the front door and slamming it behind him.
“He will,” I said to Cord and Holt. “He has to.”
7
Irish
Washington, DC
Three Years Ago
“I heard all hell has broken loose in California with Kilbourne’s mission,” I said to Cope when we met at yet another undisclosed location.
“Things aren’t always what they seem.”
I studied him, waiting for him to elaborate. It had been three years since Cope let Special Agent Malin Kilbourne run with the mission involving the money that had come into the super PAC and the mystery surrounding the higher-ups and the agency’s response.
While he didn’t share much, he did occasionally reassure me that she was still very much alive.
“I heard Striker was being airlifted to a hospital.” Also in that time, Griffin “Striker” Ellis, once our boss, had left the agency to work for a private intelligence firm called K19 Security Solutions. The man who replaced him at the CIA, Kellen “Money” McTiernan, was the least likely candidate for the job, but he’d been given it anyway.
Rumor was he came by way of the NSA and was known to have an IQ above people like Einstein and Hawking. I hadn’t interacted with Money much outside of requisite meetings, and Cope wanted to keep it that way. The fewer people able to track my movement, even during a mission, the better.
“I also heard Ghafor was taken out.” The man was the known head of the Islamic State, the organization Kilbourne had been tasked with infiltrating. How she’d lived through that assignment remained a mystery neither Cope nor anyone else could explain.
“Like I said.”
“I see.” Which meant those on the inside of the mission didn’t want anyone in the chain of command to know whatever Kilbourne had unearthed. “So, he’s alive.”
Cope nodded.
“No ambush.”
“That’s right.”
“McTiernan and I are headed out there now to get a full briefing. Once that’s complete, we’ll be pulled into a high-level NSA assignment necessitating that we’re both off the grid.”
So McTiernan was now on the inside. “Who’s the target?”
“Montgomery for sure, but we believe it goes way beyond him.”
“Stevens?”
“Affirmative.”
“Higher?”
“All the way.”
“Jesus. Do you think—”
Cope shook his head. “I’d like to believe we were on the cusp of finding out this is connected to our mission, but I don’t believe it is, Irish. I can’t say it’s even related. This is about money, plain and simple.”
“Understood.”
“I want you to take leave.”
Since I was between missions, now was a good time for me to do it.
“I don’t want anyone assigning anything to you in my absence. And McTiernan’s.”
“Does he—”
Cope interrupted me a second time. “No, he is not aware of anything, and I intend to keep it that way as long as possible.”
Both Cope and I agreed that until we developed stronger leads, there wasn’t anyone we could trust—inside the agency or out.
The fallout from Malin Kilbourne’s mission ended up being widespread and complex. CIA Director James Flatley was dead, the president was facing impeachment and calls for his resignation, and Ed Montgomery
