Page 129 of Severed Heart

“We’ve got a sniper joining the party.”

“That means we did our job,” I clap back. “You have him?”

“Yep,” McCormick fires back, and I know he’s curling his finger on the trigger with his spoken threat already in his crosshairs.

“Thompson, you getting this? We’re going to need some love from above.”

“Roger,” home confirms over the line. “I’ve got your position. I need ten minutes.”

Fuck.

“Might want to make haste and do better or prepare yourself to explain the high count of body bags of America’s finest to the boss.”

“On it,” Thompson replies tersely, seemingly unaffected, though I know he’s in a panic.

“Being hunted is a compliment, boys,” I declare, “they don’t like that we silenced their boss and shorted their paychecks. When the first ping flies, fuckingpeel itand get to high ground if you can. We’ll send messengers with goodie bags wherever you land.”

Our odds are jacked, but I press past any threatening panic and spend precious seconds deep breathing to clear my headspace instead. Pulse steady in my ears, I hear her speaking to me as if she were standing beside me in the dirt, whispering into my ear. Once armed with an idea, I push off the rock wall we were camping against and glance over to Armstrong, who gives me a lift of his chin.

“I know that look,” Armstong says, his grin amping, “and I love it.”

“Shall we make them think twice about paying us compliments?” I ask.

“Fuck yeah,” Armstrong counters before I address everyone over the wire.

“Home, hold off, but leave the lights on. I have an idea.”

BLINK.BLACK.

* * *

SPRING 2012

NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK

Six months later

BLINK.

“Jennings,” Phillip barks, summoning me from the black plastic bucket chair I’ve been waiting in while watching the goings-on of the shipping warehouse. Rolling my neck, I stand and stretch a little before following him into a shoebox-sized office. Though fatigued, I don’t bother taking a seat as he opens a file I’m intimately familiar with.

Phillip, who I gauge is somewhere in his mid-forties, wipes his nose with a fresh Kleenex—one he always seems to keep on hand. Some of his ruddy complexion no doubt due to his raging allergies. An affliction I suspect, along with his sickly, fragile build, that has kept him from being an active participant in any field work. A prime example of those that can’t do—teaching, or in Phillip’s case,dolingout missions. Orders already passed and carried out as he sifts through the details of a dozen or more in the file on his desk. All of which I completed after I was unlisted as a Marine and joined the Global Response Staff, AKA the GRS.

A thankless job with high pay but zero credit, which I give fuck all about. A job that includes missions unlikely to earn an explanation letter postmarked to my family if one goes awry. High-risk orders that are tasked to a select few by the CIA, which include diplomatic tape blind expeditions. Expeditions carried out by the world’s most finely tuned and experienced vets for the best interest of our country.

By joining the GRS, I gained the ability to decipher and validate the nature of such missions, furthering my investigation of the military to the next level. All the while honing my skills in the field. It’s the deal I made in the parking lot after serving my listed four years, which led me to the handler sitting at the desk opposite me. “Phillip,” no last name ever mentioned, had recruited me for himself and, for the most part, has been my task master in doling out said missions. Over the last nineteen months, our rapport has mostly been filled with mutual respect along with a brewing friendship.

“What you’ve accomplished at this point,” Phillip utters, glancing up from my file, “is beyond my comprehension.”

I muster a nod because exhaustion is finally taking hold. The last of my adrenaline was spent getting out of a sticky situation in the African desert that we were extracted from eighteen hours ago before being flown back to the States.

In the last nineteen months, I’ve come close to depleting myself and my reserves, taking successive missions in lieu of going back to Triple Falls. My reasoning for that is entirely selfish. No home, no future. No reason other than the club, and it’s thriving without me. With the army that I put together during my listed time and Dom in school, things have run smoothly since. It’s as if I planted roots, and they’re sprouting deep and wide on their own.

Phillip scrutinizes me carefully from where he sits, seeming to have aged some since our last face-to-face—a little grayer at his temples. Judging from our last few phone calls, he’s grown a lot less patient. Though, he always seems to muster some for me during our conversations, making it clear that I’ve earned his respect.

“There’s no fucking way you should have survived two of these. I’m thinking you’re aware of which?”

I bite my lip and nod.