“Wow, Decker, I’m touched.”
“Yeah, whatever. You wanna work or lie on your ass in that bed every day?”
“What’ve you got?”
Two hours later, my head was pounding and I wanted nothing more than to take a nap. But I couldn’t. I still had pages of information to sort through, but the bottom line was, Decker had enough on Ed Fisk to take him down along with several of the handlers and operatives who made up a vast network of double agents. China was behind most of it, but not all. Just like Cope and I thought.
“This is the second dirty director in a row,” I muttered, reading over the evidence Decker had compiled on Fisk.
“Not exactly a coincidence, Irish.”
“Right. I just hope the next guy has nothing to do with Flatly, Fisk, Montgomery—anyone associated with that bunch.”
“Let’s just say I am only one of a few who intend to have some say in who they give the job to next.”
“Glad to hear it.”
Decker stood and stretched. “While I’d like to say I’m the one who found most of this, I have to give credit where it’s due. Senator Copeland put the full force of the intelligence committee behind this one. McTiernan too.”
“What happens next?”
“Carefully choreographed arrests around the world.”
“When?”
“Two weeks from today.”
I got up and walked through the front door and out onto the stone patio that went all the way around the house. I couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that this was it. Seven years of work would culminate in bringing down the Director of the CIA, plus a worldwide network of double agents.
So why didn’t it feel like it would soon be over? When would the fear of knowing that every day could bring the death of more agents end? When would the night come that I could fall asleep without feeling I had no right to? Or wake in the morning without dread in the pit of my stomach?
“Irish?”
When Decker came outside, I was sitting in a chair, bent at the waist, head in my hands, crying like a baby. “Leave it alone, Deck.”
“You got it. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
I didn’t look, but I heard his truck start up and drive away.
It happened the last day of February—the twenty-eighth since it wasn’t leap year. Fisk was the first to be taken down but only by a few seconds. Law enforcement agencies around the world assisted, but it was teams of US Marshals that carried out the arrests. Only men and women vetted by Decker Ashford, Senator Henry Clay Copeland, and Kellen McTiernan were tasked with carrying out orders that would shake the intelligence world to its core.
Cope contacted me at dawn—via a video call. It was the first time I heard his voice since the day in the hospital when I didn’t have the strength to respond. The last time I saw him was at the federal courthouse.
Today, my voice was strangled with emotion and I had to turn my head to hide my tears.
“This is it, Irish. You did it.”
I shook my head and looked back at my phone’s screen. “We did it.”
“It never would’ve happened without you, Paxon.”
“How’s Ali?” I asked, needing to deflect attention I wasn’t prepared to handle.
“I haven’t seen her yet.”
“When will you?”
“Later this morning.”
“I’m happy for you, Cope. I hope it works out between the two of you.”
“I’ve got something to ask you.”
“Shoot.”
“Never mind. There’s something I need to ask her first.”
One month later, Cope asked Ali—the reporter who had been T-boned in his car and who he fell in love with while I was in jail—to marry him. The same night, he asked me to be his best man. I was glad for him, truly, but I couldn’t shake the feeling of dread in the pit of my stomach. I wondered if it would ever go away. I wouldn’t tell him that, though. I wouldn’t spoil his happiness.
“Hey, you,” said Ali, coming out to the backyard of Cope’s parents’ house.
“Congratulations,” I said, hugging her.
“Best wishes.”
“Huh?”
“You congratulate the man and offer best wishes to the woman.”
“Yeah? I don’t know much about shit like that.”
Ali pulled me over to the garden bench. “Someday, you will. I hope it’s soon, Irish. You deserve happiness, maybe more than anyone I know.”
Did I? On the day of the arrests, I asked Decker if he’d kept count of the agents killed. He shook his head, but I didn’t believe him. I would trust, though, it was a number I didn’t want to know.
16
Irish
Washington, DC
May
“This is a wedding, not a damn job interview,” I said to Money McTiernan, who had me cornered at the bar for the last fifteen minutes.
“It isn’t an interview, Irish. I’m asking you to take the same job you had before.”
I knew the answer to my next question, but I’d ask anyway. “Is Cope?”
Money motioned to the bartender with two fingers. I really didn’t need another drink, but what the fuck, it wasn’t every day your best friend, the man you went to hell and back with, got married.
“I’m going to wait until after he and Ali return from their honeymoon to ask.”
“You’re trying to get her to come back too, aren’t you?”
While Ali had been undercover as a reporter covering my trial, her real job was as an internal affairs agent for the CIA. It was the only division that operated independently, and for good reason. Ali had originally been brought in by Money to ascertain whether Cope was also a double agent who had betrayed his country like many believed I was.
A few still hadn’t received the memo that I’d been undercover too, and couldn’t stop themselves from looking at me like the traitor I wasn’t.
I looked across the yard at one in particular. TJ Hunter was her name, and she was actually a reporter. She and Cope had been friends for a long time. I also got the feeling she wanted more, but that was when neither of us had the brain space to think about relationships. Although, when Cope met Ali, he found some quickly.
My gaze met Stella’s—a nickname Cope had given her, and everyone used—and I raised my glass. As I anticipated, she didn’t do the same. Instead, she turned away.
“It’ll take time,” said Money, watching the exchange.
“You know what? I really don’t give a shit.”
I walked away, planning to find a quiet place inside the house where I didn’t have to see or talk to anyone. Before I reached the door, Decker intercepted me.
“Tell me you’re not thinking of going back to the agency.”
I laughed. “Why? You got a job offer for me?”
“More than that, Irish, and you know it. We want you to come on board as a partner.”
“I don’t know. I’m not sure I can work for a company that calls themselves the Invincibles.”