LITMIR.BIZ

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spoke without looking at me. “Don’t get cocky. Forget a single step in there and you could blow yourself to hell.”

      “I know,” I said. “That’s not what I meant. I’m just saying we’ve practiced enough. We’re ready. As ready as we can be.”

      “You and your team need to be a well-oiled machine,” John said.

      Then why is Eugene with me? I thought. The whole group blamed Eugene for Tommy’s death—at least I assumed they did. It was obvious in the way they talked to him, talked about him, and spoke about Tommy. Eugene screwed up and Tommy had died. And now I was in a squad with him and Kat.

      I sat down on the hillside next to Mary. Why we’d gotten split up, I couldn’t explain. We had grown so close throughout the summer spent on her family’s ranch. We each knew how the other thought, how we’d respond in any given situation. But she was leaving with Bruce—just the two of them—going after the Olmec.

      “Nice job,” she said as I sat.

      “It’s easy,” I replied. “Like I said, we’ve done it so much.”

      “But this time the bomb is real. Come on, I had my turn, and it wasn’t the same thing at all. I kept freaking out that there was going to be a spark—from the clock wires, or even the static electricity in my clothes. Nerves, you know?”

      “Yeah,” I said. “Nerves. I think we’ve all had our final turns. No more until the real deal. How’s the weather in Veracruz this time of year?”

      “Shut up,” she said, and laughed a little. “It’s not like this is a vacation.”

      “You get to go to the beaches of Mexico, and I get to go to Istanbul and Baghdad.”

      “It’s going to be hot.”

      “You think Baghdad isn’t?”

      “It’s probably more humid in Mexico.”

      Kat squatted down next to us and laughed. “You can wear a bikini in Veracruz. I have to wear a hijab in Baghdad’s heat.”

      Bakr took the disassembled bomb to the west side of the depression, and Bruce and Eugene rolled the tarp up again and then hauled it back to the bomb. Bakr had grown up in Baghdad—one of the cities Eugene, Kat, and I were going to, but he wasn’t part of our team. He said he didn’t want to be accidently recognized.

      “Rodney, Jim, Julia,” John said. “You’re up.”

      Jim was right behind me, and he stood up.

      “Last time,” John said to him. “We’re off to Reno tomorrow, so make it count.”

      Reno tomorrow. That gave us a week before the meteor would come and we’d have to go off to plant the bombs—to send the invitations to the Calling. It would only be a few more weeks before we were all reunited in Munich at the Olympics.

      Weeks that I would be away from Mary. Weeks that Bruce would spend pretending to be her boyfriend, on a vacation on the sapphire shores of Mexico, drinking margaritas and tequila, and—

      “What are you thinking about?” Mary asked.

      Fifty yards away from us, Julia had picked up the bomb and Rodney and Jim were carrying the tarp into position.

      I kept my voice low. “I think you should ask John to swap you out for Kat. Or Eugene—even better.”

      She didn’t immediately answer. She leaned back on her elbows, watching the bomb being moved into place.

      I knew what she’d say by this point. We’d been over it a dozen times.

      “Mike,” she said, a sigh in her voice.

      Walter reached over and smacked me lightly in the head. He wasn’t quiet when he spoke. “Get over it already. We’ve been practicing in these groups for six weeks. I’m not going to change it at the last minute. You have the streets of Istanbul memorized. You learned conversational Turkish. You need to worry about the plan now, and about your love life later.”

      “I don’t speak Turkish. I’ve learned how to count to ten and how to ask directions to the hotel.”

      John looked at me. “We’ll all be back together soon.”

      “I just think that Mary and I work well together. Look,” I said, pointing at the group planting the bomb and tarp. “Jim and Julia are staying together.”

      “Because they know how to work together,” Walter said, his tone cold as ice. “You don’t. You think you do, but in every combat exercise we did, you’d ignore mission objectives to defend Mary.”

      “So you’re putting her in a different unit so I’ll be less worried about her?” I said rhetorically. I knew his answers.

      “We’re saving the world. We have to make sacrifices. You’ve never seemed to understand that.”

      “I don’t understand that?” I said, standing up. “Are you fucking kidding me? I’ve given up all my life’s goals. I gave up my admission to Berkeley. I gave up my life savings. I killed a man for Christ’s sake. I’ve given it all up, and you can’t cut me a little slack.”

      “Quiet,” John said, watching Julia kneeling next to the bomb.

      “I asked to be on a different team,” Mary said. “You know that.”

      “I know. And I’m asking for you to change your mind.”

      “It’s too late to change,” John said. “Even if she wanted it. She knows Spanish. Four years in school. Bruce does too. Not to mention all of the intel she’s memorized—and the intel you’ve memorized. Tell me, where in Veracruz is the best place to find black-market guns? The best place to hide if the police come after you?”

      “I don’t need to know it. Mary already does.”

      “What if she gets shot?”

      Then what’s the point? I thought. I believed in Zero line’s goals, but I had my priorities, and Mary was placed above the mission.

      Walter spoke. “Where do you get the bomb and tarp in Turkey?”

      I ignored him.

      “I’m asking you a question, Mike. Where do you get the bomb in Turkey?”

      I glared at him. “The Fethiye fish market, from an anchovy dealer named Salomao.”

      “And what’s it going to be packaged in?”

      “A case of fish with a false bottom. Look, I know what you’re getting at.”

      “Then shut up,” Walter said.

      Mary looked at me and took my hand.

      Something inside me wondered if I was losing her. Yes, I did defend her. Of course I would. I wasn’t an unfeeling bastard like Walter. If chasing down Players meant leaving Mary on her own, of course I would stay with her.

      I knew the Players were tough—Walter and Agatha had drilled that into us—but we would operate as a team. In every practice—the daily runs and obstacle courses, the shooting drills, the bomb practice, the sales dialogues—we were a team, and we stuck together. The only times where I changed the plan and defended Mary were when there was an error: when we were attacked from behind, or when we lost radio communication. That wasn’t a reason to tear Mary and me apart. It was adapting to the changing conditions.

      Julia stood up from the bomb, and Rodney touched the fuse with his unlit lighter.

      Bakr once again trotted out to disassemble the bomb, readying it for squad nine, which was just John by himself. John and Walter were taking on their jobs alone. We had so few of us that this was the only option. Groups of three—like me, Eugene, and Kat—had two targets to hit. Others had just one.

      I squeezed Mary’s hand. I wanted all of this to be over.

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