LITMIR.BIZ

      “Don’t worry. You look real pretty.”

      Luke was in the men’s room of the employee locker room. His shirt was off and he was washing his face in the sink. A deep scratch ran down his left cheek. The lower right side of his jaw was red and bruised and beginning to swell. Murph had clocked him a good one along there.

      Luke’s knuckles were raw and ripped up. The wounds were open, and blood was still running a little bit. He had clocked Murphy a few good ones himself.

      Behind him, big Ed loomed in the mirror. Ed had put his blazer back on and was every bit the consummate, well-dressed professional. Luke was supposed to be Ed’s superior officer in this job. He couldn’t put his own suit jacket back on because it was dirty from when he had thrown it on the ground.

      “Let’s go, man,” Ed said. “We’re already late.”

      “I’m going to look like something the cat dragged in.”

      Ed shrugged. “Next time do what I do. Keep an extra suit, plus an extra set of office casual, right here in your locker. I’m surprised I need to teach you this stuff.”

      Luke had put his T-shirt back on and was starting to button up his dress shirt. “Yeah, but what do I do now?”

      Ed shook his head, but he was grinning. “This is what people expect from you anyway. Tell them you were doing a little tae kwon do sparring in the parking lot during your coffee break.”

      Luke and Ed left the locker room and bounced up the concrete stairwell to the main floor. The conference room, as close to state-of-the-art as Mark Swann could get it, was down the end of a narrow side hallway. Don tended to call it the Command Center, though Luke felt that was stretching the facts a bit. One day, maybe.

      Nervous butterflies bounced against the walls of Luke’s intestines. These meetings were a new thing for him, and he couldn’t seem to get used to them. Don told him it would come to him in time.

      In the military, briefings were simple. They went like this:

      Here’s the goal. Here’s the plan of attack. Questions? Input? Okay, load gear.

      These briefings never went like that.

      The door to the conference room was straight ahead. It was open. The room was somewhat small, and twenty people inside would make it look like a crowded subway car at rush hour. These meetings gave Luke the willies. There were endless discussions and delays. The press of people made him claustrophobic.

      Invariably there would be bigwigs from several agencies and their staffers milling around, the bigwigs insisting on having their say, the staffers typing into BlackBerry phones, scratching out notes on yellow legal pads, running in and out, making urgent phone calls. Who were these people?

      Luke crossed the threshold, followed closely by Ed. The overhead fluorescents were bright and dazzling.

      There was nobody in the room. Well, not nobody, but not many. Five people, to be exact. Luke and Ed make it seven.

      “Here are the men we’ve all been waiting for,” Don Morris said. He was not smiling. Don didn’t like to wait. He looked formidable in a dress shirt and slacks. His body language was relaxed, but his eyes were sharp.

      A man stepped in front of Luke. He was a tall and thin four-star, in impeccable dress greens. His gray hair was trimmed to the scalp. There wasn’t a stray whisker anywhere on his clean-shaven face—whiskers knew better than to defy him. Luke had never met the man, but he knew him in his bones. He made his bed every morning before doing anything else. You could bounce a quarter off it. He probably did, just to make sure.

      “Agent Stone, Agent Newsam, I’m General Richard Stark, Joint Chiefs of Staff.”

      “General, it’s an honor to meet you.”

      Luke shook his hand before the man moved on to Ed.

      “We were very proud of what you boys did a month ago. You’re both a credit to the United States Army.”

      Another man stood there. He was a balding man, maybe somewhere in his forties. He had a large round gut and pudgy little fingers. His suit did not fit well—too tight at the shoulders, too tight around the center. His face was doughy and his nose was bulbous. He reminded Luke of Karl Malden doing a TV commercial about credit card fraud.

      “Luke, I’m Ron Begley of Homeland Security.”

      They also shook hands. Ron didn’t mention last month’s operation.

      “Ron. Good to meet you.”

      No one said a word about Luke’s face. That was a relief. Though he was sure he would hear about it from Don after the meeting was over.

      “Boys, won’t you sit down?” the general said, waving a hand at the conference table. It was gracious of him, to invite them to sit at their own table.

      Luke and Ed took seats near Don. There were two other men in the room, both wearing suits. One was bald and had an earpiece that disappeared inside his jacket. They looked on impassively. Neither man said a word. No one introduced them. To Luke, that meant enough said.

      Ron Begley closed the door.

      The major surprise here was there were no other SRT people in the room.

      General Stark looked at Don.

      “Ready?”

      Don opened his big hands as if they were flowers opening their petals.

      “Yes. This was all we needed. Do your worst.”

      The general looked at Ed and Luke.

      “Gentlemen, what I’m about to share with you is classified information.”

      “What are they not telling us?” Luke said.

      Don looked up. The desk he sat behind was polished oak, wide and gleaming. There were two pieces of paper on it, an office telephone, and an old, battered Toughbook laptop with a sticker on the back

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