Eight Years: A Novel (Trident Trilogy: Book One) Read online

  “Yeah, I need all the mojo I can get right now,” I say.

  “You okay? I know you’re feeling some kind of way being here.”

  “I think I’m okay. I just don’t want to talk about him. I’m focused.”

  Raine takes me in the building, and we wind through a bunch of hallways. Every time I take a turn, I see guys with long hair, scraggly beards, scars, tats, tired eyes. This is going to be harder than I thought. We finally stop at an open door. The guy at the desk looks up. His eyes widen when he sees me.

  “Captain, this is Millie Marsh,” Raine says. “She’s the agent we talked about who will be running the target package for Amar Petrovic in Sarajevo.”

  Culver walks around his desk, smiling at me with a kinder smile than is necessary. As he’s shaking my hand, he says, “Raine, may Agent Marsh and I have a moment alone?”

  “Oh, I’m briefed on this package, sir,” Raine says quickly.

  “I know you are, Raine. I still need a few minutes.” Culver’s eyes are so intensely focused on me that I think they might start shooting out laser beams soon.

  Raine says, “I’ll be right out here,” to no one as she closes the door slowly.

  Culver motions me to take a seat, and retreats back behind his desk. He sits down and just stares at me. Right through me. “So, it’s Agent Marsh now, huh?”

  I suddenly feel a little uneasy. “I’m sorry. Have we met?”

  He smiles at me knowingly. “Millie, I know you’re Mack’s daughter.”

  I take a deep breath in, wondering how he found out. Did George tell him? Did Raine? Someone has been talking too much.

  “And, I know your dad wouldn’t want you here,” he continues.

  “You knew my dad?” I say slowly.

  “I was at his funeral, Millie. I talked to you there. You’ve grown up, but you haven’t changed that much.” His eyes are still intense, but he’s smiling at me now.

  “I don’t remember much about that day,” I say, looking down.

  Actually, I don’t remember a thing about that day. I was still in shock, and what little did register with me back then, I’m still actively trying to forget.

  “He wouldn’t want you here,” he repeats. “He didn’t want you in this life. Not even close to it.”

  “Well, he isn’t here anymore,” I say bluntly.

  “I called Chase when I found out you were coming down here. He thought you were living in London. He didn’t even know you were in the CIA.”

  I lived with Chase and his family for months after my dad died. They had quite literally saved me. I couldn’t have survived it all without them.

  “Yeah, we lost touch,” I say, not meeting Culver’s eyes.

  “He said you lost touch when you left for college. You stopped returning his calls, and then your phone number didn’t work at all. He was your dad’s best friend. You know that. You lived with them for months after. . .” His voice fades away. He saw my face the first time he mentioned my dad dying. He’s trying to avoid that again.

  “I chose to move on. I had to move on. And, this has nothing to do with why I’m here,” I say, finally looking up.

  “Are you sure? Chase seemed pretty upset that you were coming here. He wanted to know what the target package was,” Culver says. “I couldn’t tell him because he doesn’t have clearance anymore, but he asked me if it had anything to do with Bosnia. Why would he ask me that? What’s he not telling me?”

  Well, at least, now I know Chase didn’t tell him. I look at Culver directly in the eyes. “I have no idea why he would ask that. Maybe he’s still in contact with someone here, and they tipped him off.”

  “You’re lying to me, Millie,” Culver says carefully. “Chase is lying to me, too. I don’t like that. But, I guess that’s where we’re at, and frankly, if you’re up to something, I want to be the one in charge of you. I owe that to your dad.”

  “I’m not up to anything. I just need to get Petrovic. I would do it alone if I could. Believe me, I don’t want to be back here,” I say.

  “From what I remember Mack telling us, you might have the skills to do it alone. He said he had you trained up on everything we do here. Are you still a dead-eye shooter?”

  “I don’t shoot very much anymore.”

  I don’t do anything anymore that I used to do with my dad. I had to shut down anything that reminded me of him.

  “I read through your file,” he says. “One of the top interrogators in the agency after only three years. Impressive. And you speak several languages, including Bosnian. Why Bosnian?”

  He’s still trying to dig for information. “I lived in a predominantly Bosnian neighborhood when I was at NYU. I just picked it up. Languages come easy to me.”

  He knows I’m lying. He’s good at this. Way better than most people.

  “Huh,” he says, looking up from my file. “Well, it’s a nice coincidence then that your first target is Bosnian.”

  I just stare back at him. Anything I say now will confirm I’m lying.

  “Millie, the information you have on Petrovic looks solid. The target package is legitimate, but please tell me if there’s anything else I need to know. I know you know from your dad how these teams work. We need all of the information.”

  “My dad never talked about his time here to me. I don’t know anything about how you work. And, everything you need to know is in my package,” I say.

  “I notice that there’s no mention of your parents or your family in your file. I know the agency tries to hide any relationships to high-ranking military officials or special operators for your safety if you’re captured. That’s why they omitted it, right?”

  “Yep. That’s it,” I say. “And, I’d appreciate if we could keep it between us here. Did any of the other guys work with my dad?”

  “The team leader, Mason Davis, was in the pipeline by that time, but he was still in San Diego, and just a rookie. Different squad. He probably won’t put it together. I think you should tell him though. The entire team really. They’d like to know that you’re part of this family.”

  “I’m not part of this family.” My eyes start to water again, so I look down. Oddly, I cry as much when I’m frustrated as when I’m sad, and I’m starting to get really frustrated. I wanted to fly under the radar here, get the job done, and just get back to D.C.

  “You’re part of the family, whether you think you are or not. It’s just the way it is. But, I won’t tell them if you don’t want them to know,” Culver says standing up. “I have another meeting right now. Be back here tomorrow morning for a briefing at eight. You can meet the team and read them into the package. Bring a go bag. Sounds like we’re going to be wheels up pretty quickly on this one.”

  He gets up to open the door for me, but stops at my chair first. He leans down and looks me directly in the eyes. “Millie, your dad was one of the best guys I’ve ever met. He saved my life more than once. You can hate me, hate the SEALs, hate all of this, but I will die myself before I let anything happen to you. Do you understand that?”

  I just nod my head. I don’t trust my voice.

  Chapter Twelve

  Mason

  Virginia Beach, Virginia

  2019

  Culver wants to see me, so I head over to his office. As I’m rounding the corner, I see Raine standing by the door.

  “You in this meeting too?” I say as I glance in Culver’s window, and see the back of the mirage’s head. She has her hair up in a twisty thing, but there’s no mistaking that strawberry blonde color.

  “No. I’m just waiting for my colleague from the agency. She’s the one who’s here to brief you on the op in Sarajevo,” Raine says, confirming my ID.

  We both look over as the door opens. The mirage walks out, and looks right at me, smiling, her green eyes sparkling. I can already tell she has a mi
schievous streak, and it’s sexy as fuck.

  “Master Chief, nice to see you again,” she says with not a hint of a Southern drawl. She’s trying to be all business now.

  “Miss Marsh.”

  She’s wearing a suit, heels, and glasses, trying to cover up the sex appeal she ladled out like soup last night. It’s not working at all.

  “Agent Marsh.” She corrects me, and gives me a quick once over.

  Damn. The way she just looked my body over makes me want to throw her up against a wall and take her right here.

  “My bad. Agent Marsh,” I say, forcing myself not to look at the opening in her blouse. “You hustle anyone else at pool last night?”

  “Hustle? I think you mean play a completely honest and principled game of pool against inferior opponents,” she says, smiling.

  “No, that’s not what I meant at all.” I smile back at her as Culver joins us quickly. He looks at me like he might pull out his side arm and put it between my eyes.

  “I see you two have already met,” Culver says, firing the words out like bullets.

  I step back and motion Millie past me. “You owe me another game to win my money back.”

  “Only if I can break,” she says.

  She turns around and smiles at me, and turns back around in one graceful, fluid motion. I leer at her as she walks down the hall with Raine.

  Culver sees how I’m looking. “If you’re ready for our meeting, Master Chief,” he says curtly, motioning me to take a chair.

  I barely hit the chair when he continues. “Mason, Millie’s dad was a SEAL—a man who I served with, a man who saved my life. He was one of the best men I’ve ever known. As he’s no longer with us, I feel like I can step in for him and say that if you ever touch Millie sexually or, you know, just even casually, like tapping her on the shoulder, I will kill you. Then, I will take your body to my workshop, cut it up into tiny pieces, and feed the pieces to the sharks in the bay.”

  Ah, now I see what has caused his bad mood. “Damn, Culver. It seems like your plan is pretty advanced. I mean you’ve definitely wanted to kill me for a while, right?”

  “I haven’t, actually. Just now for the first time when I saw you looking at her like that,” he says, motioning toward the door. “You know, I’d prefer you not look at her either. Or talk to her.”

  “We’re going to work one of her packages. I’m probably going to have to look at her and talk to her.” And, to be honest, I’m going to want to do a lot more to her before she leaves town.

  “Keep it to a minimum. I know how you work and you know, usually, I couldn’t give a shit about who you sleep with, but she’s so far off-limits. So far. The furthest. You understand that?”

  “I’m going to work with her. I wouldn’t hook up with her anyway.” It seems like the right thing to say, but I know he’s not going to buy it for a second.

  “Like you’ve never slept with someone who works with us. I’ve seen the looks you get around here, and again, usually, I could not care less. I do not care about your sex life. I don’t want to think about it at all. But not Millie. Never Millie. Tell me you understand.”

  “Yeah, I got it. I got it.” My brain is telling me this is probably for the best, but the rest of my body is not so sure. I think I agree with the rest of my body.

  Culver is staring at me like death, so I repeat, “I got it, man. Off-limits.”

  “And, I expect you to keep the rest of the team away from her, too,” Culver says.

  Yeah, a hundred percent I can promise that. None of those assholes are even going to get near her. If I can’t have her, no one else can.

  “Roger that,” I say. “So, her dad died?”

  “Yeah. In Iraq. She was only a kid. Sixteen.”

  “How many years ago was that?” I ask.

  “Like eight years. She’s still not over it. She started tearing up when I mentioned him just now.”

  “They were close?”

  “Yeah. She lived down on the Outer Banks with her grandma, but Mack got down there every chance he got. He talked about her nonstop. At his funeral, man, she couldn’t even stand up. I remember it like it was yesterday. It was awful,” Culver says, looking down. “She ended up staying with Mack’s team leader and his wife for a while after, but then everyone lost touch with her—or, more specifically, she lost touch with all of us.”

  “It’s maybe a little weird that she joined the agency after she took his death so hard,” I say. “Seems like she’d want to get away from all this.”

  “Yeah, I have a bad feeling that she’s trying to avenge his death somehow,” Culver says.

  “Like how? You mean just generally? Who was responsible for his death?”

  “They think Al-Qaeda. Mack was clearing a building in Fallujah when it exploded. His team had to get out of the area before they could really determine what caused it.”

  “Wait, Mack Marsh? I remember him. The name anyway,” I say.

  I might have met him once. It seems like I did, but I definitely remember the word on him was that he was one of the toughest motherfuckers out there. It’s kind of hard imagining him being a dad.

  “Yeah, he was getting close to retirement when you came in,” Culver says. “He was going to spend more time with Millie. He was buying a house for them. Just awful timing. But, I guess there’s never good timing.”

  “So, you think she knows who was responsible for her dad’s death?”

  “We’ll find out tomorrow what she knows. But the network she is specifically targeting is Yusef Hadzic’s network. He’s had ties to Al-Qaeda. The agency’s been looking for him for years, and Sayid Custovic before that. I was involved in missions for Custovic. They’re ghosts, man. If she could bring Hadzic in, it would be huge. I’m thinking Custovic has to be dead.”

  “I read in her file that she’s fluent in Bosnian. All those guys are Bosnian, right? You think there’s some connection?” I ask.

  “A lot of agents spoke Bosnian back in the eighties and nineties. It was more of a hot spot back then. Kind of rare for someone as young as her to have a focus in that area. But, you know, Custovic and Hadzic took up shop in Afghanistan after the war ended in Bosnia. So, who knows? Just keep a close eye on her in case she’s up to something.”

  “I thought you didn’t want me to look at her.”

  “Professionally, watch her back. Don’t let anything happen to her, but again, I swear to God, Mason, keep your hands off her.”

  “Roger that.” Watch her, but don’t look at her. Have her back, but don’t touch her back. Clear as mud.

  “Look, another thing—she doesn’t want anyone else to know that her dad was one of us,” Culver says.

  “Why not? Just makes her part of our family.”

  “I don’t think she wants any part of us. To her, all we did was take away her dad. I don’t think she’s that big a fan of the teams. But, she needs us to get this target. Probably better for all of us to get it done quickly, and get her back to D.C. Briefing at eight hundred tomorrow,” Culver says, standing up and indicating our meeting is over.

  As I leave Culver’s office, my feet take me toward Raine’s office where I know Millie will be headquartered while she’s here. My brain tells me to turn around, but I don’t. She’s sitting at Raine’s desk, alone in the office. She looks up when she senses me at the door.

  “Culver told me about your dad,” I say waiting for her to reply. She just stares at me blankly. “That he was a SEAL. That he died. I’m sorry.” The way she looks at me makes me wish I hadn’t said anything.

  “Thank you.” Her eyes are getting glassy and she looks down. I see her hands grip the sides of the chair.

  “Are you okay?” I walk closer to her. I’m a little concerned that she’s going to pass out. The color has left her face.

  She looks up. Her beautiful eyes are n
ow full of tears. “You’d think after eight years, it would get easier,” she says, trying to smile. “I’m so sorry. This is really unprofessional.”

  “I’ve lost a lot of people in my life. It doesn’t get easier. And, you’re fine. Showing your emotions isn’t a weakness. It’s the strongest thing you can do. You’ve got to feel it all or you’re never going to function correctly.”

  I sit on the desk right beside her, reaching out to put my hand on her shoulder. Wait. What did Culver tell me about touching her? I seem to be forgetting right now. She nods but looks down again, not saying anything.

  “Look, Millie, I lost my mom when I was ten. That’s twenty-five years ago. The pain gets less severe, but it never goes away. The best thing to do is talk about it.”

  She looks up. “How many people have you talked to about your mom?”

  “Exactly zero. I’m not a big talker.”

  “So, do as I say, not as I do,” she says. At least I’ve gotten a little smile back on her face.

  “Something like that. I’ll make a deal with you. If you talk to me about your dad, I’ll talk to you about my mom.”

  She looks at me suspiciously. “I should probably get back to my hotel, and get ready for tomorrow,” she says.

  She closes her computer and stands up. I haven’t moved, so we’re eye to eye. I just want to hug her, protect her, kiss her. She’s just inches away from me. It takes every ounce of discipline I have not to touch her again.

  “You didn’t agree to my deal. The talking deal.” There are many other deals I’d like to propose to her, but this is the only one that seems appropriate right now.

  “We’ll see. I don’t like talking about him much. But thank you. It’s nice of you to offer,” she says.

  She walks past me to the door. I follow her because my body won’t let me do anything else. It’s impossible not to be near her right now. Culver did tell me to have her back, right?

  “I’ll walk you to your car.” I purposely say it as a statement, and not a question.

  “Oh, you don’t have to,” she says as she turns around with a confused look on her face.