Maybe he should have known better, since they’d spent so much time on his hand-to-hand combat and weapons training, but he truly hoped tonight’s fiasco was an outlier—or his time at the firm would be short lived. Where he landed after MINERVA was anyone’s guess. Devin wasn’t exactly a sought-after commodity in the industry, even if his dismissal from the FBI hadn’t been his fault. More of an unfortunate and irreversible technicality, compliments of his mother’s mental disintegration.
Being the son of a psychotically paranoid former CIA officer came with a few drawbacks. Losing his security clearance, a requirement to remain employed at the FBI, had turned out to be one of them. Going radioactive was another. A lot of good people at the bureau cashed in serious favors just to get him through the door for an interview. Quitting MINERVA this soon after joining would ensure he never worked in the counterintelligence industry again.
The best he could hope for was a corporate investigative security position on the other side of the country or private investigative work. If it came down to the latter, he’d go back to school and reinvent himself. Get a PhD in military history and teach at Annapolis. Or a law degree to specialize in representing foreign state clients accused of espionage. Really stick it to the FBI and Department of Justice.
He stifled a laugh, drawing a funny look from Chase. Who was he kidding? He wasn’t going anywhere.
CHAPTER 4
Harvey Rudd fumbled for his phone, knocking it off the nightstand onto the hardwood floor, where it clattered and quickly came to rest, casting a dim glow on his side of the room. He’d just drifted asleep when it started buzzing. At least that was how it felt. Then again, as a tragically light sleeper, that was how it always felt.
Rudd woke several times a night for no explicable reason. Sometimes bolting upright in a panic. Most of the time just slowly opening his eyes, half expecting someone to be standing over him. He shrugged it off as a job hazard. His wife had suggested therapy. She was in the same line of work and slept like a baby.
He stretched an arm out to reach the phone on the floor, barely tapping it with the tips of his fingers. There was no way he’d be able to grab it without falling on his face. And he really needed to answer the call, or at the very least check the number.
“Son of a bitch,” he muttered, throwing the blankets off and sliding out of bed.
The call ended moments before Rudd could press “Accept.”
“Figures,” he said, taking a seat on the edge of the bed.
He scrolled through the call log, relieved to see an 800 number. They’d never used an 800 number before. Always a local area code, which was obviously some kind of redirect from wherever CONTROL called home. He assumed it was somewhere in the United States. They wouldn’t risk leaving any kind of electronic trail overseas. Rudd was about to lie back down when the phone vibrated again. Another 800 number.
An online retailer must have sold his number to a telemarketing company. Unfortunately, ignoring the call wasn’t an option. He hustled out of the bedroom and closed the door behind him, more out of courtesy than necessity. His wife could sleep through a home invasion.
“Hello?” said Rudd, expecting the usual several-second delay before the telemarketer connected to the call and somehow still managed to mispronounce his name.
Still, he had to be sure. Rudd stiffened when a female voice immediately replied.
“Stand by to copy access code.”
Damn. CONTROL had a job for him. Something that couldn’t wait for the morning. Rudd took off down the hallway for the kitchen, the one place in the house where he knew for certain that he could find paper and some kind of writing instrument. He flipped the switch in the hallway, bathing the kitchen in the harsh fluorescent light they never got around to changing. A quick dig through the junk drawer next to the sink yielded a pen and Post-it pad.
“Ready to copy.”
The voice recited the same twenty-digit alphanumeric code twice, and the call disconnected. Rudd took the Post-it into the dining room, where he’d plugged in his laptop before heading to bed. He sat at the table and logged in to the computer, waiting what felt like an eternity for the system to boot up.
He didn’t like the timing of this call at all. CONTROL hadn’t contacted him with a job in close to seven months. Long enough that he’d begun to wonder if they’d retired him and forgotten to pass along the news. At fifty-six, he wasn’t exactly a first-string operative anymore. A fact apparently not lost on his handlers.
Work had slowed to a trickle over the past several years. Mostly stakeout surveillance or some light breaking and entering to acquire information stored on electronic devices. Not that he was complaining. He’d spearheaded a hit-and-run on a US Army major in the parking lot of a strip club near Fort Campbell, but that hadn’t exactly been a complicated job. All the intelligence had been provided by CONTROL.