Against All Enemies

Epilogue

The Starbucks in Old Dominion Center, known as the Chesterbrook store, was a stand-alone building with a fireplace on the second floor. It was one of three Starbucks near the George H. W. Bush Center for Central Intelligence, and the lines were sometimes out the door during the morning rush. Moore was not fond of waiting fifteen minutes for a five-dollar cup of coffee, and so he’d told her to meet him there at four p.m., during the slower time, when the blenders and cappuccino machines weren’t humming quite as often. He sat in a chair near the entrance, creating profiles of the people around him and those ordering at the counter. He summed up their entire lives within seconds, where they’d grown up, where they’d gone to school, whether or not they hated their jobs, and how much money they made. He assigned them sexual orientation, marital status, and political affiliation. Being a keen observer was a prerequisite for his line of work, but the game now had nothing to do with that and everything to do with calming down.

Every part of his body still hurt, and he’d mentioned that to Towers, who said he’d only been shot up by some drug-smuggling thugs, which was pretty much routine for a BORTAC guy. Their last handshake at the airport in San Diego had carried with it the heart and soul of the entire joint task force. Even Towers had choked up. Moore vowed to stay in touch with the man. A good man.

With a groan, Moore checked his phone again. This is what you got for being fifteen minutes early — extra time to let the nerves run wild. SEALs were not late. Ever. Well, there was no message to cancel and blow him off. She was still coming. He imagined her floating through the glass doors in a short dress, heels, and wearing a delicate diamond necklace. So European. So incredibly sexy. Her voice like a musical instrument from another century.

“Mr. Moore?”

He glanced up, not into the eyes of a beautiful woman but into the frown of an unshaven face, dark features, and curly black hair. The guy was about Moore’s age, handsome but not arrogantly so.

“Who are you?” Moore asked.

“Dominic Caruso.”

Moore sighed. Slater had called Moore earlier in the week to say this guy Caruso wanted to talk to him, that he was a “good guy,” and that Moore should “trust him.” Slater had been unwilling to say anything else, and Moore couldn’t pull up much on the guy, save for the fact that he’d been a fibbie but had left the Bureau. There was nothing after that. Moore was supposed to call Caruso to set up a meeting as a favor to Slater, but despite Slater’s reassurances, Moore hardly trusted the stranger, and there was no way in hell he’d volunteer information about any of his operations.

Caruso proffered his hand; Moore ignored it. “Do you think we can go somewhere more private to talk?” Caruso asked.

Moore tried and failed to hide his disgust. “How’d you find me?”

“You told Slater you’d be here. He told me what you look like.”

“I guess he’s one of your fans. Unfortunately, I’m not.”

“You will be.”

“Look, this isn’t a good time. I’m, uh, supposed to meet someone right now, and she’s much prettier than you.”

“I understand. I just need a little information.”

“And what do you plan to do with it?”

Caruso smiled guiltily.

“Who do you work for?” Moore asked.

Caruso opened his mouth, seemed to think better of it, then said quickly, “I’m sorry I bothered you. We’ll be in touch again.” He gave Moore a brusque nod and left.

What the hell was that? Moore thought.

He was about to call Slater when his coffee date entered, wearing a wrinkled sweatshirt, jeans, and jogging shoes. His shoulders slumped, if only a little. The dark hair was pulled back to reveal those spectacular cheekbones.

It’s only coffee, he reminded himself.

She saw him, gave a tentative wave, then beamed as she approached. “Hey, there. Glad you’re finally letting me pay you back.” Her English was very good, but the accent made it sound even better, older, like she was in her thirties and much closer to his age.

They shook hands, hers a delicate piece of silk, his a leathery talon. “The timing worked out,” he said. “Which is no small miracle.”

She nodded, and he crossed over to the counter with her and ordered. He took her for a latte girl. She ordered a venti coffee, black. He was impressed and ordered the same. She held up her debit card and mouthed the words Thank you.

“You’re very welcome. There’s a fireplace upstairs.”

“It’s still summer.”

“Yeah, but it’s a gas fireplace, and they keep it lit all year. It’s really nice.”

On the second floor they dropped onto a leather sofa, set their coffee cups on the table, then stared for a long moment at the fire and the pairs of college kids from Marymount seated around them, their heads buried in their computers as they barely looked over to grab their drinks.

“Were you ever that serious?” Her voice came softly, so that no one else could overhear.

“I wasn’t serious till I got in the Navy.”

“And now you’re really intense.”

He grinned and reached for his coffee. “So how much do you know?”

“More than you think.”

“I’m talking about Samad.”

“I was talking about you.”

“No, really, you should’ve seen the look on his face when he saw the plane in Belize.”

“What do you mean?”

“We got some help from the Israelis to fly him out. El Al plane. Big Star of David on the tail. He went nuts, like we were pouring holy water on him.”

“We don’t have a black site in Israel, do we?”

He grinned. “Black sites? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

She smirked. “So where’d we take him? I haven’t found anything, and no one’s talking. I mean, they haven’t even gone public yet. It’s crazy.”

“To be honest, I have no idea where he is now. Kogalniceanu in Romania, Stare Kiejkuty in Poland, and Diego Garcia are all a no-go. Too many outsider eyes and ears. Hell, they could have him on a boat. We’ve done that before.”

“Rumor is the President’s Special Task Force wasn’t even notified, meaning there are only about a dozen people in the world who know what happened.”

Moore agreed and, of course, wouldn’t be entirely honest with her, either. “With all the bullshit we’ve had to go through since nine-eleven, they want to make sure we do this thing right — lest the media starts wailing about how Samad was taken to a secret CIA prison and tortured.”

“So as it stands, Samad is being interrogated at an undisclosed location, and some people on the Hill want us to believe this undermines the public’s trust in our justice system.”

“What do you think?”

“I think you should have killed the motherfucker when you had the chance.”

“Wow.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t.”

“I thought about it — but he’s got intel we need.”

“So …did you read my file?”

He cocked a brow at her. “If I say no, you’ll accuse me of lying. If I say yes, you’ll call me a stalker.”

She sipped her coffee. “I don’t care if you did. My parents won’t talk to me anymore because of the choice I made. My father still believes Rojas was a great man. You know we spent two years putting that together.”

“I don’t pretend to know how you feel about it.”

She nodded and tugged out her cell phone, as if to change the subject. “Hmmm, let’s see what I have here on you. I was surprised you got lured away from the DIA and resigned your commission. You were supposed to get the Navy Cross and they downgraded it to a Silver Star.”

“I don’t talk about that, except to say that by then the Navy and I were ready to part company. I’ll always be a SEAL, but the politics were getting a little too hot for me. I had some other things going on, too.”

“They sent you to The Point, though, huh? I’ve requested to train there three times. Denied three times. Which, of course, is bullshit.”

The Harvey Point Defense Testing Activity facility in Elizabeth City, North Carolina, was a little-known CIA school dedicated to hard-core paramilitary ops training. Those boys at The Point thought they were some badasses, but Moore breezed through that training and showed them a thing or two about shooting, moving, and communicating, SEAL-style.

“You don’t want to go to The Point.”

“Why not? Because I’m a girl?”

“Because what you do with the political action group is much more clever and dangerous. I couldn’t do it. Those meatheads over there couldn’t do it.”

Her gaze seemed to focus on infinity. “I’m finding it very hard to …I just don’t know if this is …”

“What’s the hardest thing you’ve ever done in your life?”

“Are you nuts? This…”

“Sitting here with me?”

She reached over and punched him. “I mean all the lies. I mean letting down my guard and really living the entire lie. I started dreaming that his father wasn’t a criminal and actually thinking about a life with Miguel.”

“We all have our moments of weakness.”

She bit her lip. “I’ll never forgive myself for what I did to him. He was a beautiful man.” She blushed and glanced away, trying to hide tears.

“That’s okay. It hurts now, but eventually the sting will go away.”

“You really think so?”

He raised his brows. “Yes.”

“What about you? The hardest thing you’ve ever done?”

Moore hesitated, and then he told her in an even voice that eventually cracked. And when the tears came, he was not embarrassed because for the first time ever, they felt good.

She slid over to him and tucked her head into his shoulder. “These people here? Everyone out there? They have no idea what it takes to keep them safe.”

“Don’t resent them for that.”

“I can’t help it.”

“You just need a vacation.”

“I just finished a vacation. And I still feel terrible.”

“Maybe you need a new boyfriend.”

She lifted her head and looked at him. “Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah, you know, to get your mind off things.” He adopted his best innocent-schoolboy look.

“I see. Then I have a question — have you ever been to Spain?”