When she’d been accepted into CIA field training she’d thought she’d finally be able to stop constantly fighting to prove herself with at least one hand always tied behind her back. At last, she’d be among people who wanted to serve their country as much as she did, and they’d all be competing for a prize they could share in the end. But it hadn’t turned out that way.

Her time at The Farm, the nickname for the CIA training facility at Camp Peary in Virginia, had been tough. There were few women on the entire base, let alone in the training corps, and she was the only one who was part Native American. No one wanted anything to do with her. Bennett was disappointed but, just like so many times before, not completely surprised. Yet she hadn’t thrown in the towel, decided life might be easier in the FBI or going private at Pinkerton or another independent outfit. She’d worked harder than anyone else to prove she deserved to be there.

After she left The Farm with a performance record that should have put her at the top of her class but didn’t, Bennett waited for her first posting. And she kept waiting, while all her fellow graduates were sent off somewhere to protect America and her interests. Eventually she received a string of short-lived, menial assignments that demanded less of her than the years she’d spent as a file clerk for the agency before going to Virginia. Then one afternoon, completely out of the blue and with only a few hours’ notice, she was sent to Santo Domingo.

She’d been caught up in the rushing wave of the American occupation, and it had been exhilarating. All clichés aside, she’d felt like she was making a difference, protecting the Dominican Republic from tumbling into chaos or, worse, communism. But in the last year things had become murkier, less clear-cut, and she wasn’t sure who she was helping any more.

The operation in Cerro de San Francisco was wrong. A foreign national had been killed in CIA custody, or as near as dammit to it, and Bennett wanted to know how much blood she had on her hands. But Gibson had shot her down. Maybe he was right and his identity was above her pay grade, but something felt off about the whole thing. There’d been no whispers around Haina about a rescue, no quiet pats on backs for bringing in one of their own. It really was like the mission hadn’t happened—a true black op.

A great deal of trouble had been gone to for one man. He was clearly valuable. But to who? And why?