“FN-6 shoulder-fired missiles,” said Pickens. “Designed to target low-flying aircraft. The Chinese sold them to the Saudis, who gave them to the Syrian rebels, who sold them in North Africa to generate some cash. Over here are a couple crates of PE8—British plastic explosives—that just showed up one day at a shop in Mogadishu. It’s serious stuff, and I’d never seen it in the Horn of Africa, so I bought every last block.”

Pickens opened the top crate, revealing dozens of two-kilogram packs.

“Like I said, I buy some of it just to take it out of circulation. Once it ends up on the dark web or in the crypto-bazaars, we lose it forever.”

“How long have you been at this?”

Pickens laughed. “Since the CIA was called the OSS.”

Jake wandered through the basement in amazement. “Did you always dream of being an arms dealer?”

“The only arms I dealt were these.” Pickens flexed his biceps. “I wanted to play in the NFL.”

He was quiet for a few seconds. His lighthearted mood disappeared.

“And I did it . . . I walked onto the New York Jets after college, added another twenty pounds of muscle, and suited up for the kickoff return in the first game of the season. Tore my hamstring halfway down the field and got cut that night. My pro football career lasted one play.”

“Sorry, John. That must have been tough.”

“It was a good lesson. My parents raised me to believe that if I worked hard enough, I could have anything I wanted, but that’s not how life works.”

“Not always, but you’re serving your country, helping to stop a civil war, and keeping weapons out of the hands of warlords. That’s a job worth doing.”

“Maybe, but it doesn’t pay much, and my wife divorced me when I skipped my first rotation back to the States. Now I see my kids three or four days a year. The job has cost me a lot.”

Jake understood the sacrifice better than most. Born Zac Miller, he’d been chased across two continents, shot, and nearly killed on his first field mission for the Agency. The political fallout had forced him to fake his death, change his name, and abandon the only woman he’d ever loved.

And it got worse from there.

He derived a great deal of satisfaction from what he did—the mission to protect those who couldn’t protect themselves was what drove him forward when it would have been so easy to quit—but the toll on his mind and body was enormous.

Only a handful of people knew the real story, and Pickens wasn’t cleared for any of it.

“Sorry, brother,” said Jake.

“I’m cool with it, but I’ve learned that you’ve got to do what you can, when you can, because you never know when your time is up.”