Max slowly filled a pipe and lit it, shielding his match from the wind as he considered his friend’s response. “I’ll tell you what I think is going on. We’ve been working for a few years now, squirreling away money with each assignment. We all knew there was a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, only now with Dick’s retirement we both got to see just how big it was. He’s cashing out to the tune of forty-five million dollars, tax free. I’m worth even more than that, and you’ve accumulated even more than me. It’s hard to ignore that kind of money when you’re putting your butt on the line for an ideal and a paycheck.”

Juan said, “A big paycheck.”

Max conceded the point. “True. Let me ask you, when you were doing duty for the CIA, twisting in the wind in places like Amman and Nicaragua, did you do it for a measly GS-17 salary and a government pension?”

“No,” Cabrillo said sincerely. “I would have done it for free.”

“Then why feel guilty that we’re making good money now, doing what you used to do for a pittance and having the power to turn down operations we don’t feel right about? You couldn’t do that working for Langley or when the pressure came down from the Pentagon E-ring. They said jump, and you landed in the shit.” The outermost ring of the Defense Department building was the home to all the top brass and their civilian overseers.

Cabrillo opened his mouth to reply, but Max continued speaking. “Actually seeing that we’ve got enough money to retire to a private island someplace and live the good life has made you understand just how much we risk every day. You and I have always put our lives on the line. It’s what makes us who we are. Only now we both know our lives are worth a little more than we thought.”

“And our mission?”

“You have to ask? We’re the last line of defense, my boy. We agree to the jobs Langley and the E-ringers need done but can’t touch. The gloves have come off in the twenty-first century, and we’ve become the iron fist.”

Cabrillo absorbed the words before asking with a smirk, “When did you become such a poet?”

Hanley grinned as if he’d been caught. “That actually just sort of came out. Sounded damn impressive, if you ask me.” He turned serious once again. “Listen, Juan, what we do is important, and I for one am not going to feel guilty because we’re getting rich doing it. There’s no shame in profit, only in failure.