He said, “You can speak frankly.”

Five minutes. She could do this in five minutes.

This was suicide. Or this was rescue.

At least she’d know one way or the other.

She said, “I’m an analyst, sir. I can only do my job if I’m given all available data, and with all due respect, to ask me to continue against an advanced, persistent threat without allowing me all-source access is asking me to continue the losses. I’ll pull that pin and fall on that grenade, sir, if that’s what you’re looking for, but I’d still be more effective with access to all the data.”

Hayes stayed silent for a few seconds, and she struggled to gauge what the silence meant but was too far in now to change course, so she, too, kept quiet.

When he spoke, his words were perfunctory. “You already have full, unlimited access to everything that’s relevant,” he said.

Not so much a lie as an equivocation.

Relevant was interpretive.

Relevant was a man in a suit protecting his own interests, or sandboxing operations to prevent one blowing back on another, or holding on to classified intelligence above her clearance level, but reasons that might matter stateside, or might matter to long-term survival, didn’t matter right here and now.

Headquarters had failed her. The war room had failed her.

If she couldn’t have access to information from all available data sources, she would fail and her team would die. She said, “Identity and objective are always relevant, sir. Our man is not on the list, and we weren’t informed that another who is on it would be there. If we’d had accurate intelligence, Carson and Marino would still be alive.”

Hayes’s tone caught an edge. “That’s quite an accusation,” he said.

“Not an accusation, sir. You’re asking me to lead an operation under the same parameters that killed half my team. It does no favors for either of us if I pretend otherwise. Like I said, you want me to pull the pin and throw myself on that grenade, I’ll do it, but if you want my team to close out, then I need to know who we’re chasing and everything you know about him, relevant or not, classified or not.”

Hayes waited a beat.

“This is an unsecured line,” he said.

“Understood,” she said.

He wasn’t stating the obvious or reminding her of what he thought she’d forgotten. He was telling her this conversation had already breached protocol and that he was about to charge right through that breach in a good-faith gesture. He said, “First, you understand why we’re working from the top of that list?”

“Yes,” she said.

Well, she had understood until she’d discovered their target wasn’t on it.

She added, “I no longer understand how this op is connected.”

“Everything as briefed,” Hayes said. “But a new actor.”