She snorted. “I know how this shit works. Whatever you’ve gotten yourself into comes with a voyeur’s wet dream of twenty-four-seven crackerjack support.”

“Whatever I’ve gotten myself into,” he said, “will at times put me—us—into situations that make accessing that support difficult, if not impossible. I need your brain, Kara. I don’t want you as a field operative. I want you as an analyst—your eyes and ears, on the ground, right there in the moment—because when shit gets real, we’re going to be on our own, running blind, and there isn’t anyone else I trust to get me where I need to go the way I trust you. You’ve already got the clearance. You have a proven record. I can get the transfer green-lit and fast-tracked. Please.”

“Still a hard sell, Nick.”

“Double hazard pay, five million in life insurance, which you can line up to take care of your sisters if that’s what you’re worried about, and guaranteed retirement.”

“That’s not how things work.”

“Okay, everything minus the guarantee.”

She sighed.

“You’re dying where you are,” he said. “Your skills are wasted. You’re doing time, counting the days to freedom.”

“What’s my commitment?”

“Give me six months. If you don’t like it, then quit and pick your duty.”

“Nick, you can’t make promises like that.”

“I absolutely can.”

“See,” she said, “now you’re starting to scare me.”

“Good,” he said. “That means you’re curious.”

“It means you’re a motherlovin’ conniving asshole is what it is.”

Four weeks later she was on a flight to Langley, and two months of field training after that, she was headed to Rome. Two months bled into three, then six, then a year.

The work left her ambivalent.

She hadn’t been naive when Nick had asked her to sign on.

She’d known what she’d be part of, but she wasn’t like him or Emilia.

They had no moral issue with the killing. To them, this was war, and they were soldiers following orders, but it wasn’t really the same. This was a murderous bent masked by terms like patriotism and national security. She didn’t deny that they were patriotic, she just didn’t buy they were doing it only for country.

They enjoyed the thrill of the hunt.

She didn’t.

And the civic side of her had a hard time wrapping her head around extrajudicial killings, especially when those killed were US citizens.

She’d brought that up with Nick after her first six months ended.

He’d said, “It’s not like we’re targeting innocent people.”

She had issues with that, too.