by Margaret Kay
“He was a colonel when he officially retired, but he didn’t really, and started Shepherd Security. He’d logged time in DC and had the necessary contacts to make this agency a reality.”
The pause lasted a few seconds while she thought out her next question. “Where did your team members come from?”
“Garcia was with the Rangers and then did some time in the DEA before Shepherd recruited him. Doc, Jackson and I came right from the special forces, Rangers, Green Beret, and I was with Delta before joining Military Intelligence.”
“So, you know exactly what I did as an analyst.”
“You or someone like you saved our asses more times than we can count. That’s why we wanted you, Madison. I can’t tell you how many times a mission went to shit, and it was the calm voice of the analyst coming through my comms giving me a way out, ordering an airstrike, or reporting where the Tangos were. You have instincts and smarts to think on your feet. That’s what we need in a teammate. And we need a woman. Unfortunately, there is no way around that on several hot cases we have pending.”
She thought about it all for a few quiet seconds.
“Any other questions along these lines?”
“And the rest of the members of the other teams?”
“All the team members on Bravo, Charlie and Delta all have experience on one Spec-Ops team or another and several have civil or federal law enforcement on top of that.”
“That’s an impressive resume for the agency,” she said.
“Shepherd put a lot of thought into the makeup of this agency. You have to be the best to even be considered.”
Madison nodded. “In that case, I want the same gig Garcia has, my time split between Ops and the field.”
Cooper chuckled. “The field may grow on you and you may not want to be cooped up in Ops. Let’s see how it goes.” He paused watching her. “What else? Let’s get all of your questions out now.”
She took a deep breath and went for it. “How’d Shepherd end up in the chair? His legs don’t look like he’s been there too long.”
“You’re very observant. No, he hasn’t been, just over a year. He was guarding a witness with the Marshals. One of them was paid off by the bad guys and shot the second Marshal. Shepherd and our witness were taken, and Shepherd was shot. Doc saved his life but couldn’t prevent the paralysis.”
“What happened to the witness?”
“We got her back. You gave her your Chinese order.”
“Angel?”
The corner of Cooper’s lip on the right side tugged up. “You remember the Dubuque, Iowa Events Center bombing last July?”
Madison nodded that she did.
“We took custody of the only witness who could identify the architect of the siege, the top dog that no agency had an ID on. They tried to get her, correction, got her, but we got her back and took care of dismantling the entire organization, person by person, beginning with that top dog. Put the mother-fucker down.”
Madison eyed him with more questions she wouldn’t ask. That explained the fondness Shepherd had for Angel. She nodded. “My curiosity is satisfied, for now.”
Foxtrot
Cooper came to his feet. He nodded to the door. “Come on, I’ll show you the Ops Center and your office.”
She rose and followed him from the room. He led her back past Angel, who was focused on a spreadsheet on her monitor as they passed, but still threw a friendly smile their way. He brought her to the staircase in the internal lobby area near Shepherd’s office and she followed him as he ascended the stairs. Within the stairwell, the walls were lined with steel and each floor they passed had a reinforced inner door that required a code and palmprint scan to open, which he did at the eighth floor.
There were surveillance cameras everywhere she looked, in the stairwell, in the hallways. Once inside the lockbox room that was the Ops Center, she saw the many feeds from all the cameras queued up on a dozen screens. Yes, this was familiar territory!
There was a man who appeared to be in his mid-thirties, tall, thin, short dark hair. There was also a hard-looking, red-headed woman who had to be pushing forty-five. They both monitored the camera feeds as well as two dozen other screens with a multitude of feeds that flickered over them. On the larger, center monitor was what Madison recognized as mission feed with body cam footage from what she assumed was one of their ground units.
Garcia rushed in through a door on the opposite side of the room. He nodded a silent greeting while briefly locking his eyes on Madison’s and then Cooper’s.
“Delta breached the warehouse,” the woman reported, her green eyes momentarily flickering to Garcia.
Garcia grabbed a headset from the table. His eyes flashed to Madison. “You’re going to want to watch this.”
“Put the audio on speaker,” Cooper ordered and immediately the room filled with the sounds Madison was all too familiar with. “We’re going in to extract a high-ranking gang-member, drug-dealing, murdering scumbag. He hasn’t stepped foot out of his hidey-hole in over a month. DEA doesn’t have enough to get a warrant, but we know he’s in there and we don’t need one.”
“How does that playout when you turn him over to the DEA?” Madison asked.
“He’s not a US citizen. He’s a Colombian national so we can detain him with impunity,” Cooper replied.
“He may or may not make it into the DEA’s custody. That’ll be up to him and his cooperation level,” Garcia added.
Madison wasn’t sure exactly what that meant.
There was the distinct sound of gunfire, the team engaging with other gang members within the structure. She watched the body cam footage with an intense focus. Memories of missions in the Middle East flooded her mind. It was just like this, except this wasn’t a warzone. They were inside the borders of the US, in a large warehouse in LA and some of the people being shot were US citizens.
“How does an assault like this get explained?” She asked, not sure how she felt about this.
“These guys all have committed multiple murders or teamed up with those who have. They’re responsible for countless deaths from the shit they bring in and peddle in every community in America. This building is a major distribution center. If it weren’t us taking them out, it would be a rival gang. That’s who will take the blame,” Cooper said, watching her closely.
“You won’t see anything about this on the nightly news,” the other woman in the room, the analyst, spoke up. She flashed a grin at Madison. “I’m Yvette, it’s nice to meet you,” she added.
Madison forced a smile. “It’s nice to meet you,” she echoed.
The whole operation was over in less than twenty minutes. DEA arrived on the scene when it was over to secure the drugs and the low value left-behind gang-members in the warehouse. Delta Team boarded a chopper with the person they had gone in for. He was alive and kicking, literally.
“Bravo Zulu, Delta,” Garcia congratulated. “Lambchop, make sure you file your mission report from the Silo. We will be waiting for your ongoing reports.”
“Roger that, Control,” a male voice broadcast through the room.
On the mission feed, Madison saw the body cam footage that continued to display. Lambchop was a large black male, his head shaved bald. She smiled to herself, always entertained by some of the callsigns these guys gave each other.
The team in the Ops Center high-fived each other for a job well done as the Undertaker force-fed a vial of liquid to their prisoner, who struggled against him with all his strength. Once emptied into his mouth, their detainee immediately went limp.
“What did they just give him?” Madison asked.
“A safe sedative. All detainees going in or out of the Silo, our black-site, are sedated, always,” Cooper said.
“By the way, welcome aboard,” Garcia said with a lopsided smirk. “I have protocols loaded on your laptop. You’ll need to read through and sign off on them in the next few days.”
Madison nodded, basically to them both. �
��Cooper said you’ll get me for a few hours each day over the next few weeks before I go out in the field.”
Yvette’s eyebrows shot up, and she focused an outraged glare on Cooper. “You’re putting her in the field in a few weeks?”
“Yvette,” Cooper said, his hands in a surrendering gesture, “I’m not debating this with you. Stand down.”
The woman ran her fingers through her short red hair. Then she shook her head as her gaze shifted to Madison. “Honey, you speak up if the time comes and you don’t feel ready. I don’t care how good they think you are. I don’t want you tested before you’re ready.”
Madison was confused by her outrage. “I will, don’t worry.”
The other man in the room took that moment to introduce himself. “Tony Miraldi,” he said, reaching a hand towards Madison.
Madison shook his hand and greeted him. Cooper then led her out of the room through the other door where Garcia had entered. Garcia followed them out. Offices lined the hall. Garcia’s name was lettered on the door immediately across the door from the Ops Center, A. Garcia. Next to his was Y. Donaldson, which she assumed belonged to Yvette. The next one bore the lettering M. Miller. Wow, her office door already lettered with her name. Okay, Garcia and Yvette appeared to be her primary work group based on the location of her office. This she could deal with.
“Your office,” Cooper said. He opened the door. He followed her inside. Garcia hung in the hallway.
It was a windowless room approximately ten by ten, white walls, blue and gray industrial carpet squares, modern modular furniture, a desk, a comfortable desk chair, two guest chairs, an uncomfortable looking couch with orange-red cushions, and a bookcase. A rugged 2-IN-1 laptop sat on the desk which she had signed for on the equipment voucher. Beside it sat a lamp that gave the room a soft glow.
“There are also fluorescent overheads if you prefer,” Cooper pointed up to the ceiling.
“No, the desk light is softer and easier on the eyes,” Madison said.
Cooper walked around to the far side of the desk and pulled the chair out. He pointed to the floor. “Panic button. All areas have them and they are tied-in directly to Ops.”
“Ops is manned twenty-four-seven,” Garcia piped up from the hallway. “After you’re fully trained, and these two cases are completed, you will be rotated in.”
Madison smiled, ah, familiar territory! “Sounds good.”
“Are you leaving her with me now?” Garcia asked Cooper.
“No, not till after lunch sometime. Chinese today. Did you get your order into Angel?”
Garcia’s lips spread into a smile. “Of course.” His eyes flashed to Madison. “The best part of being in the office, is ordering out lunch. MREs suck that much more when you’re used to good meals. We were in Colombia last month for two weeks and I swear I lost ten pounds. Between sweating my ass off in the humid jungle heat and eating the shitty food, I had to tighten my belt to keep my pants up.”
Madison laughed. Her eyes considered Garcia’s frame. He was over six foot with broad shoulders and lean, sculpted muscle. His abdominals looked tight with zero body fat. He filled out the tight, dark blue long-sleeved t-shirt that was tucked into his blue jeans at his narrow waist nicely. Even with an additional ten pounds on him, he’d still look fit with no weight to lose.
“What were you doing in Colombia?” Madison asked.
“A group of Americans went missing in a very remote region. We went in to perform a joint operation with the Colombian military to find and recover them.”
Madison had not seen anything about it on the news. “And was it successful?”
Both Cooper and Garcia laughed. They didn’t need to answer. She knew from their reaction that they indeed had been successful. She doubted this team failed often. She couldn’t help but feel proud that she had been recruited by them. Even though she had not sought this out, she had to admit it was very flattering to be hired by such a competent team.
Cooper stepped near the door. “You can leave your stuff here. I’m going to show you around some more.”
She followed him from the room. The office door next to hers was lettered B. Templeton. Beside that door was one lettered A. Miraldi. She assumed due to the proximity that B. Templeton was part of the Ops Center team as well. They rounded the corner into another hall that had several doors lettered with names as well. At the far end was a door like the one leading into the Ops Center with a scan pad on the wall beside it.
Two office doors lay on each side of the hall. L. Johnson was lettered on the first door, and D. Trio was on the one next to it. Across the hall the doors bared the letters J. Wilson and C. Smith. She wasn’t sure if these were offices of Ops Center team members or not, but she made note of the names.
Cooper pressed his palm to the scanner next to the door. “The Tech-Lab.”
“Madison meet Michaela Karras, our Tech-Goddess. Michaela, our new Operator, Madison Miller,” Cooper said motioning to the beautiful woman wearing blue jeans and a lab coat buttoned up over a petite frame. Her pony-tailed hair was as dark of a brown as her large, almond-shaped eyes. Her complexion was a stunning mocha with gold undertones.
She waived a hand dismissing him as she took a few steps to close the distance between them. “Don’t fall for his obvious charm. All the guys are the biggest bull-shitters.”
She shook Madison’s hand as Cooper feigned outrage at her statement.
“It’s nice to meet you,” Madison greeted. She glanced around the large, well equipped room that was packed with high-tech equipment. “This is quite a lab you have here.”
“Shepherd finances only the best for his people. And he’s a cutting-edge tech-guy, so he appreciates what I want to create.”
Madison smiled and nodded.
“Michaela is a genius,” Cooper said. “We have some very cool gadgets to keep us safe because of her.”
“Thanks.” Her gaze shifted to Madison. “It’s nice to have another woman in our ranks,” Michaela continued. “I didn’t think the guys would ever take the plunge and hire a female Operator.” Her eyes flew to Cooper. “Present company excluded, I thought the guys were all too caveman to accept a woman.”
“Hey, hey,” Cooper groused, “don’t bad talk my gender or my counterparts in front of me.” His smile ruined the projected tough words and emotional outrage. “But I do appreciate not being lumped in with that mindset. I am definitely a progressive twenty-first century guy.”
Michaela laughed. Her eye roll told Madison she disagreed.
Cooper led Madison from the room and around the corner. Another door lay halfway down. He pressed his hand to the scan pad again, and it opened into a room lined with shelves stacked with products from the floor to the ceiling. A counter lay in front of them running nearly the entire length of the room.
A man, most likely in his late forties approached. He had close-shaved salt and peppered hair, the top balding. He wore metal rimmed glasses and his thin face was clean shaven. “You must be Madison Miller,” he greeted as he stepped up to the counter.
“I am,” she replied, taking his hand in a firm grasp.
“We call him Requisition Ryan,” Cooper introduced.
“Ryan Grant,” he clarified. “I am the supply and inventory clerk.”
“Clerk?” Cooper asked. “No, Requisition Ryan is a mind reader, anticipates our needs before we do. There is nothing we ever need that he doesn’t have in stock. He keeps this place functioning with everything from toilet paper to weapons and ammo, Kevlar, and BDU’s. If you need it, Ryan will have it or can get it.”
Ryan shrugged. “It’s amazing that something as simple as purchasing, supply chain management, and inventory control impresses them.”
Madison chuckled. “I look forward to working with you.”
They left the supply room and continued down the hall. It looped back around to the stairwell they had come up. A unisex bathroom was near the stairwell door. She hoped these guys were neat in the bathroom
. The thought of sharing one single stall bathroom with all the guys on this floor was not a good one.
Next, Cooper brought her down the internal stairs to the fourth floor. Doc waited in his office with the door open. Cooper ushered her in. “You remember Doc, don’t you Madison?”
“I do.”
They shook hands.
Doc picked his computer tablet up. His eyes flashed to Cooper. “Did you bring her by Michaela yet?”
“We just left her,” Cooper informed him.
“Okay, good,” Doc said. “Are you waiting for her or should I bring her back to your office when I’m done with her?”
Madison didn’t like the sound of that.
