Secretary of Defense Bruno Passerini, Admiral, USN (Ret.) still walked with the cadence of a Navy man. It was something he’d picked up in Basic and never let go of, the precise movement style that came from drill. He couldn’t have shed it if he’d tried—not that he had—but it was bound to him like a second skin, and almost as tightly as the anger he felt pulsing through his veins right now.
“Director Chalke,” he said, trying to catch up to the woman in the grey suit as she strode through the West Wing lobby toward the exit. She probably had a car waiting for her, and he didn’t want to miss this opportunity to catch her. Otherwise he might have to make an appointment and drop by FBI Headquarters, and that didn’t suit his disposition nor his mood.
Someone had misappropriated his department’s vital resources without even consulting him, and that was the sort of thing that Bruno Passerini found … aggravating.
FBI Director Heather Chalke spun, giving him no more than a look over her shoulder before she paused and let him catch up. “Secretary Passerini,” she said, a hint of levity running through her words—the Director always seemed to be speaking with great irony, like she was telling a joke that only she was in on, regardless of who she spoke to. It was irritating, because it bore the marks of a mind so impressed with itself that she didn’t allow for the possibility that anyone was smart enough to realize she was speaking down to them.
Thank God she’s not under my command, Passerini thought as he caught up to her. But to her he only said, “The Orion Protocol.”
She made a face, squinched up her small features, like this was funny. “Is that your name for your little hunter guy? Cute.”
Passerini held in the cold irritation he felt, but only just. Passerini’s patience was not legendary in the Navy, and for good reason. Because when he lost it, you could only wish you were sitting under an F/A-18E Super Hornet as it dropped its payload. And that was the reason he’d been assigned the callsign Hammer. “I wasn’t informed that we were offering one of our top programs to the Justice Department.”
“Homeland Security, technically,” Chalke said with that same veiled amusement. “But I know it’s all very confusing, way more complicated than Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, and—whoever else. There’s a fifth one, right?” She tapped her chin, eyes looking up like she was trying to remember.
“This was my project,” Passerini said. “Quincy was my operative. And now he’s sitting in the Cube.”
“We’ll get him released,” Chalke said with a light shrug. “I mean, I should have known better than to throw a blunt instrument like a soldier into this given how badly the last few attempts to use them have gone—”
Passerini bristled; Chalke was smiling. She knew she’d gotten his goat with the crack about the military.
“Well, since you haven’t been able to get the job done with anyone else,” Passerini said, not above a little passive-aggressive shot or two of his own—this was DC, after all. No one here spoke openly about their intentions; they just catted like teenagers at one another, and it drove him nuts. “It probably made sense to you to seek out the best trained fighters on the planet. But my people are not police,” Passerini said, adding an edge to his voice that his junior officers when he’d commanded the Enterprise task force had called “Hammerfall,” “and we were never meant to be used in the way that you and the previous administration have. There’s a reason for the Posse Comitatus Act—”
“I guess you guys don’t take the ‘domestic’ part of ‘enemies foreign and domestic’ seriously, huh?” Chalke snarked. If she was under his command he’d have broken her down to private for insubordination.
“I take my duty very seriously,” Passerini fumed. “I take the safety of my people very seriously. And when one of them gets assigned to cannon fodder duty, thrown at Sienna Nealon by another department, one that doesn’t give a damn for their well-being—”
“Soldiers are expendable,” Chalke said with an uncaring shrug. “You should know this, you’re the Secretary of Defense.”
Passerini drew himself up to his full height, eyes blazing. “Listen, lady—”
“Sexist. Why are you military guys so sexist? Wait. ‘Military guys.’ Think I found the answer.”
“We’ve got plenty of female brass,” Passerini said, neatly avoiding adding, And every single one of them is less of a horse’s ass than you, bypassing it to say, “And they all know the value of human life—especially that of the people that we’re responsible for. You don’t borrow my soldiers, sailors, Marines, Airmen or Coasties—that’s the last branch, by the way—without asking me. Period.” And he started to leave it at that.
“Oh, I wouldn’t dream of it,” Chalke called after him, “but that order came from the president.”
Passerini paused. It probably had, but there was no doubt in his mind who’d convinced Gondry to issue it—and she was standing behind him in heels, the devil in Chanel.
“By the way,” Chalke said, “I heard about your near miss with the Enterprise. You and the president, both very fortunate. Fifteen more minutes and you would have gone down with the ship. Lucky thing your helicopter was delayed, huh?” She had a gleam in her eyes as she said it, and Passerini couldn’t tell if it was some kind of threat or just the words of a gloating, snide pain-in-the-ass.
Passerini just seethed, staring at her. He was wondering if he’d missed something. There was definitely a glow in her eyes, one that he’d always attributed to smugness in the past, but … maybe …
No. Passerini shrugged that thought off. Plenty of people were difficult, or assholes. That didn’t make them traitors or part of some conspiracy to false flag their own countrymen. It just meant they were assholes.
And FBI Director Heather Chalke had to be one of the biggest assholes he’d ever met in his life.
“I wouldn’t worry about your people getting roped into future operations with us,” Chalke said, taking a couple steps back. “It didn’t go so well for us, trying to use your … jarheads or whatever you call them. We’ll look elsewhere for help in the future.”
“Good,” Passerini said tightly. “Good luck in your hunt.”
“Oh, we won’t need luck,” Chalke said, still smug, and walking away. “Didn’t you hear? Sienna Nealon is powerless now.” Chalke let out a hearty chuckle. “Her days are numbered.” Then she muttered something else as she turned.
Passerini froze, watching Chalke as she walked out the lobby doors. She looked back at him and smiled infuriatingly, and he just stood there, fighting back his warrior’s instincts.
Because he could never have proven it, not in a million years, but he could have sworn what she said was …
“Her days are numbered. Just like yours.”
Epilogue
Breddocia, Revelen