Noah stood up. “Allison, if Mr. Conway does not feel comfortable being on my team, then I believe you should release him from it. I cannot count on a man who harbors animosity toward me.”
Allison looked at him and grinned. “Then, if I were you, I would find a way to eliminate that animosity. He stays on your team, because he’s the best man I’ve got for the job.” She looked at all four of them. “You four will make up our newest team, which will be Team Camelot. Camelot—that’s Noah—will be going through an abbreviated training course, and you’ll be going through some of it with him. It’s quite possible that you may find yourselves out on your first mission within just a few months. Keep yourselves sharp, and stay ready. At this point, I don’t know what your first mission will be, so I can’t give you any tips on how to prepare for it. Just be ready, because you’ll probably have to move quickly when it comes.” She looked at each of their faces in turn. “Any questions?”
Sarah raised a hand. “I have one,” she said. When Allison nodded at her, she looked at Noah. “All I want to know is are you going to get us all killed?”
Noah’s left eyebrow popped up. “I’m certainly not planning to,” he said. “Can I ask what prompted that question?”
Sarah looked at him for a minute, then shrugged her shoulders. “A friend of mine says he knows who you are,” she said. “He says you don’t think like a normal person, that the things most of us worry about don’t seem to mean much to you. Is that true?”
Allison started to interrupt, but Noah put a hand on her arm. “According to a small army of psychiatrists, I suffer from an unusual form of PTSD that leaves me without emotions. I don’t get angry, I don’t get scared, I don’t love and I don’t hate. I’ve spent almost all of my life pretending to be normal, but you four deserve to know the truth. If you tell me a joke, I may not realize it unless somebody else starts laughing. If you share some bad news with me, I’m going to offer sympathy, not because I feel it, but because I’ve learned that’s what you’re supposed to do in that situation. I’ve spent my entire life studying how humans act, so that I can pretend to be one of you. That’s the reality I live in.” He took a deep breath. “As to the value I place on things like human life? Let me put it this way. The reason I have bothered to study the way humans act is so that I can do what other people would consider the right thing, when it’s time to do it. Sometimes, however, I have to do what I believe is right, and that may not be exactly what everyone else wants. Instead, it will be based not on fear or anger or any other emotion, but solely on a logical conclusion drawn from available facts. Now, what that should mean to each of you is that I’m going to naturally want to do whatever I can to protect you. However, if protecting you means the failure of the mission, then I’m going to put the mission first. Does any of that make sense to you?”
Sarah sat there and just stared at him, and Moose busied himself with looking at the ceiling, but Neil leaned forward, put his head in his hands and muttered, “Oh, God help us, we’re all going to die.”
THIRTEEN
“Don’t let Moose get to you,” Allison said. “He comes from a long line of soldiers and sailors, and if he had his choice, he’d still be in the Navy.”
“Then why isn’t he?” Noah asked.
“Remember I said he just barely failed to make Navy SEALs? Well, after he was notified that he was not selected, especially after going through such intense training just to find out if he was good enough, he sort of snapped. The captain who told him the bad news ended up with a shiner, and Moose ended up with a BCD.”
“Bad Conduct Discharge?” Noah asked. “He’s probably lucky that’s all he got. Assaulting an officer, without reason? Really bad idea.”
Allison grinned at him. “Yes, well, Moose figured that out the hard way. Anyway, that’s how he turned up on my radar, and I couldn’t see any sense in letting all that training go to waste.”
Noah looked at her sideways. “With that kind of training, I’m surprised you didn’t make him a team leader himself. An assassin.”
She shook her head. “No way. Moose isn’t a man who can inspire others to follow him; he’s not a natural leader. And except for that one lapse in judgment, he has always been dedicated to following the orders of those in command. You figure out a way to make a friend out of him, or at least get his animosity under control, and you’ll have the most loyal man you could ever hope for on your side.”