David sighed. “It’s better if you—”
“This is not a military operation.” She cut him off. “If we are truly partners working for Atlas’s best interest then we share information. Nothing less.”
She shut her mouth then. Interrupting him twice was already beyond rude. She wanted to resolve this, not antagonize him into throwing her off the property for real.
David worked his jaw, obviously reining in his own temper. “Anything to do with Atlas is looking to be complicated.”
The dog in question glanced over at the sound of his name but stayed where he was.
“His previous handler wasn’t only lost in the line of duty.” It sounded like a struggle for David to share even that much and he looked all around them.
They were yards from the perimeter fence and even farther from the main house. No one was near enough to overhear.
David continued, scowling. “Atlas’s previous handler’s name was Calhoun and we served together when I was still active. We were friends. So receiving texts from him wasn’t unusual.”
She wasn’t sure where this was going so she waited.
“Any communication from deployed military is monitored.” David shoved his hands into the front pockets of his jeans. “His last text was out of character for him. Odd. But what I read into Calhoun’s last text to me could be discounted as paranoia.”
He looked at her, braced. Waiting for a reaction.
She considered it. Considered David. He wouldn’t be worried over something that wasn’t an actual threat. “Just because a person is paranoid doesn’t mean they’re delusional.”
That won her a ghost of a smile. Nodding, he continued. “Text was weird as hell. Typically any bar on base would only issue two drinks in a night over there. But we drink so infrequently, two is more than enough. I figured he was in between missions, low on tolerance and sleep, and drunk texting me.”
Lyn snorted. “Better than texting an ex.”
“But a drunk text still has a purpose behind it.” David pulled his hand out of a pocket and rubbed his face. “Dramatic, I know. But he was going on about Atlas and carrying the answers on his shoulders.”
Lyn raised her eyebrows. “So he could’ve been referencing a book I read in college or mythology.”
David snorted. “We do a lot of reading deployed, believe it or not. But Calhoun wasn’t into that kind of fiction as much as mythology, especially as it applied to strategy and the art of war.”
“So we’re thinking the Titan Atlas, then. I remember he was supposed to carry the celestial spheres on his shoulders but that’s all I’ve got.” She’d had a phase as a kid reading up on Roman and Greek mythology. Atlas was one of the only Titans she remembered at all. If they got into Nordic gods, she was going to have to start running Internet searches.
David held up both hands. “The message meant exactly what it said: Atlas carries the answers on his shoulders. There was a micro SD card in his shoulder instead of a locater chip.”
“Oh.” Well, her overactive imagination could take a break, then.
“I’ve got some of the data running through a decryption now but I’m not sure which encryption he used. It’s going to take a couple of days.” He gestured back toward the main house and his office. “But Calhoun left me a highlights reel to give me an overview of the issue. It’s bad.”
“Is this where the conspiracy theory starts?” She wanted to laugh it off but she was afraid it was real.
Lyn studied David. He was agitated, tiny muscles in his jaw jumping beneath the skin as he clenched and unclenched his teeth. As fantastic as this story sounded, it was serious.
David tilted his head to the side briefly. “It’s contained and involves plans of a small group of people for after they leave active duty, at least as far as I know.”
Relief swept through her and her knees wobbled a bit. She’d worried it was one of those impossible, reaching-up-through-the-ranks kinds of things they showed in action hero movies. “But it’s not the peaceful, quiet life sort of retirement, I’m guessing.”
“Nope. Some men come home and want to build a life.” David looked out over the kennels. “Others want to find a way to go back and keep doing what they did, for more pay and less red tape. The problem is, this is someone’s golden parachute, a way for them to make insane amounts of money after they retire from the military and go private. It means deals and contracts and connections that have nothing to do with protecting our country anymore, and everything to do with making profit off of other people’s chaos. Anyone planning to go this route has no issues taking out anyone who might get in their way.”
She wasn’t sure if she understood the latter but she did the former. It was what Brandon, Alex, and David had done here. They were putting their lives back together. Finding their way back from whoever they’d become overseas.