“Please have a seat, Pierce,” McMaster said. “Coffee?”
“No thanks.” Hunt sat in one of the chairs facing McMaster’s desk. He looked through the glass wall and saw that most of the agents had resumed their seats.
“I’d like to start by telling you that I know you didn’t request this transfer,” McMaster began. “You might not realize it now, Pierce, but you’ve become a legend.”
A legend? For killing two drug dealers and pointing my gun at an unarmed reporter’s head? Oh boy, Leila wouldn’t be impressed.
“I’m not sure this is a good—” Hunt started to reply, but McMaster raised his hand.
“Yes, it is, Pierce. These guys learned about your transfer late last week, and morale has never been higher. Do you realize that you’ve done something many of us have only dreamed about?”
Hunt couldn’t help but smile, wondering if McMaster knew about the cash settlement Moore had received. “Yeah, I’m not naive, sir. But I was almost kicked out for it.”
“But you weren’t. And here you are.”
“And I’m looking forward to starting work.”
McMaster opened his desk drawer and removed a red folder to which Hunt’s picture was stapled. He opened it.
“You served with the Seventy-Fifth Rangers?” McMaster said.
“From ’95 to ’07.”
“Tell me—why did you really leave the army?” In a heartbeat, McMaster’s eyes had grown cold. Gone was the warmth and sincere welcome Hunt had felt only a minute ago.
Hunt was taken aback. McMaster had drawn him in with flattery and small talk and then fired the question without preamble. Does he know? No, that was impossible. Nobody outside his unit knew. Nobody knew what he had done to save his teammate, his best friend.
“I’m not here to judge,” McMaster said, his voice somewhat softer. “But after what I’ve seen you do in Chicago, I can’t help but wonder if it’s a good idea to send you into the field again.”
“I’m not sure I’m following you.”
“Do you know who I had over to dinner yesterday?” McMaster said. Before Hunt had a chance to answer, McMaster continued, “Cole Egan.”
Hunt felt the blood drain from his face. Cole Egan. So McMaster does know.
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost, Pierce,” McMaster said.
“How’s Cole doing?” Hunt managed to say, still in shock that his new boss knew the man he had saved in Gaza.
“He’s doing well, thanks to you.”
“How do you—”
“He married my daughter three years ago.” McMaster grinned. “She’s the happiest she’s ever been. Cole travels a lot for work—he’s an international sales rep for a dental equipment company—but he takes good care of her. They’re expecting.”
Cole—about to be a father. Hunt was glad to hear that. But one of the best operators he had ever served with was earning his living by selling toothpaste? War changed people’s ideas about life, and it was entirely possible that Cole had simply decided to walk away from it all and settle down with someone he loved. Cole had been through a lot, and he deserved to be happy.
And what about Hunt? Did he deserve happiness? In 2007, he and Cole had been part of a small contingent of Rangers and Delta Force operators sent to Gaza to train and assist President Abbas’s Palestinian security forces in their underground fight against Hamas terrorists. But all hell had broken loose when two members of Hunt’s team were killed and Cole Egan was taken prisoner. Their team had been ordered not to intervene, but within two hours of Cole’s capture, Hunt, three other Rangers, and one Delta operator had mounted a rescue operation with intelligence Hunt had gathered through methods some might describe as unorthodox. The rescue had been deemed a military success, but the psychological scars of what he’d done—how far he’d gone to save a teammate—were still there, forever scorched in his mind.
“From what he told me, he owes you his life,” McMaster continued. “I wanted to know a little more about the man who’d apparently saved my daughter’s husband, you know? But Cole wouldn’t say more, and when I reached out to my contact at the Department of Defense, I was told to back off. The only thing I was able to figure out was that you left the army a week after you shipped home. Why?”
“It’s complicated,” Hunt said. He was certainly not about to volunteer any information.
“Things often are. I’ve heard rumors about what happened in Gaza.”
Hunt remained silent.
“I wasn’t there. I don’t have all the facts. But if the stories are true, and I’m not saying they are, someone lost control over there and left carnage behind him. Whatever the reasons, a lot of people died. I don’t want to see that happen in the streets of Miami, Pierce.”
“It won’t.”
“You threatened to kill that reporter,” McMaster reminded him.
“Not my interpretation of what happened, sir. I wanted to scare him, to make him understand that his actions had consequences.”
“It wasn’t your job to do so.”
“I know,” Hunt admitted. “And I paid for my sins.”