That’s what she’s upset about? I dig my nails into the palms of my hands and take a breath. I close my eyes and try to concentrate on the rise and fall of my chest. Sometimes I want to scream at them. I want to wave my hands around the weapons room and shout “You chose this life.” The moving, the cover stories, the lying, the danger. They weighed out all the pros and cons and chose this. I don’t have that luxury.
My mother lived my dream. She’s absolutely brilliant. Graduated from college at twenty and went to medical school at Johns Hopkins. She was a practicing trauma surgeon for less than a year before she got recruited by the CIA. She was one of the CIA’s top operatives when she was promoted to the Special Activities Division, the most secretive operations force in the United States. That’s where she met my dad. They became partners and eventually fell in love and got married. They both became so well trained and so well respected in the SAD that before I was born, they were asked by the government to go completely underground and become Black Angels, a promotion that is almost unheard of if you aren’t grandfathered in. They’ve been living a double life for almost two decades.
“So, what’s the mission anyways?” I ask after calming my nerves.
“You know I can’t really tell you very much, Reagan,” Mom answers and crosses the room. She opens the top drawer of her dresser and pulls out two simple cotton bras.
“So, tell me what you can,” I say, uncrossing my arms and running the tip of my finger along a deep crease in the armchair’s soft, worn leather. I follow one crease down the length of the arm and then back up again. I look up at my mom. She is pressing her lips together, thinking about how much she should give away.
“Mom, if you guys want me to do this, don’t you think I should know the truth about some of the missions?” I say, my eyes returning to the crease. “It’s only fair I know what I’m getting myself into.”
“I know it is.” My mother’s voice is low. She sounds tired and overwhelmed by what lies ahead of her.
Mom takes a breath and sits down on the bed. “A Colombian drug lord, Santino ‘El Martillo’ Torres, kidnapped five American tourists on Tuesday and is demanding that some of his men that are in federal custody in the US be returned to Colombia. One of the men is his brother. Until they’re freed, he’s refusing to let the hostages go.”
“I’m assuming the US won’t release them.”
“Of course not. They’re convicted drug smugglers. Plus, you know the government won’t negotiate with terrorists, and they certainly aren’t going to negotiate with a thug like Torres. We have to get in there, and soon, because Torres has said if his men aren’t released by Monday morning…” She pauses and swallows the emotion I’m surprised to hear bubbling up her throat. “If the US doesn’t let them go, he plans on executing all the hostages during a live webcast.”
“Holy shit,” I whisper. My mom doesn’t like me to swear, but she lets it go. “You think he’ll actually do it?”
“They don’t call him ‘the hammer’ for nothing. He’s killed plenty of people before.”
“So why are they calling on the Black Angels? Seems like something the Special Activities Division could take care of, right?”
“Probably, but it’s a little tricky,” Mom says, sweeping her blond hair out of her eye. She runs her finger down her jawline and stares past me. “For one, your dad and I were on the team that took down Torres’s drug ring in the US.”
“You put his brother in jail?” I ask.
Mom slowly nods and I immediately think about the janitor. Their enemies have tried to find us before and I’m sure they’d do it again. But before I open my mouth, she continues. “Torres has three brothers. They are his most trusted advisers in the cartel and just as crazy and dangerous as he is, so I’ll sleep a little better with one of them in jail. The other reason we have to go is one of the Americans being held hostage is Senator Taylor’s eighteen-year-old daughter Anna.”
“What?” I exclaim and my stomach drops. “How’d he get his hands on her?”
“She was backpacking through South America with friends. Intelligence is still trying to figure out how Torres tracked her down. They have a few theories. Since Senator Taylor is one of the few officials who actually knows about us, he wanted only the best team out there to save her.”
“Where’s he keeping her?”
“I can’t tell you that information, love.” Mom stands up and goes back to folding clothes. “It’s classified. I’ve probably told you too much already. If everything goes according to plan, we should be in and out of Colombia in a couple days.”