Walker (In the Company of Snipers #21) - Irish Winters Page 0,23
might investigate them for a change. Wouldn’t they be surprised if he uncovered a way to beat those dirtbags at their own lying game? If he found out who was behind this well-orchestrated plot to assassinate his character? That’d be even better.
His fingers curled into fists thinking of the day of comeuppance in his future. Truth did prevail, damn it, and he meant to make sure it did. Hopefully.
Chapter Eight
It was the day after her hasty exit from the Keys, and Persia couldn’t keep her mind on the briefing. Or her boss. Or on the upcoming, important powwow at the United Nations, New York City, her reason for hurrying back to Alexandria, Virginia.
Every president, prime minister, king, queen, and despot was coming together in NYC to discuss the ever-polarizing concept of climate change and the world’s imminent demise. Environmentalists had become the doomsday prophets of the twenty-first century, all clamoring for governments the world over to shut down any and all manufacturing that relied on carbon fuels. To prohibit air travel, the use of natural gas, coal mining, blah, blah, blah. In other words, to stop living, producing, manufacturing, and go back to the stone ages.
Persia was surprised breathing oxygen and spewing carbon dioxide weren’t on their hitlist of disgusting emissions. Cows were.
She’d worn a light dress this morning, a powder blue sheath with a simple, white knitted shrug covering her shoulders, offering a touch of professionalism to her casual attire. The TEAM’s dress code was quite lenient. Unless they were on assigned operations, casual business was the rule of thumb, which meant most other agents wore black and their black TEAM polo shirts. But Persia was sick of looking like an FBI reject, and she hated black. After the fiasco in Brazil, she needed color in her life. Bright, airy colors. Any color combination other than red or black.
After a few meetings with The TEAM’s physician on staff, Dr. McKenna Fitzgerald-Villanueva, Persia now realized she’d brought a couple triggers home with her from Brazil. It stood to reason, after working and living with a psychotic killer like Domingo Zapata. She wasn’t the innocent woman she’d been before. Far from it.
Somedays, she suspected she bordered on the edge of a nervous breakdown. She dreamed of stepping right over that edge, by either screaming her heart out or drinking herself to death. Even now, a slim, easy-to-hide flask rested full and comfortably available in the over-the-shoulder crossbody bag beneath her desk. Because she, former FBI Special Agent Persia Coltrane, one of the Bureau’s finest undercover operators, was hanging on by the thinnest thread. And an occasional shot of whiskey helped, damn it.
She should be high after the biggest, toughest success of her career. She had awards from the Bureau and the Agency. Fat lot of good paper certificates and bonus checks did. Instead, she was unraveling, blindsided by ghosts and monsters in the dark. By stupid Crayola colors!
Her nightmares had become unbearable, and she detested tiny, cramped spaces. Like elevators, even her sporty Toyota sports car seemed suffocatingly close once she shut the door and turned the engine. Not that she’d ever been caged or trapped like so many of Domingo’s victims. But her empathy for those women and girls continued to replace them in her nightly dreams with—her. A night hadn’t yet gone by that she hadn’t woken up screaming, sure she was the one being assaulted or doing the assaulting. She was exhausted, reliving what she’d never lived through. Yet believing she’d indeed been tortured—or worse. That she’d killed…
Doc Fitz called it post-traumatic stress, but Persia knew better. Her nightmares were her just reward for not having helped those women and girls escape when she could. For following CIA protocol, instead of blowing Domingo Zapata’s hairy ass to hell. Just for being there…
Except for that one night with Hotrod, she hadn’t fallen asleep without a good stiff drink or two before bed, since she’d come home. Sometimes, she took the whole bottle with her. Which was worrisome, needing to numb her heart like she did. But as long as it worked, hey. She would self-medicate until the nightmares stopped. Or until Doc Fitz came up with a way for Persia to get out of her head long enough to rest her soul. Really, truly rest. To fall asleep and dream, instead of having nightmares. That’d be nice.
To be able to forgive herself. That’d be even better.
Persia left her lights on at night now. All night. All of them. Even