lip, trying to speak, not finding the words. At last, like chewing broken glass, I found something I could say. “The one Dad had.”
Dale whistled, the air coming through his tracheal tube whining. He’d worked with Dad, before the emphysema reduced Dale to a shadow of a man. “Was it the one . . .”
He wouldn’t dare say it.
“Dad kept a lot of crap.”
“Brynner, was it in the one in the Canopic jar?” Director Bismuth had no qualms about asking hard questions. Even about subjects she knew I didn’t talk about.
I stood, ignoring the shooting pain in my chest where cracked ribs and stitched wounds hadn’t even begun to heal.
“I don’t know. I’ll think about it. I’ve got to get my gear to the armory and file a suitcase’s worth of receipts. May I be excused?”
Director Bismuth stood, appraising me over her bifocals.
Probably thinking how much she wished Dad were still around.
“I expect you at the eleven o’clock translation briefing. Young man, how are you holding up?”
“Three cracked ribs. Twenty-seven stiches. I’ll heal.” “Your father would be proud.” She took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes.
“If you really think that, you didn’t know my old man. I need to get my armor done, and then I can go pick up another assignment.”
She turned her head, eyeing me. “I’m concerned about your psychological report. While your performance is unquestioned, your equipment manager and dispatcher both report that you behaved erratically in Greece. You won’t be going out on assignment until after I sign off on it.”
“You can’t take me off active duty. I’ll chase the meat-skins by myself if I have to.” I expected her to yell at me about the embassy staff, not threaten the one good part of my life: the chance to slaughter dead things.
“You’d arrive ten minutes too late every time. We’re connected with all first emergency responders. They call us directly, not you.”
Like that mattered. “Dad always got there first. Dad was doing this before you were around to coax and guide. Dad put more of those things back in their graves before there was a BSI than after.”
“You aren’t your father.” Her words stung like a whip. “My decision stands.”
I grabbed my duffel bag from the floor beside me and marched out of the room, holding on to the anger inside me.
Anger could be a shield. Could protect me from myself, from everything around me.
I stomped down the hallways until I arrived at the armory, where the tech dumped my entire duffel bag onto the table. The tall East African man smiled at me with perfect white teeth and brown eyes. “So nice to have a visitor. What did you bring me?” “Didn’t have time for an equipment check between my last two operations.” I read the name stitched into his uniform, Lavel. “Two? You had six months and you went out in this?” He held up a piece of my Kevlar, white stress lines creasing it. I shook my head. “Three days. Two operations.” His forehead creased, like he thought I was joking. Then he picked up the scanner and ran it over my armor. The RFID tag beeped, and his eyes went wide. “Mr. Carson. Such an honor to see you here. I met your father once.”
Of course he had. Everyone met my father, or knew my father, or wanted to know my father. Lavel dumped my crumpled underwear and clothes into the same bin as the Kevlar plates. “Most of these should have been replaced ages ago. Going out in this, you’re going to get killed.”
“One way or another. You can swap anything but the chest plate.”
Lavel turned the chest plate over and whistled. The Kevlar inserts had seen better days. The plate itself wasn’t laminate plastic, but pure silver, tarnished to a purple black. On the surface I’d engraved every religious symbol on earth, including the McDonald’s logo.
“You need a full refit. Where are your weapons?” I opened a box in the bottom of my duffel and drew out two silver daggers, their edges inlaid with amber on one side and alabaster on the other. Dad’s weapons. The amber drained a meat-skin’s strength, the alabaster acted as a poison. One nick and even if the meat-skin got away, the breakdown process was irreversible.
Lavel covered them reverently. “I’ll check these in under your name. You gonna stay with us for a while?”
“No. I work Western Europe these days.” What I needed more than anything was to leave Seattle, leave the U.S.,