Page 12 of Whistleblower

Callen scans the diner with his peripherals. We’re tucked into the corner, out of earshot and almost out of eyeshot. When he’s satisfied that we’re attracting no attention, he pulls his wallet from the inside of his suit jacket.

“Let’s talk about developing leadership.” He throws a couple of pocket-sized laminated pictures on the center of the table. “These are the most talented operatives in the business.” Callen proceeds to line them up neatly like he’s excited for me to check out his baseball card collection.

“What business?” I ask.

He dodges my question and taps the picture furthest to the left.

“This is Vesper,” he mumbles, pointing to a striking woman with dark hair. She has a regal elegance to her. Her jet-black hair barely touches her shoulders and is neatly tucked behind her ears. “She’s what you’d probably refer to as ‘management.’ She’s collected a group of off-the-record operatives who help with the FBI’s…uh…let’s call them ‘side projects.’”

“Side projects?” I ask, picking up the picture and examining it more thoroughly. Judging by her all-black attire and the gun holster around her thigh, I suddenly understand what Callen means by “side projects.” My stomach twists in discomfort.

Vesper’s lips in the picture are unnaturally red—ruby red. I have lipstick in exactly that shade in my makeup drawer, but I never use it. It’s far too bold for my taste.

“Cricket. Lance.” Callen names the others as I pick up the remaining photos.

I squint at him. “Is Cricket a name?”

“Hell if I know,” he says. “I’m not sure if these fuckers ever had real names. If they did, they’ve long since forgotten them. Lance is short for Lancelot. I have no clue why they call her Cricket.”

I stare at the jaw-droppingly stunning blonde in the picture who’s looking over her shoulder at the camera with a cheeky smile. She makes a terrible undercover agent. There’s nothing subtle about her. Every man with a pulse would notice a woman who looks like that.

Lance is much the same—clean-shaven, flirty smile, and looks like a frat boy. The kind of frat boy who misses a lot of class because he’s spending all day on his back with one of his classmates straddled across his hips.

“I don’t understand. Doesn’t the FBI do thorough investigations of their recruits? If they are field operatives, they must at least have a top-secret clearance, meaning you should know, not only their birth names, but the color of their piss this morning.”

Callen cocks his head to the side. He smiles at me in a way that tells me he’s surprised, and impressed. “What do you know about TS clearances?”

“I know that top-secret is barely scratching the surface.” Callen blinks at me, wordlessly, a silent command to explain myself. “My dad was Delta Force,” I continue, “he never told me a damn thing, but I could see it in his eyes. He took a lot of secrets to his grave.”

“Delta Force,” he repeats. “Nice. Killed in combat?”

I reel from his frankness. “No. It was his heart,” I respond curtly, trying to cover up my wounded reaction. I get it, it’s the obvious assumption. Dad was part of an elite military force that did very dangerous things behind the scenes, but his life was tame toward the end. He smiled a lot…but he felt weak. I soften my tone and elaborate. “He was on the transplant list for a while, but we ran out of time. He went peacefully, in his sleep.”

I scoop up my mug with both hands just to have something to do. The steam is still dancing on top of the dark liquid from when the waitress refreshed our mugs.

“Shit,” Callen says, looking ashamed. “My job desensitizes me too much sometimes. I’m very sorry for your loss.”

Giving him a small shrug, and an even smaller smile, I let him off the hook and say, “It’s okay. Me too.”

“And I’m no stranger to the difficulties of military life. I was a Navy SEAL. I don’t have kids, but some of my buddies did. I’m assuming you guys moved a lot?”

“Not really. Delta Force stays put at Fort Bragg. My dad would have to leave a lot, but we didn’t move much.”

“If you had roots in North Carolina, how’d you end up in California?”

I fight the urge to roll my eyes. Agents and their questions—everything is an interrogation, even a simple conversation.

“My mom was from San Francisco. My dad met her on vacation.”

My parents had a whirlwind military romance. They met, two weeks later they were married. Two years later I came along. “They bought a nice house on the outskirts of the city when they were really young, long before the market blew up. Their plan was to rent it out so when my Dad retired, it’d basically be paid off.”

We almost made it. I took over the mortgage when Dad got sick. I only have four more years to pay it off… But I fell short, right before the finish line.

“And where’s your mom?” he asks.

I take a small sip of my coffee, tasting the scorched brew. It’s not good coffee by any stretch of the imagination, but there’s something comforting about shitty diner coffee. It reminds me of old Saturdays when I’d actually leave the house to eat. For the past year, all I do is cook at home. All I do is hide at home.

“She passed away while I was still in diapers. Ovarian cancer.”

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