Page 9 of Jep

“It is. You’re not going to get rid of me that easy. You got it? Besides, someone needs to clean up the rest of this mess, and it won’t be me.”

Slate nodded. “Then I’ll see you in the morning.” He trudged to the door, his shoulders slumped.

Jep ran his hand through his hair and looked around him. Was this what the rest of his life would look like? He wasn’t sure he would last.

He went to his office, a temporary walled-off area with a large flimsy window so he could see into the workshop.

He sat down at a bench he’d repurposed from a sawmill that he used as a desk and pulled his Bible out of the top drawer of a filing cabinet.

After flipping it open to where he’d been reading in Genesis, he knotted his fingers into his hair and glared at the verses he’d read the day before in chapter forty.

Please remember me and do me a favor when things go well for you. Mention me to Pharaoh, so he might let me out of this place. For I was kidnapped from my homeland, the land of the Hebrews, and now I’m here in prison, but I did nothing to deserve it.

Jep stared out the window but didn’t see anything. He hadn’t chosen this life. All he was doing was making the best of a bad situation. If his methods had been accepted at his old job, he’d still be saving the country, one terrorist at a time. But it had been about more than that. Richard Lawson, the assistant director, had never liked him. Jep had always been seen as an outcast. He’d even hear some of them make derogatory comments about his birth. Apparently, having a prostitute for a mom made you unfit to be a federal agent. They couldn’t all be from top pedigrees.

But he’d never expected to be ousted. Not that anyone on the team would call it that. If he’d tried to stay, though, it would have gotten ugly. Maybe Moses was right. Maybe it was better not working in the same place as those who disrespect you. But working here wasn’t much better, and after the fight between Slate and Moses, it was hard to see that any good was being done.

He looked back at the open Bible. For a long time, he’d identified with David, conquering giants. Now he felt an awful lot like Joseph being stuck in prison for a crime he didn’t commit, and no one knew or cared that he existed.

Chapter 3

The office wasin chaos when Emery returned. Other departments had arrived to help carry the load, and the air was humming with angry adrenaline, their grief focused on destroying those who were responsible.

Geoff Pearce, a senior agent who was one of the few who hadn’t been on the mission, was leaning against the wall near Emery’s desk looking at his phone. She didn’t know him very well, but he’d always been nice to her and answered her questions more patiently than any of the others.

“Agent Pearce?” she said.

He looked up but kept his phone in front of him.

“I know you must be very busy,” she said. “I just…did we…how many did we lose?”

He pressed his lips together and walked to her desk, pulling out her chair. “Why don’t you sit.”

“It’s that bad?”

“Please.” He nodded toward the seat.

He pulled another chair around for himself.

“Did anyone make it?” she asked.

“I saw you talk to Murati quite a lot when she was in the office.”

Em pressed a hand to her chest. “She’s gone?”

“We’ve confirmed her and Nicholson so far. But we expect there to be more. I’m sorry. I know this is hard.”

“I shouldn’t be—I mean, there are others who were closer to them. And their families…I can’t imagine.”

“We have a lot of question that need answering, and unfortunately I don’t have the time right now to go through yours.”

“I know. I don’t want to keep you. I saw it on the news and rushed back, so I hadn’t heard anything yet.”

“You going to be okay?”

“Don’t worry about me. You go.”

He stood and patted her shoulder. Then the assistant director called him from across the room, and he was gone.

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