Page 87 of Blind Luck

“How much do you know about us?”

“Only snippets I’ve heard here and there. And I know I’m scared of Jerry.”

Dusk laughed. “You shouldn’t be. Unless you cross her, she won’t hurt you.”

“She said she caught a guy named T-Rex. Is he still alive?”

“Oh, sure, he’s in a holding cell.”

“What are you planning to do with him?”

“Who knows? We might just blindfold him and dump him at the side of the road with a warning.”

“Really? I wasn’t sure Jerry would let him keep on breathing.”

“He isn’t much of a threat.”

“Unlike the first four guys?”

“Let me give you a history lesson. In September 1918, a young British soldier was fighting his way forward at the Canal de Saint-Quentin. He led a charge on the village of Marcoing and took out a machine gun post, then came under fire as he repaired the bridge ahead. The Brits fought back. The enemy began scattering. A German corporal came into range, and the soldier had a split-second decision to make—shoot him or let him go? The corporal was retreating anyway. Would you have taken the shot?”

“I…I’m not sure.” I’d never aimed my gun at a live target, and I hadn’t even been to the range for months. “Probably not. Maybe the corporal got a reminder of his own mortality and in return, he’d let a British soldier live next time?”

“What if I told you the corporal was named Adolf Hitler?”

A shiver ran through me. “This is all hypothetical, right?”

“It’s a true story. Fast-forward a few years, and Hitler was responsible for the deaths of seventy million people.” Dusk fixed her gaze on me. “The Choir will always take that shot.Always.”

“What if you accidentally shoot an innocent person?”

“I mean, we’re trained not to do that, but we also take risks that others don’t. That they’re not allowed to take. And I can’t say we’ve never had collateral damage. But I can guarantee we’ve saved a heck of a lot more innocent lives than we’ve ended.”

I understood. Even though I found it unpalatable, I understood.

“So it’s you against the world?”

She answered a question with a question. “Do you know what a point man is?”

“The soldier who leads the way through hostile territory?”

“Exactly. We’re a point team. Point Team Golf, officially.” Another laugh. “Golf.The irony.”

“Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, Echo, Foxtrot, Golf. So there are six other teams?”

“Maybe? Some information is so compartmentalised, even we don’t see the full picture. But we’re the only all-female team. And at least we’re not Team Hotel.”

“Should you be telling me any of this?”

“We have our core members. And then we have folks like you who we work with on occasion. And as you said, you’re scared of Jerry.”

There it was: the threat. A very light threat, but a threat all the same. I swallowed hard. And I understood. I’d been invited to play their game, but if I spoke out of turn, I wouldn’t like the consequences.

“Do you enjoy your job?” I asked finally.

“Most of the time. Do you enjoy yours?”

“Most of the time.”

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