Page 3 of Anchor
“You already did.” The corner of Reid’s mouth lifted as he showed him the canvas bag with the compass inside.
“That’s family,” Tuck said evenly. “This is business.”
The conference room drank its light from a narrow, knife-slice window, sharp and efficient in its design. Killian Moynihan was already inside—lean, composed, and carrying himself with the calm of a man who could kill cleanly from a distance. Beside him sat Noah Paulsen. He was compact, broad, and built like a battering ram that also knew how to shoot straight. Both studied Reid, assessing him without the courtesy of hiding it.
“Tuck speaks highly.” Killian extended a hand. His grip carried no compromise. “I don’t take anyone’s word for it. Not even his.”
Noah followed, his handshake all tendon and callus. It was firm, exact, with the touch of a man unafraid of either dirt or command. “We’ve run your background. The qualifications say one thing, the reputation another. We’ll test both. After this, you’ll clear medical. If you pass, you’ll be issued your firearm, comms, and suit.”
“Medical first.” Killian gestured toward the door.
The medical buildingfelt like a hospital that refused to admit it. Pete Walter stepped from behind a partition in a white coat over a shirt he hadn’t bothered to iron. His grin was crooked, once used to reassure men bleeding in gravel. “No way,” he said. “Hanlon squared. Last time I saw you, you were hurling a gin-spiked red slushie out of Tuck’s truck at the county fair. Swore me to secrecy.”
Reid blinked. “I was sixteen.”
“Yeah.” Pete clapped his shoulder. “And your uncle bribed me with corndogs to tell your sister you had a stomach bug.”
Tuck lifted his hands. “Unethical but delicious.”
The doors to the employee health unit parted with a whisper. No flicker of fluorescent bulbs. No taped arrows on the floor, it was just wood, glass, and quiet light. This space was built to make hardened men exhale before they realized they were doing it.
Tuck held the second set of doors for Reid. Behind the desk, the badge printer was already whining.
“Brat. This way,” Pete’s voice cut across the calm like a scalpel. He was once a pararescueman with Tuck, now a physician assistant and president of Chase Medical by title. His hands pulled people back from the edge and put them together afterward.
“Sir,” Reid said.
“Don’t ‘sir’ me.” Pete’s Boston drawl chewed the edges off affection. He gave Reid a once-over that was ninety percent clinical. “Too thin.”
“Tuck fed me on the plane.”
“Not food if it’s wrapped in plastic.” Pete’s gaze flicked to Tuck, then back. “You here to work or brood in lobbies?”
Reid tilted his mouth. “Depends on the coffee.”
Pete’s lips twitched. “Medical first. Then coffee.”
The intake wasn’t the Navy’s. There were no group humiliations, no hazing, just precision. He received a head-to-toe physical, bloodwork, ECG, echo, and X-rays. Range of motion of the hip that caught bullets was checked while a PT with forearms like cable watched him move and wrote notes without commentary.
A nurse with a sleeve of chrysanthemums filled tubes like she was threading silk. She handed him a plastic cup with a smile. “We need a urine sample. Mr. Walter has to watch. Hope you don’t have a shy bladder.”
Reid frowned, stepping behind the white privacy divider. So much for no humiliations.
Casey Reynolds, DNP, Ann Arbor’s incoming facility director, stepped in long enough to scan Reid’s chart and the old hip hitch he tried to hide.
“Where’d you pick up the limp?” Casey asked, not unkindly.
“Mali. Shrapnel ghost.”
“Or five,” Pete said flatly.
He snapped the chart shut. “You’re clear for duty—with a loud note about stairs and heroics—unless your bloodwork comes back funky.”
“Noted.” Reid wasn’t worried. He’d never been careless with partners and hadn’t had one since the hospital after Mali.
“Good.” Pete scribbled and tucked the chart away.
Tuck snagged it from under Pete’s arm and prowled through the labs list with the irritation of a man who’d built the system and expected it to sing. “Most of this will be back before you leave,” he said finally. “Once it clears, I’ll sign my name next to it.”
