Page 25 of Eight Years (The Trident Trilogy 1)

Chapter Fourteen

Millie

Virginia Beach, Virginia

2019

Culver was right yesterday when he said my dad wouldn’t want me here. He wouldn’t want me in Virginia Beach, and he definitely wouldn’t want me on the base. He always told me to stay as far away from this life as possible. He had plans that after he retired, we would move out to San Diego where he had trained. He’d buy a little house near the beach. I could go to college. We’d go surfing on my downtime. I had a calendar in my bedroom counting down the days until that happened. We had only fifty-four more days when he died.

I’m thinking of this as I lay in the hotel bed wide awake at five in the morning. My briefing with the team isn’t until eight, but I can’t sleep, more than partially because I’m afraid of being late. I’m perpetually ten minutes late to everything. Not five. Not fifteen. Always ten. I’m not sure how it works out that way all the time, but it used to drive my dad crazy. He told me that in the teams, being on time was considered being late. He was always everywhere at least fifteen minutes early. I’m so pleased with myself when I pull into the base parking lot thirty minutes early. I walk into the briefing room, and everyone is already there. They all turn to look at me like I’m late. Seriously? I never would have made it in the military.

Culver motions to me to join him in the front of the room. As I walk over there, I see Mason staring at me. He smiles when I look over, and doesn’t look away. His laser-focused eyes follow me the entire way across the room. The way he looks at me is intoxicating and unsettling all at the same time.

Culver walks over to greet me, and then turns to the team. “Gentlemen, this is Agent Marsh. She has what could be an extended target package starting in Bosnia, extending to Afghanistan. We’ve been tasked with helping her through this process. Agent Marsh, if you’d like to brief us on your first target.”

“Good morning,” I say. “I sincerely hope you’re better operators than pool players.”

Mason laughs, and the rest of them narrow their eyes, looking at me like they’re trying to figure out a particularly hard word in a crossword puzzle.

Mouse’s face slowly breaks into a grin. “Wait. What? You’re my pool partner from the other night.”

“Yes, and you’re welcome for the money I won you,” I say.

There it is. I see the slow recognition finally make its way around the room. JJ doesn’t look amused, but in fairness, I’m not sure he ever does. Raine was right about him—straight-up intimidating. The rest of them kind of laugh and roll their eyes at me.

“If whatever this is, is done,” Culver says, gesturing curtly with his hands, “can we get on with it?”

“Of course, Captain. Thank you,” I say. “Our first target is Amar Petrovic—a Bosnian national who has been living in Spain for the past twenty years. He just recently moved his family back to Sarajevo where he grew up.”

“War criminal?” Bryce asks. “I thought we got most of those a decade ago.”

“He’s not a war criminal. We think he has ties to the Hadzic Network,” I say.

“Yusef Hadzic? Again? The CIA has been chasing him since before Brycie over there was even born,” Butch says.

“And Sayid Custovic before that,” Mason says, looking directly at me. There’s no way he can know Custovic is my ultimate target, but he’s looking at me smugly like he knows every thought I’ve ever had in my life.

“I’ve heard of Hadzic, but who is Custovic?” Bryce asks.

“Agent Marsh, why don’t you give us the entire background starting with Custovic,” Culver says. He’s looking at me the same way Mason is. They’re up to something.

I promised George I wouldn’t bring up Custovic, but I’m not seeing a smooth way to get out of this. And, technically, I didn’t bring him up, so fine, let’s do this.

“Okay, backing up a little bit,” I say. “Sayid Custovic was born in Sarajevo. If he’s still alive, he’s fifty-two.”

“If he’s still alive?” JJ asks.

“It’s the agency’s official stance that Custovic is dead. He hasn’t been seen in almost two decades.”

“Is that what you believe, too?” Mason is challenging me. It’s like he has a bug inside my head. I don’t like it at all.

“I work for the agency, so, yes, I uphold their official stance,” I say. The look on his face tells me he doesn’t believe me.

I continue. “Backing up again, both of Custovic’s parents were Bosnian Muslims killed by the Serbs right at the beginning of the war in 1992. Sayid survived, and from what we can tell, he stayed in Sarajevo until the end of the war. After that, he disappeared and eventually showed up in Pakistan where one of his cousins had relocated after the war. That’s where Custovic became radicalized.”

“So, he radicalized because of what happened to his parents?” Hawk asks.

“Yeah, I’m not sure we know the why,” I say. “We do know he formed a terrorist network with his childhood friend, Yusef Hadzic. They were essentially guns for hire at first to hunt down Serbian war criminals. They even worked with us for a brief moment. Then, they were deemed responsible for a failed hit on some Army Rangers in 2000. That’s when the agency broke ties, and Custovic and Hadzic ended up disappearing in the Hindu Kush. They’ve been hiding up there for decades. Hadzic is the accepted head of the network now, so much so that it’s basically referred to as the Hadzic Network. Still smaller, high-profile hits, but they are more visibly tied to the bigger organizations now—first Al-Qaeda, and now the Taliban.”

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