Chapter 9

Happy Birthday, Baby

I was in a piss-poor mood, and I scowled at the calendar on my desk.

February 25. It hadn’t miraculously changed in the time I’d been down to the cafeteria on two.

Jesus, I hated birthdays.

Yeah, it was my birthday. The big 4-0.

Big fucking whoop.

Why did I hate birthdays? Let me count the ways.

To begin with, if my actual date of birth was known, I would have been retired from the field five years ago. The WBIS might have a lenient policy when it came to an agent’s sexual orientation, but not so much when it came to an agent’s age: hit thirty-five and you were consigned to a desk, no matter how good you were.

Sure, there were ways to get around minor inconveniences like that, at least there were if you were me. What was in my personal file was what I wanted in that file, that July 4, 1966, was my birthday. As a matter of fact, the fourth was my father’s birthday, and ‘66—well, it was the last good year we’d had as a family.