Chapter 10

And wouldn’t the shit hit the fan if he ever found out not only that I’d tricked his old lady into talking about him, but that I’d discovered something he didn’t want discovered? Not that he ever would learn about it. I was too good at what I did—the best, in fact—and I knew how to cover my tracks.

But when the hell had my desire for knowledge about Mann turned to desire for Mann? I wanted him, not as in “dead or alive,” but as in “in my bed,” and that wasn’t acceptable. Oh, not because he was a man. The WBIS had instituted a policy when The Boss took over twenty-five years before, and as a result, an active agent’s sexuality was taken out of the equation, as that pompous asshole James Adams liked to say, and the agent was able to function at the peak of his ability.

No, the problem wasn’t that Mann was a man. The problem was he was CIA.

The CIA got the jobs the NSA wouldn’t dirty their lily-white fingers on.

And the WBIS got the jobs the CIA wouldn’t handle.