even worn off when he was paying off a cab after the ride back to the office. He heard a droning sound before a cataclysmic explosion knocked him to the ground.
The shock of having his future wiped out in the blink of an eye was beyond the pale. He moved back to Alabama and lived with his parents—a twenty-five-year-old man with lofty credentials and dim prospects in the post-9/11 economy.
But as the shock gradually subsided, it was replaced with a deep, searing anger. And how—using nothing but box cutters—this extremist bunch of cretins had injured his country, murdered his friends, and robbed him of his future. He wanted blood for blood.
He dug out a box of Auburn stuff his mother had stored in the attic. Because of his facility for languages, he’d been interviewed at Auburn by a CIA recruiter. He’d kept the man’s business card and three years later, the man was still there.
Jarrod had signed on. He endured an agonizing training experience at the Farm, the CIA’s training facility in Virginia, where the only bright moment had been when he’d fallen for a raven-haired beauty named Sarah Kashvilli.
But then he’d taken the fight to the enemy, for five years in Afghanistan and Somalia, picking up a coveted Blue Heart medal along the way. Then in a moment of weakness in Beirut, when he’d learned her loss from 9/11 had surpassed his own, he’d fallen on his sword and taken the rap for Sarah, claiming he’d accidentally hit the detonation switch that had sent Ramsa al-Shehhi to hell. And doing that meant Jarrod lost the vital intel he might have provided.
He’d been cashiered out of the Agency, so he migrated back to Wall Street. William hired him, and the bond between Jarrod Stryker and William Blackenford had been forged, and Jarrod had spent every waking moment for the last six years trying to prove William’s confidence was justified. It was an uphill battle to say the least, but finally, yesterday he’d exceeded everyone’s expectations, including his own.
He paused on the sidewalk and looked toward Ground Zero where the World Trade Center had once stood. It wasn’t far from here—over a decade ago—that he’d experienced a personal cataclysm. Now he wondered if a second one was in the making.
He didn’t know if he had it in him to climb out of that kind of hole again.
He entered the Arcadia Tower.
*
CIA Headquarters
Langley, Virginia
In all, twelve people were in the small auditorium located in the basement of the main headquarters building of the Central Intelligence Agency. Her section chief was there, along with the deputy section chief, a smattering of colleagues, the director himself, the deputy director for operations, and a lanky army major wearing his green uniform but no name tag.
The director called for everyone to be seated, and under the muted lighting, he took his place behind a lectern.
“Will Sarah Kashvilli please step forward?”
Wearing a navy blue dress with a small strand of pearls, she demurely rose and stood beside the director.
The former navy admiral intoned, “Sarah Kashvilli, in recognition of your extraordinary resourcefulness, sense of duty and disregard for your personal safety, the operation that was undertaken on the South Asian continent to eliminate a direct security threat to the United States was successful. As a result of your exemplary actions, the Central Intelligence Agency awards you the Blue Heart medal.”
The director opened the powder blue felt case and extracted a medal that looked identical to a Purple Heart—the kind the military awards to wounded soldiers—except the ribbon was powder blue, as was the heart-shaped stone behind the image of George Washington.
The director took the medal out of the case and carefully pinned it on her lapel.
She smiled in return, while the director allowed himself to partake of the French tradition and administered a kiss on each cheek. Then applause rippled through the small
The shock of having his future wiped out in the blink of an eye was beyond the pale. He moved back to Alabama and lived with his parents—a twenty-five-year-old man with lofty credentials and dim prospects in the post-9/11 economy.
But as the shock gradually subsided, it was replaced with a deep, searing anger. And how—using nothing but box cutters—this extremist bunch of cretins had injured his country, murdered his friends, and robbed him of his future. He wanted blood for blood.
He dug out a box of Auburn stuff his mother had stored in the attic. Because of his facility for languages, he’d been interviewed at Auburn by a CIA recruiter. He’d kept the man’s business card and three years later, the man was still there.
Jarrod had signed on. He endured an agonizing training experience at the Farm, the CIA’s training facility in Virginia, where the only bright moment had been when he’d fallen for a raven-haired beauty named Sarah Kashvilli.
But then he’d taken the fight to the enemy, for five years in Afghanistan and Somalia, picking up a coveted Blue Heart medal along the way. Then in a moment of weakness in Beirut, when he’d learned her loss from 9/11 had surpassed his own, he’d fallen on his sword and taken the rap for Sarah, claiming he’d accidentally hit the detonation switch that had sent Ramsa al-Shehhi to hell. And doing that meant Jarrod lost the vital intel he might have provided.
He’d been cashiered out of the Agency, so he migrated back to Wall Street. William hired him, and the bond between Jarrod Stryker and William Blackenford had been forged, and Jarrod had spent every waking moment for the last six years trying to prove William’s confidence was justified. It was an uphill battle to say the least, but finally, yesterday he’d exceeded everyone’s expectations, including his own.
He paused on the sidewalk and looked toward Ground Zero where the World Trade Center had once stood. It wasn’t far from here—over a decade ago—that he’d experienced a personal cataclysm. Now he wondered if a second one was in the making.
He didn’t know if he had it in him to climb out of that kind of hole again.
He entered the Arcadia Tower.
*
CIA Headquarters
Langley, Virginia
In all, twelve people were in the small auditorium located in the basement of the main headquarters building of the Central Intelligence Agency. Her section chief was there, along with the deputy section chief, a smattering of colleagues, the director himself, the deputy director for operations, and a lanky army major wearing his green uniform but no name tag.
The director called for everyone to be seated, and under the muted lighting, he took his place behind a lectern.
“Will Sarah Kashvilli please step forward?”
Wearing a navy blue dress with a small strand of pearls, she demurely rose and stood beside the director.
The former navy admiral intoned, “Sarah Kashvilli, in recognition of your extraordinary resourcefulness, sense of duty and disregard for your personal safety, the operation that was undertaken on the South Asian continent to eliminate a direct security threat to the United States was successful. As a result of your exemplary actions, the Central Intelligence Agency awards you the Blue Heart medal.”
The director opened the powder blue felt case and extracted a medal that looked identical to a Purple Heart—the kind the military awards to wounded soldiers—except the ribbon was powder blue, as was the heart-shaped stone behind the image of George Washington.
The director took the medal out of the case and carefully pinned it on her lapel.
She smiled in return, while the director allowed himself to partake of the French tradition and administered a kiss on each cheek. Then applause rippled through the small
Similar Books
