Strictly Need to Know

by MB Austin

  “Heard. Understood. Acknowledged. Hooah.” Maji’s back stiffened. “Ma’am.”

  “I know what it means.” Hannah’s voice hardened. “Don’t ma’am me.”

  Maji bowed herself out. “Yes, Sensei.”

  Rose could tell from Maji’s tone she was still trying to bottle up whatever bothered her. And it was still leaking out on whoever got in her way.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Maji let Angelo into Hannah’s house, touching the mezuzah in the door frame as she followed him in. Inside, she spotted Iris Fineman standing stock-still in the center of the living room, watching her. For a second, she wondered if Iris would assume she was Jewish, just from that one gesture. Well, let her guess. Or ask.

  “I’ll let you two get caught up,” Angelo said, giving Maji a pat on the back. “Where’s Hannah?”

  “Kitchen,” Iris said, never taking her eyes off Maji.

  Maji watched him disappear through the swinging door, wishing she could follow.

  “God, Ri,” Iris said, her voice scratchy with emotion. “You look fabulous.”

  Maji raised one eyebrow. “Um, you, too.” Well, she looked the same as always. And there’d never been anything wrong with that. Maji crossed the room to claim the only armchair.

  Iris perched herself on the love seat, barely shifting her gaze from Maji as she settled. “I was so worried,” she blurted.

  “About how I would look?” Maji deadpanned.

  “About whether you’d recover,” Iris corrected, letting the hurt show in her voice. “I saw them carry you out of there.” Maji looked down at her hands, and Iris continued more softly, “They wouldn’t let me see you. I couldn’t even find out which hospital you were in.”

  “Well, I’m fine now, thanks.”

  Iris ignored her tone, pressed on. “I thought you would want me to find you, want to see me again.” Her face clouded with stored-up hurt. “If you were alive, you’d find me.” She rolled her eyes. “Abso-fucking-lutely meshugganah.”

  “You’re not crazy,” Maji relented. “I’m just not the person you thought I was.” She stared at a point on the love seat next to Iris.

  Iris laughed. “Hell, I was starting to wonder if you existed at all. All I could get out of the Army was the same bullshit they fed all the media. So I dug and dug, and I found some good leads that matched all your stories. Remember those stories? The ones you told me while I stood watch with you in the dark? Well, now. You’d think that a determined enough person, say a very talented journalist, could take those bits and pieces and find a neighbor, a school friend, a relative—somebody who knew you. Want to guess what I found?”

  “Not really.”

  “I found a decrepit old apartment building, with not a soul who remembered the world-famous female soldier from her pre-Army days. Nobody at the corner store, your bodega of myth and legend, who remembered banning you for shoplifting.”

  “So?”

  “So, Ri, people move, and sticky-fingered kids might all look alike. But then I found an actual Ariela Rios still living in Brooklyn. Tracked her down by going to every public high school in the borough, and I have to admit she looked kind of like you, and kind of like those pictures the Army PR machine pumped out. And you know what she said?”

  “Nope.”

  “She said if I ever found you, to give you a piece of her mind. Said she never served in the military, she was sick of reporters bothering her, and you owe her for having to change her phone number five times.”

  Maji shrugged. “Sorry for the inconvenience. We left Brooklyn for New Jersey when I was twelve. I just always thought Brooklyn sounded cooler. Same shit, different neighborhood.”

  “And you expect me to believe that?”

  “My home life’s not really any of your business. Your story was the camps, the refugees, the vultures like Mashriki. And you got it. In fact, I’d say being a hostage really boosted your signal. Did you plan that?”

  Iris looked oddly satisfied, relieved even. “There’s the Ri I know. You give as good as you get.”

  “Quit dodging. Did you plan to get taken hostage by that fucking psycho?”

  “Of course I knew he’d try—I’m a Westerner, a journalist, and a Jew. But you weren’t supposed to come in after me. Not you.”

  “You had to know we’d send a rescue squad.”

  “That’s what SEAL teams are for, Ri. Not Civil Affairs, for fuck’s sake.”

  It was starting to feel too familiar, their voices rising, the connection growing even as they clashed. But instead of heat building in her core, Maji felt cold setting in. “SEALs die, too. You had no right.”

  “The story needed to be told. I was willing to risk my own life for it.” Iris’s eyes blazed with the same righteous fury as before. But Maji felt no spark. “War correspondents and soldiers know the risks. We’re the same that way. Except of course, we can’t defend ourselves.”

  “And you don’t have to kill anyone,” Maji spat back, nearly choking on the words. She put her hands over her eyes and temples, trying to shut out the memory. Iris’s hand pressed against her shoulder, the shoulder Mashriki’s man had burned with the branding iron. Maji flinched. “Don’t fucking touch me.”

  Iris stumbled backward. “I’m sorry.” She sank to the floor by the armchair. “Oh God, Ri. I am so sorry.”

  Angelo popped out of the kitchen, followed closely by Hannah. By the looks of it, the reunion wasn’t going so well. Painful, and he hoped for Maji’s sake, worth it. As for Iris…well, he needed her in one piece.

  Both women looked up at them.

  “Maji, give me a hand in the kitchen please,” Hannah said.

  Angelo offered Iris a hand and helped her stand. “Can we talk upstairs?”

  “My office is available,” Hannah answered.

  Iris didn’t speak until she was seated behind Hannah’s desk, looking across it at him. “Did the head injury mess with her, you know…emotions?”

  “As fucked-up vets go, she’s very high functioning,” Angelo replied. The sarcasm seemed to help steady her. “Were you really expecting to kiss and make up? Just like that?”

  Iris rubbed her face. “No, I suppose not. At least she’s physically okay. Isn’t she?”

  “Far as I know. Can we switch gears now?”

  “Business. Of course. For you, that’s the whole point of all this.” She looked around the office. “God, I could use a drink. And a cigarette.”

  “You can’t smoke in the house. But I’ll get you a drink.” He laid a folder on the desk. “Read up. What do you want?”

  “Anything with vodka, gin, or rum.” She opened the folder, already shifting gears. “Oh, and I gave up smoking.”

  “Really?” He paused in the doorway. “When?”

  “Right after my editor told me I was finally going to get to see her.”

  Maji chopped in silence while Angelo mixed a drink for Iris. Hannah had set her up with the Israeli salad makings and left her to work in peace. Angelo was smart enough to follow suit.

  As the door swung shut behind him, Maji looked up and caught Hannah watching her. “What?”

  “Once in a while,” Hannah replied, “I want to turn back time.” She smiled. “But only once in a while.”

  “If I had a coupon book full of free do-overs, I’d have used them all up by now.”

  Hannah glided over with that dancer’s walk Maji couldn’t miss since Rose had pointed it out. She planted a kiss on Maji’s brow and smoothed the hair down the back of her head. “You haven’t done so badly as you imagine. I only wish Ava were here to tell you so. You’d believe it then.”

  “Maybe.” Now was the right time to ask, not to chicken out. Maji took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I need to know something. About the mission.”

  “Something Angelo has not decided you need to know?”

  “Things he hasn’t told JSOC. Like using Iris again. And taking down Sirko in addition to Khodorov and the big Families. More, maybe.�
�� She couldn’t figure how he’d pull that big a sweep off, but it felt true. “Things he said you’re on board with.”

  “What is your question, exactly?”

  Maji breathed some more, her mind finally centering down. “Are you helping him go way beyond mission parameters? At risk to your own freedom?”

  “Yes.” Hannah looked and sounded as calm as ever, her hands folded on top of the counter, perched on a stool on the other side of the island. “I can take these risks now. And the potential for good, for tikkun olam, even, is too great to pass up. I have pledged all my support.”

  “Jesus.” Ang must have a true game changer in the works, to inspire that kind of promise from Hannah. To Hannah, tikkun olam wasn’t everyday acts of kindness that anybody could perform. It was repairing the world through big shifts, big changes that restored order. And when it came to billions of hidden dollars fueling the arms and training and technology behind modern terrorism, there was a lot of order to restore. “Jesus.”

  “Yes. You keep saying that. Here, have some water.”

  Maji drank and felt sadness wash down her throat, into her belly. “There’s only one way to pull off something that big and not expose your whole family to a hornet’s nest of payback.”

  “I told him you would figure this out, sooner or later. And, Maji?”

  Maji looked at her godmother, feeling but not caring about the tears running down her cheeks.

  Hannah reached out and took her hand. “I am very sorry.”

  At five a.m. on Sunday, the sound of mourning doves woke Maji. For a few seconds, she was back in Rose’s room that first night, curled around her, waking full of gratitude and wonder. But then cool air from the vent overhead caressed her face, and reality slammed her. She opened her eyes to Carlo’s room, full of loss.

  There were a lot of hours between dawn and another command performance at the Big House family supper table. She’d make it through that, of course. But the time between now and then? She couldn’t spend another day hiding out in Frank’s apartment, staring up at the stains on the ceiling.

  Twice yesterday Maji had ignored knocking at the apartment door. As Frank’s albums spun, she had walked through all of her time with Angelo. From that first day when he’d introduced himself and announced that he wanted her for his team, right up until they left Fort Bragg for the last mission in Iraq. Every time Fallajuh tried to creep into her memories, Maji pulled up a successful op to focus on instead. She couldn’t let what she’d done there wipe out every life they had saved until then.

  The third time, the knocker gave up and just came in. Angelo’s face moved into her line of sight, blocking the ceiling from view. “You eat anything today?”

  “Maybe.” What did it matter?

  He came back with a protein shake, got her up and into a chair, and made her drink it. Satisfied, he took both her hands in his and waited until she met his eyes. “Why aren’t you pissed at me?”

  “Wouldn’t change anything.” Looking back, she could see the pattern. Ang took the wins they could get, one small victory at a time, and raised his glass after debrief like the rest of them. But in between he looked for ways to do more, to kill the virus rather than treat the symptoms. And when he said they had to follow the money, he didn’t just mean to track down a terror cell or its backer.

  Maji looked out the window, registering lush greens outside with a peaceful pale blue above the trees. It shouldn’t be so beautiful out there. It was gorgeous the day she got the news about Ava, too. So wrong, somehow. “What’s the difference between Osama bin Laden and your average religious nutjob?” she asked, still not looking at him.

  “Three hundred million dollars,” he said, in a voice ready to crack. It was his punch line, practically a mantra. And he’d always maintained that if you could take those resources away, at least you could level the playing field.

  “Can you really do it?” She fixed her eyes on him.

  There was no shadow of doubt on his face. “I really can.”

  “And you expect me to let you?” A tiny flame of anger took hold. “Because of Rose.”

  He shook his head. “You’d protect my family no matter what. It’s who you are.”

  “I’m not a killer.” After Fallujah, that felt like a lie. But it was true. Had she been in her right mind that night, she never would have fired into a crowd. She’d cracked because she was human—and that was bad enough.

  “I’m not asking you to pull the trigger. Just don’t block me.”

  Right. Just stand aside and let someone else do it. Like that let her off the hook. “Fuck you.”

  “I love you too, babe.”

  Maji swung her feet onto the floor of Carlo’s room. Yesterday memories had pinned her to the floor. Today she needed to move. Whatever today held, she’d face it better after a run. And she was missing the magic hour out there, the neighborhood still quiet, asleep but for the birds and squirrels.

  The smell of coffee told Maji that she wasn’t the first up. She pushed the comm earpiece down out of sight in her ear and listened. Silence—whoever had watch was on listen-only also. Maji padded quietly into the kitchen and saw Tom. “Been for a run yet?”

  Tom turned and she caught the relief that flickered across his face before he slid his normal open look into place. Both of them did better when they didn’t talk about how much he cared about her. “Waiting for Dev to un-ass his bed and take watch. But I’ve had something on my mind. Gimme twenty, and I’ll join you.”

  “Cool.”

  “Taylor to Goldberg. You’re on.” Tom clicked the transmitter back to listen-only. “Coffee? Toast, fruit? You got time.”

  Did they all know she’d stopped eating? Didn’t matter—Tom always pushed the food, even when she was on the six-meals-a-day plan. “Sure. Thanks.”

  Maji set a relaxed pace, a little under a ten-minute mile. Enough to feel her muscles warm up, but not to interfere with conversation. She headed them out the front door, turning away from the main drive well before the gatehouse. They skirted the inside of the estate’s perimeter walls, turning at the property’s edge toward the water.

  “You have concerns about the mission, Tom?”

  “Hell no. It’s right up Angelo’s alley. Plus the Feds will look like aces—that never hurts.” He took a few more strides. “Though I was surprised he brought Iris in. You okay?”

  Fair question. First she’d done a runner from the dojo, and then walled herself indoors all of yesterday. Of course, he wouldn’t know why she was actually upset with Ang. “Yeah. I wasn’t happy to see her, but I think I can finally put that mission to bed now.”

  “Well, that’s something.” Tom left time for her to say more. When she didn’t, he asked, “Mind if I switch gears?”

  “By all means. What’s on your mind, akhi?”

  “I’m thirty-seven, Ri, and I’m not the operator I was at thirty. I’ve only got five more months on my contract, and well, I’ve been thinking about my options.”

  She glanced at him sideways, without breaking stride. “What happened to Tom they’ll get me out of the unit in a body bag Taylor? You get in trouble after I left?”

  “Nope. I’m getting the job done, and I always will. It’s just…different.”

  Maji understood now why he had wanted to have this conversation while they jogged together. She wouldn’t look him in the eye while he thought out loud, wouldn’t see the expression on his face while he spilled the self-doubts he’d been holding inside, keeping private even from his other teammates. “Did they put you back on an all-guy team?”

  “Yep. No openings on the other enhanced teams.”

  It tickled her a little to know that he’d requested assignment to another team with a woman attached. If they hadn’t recruited and trained any more women yet, then they were down to six full-timers.

  But at the same time, Tom had been proud of his work as a Ranger before being selected for Delta, and prouder still of the missions he had been a part of before
she had been loaned from Civil Affairs to Delta. The stories he had told her of retaking hijacked planes, tracking down and recovering stolen nukes, parachuting into Panama, even of staking out Gaddafi as a sniper, were full of love for that demanding life. And the enhanced teams specialized, didn’t give the Delta operators the same range of work. They relied heavily on covert techniques to insert the female operator into arenas where a man would be scrutinized, a woman overlooked, not given credit as a threat. And then she would obtain critical intel, or extract a high-value target, or pull off some small task vital to a larger operation. In the least successful ops, the targets knew they had been acted upon, but not by whom. In the best scenarios, they never knew anyone had targeted them at all.

  “So what—they stick you on security detail for some ambassador’s brats?”

  He laughed. “No, I’m hardly pulling the short stick on assignments. Hell, they put me on the team that got to bag al-Mashriki.”

  She paused and jogged in place, forcing him to look at her. “I didn’t take him out?”

  “No. Didn’t they debrief you?”

  She shook her head, and started forward again, following the waterline toward the boathouse.

  “Well, hell. Far as I know, you didn’t kill anybody. You may be an expert marksman with a pistol, but with an AK-47 and blind rage, you just tear shit up. Anyway, you hit eight, maybe nine people, didn’t kill a one.”

  She kept her pace steady, eyes sweeping the waterline beyond the boathouse, the far perimeter wall just coming into view. “What about the kid? The little boy?”

  “They medevaced him on the same chopper as you, but sitting up, awake. Dunno after that. Probably put him in a bona fide refugee camp.” When she didn’t respond, he glanced over. “Ri? I would have told you.”

  “To the wall,” she replied. “Sprint!”

  When he caught up with her, Maji was sucking air in through her nose, and blowing it out through her mouth, hands on top of her head. He stopped and put his hands on his knees, huffing. “Whoo. God, I hate sprints.”