Chapter Twenty-Six

Northern Virginia

The alarm on Lilith's personal phone woke her at 5 a.m.

It woke her again at 5:05.

In the dark of her bedroom, her hand silenced the phone, but then removed her other phone, her government phone, from the cordless charger. Dual phones for a dual life, although with very few personal relationships outside of work, her personal phone was mostly used to order take-out and check Pinterest boards for crafts and vacations she never found time to enjoy herself.

The work phone showed no missed calls (she never missed a call) and no new messages. A quick scan of her secure email app showed nothing pending, which was both good and bad. It meant she'd be able to start her early morning workout without delay, but it also meant no overnight progress on pending projects from her team around the world.

She checked her personal phone out of bored habit and was surprised that she had a text from a familiar contact.

Your ex is a lunatic.

"Oh, Cal . . . you're just figuring this out?"

She wouldn't skip her workout for Frank—no, Lilith guarded her time, almost jealously—but for the rare occurrences when Cal reached out, she'd always make room in her day. And from the sound of it (or the look of it? It was a text after all) he was caught up in the Frank Games and, despite having split from that marriage five years ago, Lilith still felt obligated to clean up after her husband's—no, ex-husband's—messes. Some men marry their mothers, but Frank had grown up without one, so it had come as some surprise, probably to both of them, if Lilith thought about it, that she'd ended up playing Wendy Darling to Frank's Peter Pan.

The spook who never grew up.

Already of the mindset that she'd miss her morning workout, Lilith showered and then dressed for work, ready to bolt out the door as soon as she could talk Cal back from whatever cliff that Frank had sent him running towards.

But first she needed some background. And some breakfast.

In the kitchen she dialed Frank's number on her government phone (old habits and all) and hit the speaker phone button as she set about preparing her blender for a morning shake, scooping a mound of pea protein powder over a few spoons Greek yogurt. She added some water from a bottle, then a little more, but Frank picked up before she could hit blend.

"Of course, he called you," Frank said, his voice flat.

"Don't be so dramatic. It was just a text. And good afternoon, Frank."

 She jabbed the MAX blend button with her finger and drowned out Frank's reply.

"Good morning!" he said again when the blender stopped screaming. "Still drinking your breakfasts?"

 "Still skipping yours?"

 Frank grunted and then went silent, waiting. Lilith stole a drink from her shake, cleared her throat, and then read Cal's earlier text message into the phone: Your ex is a lunatic.

"So, is this Frank jumped in a canal crazy?" she asked him, "Or . . . Frank is now a warlord of a small banana republic crazy?"

"Somewhere in between," he said and the fucker seemed to be laughing.

Lilith took another drink from her breakfast shake. It was bright green and didn't exactly satisfy her stomach, but goddamn did it help keep it flat. She waited for Frank to elaborate.

"Look," he said. "I think I'm on to something here—"

"You're supposed to be retired."

"—it's bigger than that."

"Frank, no," Lilith said, "You're in the goddamn French Riviera! This isn't Syria or East Berlin. Drink wine. Soak up the sun. Remember? You're supposed to be showing Cal a good time."

Silence on the other end.

"Besides," she continued more quietly, "I'm up to my neck with shit over here. I don't have time to babysit you anymore, and I wouldn't bother, but I care about Cal, and I need you to step it up for him."

She paced through her empty house and motion sensor lights clicked on as she went. Lilith was wide awake now even as the sun was still hours from rising.

"What are you working on?" Frank asked.

Now Lilith was silent.

"I still have my clearance," he said.

"Yeah, and your government phone apparently. Christ on a cracker . . . Fine. You know the UH-60 out of Drum that went down in the Adirondacks a few months ago? It was after you got out."

"It was in the news. Night flight. No survivors."

"It flew straight into that mountain."

"It's a fucking tragedy. So, what's up?"

Lilith paused. She didn't want to tell him too much. Her job at the Defense Intelligence Agency—the DIA—was to keep safe America's fighting men and women. Usually, the danger came while overseas, but someone had attacked them here at home. Unacceptable. She was angry and embarrassed and under pressure from her superiors to find an answer.

Frank was the last person on the planet she wanted to ask for help, but at the same time, they'd shared three decades of a working marriage. And sometimes—just sometimes—Frank was the one to figure shit out.

She took a breath and then spilled it.

"We no longer think it was pilot error."

Frank whistled on the other end.

"We picked up some chatter in the hours afterwards on the Farsi networks. Nothing direct. Nothing specific, but the timing caught our attention, and it was just a phrase."

"Go on."

She hesitated again before asking, "Does the phrase Black Fish mean anything to you?"

A moment passed where she could almost see Frank thinking. "No," he said finally. "They didn't mean black hawk? That's the UH-60."

"I don't know, but we have a dozen dead boys, and families that deserve answers. This job sucks sometimes."

"I remember."

"So that's what I'm dealing with," Lilith said. "Real shit. So, please—and for the love of God and Country—Frank, can you chill out with whatever you're up to and just be a good friend to Cal?"

"I miss these conversations," Frank said, then he added, "and I miss you."

Lilith laughed. "Well, we'll always have Paris."

She hung up before he could reply.

Her pulse was up. She found herself in the extra living room that she'd filled with exercise machines instead of furniture and guests. Maybe she would workout, after all. She needed to run far away from that conversation and the memories it conjured. Frank was a magician like that, able to pull old emotions from a hat like they were a goddamn rabbit.

Run, rabbit, run.

And so she hopped on the treadmill and ran, without even changing from her work clothes, discarding only her blazer across the rack of free weights in the corner. She started slow, but within moments she pressed the button to increase the machine's speed, and then she hit it again. Twice. She had demons to catch and demons to run from, and Frank had triggered memories of both.

Cal would have to wait.