“What happened in Tripoli?”

Tansy looked across the table to a pretty young journalist from Veteran’s Valor, a military newspaper based out of Norfolk. She was pretty but young. Not too young for him, but for asking about Tripoli.

“I still need names.” He looked away from her, beyond their outdoor cafe and onto a busy street in downtown Baltimore. The sidewalk held a wall of people, hordes of them rushing by their table. He had to be quiet. He had to be smart.

Annica shrugged and said, “My sources are on lockdown. That’s pretty standard.”

“But it would help me if I knew.”

Her stony expression lingered until she took a small, hot sip of chai.

“It would help me talk to you,” he said, “if I knew the people who tipped you off about this whole thing.” That was Tansy’s primary concern, the question that first ran through his head ever since a seemingly random phone call during a friendly game of basketball. It not only put the game on hold, but his entire life, all of it coming to a halt with that damned word. Tripoli.

“But what kind of journalist would I be?”

“One who might gain my trust,” he said. “And my intel.”

“So, let me get this straight . . .” She leaned forward and swirled a long spoon in her steaming mug, her deep brown eyes locked on him the whole time. “By breaking the trust I’ve gained from my sources, I would gain yours? Is that really the rule you’d like me to play by?”

He hadn’t thought that far ahead. He just needed those names.

“We can take this as slow as you want. We can just talk.”

He chuckled. “Just talk . . .”

“Until you trust me.”

“It’s not a matter of me trusting you. I just want to know the score before I start blabbing about Tripoli.”

“I know.”

“This could get me killed.”

Her eyes were still on him. “I know.” They were soft eyes. Inviting. Disarming. If she was a trap, they’d laid it out perfectly. And then she smiled with those perfect teeth, perfectly white. Everything about her, the voice, the hair that kept falling over her eyes, right down to how she ordered her tea, it was all so innocent and harmless. It scared the shit out of him.

“Stanton?” She didn’t know his alias. He’d made sure of that at least.

“Yeah . . .”

“What are you doing for a living these days?”

He shrugged. “Computer stuff.”

“See? We can go off topic, if you want.”

“Okay, let’s go off topic. Let’s go see a movie tonight.”

She took a moment for it to register, the polished and professional interviewer finally cracking a very small and slightly dopey smile. “That might be too far off topic, Stanton.”

“It might not.”

“Like way far off. Off the charts.”

“Because you have a boyfriend?”

“Because I’m not interested.”

He laughed, feeling only a little badly about the flaming wreckage of his latest shoot-down. “It’s just a movie. Your pick.”

Annica sat quietly for a while, chewing the inside of her cheek.

“Thinking of a movie?” he asked.

“No. Thinking of getting back on topic.”

“Okay.”

She slid a notepad in front of her. “Why don’t we start with the official story? That’ll be easier for you, right?”

“Fine.”

“So, uh . . .” She looked down to a messy-looking page. “So, Tripoli.”

“So, Tripoli . . .”

“You get there . . .”

“We get there, yes, in two vehicles.” Tansy leaned back and folded his arms over his chest. “The locals in the front car. A van. One of those ugly white vans you see everywhere there. You getting this?”

“Go ahead.”

“My team . . . Well, Jackson’s team . . . We’re behind them in a car. We get to our parking spots about a half mile from the consulate building. Now keep in mind, everything’s dark. Streets are completely black because of the power grid.”

“Hold on,” Annica said. “The power outage. You guys had something to do with it?”

“No comment.”

She wrote something down.

“So things were already a little chaotic out there. But the consulate still had generators. So our group took care of those.”

“Took care of them? Like, took them out?”

“We took care of them,” Tansy said. “And then got the hell out of there.”

“Okay, so . . . officially, your mission was to escort the Libyan group to the site, take out the generators, and then just leave?”

“We fell back to a monitoring post.”

“Could you tell me where that was?”

“No.”

Annica stared at him. She had nothing to write down.

“So from there, we just monitored the situation.”

“Can you tell me about the situation?”

“It was routine. From our vantage point, it appeared to be going as planned. You got that?”

“Yes,” she said, holding the pen still against the page.

“That’s important,” Tansy said. “Everything over the radio sounded good. Everything seemed normal, the whole thing, the training, the mission.” He rolled his eyes. “We thought it was the easiest thing in the world.”

She nodded her head. “Yeah . . . But when did that change?”

Tansy smiled. “That’s where I’ve gotta stop.”

“Huh?”

“That’s the end of the official story, as far as I’ll take it for now.”

Her shoulders slumped, face marred with a scowl but still cute somehow.

“Talk to some more people,” Tansy said, admiring her face. She might have been twenty-five years old. “Talk to the other guys. Jackson, especially.”

She pushed her notepad aside. “He’s not the easiest to get in touch with.”

“Well, maybe that’s how I can help you.”

“Can you?”

“Sure. Talk to him, and then come back to me.” Tansy smiled, knowing it was the easiest way out of it, to pass the buck to Jackson, the top dog in the pound. Let him deal with it. He’d already done the internal investigations, the show trials. But now, with Annica, and with Veteran’s Valor, it was ultimately up to him if he’d finally want to divulge some honest answers about the shit show that was Tripoli. He should be the one to decide, Jackson, who was wounded the deepest.

“Until then, Annica, I’m still interested in that movie.”

“I’m not. But thanks.”

Tansy finished his coffee and then took out his wallet. Thumbing through the bills, he said, “You’re a good reporter.”

“Because I turned you down?”

He looked up to catch her smiling. It hadn’t happened much during the interview.

“I’m sure you can find someone else,” Annica said.

“You think so?”

“Computer guy. You probably have a bunch of internet girlfriends.”

“Yeah,” he said, sticking some cash under his coffee cup. “I’ve got something like that.”

Only, she hadn’t replied to any of his messages—even the covert ones—for over five years.

He couldn’t help but dwell on her again, returning to his car. He pulled out his phone and checked an old email account, which used to be filled with messages from Carly. That inbox, now, had become symbolic of the void he still felt inside. And the disgust, too, of not being sure which was worse: the fact that he’d had an internet girlfriend in the first place, or that the internet girlfriend had dumped him.

But come on. It was obvious. Wasn’t it? He hadn’t minded that they hadn’t met in person yet, not as long as Carly was his. His, even in some small way. His, through routers and modems and fiber optic cables, through state lines and time zones. His, ephemerally. He scowled. It should have been no surprise that it faded away as it did.

Still sitting in his parked car, the anger boiled in his heart, ripping through his veins. Not at Carly and her disappearance. No, this was anger squarely directed at himself, like usual, for his incessant brooding. A suspended, synthetic heartbreak. A fucking internet fucking girlfriend . . .

“Tansy. What’s up?”

Somehow, while still brooding, he’d called Jasper, his friend and fellow Tripoli accomplice—and sometimes voice of reason. He attached his Bluetooth to his ear, turned the car’s ignition key, and said, “I just had an interesting conversation with a reporter. Have you had any of those lately?”

“I . . . don’t think so.”

“Annica? From Veteran’s Valor?”

“Doesn’t ring a bell,” Jasper said.

“Has anyone contacted you?”

“No. It’s been pretty quiet here.”

Tansy edged out of his parking space, gassing it just enough to coast to a red light. “Someone tipped her off about Tripoli.”

“Tripoli,” Jasper muttered before an audible sigh filtered through the earpiece. Tansy could almost hear the memories coming back to the Special Forces Medical Sergeant, the quiet ripples of gunfire seeping out of his head and into the wireless signal. He was unlucky enough to be tasked with Tripoli just like the rest of them.

Jackson, the group leader.

Jasper, medic.

Tansy and another guy named Matthias, the glorified grunts.

The four of them had been locked into a bond since Tripoli, a brotherhood that went beyond military camaraderie. It was different. There had not only been a shared horror, like that of so many old soldiers, but a lingering injustice. And to each of them, and to differing degrees, it haunted like a ghost.

“How much did you tell her?” Jasper asked with a hint of fear wavering through his voice.

“Nothing new.”

“What do you think she knows?”

“She knows enough to come find us. I’m putting her in contact with Jackson. If we’re going to break the story, it should be from him.”

“Sounds like a whole lot of trouble, if he tells her.”

Tansy thought of his friend Jackson. How would he handle a hot, young reporter with cutting questions? “How’s he doing these days?”

“Not well,” Jasper said. “And he’s getting worse.”

“Worse how? With the drinking?”

“He’s clinically depressed. I’m half tempted to tell him I’m moving in for awhile. The guy needs help twenty-four seven.”

Tansy kept quiet, too distracted by the imagery of their once strong and capable leader deteriorating right before his eyes. Back on the street, the light turned green and he barely noticed.

“I’ve had to play veterinarian for the last two days. With his dog.” Jasper said. “I snuck his Charlie into the clinic, after hours.”

“What’s wrong?”

“He’s dying. Subaortic Stenosis.”

“Oh, damn . . .”

“So that’s probably another reason for Jackson being the way he is. Anyway, I brought him in for surgery, like a last ditch effort.”

“Why the hell are you working on his dog?”

“I have veterinary training, you know. I considered it as a career once, before the military.”

“I know, but why?”

“I guess his vet recommended against the surgery because of how old Charlie is, or the risk. And it’s either we got lucky with the surgery, or he dies.”

“Did you get lucky?”

“No.”

After another red light, Tansy realized he’d started grinding his teeth. A bad habit. He tried not think of what bad habits Jackson had been indulging in. He was already under so much stress . . .

He refocused on the road, and on Jasper.

“He’s still alive, but not for much longer,” Jasper said. “So I’m taking Charlie back to Jackson’s house tomorrow morning. And, you know, we’ll do it there.”

It was good timing, Jasper paying Jackson a visit. But a horrible occasion, to say the least. Tansy knew how much Charlie meant to Jackson. How much they both depended on each other.

“Good thing I called,” Tansy said.

“He’s gonna drop further down from this. I don’t know if I’ll get a chance to bring up anything about this reporter.”

“I mean, I’m just glad I know.”

“You should call him. Actually, this Annica thing might be a good distraction for him. Especially if he’s . . . you know . . .”

“He’s struggling.”

“Yeah . . .”

But struggling was putting it mildly. Tansy knew that. He knew about the drinking and the risk-taking, Jackson sabotaging himself with gambling and with women. Jackson’s honorable discharge was crushing enough, as was the betrayal to all four of them involved with the Tripoli fiasco. But perhaps it was the secret itself that was killing him.

“I know we all agreed to keep silent,” Tansy said. “But were we wrong? This could be his chance, something he needs to do, for himself and for everyone. I know I’m ready for the truth to be told.”

“Not all of us are.”

“You’re talking about yourself, Jasper.”

“Maybe. Maybe Jackson, too. And Matthias.”

“Matthias doesn’t give a fuck. That I know.”

“Maybe.”

“What about you?” Tansy asked. “What do you have to lose?”

“My career.” Jasper said it with a touch of disdain flowing through his voice, as if Tansy had just insulted him. “I’m still working. I’m shipping out to Kandahar in three months.”

“I didn’t know.”

“We haven’t all gone rogue like you and Jackson,” Jasper said. “It’s not as easy for us. Matthias is still working, too. You expect him to come out and start badmouthing his superiors?”

“Well, he’s still pissed.” Tansy said. “I know he is. And it’s not all of his superiors. Just a few bad apples that maybe need to be singled out. And they deserve it. We can get things started and then let the justice system take care of the rest.”

“I’m not sure you know what you’d be going up against.”

“I know.”

“They might try to cut you off, literally.”

“I know.”

Another sigh from Jasper.

“Hey, come on,” Tansy said. “Think about it. They could do this again, to some other guys. They could do it again to you. Who knows what kind of shit they want covered up over there in Kandahar. All those poppy fields over there. They might off you and then stuff your corpse full of heroin for the flight back.”

Jasper laughed.

“Don’t laugh. It’s true. I know for a fact that it’s happened.”

“Nah, they won’t off me. They’ve invested too much money in my training.”

“More than your body weight in heroin?”

“But someone like you or Matthias, on the other hand . . .”

“Or your brother.”

It was a low blow. Tansy knew that, but it needed to be said. Jasper’s brother had been sent out to fight under the same leadership that presided over their little trip through Libya. That same rotten core . . .

“Don’t talk about my brother,” Jasper said in a flat, cold voice.

“That’s fair.”

“Tansy, are you sure you didn’t reach out to this journalist? I’m getting the feeling that you’re orchestrating this whole thing.”

“She came to me.”

“The thing with my brother,” Jasper said. “I don’t want him deployed for other reasons.”

“But this doesn’t help either. Right?”

There was a long pause. And then Jasper spoke. “This girl, Annica. Do you trust her?”

Tansy thought for a minute as he turned the car down a residential street.

“Do you?”

“Yeah. I do. More than I trust them, anyway.”