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counterterrorism division’s experimental Front Range Response Team, had ignored established jurisdictions and broken every interagency rule by hacking other intelligence agencies’ information—and then had the audacity to get himself killed in an unauthorized covert operation on foreign soil—the upper muckety-mucks of Homeland Security had decided that enough was enough. Maybe their CTD response teams were a little too Wild West. Eventually, the whole concept was scrapped, the people reassigned.
    Although Scott had been able to keep his analyst and ops teams together, they had been transferred en masse to Washington, D.C., where eyes and ears could keep tabs on them. Those eyes and ears were stifling. Political correctness ruled the capital. Public opinion seemed to be determined more by George Soros and the Huffington Post than by the public itself. As a result, Scott found himself having to analyze his every move before he made it just to decide whether the political fallout was worth the end result.
    The big move had occurred just under a week ago, and Scott’s team had hit the ground running. This was the second terrorist cell they had broken up in as many days. And as long as they were out hunting bad guys, the new situation was tenable. But back at the office, things were very different.
    After the absolute freedom of the brief Jim Hicks era, Scott was finding his new situation extremely confining. He could already imagine the reports he was going to have to write and the hearings he would have to endure for shooting this kid. At least he still had some autonomy as a special operations group leader. Stanley Porter, the head of the counterterrorism division, gave Scott’s SOG team more leniency than most. But Porter could only allow the lines to be stretched so far before he felt the wrath of his own superiors at Homeland Security.
    This kid  . . . that’s what ticked Scott off so much. Ghalib al-Aini had been only nineteen years old. And you killed him . . . put a gun against his head, pulled my trigger; now he’s dead. Since coming to CTD, Scott had killed more people than he had in all his years with the Air Force Special Operations Command—not necessarily a statistic he had anticipated when he had e-mailed his résumé for the analyst desk jockey job.
    And it wasn’t just the killing that got him down. It was seeing the wasted lives. Hassan al-Aini is going to disappear into some prison, never to be heard from again. His whole life is done—he’s never going to have a wife, never going to have kids, never going to contribute to society. That’s it, no más , exit stage left and Heavens to Murgatroyd!
    As he stepped from the building into the warm night air, Scott thought, You’re going to have to decide how long you’re gonna keep at this. Is this really the life you want? All this killing’s making you into someone you don’t want to be. All these wasted lives are turning you into a cynic. Now you know why Jim drank so much.
    Until last week, Scott could relieve some of this pressure by hopping into his ’73 Chevy panel van and driving over to Riley Covington’s house. Scott would stretch out on the leather couch in Riley’s great room, feet kicked up on the coffee table, and settle in for an evening of chatting. Eventually perspective would begin to take hold. By the time Riley dead-bolted the door behind him, Scott would be in a much better frame of mind.
    But now fifteen hundred miles separated Scott from that sofa. He leaned against the building and tried to shut out the flash of police lights and the bustle of activity all around him. Well, if you don’t have the hand you want, you just gotta work with the hand you’re dealt.
    Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a cell phone. He pressed speed dial three, and after two rings a voice answered, “Yo, Homeslice, what up?”
    Scott breathed a