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vendetta his superiors didn’t want him waging in the name of the DEA.
    They were having a hard time evaluating him and figuring out where to send him that would make sense both for him and for the DEA, without jeopardizing himself or operations they had in progress. He had made no friends in Washington, and wasn’t dating yet either. He hadn’t gotten over the woman and child he had lost. Nothing in his current profile encouraged them to send him undercover again, but everyone agreed he was wasted where he was, and Marshall knew it too. He got more discouraged every day. He had already decided that if they didn’t give him a new undercover assignment within the next year, he would leave the agency, but he had no idea what he would do then. All he knew how to do was what he had done for the DEA.
    Bill Carter mentioned it over lunch with Jack Washington, his opposite number at the Secret Service, who was an old friend. They often asked each other’s advice over knotty problems they were dealing with at work, although they were loyal to their respective agencies and the people who worked for them.
    “I’ve got a guy who’s rotting on the vine at a desk job in the Pentagon,” Bill told his Secret Service friend. “He’s an incredibly talented undercover guy. We had him in Ecuador and Colombia for six years, and he got in too deep. There was a leak that made the decision easy, so we didn’t blow the whole operation and get everyone killed. But I think we took him out too late. We only brought half of him home. His body is in Washington, but his heart and mind are still in the jungle south of Bogotá. He had a woman there—our target killed her hours after he left. And I’m watching this guy turn into a zombie. He’s brilliant at what he does, but we all agree, he’s still among the walking wounded, although he doesn’t know it. I don’t know what the devil to do with him.” It had been bothering him for months. They were wasting Marshall’s talent.
    “That’s the trouble with you guys, you send them off to lead a supposedly real life in a false situation, they get to believe it, and they don’t know who they are by the time you get them out. I’ve seen some really great guys get broken in mind and spirit that way. It’s the nature of what you do, but it takes a hell of a toll on your boys, like military intelligence in a war zone. Those guys never come back whole.”
    “Some do,” Bill said staunchly, but Jack Washington wasn’t buying it. He’d seen the damage too often before. They were the casualties of the drug wars.
    “Our guys risk their lives every day, but they’ve got their feet firmly planted on terra firma. They know who they are, who they’re working for, and who they’re defending. They don’t go nuts trying to become something else, in a different culture, language, and country. Can you send him somewhere a little tamer?”
    “I really don’t have anything for him right now. He’s been requesting Mexico, but I’m not convinced he’d be safe there either. And the psych team at his debriefing said he needed a year at home. The trouble is, this isn’t home to him anymore. Home is a jungle camp with one of the biggest drug cartels in Colombia.”
    “That’s what I mean,” Jack said knowingly, and Bill couldn’t say that he was wrong. He just hated to admit how badly they damaged their men sometimes. But it was inevitable with the kind of work they did. Both men knew it was true.
    “So what do I do with him?” Bill said, looking worried. He felt responsible for Marshall, and what his undercover assignments had done to him. He wanted to help him now. “He’s a terrific agent. One of our best. He belongs in the field. His psych reports are fine—they just think he needs time to acclimate to the United States again, but it’s not happening for him. It’s written all over him. He deserves a better break than this. I get the feeling he might quit, because of the desk job,