Page 45 of Code Name: Reaper
“Your parents. Well, your father.”
“What about him?”
“I overheard Blackjack say he is chief technical officer at the Cerberus Group.”
“Was. He retired a couple of years ago but still sits on their board.”
“I also heard him suggest he might have valuable insight about what was happening in the industry when Briggs was being investigated.”
“I agree.”
“But you don’t want to risk asking?”
I sat in the nearest seat and scrubbed my face with my hand. “I’m warming up to the idea.”
“Can you tell me about them?”
“My father’s brilliant—the kind of guy who can look at a technical spec and immediately spot what’s wrong or what’s missing. His career spanned over thirty years.”
“Impressive,” she commented.
“He started out as an engineer and worked his way to the top.”
“And your mother?”
“She was a foreign service diplomat when they met. Most of her early career was spent in Latin America. She’s…formidable. In the best way. I think you’d like her.”
Amaryllis’ cheeks flushed. “Yeah?”
“And she’d definitely like you. She has the same way of cutting through bullshit and getting to the heart of things.” I paused. “She taught us that honesty mattered more than diplomacy, even in her line of work.”
“That explains a few things about you.”
I smiled. “Both of their backgrounds do. Dad’s methodical approach, Mom’s bluntness. Blackjack got more of her personality—he’s never met a problem he couldn’t charm his way through. I got more of our father’s analytical side.”
“How much do they know about what you and Blackjack do?”
“They both have security clearances close to ours, so they’re aware.” I paused, realizing I hadn’t given much thought to how they felt about what we did until now. “I’m sure they worry. I can’t speak for Blackjack, although I suspect they reacted to his career choice as much as they did when I let them know I’d gotten a job with the agency.”
“How was that?”
“Hesitantly proud is the best way I can describe it.”
“For the same reason you didn’t want to involve them.”
“Yeah, but they get it. My mom even more so than my dad.”
“She was a foreign diplomat, right? That makes what Romanov is doing hit closer to home.”
She was right, although in the same way I hadn’t thought about their feelings in regard to what my brother and I did for a living, I hadn’t made the obvious connection between my mother’s career and Romanov’s trafficking of people like her.
“I can’t help but think it’s all connected.”
“Do you mean Romanov and Avalon?”
“And Argead. I mean that Ed Fisk was CIA director and tried to stop Prism from pursuing her investigation makes it somewhat obvious.”
“True,” I said, feeling more like a green agent than one with years of experience. Why wasn’t I piecing all of this together in the same way she was? Maybe it was the lack of sleep. Or that I spent the majority of my time thinking more about her than work.
