It was a sore spot for certain. Deacon had served his country for most of his life. He'd been recruited by the CIA during his third year of college, the high scores on his aptitude tests and his skills for languages having alerted interested parties. His course in life had been clear from the moment that recruiter had left him. He'd gone on to get a master's degree and the necessary field training, which he'd also shown an exceptional aptitude for. In twelve years of covert ops, he'd never had a sleepless night after completing a mission. He'd gotten the job done. Until Eve Winter had gotten ahold of him, and everything he'd thought he'd been fighting for was turned on its head.
He didn't like being kept in the dark. He understood the hierarchy of a rank structure and the necessity of secrets. You couldn't survive in the CIA without that understanding. But his handler had once told him, "Rules are for the obedience of fools and the guidance of wise men." Deacon had never been a fool.
Eve Winter had saved him, and for that he was grateful. He'd never be anyone's pawn again. But here he stood, in a cemetery in the middle of the night, digging up a man who was about to have his entire life turned upside down.
Elias reversed the Bobcat, and mud spewed beneath the wheels as the chains drew taut. Inch by inch the casket was dragged out of the grave. The rain was relentless, the thunder a continuous rumbling growl. And the men stood in the middle of it, like marionettes on a string, doing the bidding of people who sat warm and comfortable and safe in their homes.
Once the casket was free and the chains unhooked, Deacon, Axel, Colin, and Dante got two to each side and lifted. Their boots slurped and sludged as they made their way to the black panel van that was owned by the Last Stop Funeral Home. A magnetic cling with the funeral home logo was attached to each side of the van.
The whole setup was bizarre, and Deacon had wondered more than once if he really was dead, only to be caught in limbo between one world and the next. But several years had passed since his own revival, so he guessed he was here to stay.
Until The Directors decided he wasn't.
They slid the casket in the back of the van and slammed the doors shut.
"Poor bastard," Colin lamented, shaking his head hard enough that water droplets flew into the air. "He has no clue what he's about to get into. That the life he knew is over."
"Dead men don't talk," Deacon said.
"Yet here we are." The anger in Colin's face was palpable. His eyes blazed with hatred for the government machine that had confined him.
"Save your anger, Col," Axel said. "What's done is done. It'll get easier over time."
"Is that what you tell yourself as you watch your wife from afar? As you wait for her to find someone new to take your place?"
"Enough, Colin," Deacon said. "We all do what we have to do to cope. Our only focus right now should be getting this poor bastard back to headquarters."
Elias used the Bobcat to push dirt back into the hole, and the others tossed their shovels and other equipment into the back of the van. The burial site for The Gravediggers was at the far corner of the cemetery, next to a thick copse of trees and two plots of unmarked headstones where paupers had been buried more than a century before.
The Shadow crew would send a team to make the area look untouched. By the time they were finished, sod would have been laid and all traces of mud tracks would be gone. They specialized in cleanup. The Shadow was never seen. They did the work and provided the resources for The Gravediggers. The Gravediggers couldn't do their jobs without The Shadow.
Colin and Dante climbed in back with the casket and closed the doors from the inside. Deacon took his place behind the wheel and Axel got in beside him. Elias drove ahead of them in the Bobcat, returning it to the storage shed where they kept the lawnmowers and other cemetery equipment.
Deacon backed the van around the curve and then put it in gear, navigating his way out of the twisting turns of the cemetery. He idled behind the menacing, black iron gate, waiting for Elias to open it once he parked the Bobcat.
"As soon as we drop the new guy, I'm heading home for eight hours of uninterrupted sleep," Colin said.
"We've got a ten o'clock briefing," Axel told him.
"This is how many fucks I give," Colin said, his hand popping between the space of the driver and passenger seats, his thumb and forefinger pressed together. "What's she going to do? Kill me? Oh, wait. I'm already dead."
Deacon exchanged a concerned look with Axel. Colin was the newest recruit, but he wasn't adjusting like the rest of them had. His anger was manifesting, and his attitude was deteriorating. Not qualities Deacon wanted to see in a man who was supposed to watch his back.