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“Are you Rachel Ann Morgan, Operative ID 145-23-6741?”
Rachel blinked away the sleep in her eyes, having been alerted immediately when one of her burner phones had gone off with an undisclosed number. She made it a habit not to answer them unless she had a cut-out telling her to expect a call, but this one was a very new burner.
“You have the wrong number. Rachel Morgan is my dentist.” Her voice didn’t betray the tremor she felt creeping up her throat as she recited her code for the week, but call it spy instincts or intuition, she was starting to get the feeling something was very, very wrong.
She heard a click on the other end of the line, then a ragged, almost gasping for breath, “Rachel?”
“Miles,” she replied, her voice dropping in pitch ever so slightly. “What’s happening? I just got Cammie to bed.” Miles Castelli was the station chief in Rome and had been in the field for almost twenty-five years. He was dependable, cared about the operatives and agents who worked in his domain, and was never, ever rattled.
In that moment, Rachel could have sworn he sounded rattled.
She was already sitting up, Matthew’s oversized sweater hung over her frame. It had only taken him a few missions after they’d gotten together to figure out that his girlfriend slept much better when she wore something that smelled like him when she was gone. She had felt slightly embarrassed the first time he came home a day earlier and found her, curled up with Chinese takeout (he had also learned she really couldn’t cook around that time), in one of his many U.S. Army pullovers. He’d teased her for weeks, but it definitely endeared him.
“Maybe I can leave behind a pair of socks for you, sweetheart? Oooo, or my pillowcase?”
“God forbid your girlfriend want to smell like you while you’re gone, Matthew.”
He had raised an eyebrow then, and she had blushed when she realized what she’d said. “So you are my girlfriend, then? And here was Joe, convincing me you didn’t do ‘all that’ with coworkers.”
She had sat up then, resting her weight on the balls of her feet, and a burst of bravery had gone through her as she replied, “I think you’re someone worth doing ‘all that’ with, Matthew.”
It was like a firework had lit up Matthew Morgan’s face. He was an excellent spy and an even better pavement artist, but all the training in the world wouldn’t have been able to keep the grin that lit his features off his face.
“I love you too, Rachel.”
She hadn’t said that exactly, but at his uttering of those three little words every couple simultaneously dreads and excites over, she kissed him. A brunette blur in an oversized, fraying Army sweater into a man still in his regulation training pants, overjoyed at the prospect of being loved and—
“Rachel, I’m so sorry.”
She had to blink herself back to reality, the low tones of Miles’ voice coming to her through the phone. The panic was rising in her chest, an itchiness making its way up her neck and prickling the hair on her arms as she could almost taste the words Miles was about to say.
“The Central Intelligence Agency has officially declared Matthew Andrew Morgan missing in action as of today, August 10, 2007. We are sending out several contacts and operatives to his last known call-in locations, and Agent Joseph Solomon is leading those task forces. I am so, so sorry, Rachel.”
The words came in slow motion, and Rachel swore up and down in that moment that she would never make fun of the movies that depicted receiving the worst news of your life in a series of flashbacks. She could speak nineteen languages, and not a single one could ever have the words to describe what she was feeling in that moment.
She saw blurred visions of a white wedding dress and a man in a tuxedo, kissing her in front of everyone they knew, of their first meeting in a hotel bar in Istanbul, of their daughter and the look on his face when he saw her for the first time. All of the images collapsing in on themselves, until finally, she was in this dark room again, the dim light of the living room TV casting shadows across the room as Rachel Ann Morgan received the worst news of her life.
“I…I…what?”
“Agent Morgan missed two call-ins in the last week. I believe you were made aware of the first one, but it’s not policy to notify spouses and families until the third call-in, which is when we officially declare them MIA. His mission remains classified to those under a clearance level of 18, which I’m aware you have, but even so, the more sensitive details, including assets, targets, etc, are limited to the task force dedicated to searching for him.”
Rachel was a woman who appreciated direct honesty, bluntness, and the fact of the matter of the situation, and in any other scenario, Miles’ calm, low voice explaining the process would have kept her sane, but in that moment, every gear in her head was shifting, unraveling the last few days she had had with her husband, and her mind was leaping into a bottomless pit of despair as she started processing what to tell his parents. What to tell Abby. What to tell herself. What to tell Cammie.
"Where is Joseph Solomon right now?”
“Excuse me?”
“Where is Agent Solomon right now?”
“Rachel, I understand the two of you have a familial relationship, but you know I can’t discuss personal matters regarding other agents with—”
“Miles, please.” Her whisper was a soft, anguished one, and even though she knew she could track Joe Solomon down (and would, the second this conversation was over), as things currently stood, she didn’t know how to hold herself together.
There was a pause on the other line, a sigh, and Rachel imagined him in Rome, the morning rays parting through his residence near the Ambassador’s quarters as Italian vendors made their way through the square nearby, starting the day out. Matt loved Rome. They loved Rome.
“Agent Solomon is on desk leave while this search force plays out, but I do not want you interfering in the—”
“Thank you,” she breathed, and she could hear him pause again, another long breath.
“Rachel, you know I’ll never tell you how to parent, or act as if I know how you’re feeling,” this was a bit generous, since he himself had lost his wife to a mission in Brazil gone rogue about a decade ago, “But Cammie is about to need you a lot more than anyone else will,” he finished gently.
She went silent on the line, her mind still fogging up with every single thought running through her head. Every vision of gunshot wounds and torture, and her husband lying in a pool of his own blood in some abandoned warehouse in Europe. “How do I tell her, Miles? What do I even tell her?”
“For now, keep this to yourself. Telling her might be an entire ordeal, especially if he is found. She’s starting at Gallagher next month, am I correct?”
“Y-yes. She is. I’ll call her grandparents and see if they can take her for a few weeks, and then I can help wherever you need—”
“Rachel.” His voice was exasperated this time, as if he could see the scenarios and lines running through her head, know that she was throwing herself off the deep end. “I can’t have you help with this. You are off this case on account of your relationship to Agent Matthew Morgan.” The tone was more professional this time; whatever moment they had had earlier over entirely. This was Station Chief Miles talking, and she had better shut up and obey.
“Yes, Agent Castelli.”
She could not have driven faster to Langley’s headquarters if she tried. Given the late hour, the tail ends of a summer shower, and the quiet stillness of D.C. at night, Rachel made it in a record 19 minutes and only ran 3 red lights (something she would be sure to have removed from security footage the next day).
She badged in quickly, throwing a quick wave to Martin, her favorite of the night shift guards, as she practically sprinted through the mostly dark corridors, past shut hallways and top-secret burn bags, until she halted to a stop at the cubicle she knew occasionally belonged to Agent Joseph Solomon.
He had heard her coming a mile away — it didn’t take a trained operative to hear her heavy footfalls and jagged breaths as she sprinted through Langley, but still, the look on his face was a mixture of shock, grief, and the haunted look of a man who had been around for many sleepless nights.
“It is true, isn’t it?” she asked, even though, deep down, she knew it wasn’t really a question. Even though she knew.
“I’m so sorry, Rachel,” he ran a hand through his hair. “Rachel, I am so, so—”
A loud, crisp slap echoed through the room as Rachel felt her hand make contact with Joe’s cheek. A good old-fashioned slap was perhaps a Gallagher Girl’s greatest weapon (besides learning to kill a man with a stiletto), and often the most underestimated.
Joe didn’t flinch as she slapped him, nor did he retreat away from her. The dark circles under his eyes seemed especially prominent as those green eyes looked down at her, illuminated by the pale glow of the nightlights.
“You killed him!” She didn’t care that she was shrieking, that her voice had betrayed her emotions with a quiver. She didn’t know if she could ever forgive him. Joseph Solomon and his stupid ideas to stop rogue terrorists at the cost of her husband.
Again, he didn’t cringe or make to move away. It’s as if he knew that the slap was coming and chose to take it anyway, even though he was bigger and faster than her. “I know.” His voice was soft, pained, and hoarse as he ran a hand through his hair, gesturing at her to sit down across from him on the office chair.
“You knew he’d” —a shove—" “get wrapped up in all this” —another shove— “and you still” —a last, exasperated push, this one without the strength of the earlier ones— “let him go!”
He still didn’t fight back, saying nothing as he met her eyes. There were tears in his stunning green eyes, ones that had looked at her with love, hate, annoyance, despair, joy, pride, and so many more feelings in the almost fifteen years she had known him, and still she couldn’t get a read on him.
"You don’t think I wish it was me instead?” he about yelled back. Any more of this and Martin would surely come in to break up the fight that was brewing between two of the CIA’s best agents. He was standing now, towering over her at his height, but still not daring to truly pick a fight with the force that was Rachel Morgan.
“I do wish it was you instead!” she snapped back, and then the rest of her resolve broke, and she was crying, too, the words out there before she could take them back.
There was a silence as the two of them just looked at each other, heavy breathing the only sound throughout the room. Joe Solomon was a brave man—not braver than Matthew Morgan, but an incredibly brave man nonetheless. Which is why he chose to gently take Rachel’s hand—the same one that had just finished hitting him senseless—and pulled her in, wrapping his arms around her.
She melted into his touch, and he breathed in her scent, feeling the damp tear tracks on the collar of his shirt. Then, so softly a trained spy could barely hear it, “I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry. I’ll do anything you want me to, Rachel.”
She didn’t say anything, her head still on his shoulder, trying to calm her ragged breaths. “What do I tell Cammie?”
“Take the job, Rachel.”
She glanced up at him, confusion dawning on her beautiful features. “How do you know about—”
“I’m a spy, Rachel. Take that job, take her there, and keep her out of all of this. It’s what’s best—for both of you. Please,” he was practically begging at this point, his arms still wrapped around her, but the two of them slightly separated, green eyes boring into green.
“I have to—I have to help, Joe. I can’t sit on my ass in a mansion and watch my daughter go through this. I don’t know what to do with myself if I’m not out looking for him.”
“Matthew never would have wanted you and Cammie to get wrapped up in all of—”
“Matthew is dead, Joe!” She was back to a raised voice again, her hands back in her hair, a completely different version of the composed woman that the world saw. He flinched at the words, finally having been uttered after weeks of looking through trails gone cold and the dreaded Missing in Action declaration.
“My husband is dead, Joe.” Her voice dropped another octave again, softer. “He would never miss three call-ins unless he was physically unable to. You know him better than anyone else. He’s dead,” she finished numbly.
“Right now, I can’t figure out if I’m more pissed at him or you,” she continued, and gave a hollow laugh. “I’m leaning towards him, though, because he should know better. I don’t even know what to tell his parents. We’ll have to have a funeral for them, Joe. I have to tell his mother that her only child is dead, all while telling my only child that her father is dead. What a fucked up situation.”
She sat back down again, feeling dizzy and lightheaded after the rush of words that had come pouring out of her. Joe still stood, looking down at her. “I can handle this, Rachel. Take care of your daughter. It’s safer if you…keep her away from all of this.”
She gave a cruel laugh. “By sending her to spy school to become cannon fodder for the CIA? What am I doing here, Joe? How can I, in good faith, send my daughter to possibly the same fate as her father?”
“The Gallagher Academy is one of the most protected buildings in the world, save for maybe the White House,” he argued, “Keeping her behind those stone walls for six years is one of the best things you can do for her safety. She’s brilliant, and she takes after both of you so much that I have no doubt she’ll come out of there prepared for whatever life she wants to lead, whether that’s here at Langley or as a scientist or teacher or astronaut.”
There was another pause as she reflected on his words. He was right. He tended to be, especially these days, wised up by the dark life all of them had to lead. He was fidgeting, something he almost never did, drumming his fingers along the sides of his khakis, and she noticed that his leg was shaking ever so slightly.
“With losing her dad, I think she deserves to know one parent won’t be off every weekend getting chased by gunmen in Kabul or taking on rogue dealers in Milan. You can give her that, Rachel.”
Another sigh, and her hands went up to rub her temples, and she suddenly felt like she’d aged a decade in an hour. “You owe me one, if I do this,” she pointed a finger at his chest, “Big time, Joseph Solomon.”
Despite the circumstances, he cracked a smile, and it caused her to smile ever so slightly, too. “Anything, Rachel. You Morgans have a way of getting me to do anything.”
“You say that now, but when I bring you in to show a bunch of teenage girls how to perfectly execute the Mazreku maneuver, I think you’ll be singing a different tune, Agent Solomon,” she teased.
Things weren’t right. Her husband—Matt—was still missing. She still had to have the hard conversation with her daughter, then with her in-laws, her sister, and every friend Matthew Morgan had ever made that had the clearance to know why he wasn’t coming back.
“I should get back,” she whispered, rising for what felt like the tenth time that hour. It had been such a long hour. Cammie was still (hopefully) asleep in her bed, and the tracker she had on her hadn’t gone off, which meant she hadn’t even gotten up for her middle-of-the-night orange juice (something she no doubt got from her father). She started walking away, not risking saying another goodbye in the event Joe went and got himself killed, too.
Joe didn’t say a word, his dark-circled eyes watching the most beautiful woman he had ever met walk away from him, until she stopped and turned slowly to face him once more.
“If we have a funeral—in Nebraska—I really hope you’ll come. I know how much it would mean to Gary and Carol,” she said, then added, more quietly, “And Abby. And me.”
He cleared his throat, those finicky things called emotions bubbling up in his throat, making it hard for him to swallow clearly. “Y-yeah. I’ll be there, Rachel.”
A slow nod, then another turn back to walk out. “Goodnight, Joe.”
“Goodbye, Rachel.”