Bucked (The Invincibles 6)

“Still am.” I finished what was on my plate and took it into the kitchen to clean up. “Do you want me to leave this or take it with me, since it’s no longer your favorite?”

“You can leave it.”

I peeked around the corner and saw her sitting with her chin resting in her hand. “What’s up?” I asked.

She dropped her elbow from the table and leaned back in her chair. “I wish you were making more progress, TJ. By the time you report on some of the leads I’ve given you, the stories will either be old news or someone else will have gotten the scoop.”

I sat back down at the table. “Why don’t you write them?”

She rolled her eyes.

“I’m serious.”

“No one would publish a word.”

“Of course they would; you’re a Pulitzer-winning journalist.”

“Must we go down this road again, TJ?”

“The way I see it, you can do it yourself or stop giving me shit when I’m not quick enough for you.”

The truth was, with few exceptions, Aunt Barb’s “scoops” held little interest for me. I doubted any news outlets would find them compelling either. The subjects lacked the kind of sensationalism required for even AP to pick up the bylines. What might have been considered newsworthy ten years ago was hardly a radar blip now.

The worst part was that Aunt Barb held a personal vendetta not only against Interpol and even the CIA, but every journalist and media outlet that had disgraced her. She looked for and called out bias on a regular basis and expected me to report on it. The problem with it was, no one cared.

Everyone who watched the news, read a newspaper or magazine, knew exactly what the media outlet’s slant was. Whether middle-of-the-road, conservative, or liberal, there was rarely an attempt to hide personal or collective opinions. I’d hardly be shining a light on anything not already widely accepted.

“You know I’m working on something else.”

“For the love of God, please tell me you’re not entertaining the idea of that book again.”

Compared to the stories she wanted me to cover, the book was the one thing that would truly cause a stir, not just in the US intelligence world,

but globally.

It all began when I got an anonymous tip about an arrest involving a CIA agent by the name of Paxon “Irish” Warrick, whose handler at the agency was none other than Sumner Copeland.

I covered the arrest and subsequent indictment, all the while believing Irish was a double agent who had been selling secrets to the Chinese government for almost a decade, which had resulted in the deaths of dozens of CIA agents, operatives, and assets around the world.

On the first day of his trial, I met Ali Graham—actually Ali Mancuso—who was undercover as a reporter also writing the story, but who I later learned was a CIA internal affairs agent brought in to see if Cope was in cahoots with Irish.

Much to my own heartbreak at the time, I stood on the sidelines and watched Ali and Cope fall in love.

When we both believed Cope had been killed in a car explosion, we not only became close friends, we also agreed to collaborate on the real story of what turned out to be a years-long mission undertaken by Irish, Cope, and a man named Decker Ashford to expose the true mole and his co-conspirators.

Like on the night I received the anonymous tip about Irish, my cell phone rang shortly after midnight. A computer-modified voice informed me that before dawn, multiple arrests would be made both in the States and around the world. I lay awake as reports of each hit the wires, the biggest of which was CIA Director Ed Fisk.

A few hours after that, I learned that Cope was alive. His death had been faked as part of the mission.

“TJ?”

I looked up and realized my aunt was studying me. “Yeah?”

“I would’ve thought after his wedding, you would stop following that man around like a puppy dog.”

I sat back in my own chair. “You’re on fire today, Barb.”

“You need to walk away from it.”