Code Name: Camelot (Noah Wolf #1)(38)
“Yeah, charmed, I’m sure,” she said.
Allison pointed at the tall, skinny kid. “This is Neil Blessing,” she said. “Neil is one of the most accomplished computer hackers we’ve ever run across, and he was so good that we recruited him straight out of high school. Of course, that had a little bit to do with the fact that he was going to complete his senior year at the Chicago Youth Authority Special Education Division. Like you, Neil is an orphan who spent the majority of his teens in foster care, and he seemed to like the offer we made him.”
“Yes, I did,” Neil said. “Especially since she’s leaving out the part about how I was to be transferred to a federal prison on my eighteenth birthday, to begin serving a sixty-year sentence without possibility of parole, just for making some minor adjustments to, oh, well, my bank account. Let’s see, sixty years in prison, or work for the government and help them kill people? Hmm, not that hard a choice.”
Noah leaned forward again, and shook hands with Neil Blessing. “I completely understand,” Noah said. “Good to meet you.”
He looked at Allison, who flicked her eyes at the other man. “This big lug is Moose Conway. Moose will be your muscle, the backup man. Like you, he’s got a military background, and just barely failed to make the cut for Navy SEALs. He’s been here for about a year and a half, now, and actually graduated, but he asked to be recycled and go through all the training again. Since we didn’t have a team to assign him to at that moment, I agreed, and he’s probably the best possible man to have in that position on your team.”
Noah extended a hand to Moose, but the big guy just looked at it. “You may be the team leader, and I may have to take orders from you, but that doesn’t mean I have to like you,” Moose said. “I know who you are—I read all about you in The Army Times. I don’t know how anyone can give you a second chance after you killed your own men and even your platoon leader. You keep your hands to yourself, understand? I’ll do my job, and you can count on me to do it, but don’t ever expect me to sit down and have a beer with you. You’re a mad dog, and you should have been put down.”
“Mr. Conway,” Allison said, “you will stand down, right now. As it happens, there is a large mountain of evidence that proves that Noah was completely justified in the actions he took. You of all people should know that things are not always as they seem, and this is one of those cases. I’m not going to bother trying to explain it all to you, but get this through your head. Noah Wolf acted honorably when he killed Lieutenant Gibson and the other men who died that day. If he hadn’t, he would not be sitting here, right now, because I would agree with your assessment. Do I make myself clear?”
Moose nodded once. “Yes, Ma’am,” he said. “I’ll just keep my opinions to myself.”
Noah stood up. “Allison, if Mr. Conway does not feel comfortable being on my team, then I believe you should release him from it. I cannot count on a man who harbors animosity toward me.”
Allison looked at him and grinned. “Then, if I were you, I would find a way to eliminate that animosity. He stays on your team, because he’s the best man I’ve got for the job.” She looked at all four of them. “You four will make up our newest team, which will be Team Camelot. Camelot—that’s Noah—will be going through an abbreviated training course, and you’ll be going through some of it with him. It’s quite possible that you may find yourselves out on your first mission within just a few months. Keep yourselves sharp, and stay ready. At this point, I don’t know what your first mission will be, so I can’t give you any tips on how to prepare for it. Just be ready, because you’ll probably have to move quickly when it comes.” She looked at each of their faces in turn. “Any questions?”
Sarah raised a hand. “I have one,” she said. When Allison nodded at her, she looked at Noah. “All I want to know is are you going to get us all killed?”
Noah’s left eyebrow popped up. “I’m certainly not planning to,” he said. “Can I ask what prompted that question?”
Sarah looked at him for a minute, then shrugged her shoulders. “A friend of mine says he knows who you are,” she said. “He says you don’t think like a normal person, that the things most of us worry about don’t seem to mean much to you. Is that true?”
Allison started to interrupt, but Noah put a hand on her arm. “According to a small army of psychiatrists, I suffer from an unusual form of PTSD that leaves me without emotions. I don’t get angry, I don’t get scared, I don’t love and I don’t hate. I’ve spent almost all of my life pretending to be normal, but you four deserve to know the truth. If you tell me a joke, I may not realize it unless somebody else starts laughing. If you share some bad news with me, I’m going to offer sympathy, not because I feel it, but because I’ve learned that’s what you’re supposed to do in that situation. I’ve spent my entire life studying how humans act, so that I can pretend to be one of you. That’s the reality I live in.” He took a deep breath. “As to the value I place on things like human life? Let me put it this way. The reason I have bothered to study the way humans act is so that I can do what other people would consider the right thing, when it’s time to do it. Sometimes, however, I have to do what I believe is right, and that may not be exactly what everyone else wants. Instead, it will be based not on fear or anger or any other emotion, but solely on a logical conclusion drawn from available facts. Now, what that should mean to each of you is that I’m going to naturally want to do whatever I can to protect you. However, if protecting you means the failure of the mission, then I’m going to put the mission first. Does any of that make sense to you?”