“Thorn Byrd.”
Jeff Ingram didn’t float the name like a question, nor did he place it out there like a statement. Rather, he spat it at the room, daring someone to go against him.
Thorn Byrd was his pick, the prospect he’d followed for three and a half years in a way that bordered on stalking. He’d researched every aspect of his past, analyzed every detail of his upbringing, combed through every facet of his life with a meticulous tenacity that would make the most ardent research scientist proud.
Never before had Ingram gotten one past the board, but this was it. This kid was the one he was banking his career on.
He was zero for two already. This was his last shot.
Ingram stood in front of the room and waited for the challenge he knew was coming. It only took a moment for Rom Birkwood - the consummate prick in the room - to oblige.
“Jesus, three years at the best college in the world and this is the best you can do?”
Ingram glared at Birkwood before scanning the men before him. In total six of them sat staring back, each in shirtsleeves and crisp ties with designer suit jackets draped across the back of their chairs. They had been sitting for over eleven hours, but each looked as composed as the minute they arrived.
Together they comprised the board, the men who decided which picks were chosen, and which went on to lead the lives they were already planning to.
On the opposite end of the company hierarchy were people like Ingram, known simply as evaluators. They were hired in on five-year contracts and placed throughout the country in elite settings to scour for the best and brightest talent available. Three times in those five years they were allowed to present the board with someone they deemed worthy. If one of their choices survived the board, they were offered employment and the evaluator was promoted to handler.
If their picks were not selected, they went on with their life as if the last five years had never happened.
No line item on a resume. No future recommendation letters.
For the previous fifty-six months Ingram had lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts, scanning the hallowed ground of Harvard University. Twice before he’d brought squeaky clean kids with trust funds and impeccable credentials before the board and on both occasions had been submarined.
This time Ingram had something a little bit different on tap for them, something nobody would see coming.
There was no way in hell Birkwood was bringing him down again.
“I’m assuming that was rhetorical,” Ingram shot back, the remark raising a few eyebrows around the table.
“So that’s how it’s going to be?” Birkwood asked, fighting a losing battle to keep his voice level as blotches of red appeared on his cheeks.
“We’ve been down this path twice before, you and I,” Ingram countered, motioning between them with his thumb and forefinger. “You made the rules. I’ve just decided to play by them.”
Birkwood stared at Ingram for several long seconds before sliding his gaze down to the papers before him. “All right then, let’s start at the beginning.
“Hometown – Charleston, South Carolina. You are aware we need operatives that can assimilate and disappear at a moment’s notice, right?”
It was exactly where Ingram had anticipated the questioning would begin. “I am. He doesn’t have an accent.”
“None?” asked a man Ingram knew by name to be John Lewis, his voice entering from the opposite end of the table.
“Not anymore,” Ingram answered. “He had a light drawl when he arrived on campus but after a couple of professors insinuated it sounded less-than-intelligent, he learned to mask it.
“Now, the only people who know he has it are the ones he wants to know. Took me two years to hear a shred of it.”
The room accepted the response as Birkwood scanned for another pitfall.
“Activities – varsity football. How many brain cells does he even have left?”
Ingram lowered his head a moment, blowing a long breath out through his nose. He kept his pulse even, not wanting his face to shine red or for a sheen of sweat to coat his features as he counted to five before answering.
“Every single person that attends Harvard gets in because they’re exceptional at something. For some, that is physics. For others, it is football.”
He paused, again looking over the faces before him.
“And tomorrow morning he graduates in good standing with the rest of his class, despite giving fifty hours a week to football and many more to the Navy Reserve. It is my understanding those are the type of skills this company is looking for.”
Ingram didn’t expect many of the men in the room to know football well enough to bother going into the specifics of it or how it might translate to future employment. Everything he had to say was in the report if they wanted to pursue it, but for the time being he was content to go the route of brevity.
“That’s how you met this one, right? Through football?” Bryce Stepoli, the senior man in the room, asked. A thick swath of silver hair was combed straight back on his head and, when he spoke, the others around him paused and waited for a response.
“Yes,” Ingram replied, coupling it with a nod. “Part of my cover was serving as a graduate assistant on the football team. This one caught my eye the first day he was on campus. Got into a scrap with the team captain and gave him six stitches under the chin.”
A few heads lowered themselves as Ingram paused, scribbling notes in the packets strewn before them.
“Yeah, seems this kid fashions himself a bit of a pugilist,” Birkwood said. “Two charges for assault. Again, we’re looking for invisibility here, not common street thugs.”
It was the second question Ingram had walked in expecting from Birkwood.
“Two things,” Ingram replied. “First, he was taught to fight in the Navy. Despite your insinuation, he doesn’t fashion himself anything.
“Second, if you’d read the attached information, you’d know that the charges were dropped right after being filed.”
“Doesn’t change the fact that the charges were brought.”
“Nor does the fact that they were brought because he beat the hell out of two men trying to mug an old woman.”
Ingram knew he was walking a tight line between confidence and insubordination, but he wasn’t about to back off. Twice before he’d come in kissing asses and both times he’d ended up bounced out on his.
A man with a shaved head and goatee seated three chairs down from Stepoli rifled through the file before pausing. “I notice his mother’s passed.”
“That’s right.”
“And that her time of death and his date of birth are the same.”
“That’s right,” Ingram repeated. “They were caught in a snowstorm when he was born and she had to deliver in the car beside the road. There were complications and she died before reaching the hospital.”
The story was one he unearthed through no small amount of digging, the kind of thing he instantly wished he hadn’t found. He kept the thought off his face as he stood and waited, the inevitable follow up soon to come.
“Is that a problem?”
Ingram shook his head. “No, if anything, it strengthens our position. He has no other siblings and his father never remarried. It’s just the two of them.”
“Fewer connections, less back story to deal with,” Lewis said.
“Agreed,” acknowledged Ingram.
Stepoli leaned forward and rested his elbows on the table. The room grew silent around him as he closed the top of the file and pushed it away, lacing his fingers before him.
“We’ve been sitting here for eleven hours looking over folders of candidates from all the right families with all the right grades and test scores and extra-curricular activities. You’ve been here before, you know how it works.”
He paused for a moment, looking the length of the table. “Now, for some reason, this time you chose to bring us a southern football player with a straight B average from a one-parent home
. Someone that put in his two years active duty with the Navy, then promptly walked away the minute it was up despite being requested to stay on.”
Again he paused, his face showing that he was being careful in choosing his words. “I’m wondering, why? What is it you see here that makes you willing to gamble your career on him? What makes you think this is what we’re looking for?”
Ingram paused and looked down at the polished black marble in front of him. He pretended to be contemplating the question, though he didn’t need to search for any answers. It was an inquiry that had been posed in each of his prior meetings and one he’d been praying would come again.
“You’re right,” Ingram said, raising his gaze, nodding slightly. “Thorn Byrd isn’t the same spit-shined, spoon-fed, son of fortunate that usually gets paraded through here.
“But let me ask you this, what normally happens to those kids? We pride ourselves on finding the best there is, yet, for some reason, we have a retention and survival rate of just over forty percent.
“Personally, I think it’s because we’re going after the wrong people. We target guys that look great on paper, but don’t know how to deal with adversity because they’ve never had to.”
He paused for a moment, making sure he still held the rapt attention of every man before him.
“So this time I took a different tact. I sat down and asked myself what kind of man I would want to work with if we did survive the vetting process and the answer was pretty plain to see.
“I’ll take a guy that’s hungry over a guy that’s gifted any time.” Raising his right hand, he pointed at the folders spread across the table. “And this kid has a hunger for life unlike anybody I’ve ever seen.”
Chapter Three
Havana, Cuba