Jackson Ford - Eye of the Sh*t Storm

The bright lights in the hall don’t Reggie’s mood. She can’t help glancing down at the hand on the joystick, at the small liver spots forming on the back, particularly the one behind the middle knuckle that looks like the state of Maine. She’d googled it of course – the liver spots, not the state of Maine – because how could you not? Solar lentigines (as Google called them) are very common in adults older than fifty .

Reggie – a healthy forty-eight, thank you very much – had huffed when she read that and, aware that she was alone in her office, raised her right middle finger at the screen. As far as she could lift it from her useless hand, anyway.

She’d dropped it immediately, muttering “Drama queen,” under her breath, smiling at the words. When she wasn’t working with China Shop, Reggie spent some of her off hours working with an amateur theatre troupe in Anaheim – a disability-friendly crew that put on productions of Shakespeare, Tennessee Williams, even a few original scripts. The playhouse is no more, of course. Damn quake. Reggie pushes the memory out of her mind. She’s got quite enough pain to deal with right now.

The living room is open-plan, with a small kitchenette, patches of sunlight from the windows gleaming off the chrome fixtures. Reggie heads in there now, eyes on the automatic tea-maker on a low shelf. Teagan bought it for her birthday, which touched Reggie no end, and it’s a marvel. She hardly needs to do more than lift a big-handled cup – her stack always has straws in it, something else Teagan makes a point to take care of – and stick it in the machine.

Reggie sips her chamomile, trying to quiet her mind. Ignore the fluttering in her diaphragm and the burning pain in her thighs. Above all, ignore the clusterbomb of the living room.

It’s where China Shop does the planning for their jobs, on a large whiteboard marked with savage scrawls. Stacks of paper, on both the low table and the floor. Empty mugs and takeout coffee cups, Post-it notes. Boxes of clothing, for when the team need to disguise themselves as city workers or security guards or cops. A flash of annoyance – those should be in the van, Africa should have taken care of that. Then again, did Reggie even mention it to him? Or is it another item on her to-do list that she hasn’t gotten to?

Of course it is.

Reggie never used to be in charge of clothing and paperwork and supplies. That was Paul’s job, when he was still alive. Paul Marino could be frustrating to work with, petty and pompous. But he was a superb logistics man, a former Navy quartermaster who lived and breathed details. He made China Shop work, doing all the things nobody else wanted to do.

Reggie misses him – and not just because of his professional skills. He was an ass sometimes, but he was a good man – and deeply good to Annie, with whom he’d formed a pretty unbelievable bond. Reggie sips her tea, hoping Annie’s doing better today. Hoping the job has distracted her from her grief.

The China Shop budget is generous. Their tools, vehicle, systems infrastructure, offices, all top-notch. Moira has always seen to it that Reggie is comfortable, and has everything she needs. Except for one, very deliberate thing.

She’s held off getting them a new logistics man, saying that she hadn’t found anyone she trusted to do the job, that a couple of qualified candidates fell through. On the face of it, the fact that she hadn’t replaced Paul is ridiculous. But that’s too simple. No, there was no logistics man because Moira is trying to send a message to Reggie: If you want to run China Shop so badly, then it’s all on you .

After the earthquake, Reggie had to stand up to Moira to keep her job. Which was right, dammit, because she was good at it. But it had been a close-run thing, and Moira clearly hadn’t been happy about it.

Reggie is a world-class hacker, and there’s not a system in the world that can keep her out. But when it comes to running a covert group of operatives, dealing with all the details, she doesn’t have it. No point bullshitting. Teagan and Annie and Africa help out, do their best, and they’ve certainly raised the lack of a new logistics guy before – well, Teagan and Africa anyway. Annie tends to leave the room whenever the subject comes up. But they’re not all that good at it either.

Since Paul died, their planning, logistics and supplies have been a disaster. And invoices! Reggie grimaces at the thought.

Reggie’s mother used to boast about her daughter. My Regina’s good at everything. Whatever she puts her mind to . Her mom was wrong about that – well, mostly wrong. Being good at things didn’t mean squat if you couldn’t do those things any more. No, her true skill, her real talent, was reinvention.

Being a high school track star was fine and well, but it didn’t mean squat when her times weren’t going to get her a scholarship, much less to the Olympics. She didn’t have the money for college; hardly anybody in Shreveport did. So Reggie joined the Army, and a secondment to the CIA as an analyst turned into a permanent post. After a year or two on the Baltics desk, they put her in the field, working out of Bosnia.

At the time, she’d been deeply worried that she’d never make it, and was pleasantly surprised at how well she adapted to the brutal strain of deep cover. When Bosnia went south, after what happened in Nemila, she’d put that gift for reinvention to good use. She’d gone back to the Army, retrained as a pilot. She was good enough at it that they let her fly Apache helicopters – one of the first black women to ever do so.

Of course, the true test of her gift came at the end of a Taliban RPG in Helmand. But she rose to it, remaking herself yet again: not just carving out a life for herself with no legs and barely any arm movement, but teaching herself how to code – and code damn well, thank you very much. Well enough to do it professionally for the US government, the only constant throughout her working life. Uncle Sam would always find a place for those who were willing to remake themselves.

A rueful smile sneaks across Reggie’s face. Moira wants to test her? See what Regina Gillian McCormick is made out of? Fine. Regina Gillian McCormick made it out of Shreveport, Louisiana. She wasn’t defeated by what happened in Nemila, she wasn’t defeated by a Taliban RPG and a busted C6 vertebra, and she is damn sure not going to let a pile of paperwork claim that particular honour.

Her phone rings. Well, there you go . Did she really think Moira wouldn’t find out about the way the job ended? Reggie sighs, putting the cup on the counter and fishing the phone out of its holder, already planning how she’s going to frame this.

Only, it’s not Moira. It’s a number Reggie doesn’t recognise.

She frowns, then her face clears – probably someone wanting some boxes shifted. China Shop still has a cover as a removals company, and after the quake, their services have been in demand.

“Answer call,” she says. There’s a beep as it connects. “China Shop Movers?”

The voice on the other end is confident, female. “May I speak to Regina McCormick?”

“This is she.”

“Oh hi, great, Regina. My name is Darcy Lorenzo. I’m calling from DCA Talent?”

“…I’m sorry, where?”

“DCA Talent. We manage actors in the industry. I wanted to talk to you about—”

“You manage actors.”

“Uh-huh. So listen, I saw you play Titania at the Roadhouse. I wasn’t actually supposed to be there that night – I work with actors all day, so I try to give myself a break.” Darcy Lorenzo laughs, a tinkling sound that puts an absurd image in Reggie’s mind of a champagne flute smashing to bits on a hard floor. Why on earth is this woman calling her? “But a friend of mine dragged me along. I have to say, you blew me away.”