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“That is damn poetic for an FBI agent.”

“One friend stayed with it until he had a heart attack.”

“I think I’m a little young for that,” I said.

“Another friend ate his gun.”

We stared at each other. “I’m not the suicidal type.”

“I also don’t want to see you in jail.”

My eyes widened. “Whoa. I do not know what you’re talking about.”

“The state department confirmed Otto Jefferies is a retired government worker, but they couldn’t access the rest of his file at the present time. I’ve got a friend at the state department with a level two secret clearance. He couldn’t access Otto Jefferies’ files either. He’s a total blackout, which means he’s a spook of some kind. You do not want to get involved with the spooks, Anita. If they try to recruit you, say no. Don’t try to find out who Otto really is, or what he did. Don’t get nosy or you’ll end up in a hole somewhere. Just work with him, leave him alone, and move on.”

“You sound like you’re talking from personal experience,” I said.

He shook his head. “I’m not going to talk about it.”

“You brought it up,” I said.

“I told you just enough to get your attention, I hope. Just trust me on this. Stay the fuck away from these people.”

I nodded. “It’s okay, Bradley. I don’t like . . . Otto. And he hates women, so don’t worry. I don’t think it would occur to him to try and recruit me.”

“Good.” He put the gun back in the desk drawer and closed it.

“Besides,” I said, “what would the top secret set want with me?”

He looked at me, and it was a look that I wasn’t used to getting. The look said, I was being naive. “Anita, you can raise the dead.”

“So?”

“I can think of a half a dozen uses for that one talent alone.”

“Like what?”

“Prisoner dies in interrogation. Doesn’t matter. Raise him up again. A world leader is assassinated. We need a few days to get our troops ready, raise the leader for a few days. Give us time to control the panic, or stop the revolution.”

“Zombies are not alive, Bradley. They couldn’t pass for a country’s leader.”

“From a distance, for two or three days, don’t even try and say you couldn’t pull that off.”

“I wouldn’t do it,” I said.

“Even if it meant that hundreds of lives could be saved, or hundreds of Americans could be evacuated in safety.”

I looked at him. “I . . . I don’t know.”

“No matter how good the cause seems at the beginning, Anita, eventually it won’t be. Eventually, when you’re so far in you can’t see daylight, they’ll ask things of you that you won’t want to do.”

I was hugging myself again, which irritated me. No one had approached me to do anything on an international level. Olaf thought I was good for only one thing and that did not include helping the government. But it did make me wonder how Edward had met him. Edward was spooky, but was he a spook?

I looked up at Bradley’s so serious face. “I’ll be careful.” Then I had a thought. “Did someone approach you about me?”

“I was thinking about offering you a job with us.” I raised eyebrows at him.

He laughed. “Yeah, after looking through your file, it was decided that you’re too independent, too much a wild card. It was decided that you would not thrive in a bureaucratic setting.”

“You got that right, but I am flattered you thought of me.”

His face went back to serious, and there were lines in his face that I hadn’t seen before. It made him look forty plus. Most of the time he didn’t. “Your file got flagged, Anita. It got moved up the line. I don’t know where to or who asked for it, but there is government work out there for the independent wild card if they have specialized enough skills.”

I opened my mouth, closed it, and finally said, “I’d say you were joking, but you’re not, are you?”

He shook his head. “I wish I was.”

Edward had said that he wouldn’t have brought Olaf in if he’d known I was coming. It made it sound like Olaf had been invited in, not volunteered, but I’d ask Edward. I’d make sure.

“Thank you for telling me, Bradley. I don’t know much about this stuff, but I know you’re taking a