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Nolan was right. Ryder needed to get his fucking head in the game, not just now but in general. Now was not the time for redheaded distractions.
He shook it off and focused. The next exchange was cleaner. He read Nolan’s feint, countered with a body shot that connected, and for a few minutes, they just went at it. Controlled impact, maybe, but all focus.
Neither man trying to prove anything, both of them burning off whatever kept them up at night.
After a while, they took a break. Nolan grabbed water and tossed a bottle to Ryder.
“When do you go under?” Nolan asked.
“I’m scheduled to meet with my contacts around midnight tomorrow night.”
Nolan took a sip of his water bottle. “You ready?”
“Getting there.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Nothing like things coming down to the wire. Sometimes you can’t do anything about that. Believe me, I know.”
Ryder didn’t know much about exactly what Nolan did for Rogue Division. That wasn’t surprising, given nearly everyone at this compound had a box they didn’t open. All Ryder knew was that Nolan had a true talent for being whatever face he needed to be to get a job done.
If Ryder hadn’t known the Diehl brothers personally, it would be Nolan infiltrating tomorrow. Cold.
Nolan sat down on a bench and wiped his face with a towel. “You know what the hardest part of going undercover is?”
“Tell me.” He meant it. Ryder could read people in his sleep, but living inside a fake identity for days was a different skill set. Nolan did it for a living.
“It’s not the cover story. It’s not the technical skills. It’s the moment when something goes wrong and every instinct in your body wants to react as yourself.” Nolan took another drink. “The cover holds as long as you stay inside it. The second you step outside, even for a second, you’re done.”
“Yeah, that makes sense.”
“Take it from the con man. It’s why Ian pays me the big bucks.”
Nobody would be a Rogue Division operative just because he was a con man great at going undercover, but Ryder didn’t push it. He didn’t want Nolan asking him about what he’d really done for Rogue, so he wouldn’t start that line of questioning at all.
He knew one thing though: there was a lot more to Nolan Calder than his acting ability.
“Any other wisdom?”
“Yeah. The people you’re going in with already have a version of you in their heads. Don’t fight that. Be the version of yourself they’d expect to see walk back in. The closer the cover is to something real, the less work you have to do to maintain it.”
That was good advice. And it sat in his gut like a stone. Because the version of himself the Diehls would expect to see walk back in was a version he’d spent four years trying to kill.
“I appreciate it,” he said.
“Don’t appreciate it. Just come back in one fucking piece. I don’t have that many sparring partners who can actually keep up.”
They set down their bottles and went another few rounds. Ryder’s head was clearer now, his body settled into the work, and Nolan stopped landing free shots. By the time they finished, the sun was up and the compound was starting to move around them.
Ryder showered, ate something, and went to his quarters. He set an alarm for one in the afternoon and was asleep inside of four minutes, which might have been a personal record for this building.
The alarm dragged him back up at one. He lay there for a second letting his brain catch up with the day, then got up and got dressed.
Last session with Cassandra. After this, the cover was set, the preparation was over, and he was shaking Arlo Diehl’s hand and sitting across from Heath and pretending to be a man he’d rather put a bullet in than become again.
He headed for the lab.
The door was open about six inches. He reached for the handle and stopped.
Music. Disco music. Something with a heavy bass line and a woman insisting she would survive. Cassandra was playing fucking disco in a computer lab on a covert ops compound.
