Page 76 of The Session

“They’re in our portfolio of companies,” Jameson confirmed.

“So you’re all telling me that we send Summit Strategies employees into dangerous situations every day. Has anybody here ever done a Constellation detail?” Mark asked.

“Hardly,” Lightman replied.

“Mark, you don’t have to prove yourself. You’ve already done that.”

“Apparently I do.”

“Listen to her, son,” Lightman said.

“What I hear y’all telling me is that if I’m going to be taken seriously at Summit, then I need to be willing to do the worst job we can think of.” Mark looked around the table.

“This isn’t what I wanted,” Lightman said.

“So now what? Mark just goes off to the Sudan and waits for a terrorist attack to happen?” Tru asked.

“Constellation has two hundred antigang contractors working in Haiti right now,” Connelly said.

Tru rolled her eyes. “Which our media contact team has worked really hard to keep out of the news.”

“That didn’t stop The New York Times and The Washington Post from covering it,” Connelly said. He thought about it more. “That actually works to our advantage. It means we can control the narrative.”

“As long as that narrative is accurate,” Jameson said.

“Obviously, we don’t have to discuss the total number of personnel there or the range of the mission,” Connelly continued.

Mark could see that Tru was fuming, while his father had lost his easy smile of earlier.

She finally spoke up. “We’ve got our CEO retreat and Conclave coming up. How long do we leave Mark out there? And if nothing happens—pray to God—then what? It was a waste of time.”

“I know you don’t want to hear this, but after 9/11, filling emergency roles in hazardous situations is one of the highest nonmonetary ways we award points. Even if it’s just for four weeks,” Rawling said.

“Let’s move on. What about the Level 10 Session?” Mark asked.

“You can worry about that after you get back,” Connelly said.

Briefing

Constellation’s compound was a fenced-in industrial zone within binocular distance of the airport. Exterior signs identified it as a shipping and logistics facility. Because the vehicles and personnel were unmarked, they resembled dozens of other private security forces working across Haiti. Bulletproof vehicles moving in and out of facilities, along with cargo trucks, weren’t an alien sight in a country that had rarely known peace.

The SUV carrying Mark went through the exterior gate, then into a secondary gate, before coming to a stop in the middle of the compound. Half a dozen two-story buildings were arranged around the facility. They all had boarded-up windows. To his right was a row of warehouses with roll-up doors. Jim Burton, the field commander, waited for Mark alongside Evelyn Kade, the logistics and local-relations coordinator.

After lunch Mark had still been in Miami. Now it wasn’t even dinner and he was in the middle of a conflict zone on the edge of civil war. He had to remind himself this was real.

After the meeting, Tru had been much quieter than usual. He tried to reassure her that this was his choice, but they both knew she had coached him on the importance of gaining points at Summit.

Mark had little doubt this was a stupid choice, but he also knew that anytime he got behind the wheel of the ambulance and raced into a scene where a shooting had just taken place, or an overdose, he was throwing himself into harm’s way. He didn’t pretend this wasn’t different—it was a matter of degree. He rationalized that, technically, this was the safer choice if it brought his paramedic career to a close more quickly, given his recent close encounters with dangerous situations.

To prepare him, Summit called in a shift commander named Gronick, on leave in Miami, to explain everything he could.

Constellation provided three kinds of support to foreign governments: Security—helping protect infrastructure and convoys in places like Gaza and Haiti. Intelligence—providing information the governments couldn’t acquire themselves. And operational tactical support—thinly veiled combat operations conducted in support of governments.

The Haitian deployment was described as security only. Their job was to provide backup support to the national police.

“It really is you,” Burton said as Mark got out of the SUV.

“Ambulance Man,” Evelyn Kade confirmed, using one of the hashtags used to tag Mark’s video.