Colonel Rudy Hernandez

Colonel Rudy Hernandez is the voice on the secure line at half past midnight, telling a retired soldier his country needs him one more time. Barrett’s commander from the Gulf, he is the steady hand that turns a private crew into a sanctioned operation, patching generals, spies, and presidents onto a single call. When a room boils over into a shouting match, he ends it with one sentence, and everyone remembers he outranks them. Georgetown-educated, unhurried, and impossible to rattle, he talks in baseball and thinks three moves ahead of the people across the table. He calls Barrett ‘son,’ and he means it.