“It’s not your fault,” I said. “You couldn’t have seen all this coming.”
“Roger was gearing up for this scheme for years. He hired me away from my old law firm because he wanted to use my contacts and my family’s contacts to meet investors, then he did some deal to use the airstrip in Nigeria to fly the mercenaries out of.”
“And you went along with it?”
“I just thought it was to give money and have the ear of the next leader of Gambia or Yemen or any of the weaker countries on the continent. Roger took a while to work out which country he wanted to have a hand in. I didn’t think he was going to finance a whole bloody coup and take over a country through a proxy leader. That goes beyond the pale!”
“When did he settle on that plan?”
“A few months after you joined the firm,” David said, and he saw my look. “It’s not because of you, all right? He was just getting more and more confident in how much he thought he could get away with. He thought being a CIA asset and having friends in the government would give him cover.”
“When you put it like that, it almost sounds like a rational plan, but nothing about the whole scheme was sane. It’s a bit racist as well, since Roger came a cropper underestimating how savvy countries in Africa are getting now.”
“You’re telling me, mate. I was the one who had to write the contracts. Do you have any fucking idea how tricky it is to draft contracts that are about hiring a mercenary army, percentages of the revenue from the country’s GDP and resources to be split between investors, and who gets what, and not use language that would be considered criminal?”
“Is that one reason you’ve been so stressed out?”
“Understatement of the year, mate. I tell you, once this mess is over, I’m out. I can’t do this anymore.”
“So where are you going?”
“I dunno, maybe go back to my old firm if they’ll have me. My parents are a bit pissed off at me for getting involved in this whole scandal, not to mention I have to figure out a way to cover this up when I run for office in a few years.”
“You’re still planning on going into politics? Seriously, David?”
“It’s been my plan since uni, mate. It’s the only thing that would impress my parents. My brother and sister are both highflyers in business, and this is the only way to shut my family up. What’s so fucking funny?”
I didn’t realize I had started chuckling.
“Sorry, David. It just occurred to me that when you run for office, you’re probably going to be hiring us to help you with all your dirty laundry.”
David’s face froze in horror. I think his whole life had just flashed before his eyes, or at least his entire career here at Golden Sentinels. David never meant anyone any harm. He was one of my best friends in university, and I wanted to reassure him somehow that things were going to be, well, if not all right, then at least steady without going horribly wrong. Unfortunately, all I could do was laugh at the absurdity of all this, and how we were both caught up in this cosmic joke. The gods were behind me laughing along. After his initial indignation, even David started laughing, because, after all, what was there left to do about all this?
“I hate to interrupt this touching moment,” Julia said as she came up to us, “but Cheryl wants us to sit down for a debrief on everything that’s been happening with Roger so we can get the story straight.”
NINETEEN
“Roger was the one who ordered the guests dosed with the magic mushrooms,” I said. “We’ve been assuming that he just wanted them in really compromising positions that he could use to blackmail them with later, but he was really after one target all along: Laird Collins.”
“Same kind of play as taking out an entire airliner so nobody can figure out the real target was just one of the passengers on the plane,” Marcie said.
“Roger must have been planning his revenge on Collins for over twenty years,” Cheryl said. “He never stopped ranting privately about wanting to fuck Collins over like he used to fuck us over back when we were a small firm. I always thought he was being all mouth-and-trousers. Never thought he’d do this.”
“Nobody did,” Julia said. “That kind of thing is a bit beyond what we expect normal people would do.”
“Except Roger has never been ‘normal people,’ ” Olivia said.
“So what Ken and Clive uncovered in Nevada fits in Roger’s grand plan,” I said. “More than just revenge against Collins. He wanted to set up his own private military company, registered as an American business, and probably try to headhunt Collins’s best people over to his own company.”
“That’s well out of fucking order,” Clive said. “We’re investigators. We don’t go out and start fucking wars.”
“This is not what we signed up at Golden Sentinels for,” Ken said.
“Well, technically,” Marcie said, “Roger would have kept his new PMC separate from Golden Sentinels.”
“You’re the one who ratted out Roger,” I said. “It was your plan all along once you found out about the coup.”
“I wrote a report,” Marcie said. “As I always do, as part of my real job.”
“You came up with that plan once you found out about the coup,” I said. “Roger destroying Interzone would have thrown a huge wrench into your plans.”
“It would have been kind of inconvenient,” Marcie said. “The Company considers Interzone a reliable contractor and asset. The bigger issue was that Roger was going to mess with the geopolitical map that we spent years trying to establish a status quo with.”
“I wouldn’t have thought you lot cared that much,” Mark said. “As long as the work got done properly. Roger was a trusted asset already with Golden Sentinels. Why would you have objected to him taking over Interzone’s contracts?”
“Do I have to spell out it for you?” Marcie sighed. “Roger wanted way too much power than we would have been comfortable letting him have. Here he was with a nice private investigation agency we could outsource to, then he wanted to set up his own private mercenary army, and then he wanted to take over and rule an entire African country with rare minerals and resources that we were already trying to cultivate as an ally. We don’t really need another tinpot despot on the global map, especially not one like Roger.”
“Even if he was willing to play ball with you?” Benjamin said.
“We don’t know that when an asset goes off the reservation,” Marcie said.
“So if we step out of line, are you going to slap us on the wrist, too?” I asked.
“What are you looking at me like that for?” Marcie said. “My bosses read my report and assessed the situation, then told the British government that Roger was about to launch a coup against an African nation that was a US and British ally. The US informed them there were mercenaries about to board a plane headed their way from South Africa and got the local government to arrest them on the runway before they took off. British authorities made the call to arrest Roger and raid Golden Sentinels.”
“You fucked us!” Benjamin said.
“Hey, I saved all your asses by warning you to get the fuck out of Dodge,” Marcie said. “There was nothing I could do for Roger.”
“You could have warned him, too,” I said. “You wanted Roger to be punished because he overstepped his reach.”
“Well, when an asset goes too far off the reservation,” Marcie said, “we might have to remind them who’s boss.”
“And you can do that to us at a moment’s notice,” Mark said.
“Not you guys. You’re my peeps. Roger, he always played all sides off each other. We put up with it as long as he didn’t screw with us.”
“Oh, of course,” Mark said. “We’re your assets. Part of your own precious network. We make you look good. Of course you want us around, as long as we don’t step out of line like Roger did.”
“Just don’t go trying to take over what you think is a third world country,” Marcie said. “They’re a lot more savvy than you
think nowadays.”
“How many angles got played with Roger’s arrest, Marcie?” I asked.
“Take a wild guess, Ravi,” she said. “This is what you’re good at.”
Again, testing me like a teacher quizzing a student. And I couldn’t help but answer. Habit.
“Roger was single-handedly trying to enact regime change and take over a country,” I said. “His own private colonialist adventure.”
“That’s just the starting point,” Marcie said, smiling.
“Africa is the Americans’ gig, not his,” I continued, “and conflicts with the US plans over there, whatever they are. They’re already competing with China and Europe over Africa’s resources. No way were you lot going to tolerate another player stepping in. So your bosses shop Roger to the British government, embarrassing rogue player detected, and the prime minister ends up owing the US a big favor.”
“It’s bad enough we have China investing in huge chunks of Africa,” Marcie said. “The whole continent is a web of interlocking moving parts. One wrong move and the whole place could go up like a goddamn roman candle.”
“So Britain can avoid a big political scandal,” I said. “And the US gets to remind Britain that they’re the ones in charge, they’re the ones with the best intel. Thanks to sterling work by you, one of their best and brightest.”
“I couldn’t have done it without my network of assets,” Marcie said.
“Did you know this all along?” I asked Cheryl.
“I’ve suspected for a long time,” she said. “I’d been keeping records, doing my own investigation into what Roger had been up to.”
“And you were working with Marcie on this?” I asked.
“I passed what I could uncover to Marcie. She went and confirmed the rest. When she said that Roger was going to have to be shopped, I didn’t object. He’s been going too far for too long.”
Cheryl had been quietly watching Roger and holding back all these years. Given how little we knew of her past as an investigator and Roger’s partner, I’d suspected she might have been the deadliest of everyone at Golden Sentinels. And she’d bided her time until she held all the cards in the end. Cheryl didn’t set out to hold the winning hand. She’d planned to possess the entire deck.
“We’re still in fuckin’ limbo,” Benjamin said.
“Not for much longer,” Marcie said. “Just wait a bit.”
“Hang on,” I said. “Did Cheryl plot all this with you?”
“Dude,” Marcie said. “Cheryl was the one who really had your back. When I gave her the list of guests at the party, she pieced together what Roger was planning since she kept all the minutes for when he first met them at Golden Sentinels. Her first priority was to keep you all out of the office when the cops came for him. You owe her.”
“Well,” Mark said, “she’s the boss now.”
“Fuck Roger,” Benjamin said, sulking. “Fuck him in his greedy face.”
Benjamin was taking this harder than the rest of us. He might have considered Golden Sentinels his home more than anyone else there. He’d helped build its technical infrastructure, tested all his computers and gadgets through the firm, after all.
“So what next?” I asked.
“Cheryl wants to get the firm up and running again,” Marcie said. “That’s going to be the first priority.”
“Isn’t the agency tainted now?” I asked. “We’d be hard-pressed to have any business after Roger’s arrest and all the information we leaked.”
“Nobody knows it was us,” Olivia said.
“Oh, Ravi.” Marcie smiled. “You’re forgetting my specialty. I already have the PR offensive planned. We’re rehabilitating the staff. Golden Sentinels may be dead, but it’ll rise like a phoenix from the ashes under new management and a new coat of paint.”
“Only Roger-free, I take it?” I said.
“That’s the only change, and I’m sure nobody’s going to object,” Marcie said. “Cheryl still has the client list, and she’s been talking to all of them, reassuring them they haven’t been exposed by Roger. She’s the one who’s kept the real secrets safe all these years while Roger was playing at being a playa. The clients know she’s the one who really kept the place running, and you guys were the lifeblood. Goodwill goes a long way. And I’ll keep all your names out of the headlines. Roger will beat this rap and stay out of prison, but he won’t be allowed anywhere near the agency from now on.”
“Is he still going to be one of your assets?” I asked.
“He’s gonna come crying to me, cap in hand, once he runs out of money paying his lawyers. He’s going to lose his expensive house up in Roehampton, his wife is going to divorce him and take their annoying dog with her. He could still be useful. And we’ll be keeping him on a much tighter leash.”
“Roger won’t be happy about that,” Mark said.
“Some assets are easier to manage if we keep them hungry and desperate,” Marcie said. “Roger was a naughty boy and needed to be gently whacked on the nose with a rolled-up newspaper.”
“When he susses out you were the one who shopped him, he’s going to want to get even,” I said.
“Him and what army?” Marcie said, the smile not reaching her eyes.
TWENTY
“I’m surprised you’re still here,” I said. “I thought you’d be off to Hong Kong working for your father by now.”
“I’ve done a lot of thinking in the last few months since I saw him,” Olivia said. “And I thought, why should I go crawling back to him asking for a job when I can do far more interesting work here?”
“I always thought you were slumming it here,” I said.
“Darling, my family’s been dealing with money for generations,” she said. “Even with my dad blacklisting me, I could have talked my way into a job in finance if I wanted to, hid in the shadows and moved money around. But I’m more than just a banker. I’m a hacker. I dig up people’s secrets. I gather information. And I keep it for a rainy day. That’s why Roger hired me all those years ago when no one in the daylight world would. I learned that information is worth more than money. It’s information that moves all that money around. So I’m not slumming it here, Ravi. One day, I’ll leave Golden Sentinels and strike out on my own, but I won’t be working in a bank or finance. I’ve made my peace with that. I’ll be dealing not in money but information. And my firm will be bigger than my dad’s bank. This is where I need to be. This is where I get my power. You get your power from your gods. I get my power from information. Benjamin, for all his sarky, larky cheekiness and love of mischief, understands this. That’s why we’re together. Julia understands you and where she needs to be, and that’s why she’s with you.”
“Did we just hear the secret origin of a supervillain here?” Mark said.
“If we did, she’s my supervillain,” Benjamin said, beaming with pride.
“You do love handling time bombs,” Julia said.
So they were all back and they were staying, setting up Golden Sentinels again, installing new computers, restoring the database, and putting the security measures in place, good as new. The place had that New Private Detective Agency Smell.
“Golden Sentinels 3.0!” Benjamin said.
“Well done, children!” Roger strolled in, beaming. “Yes, releasing all the files was a bit much. I know that was Ravi’s idea, but no matter. What matters is all that silliness is behind us, we can get back to work!”
He looked dapper in his tailored suit as always; the stress from the last time I saw him had vanished and the used car salesman charm had returned. The air in the office was different, though. The gods had gathered to see how he would react with us having none of his usual bullshit.
“What?” he said. “No smile for Daddy?”
You could have cut the tension in the air with a knife. He seemed oblivious, or pretended to be, keeping up that used car salesman grin of his.
“See? Didn’t I tell you I’d make this right?” he said. “My friends c
ame through, after all. You’re lookin’ at a free man. Throwing out all those files to the public did the trick, Ravi. I always trusted you to weaponize doin’ the right thing, didn’t I? Put the fear of God into the lot of ’em. We’re home free.”
We turned away and continued to restore our files and accounts on the computers.
“Right, Cheryl,” Roger said. “There’s just the formality of resuming leadership of the firm.”
“Roger,” Cheryl said. “Let’s talk in your office.”
Before long, Roger was shouting so loudly that we could hear him through the thick glass.
“But we agreed!” he cried. “You’d hand back half the firm when this blew over!”
“You agreed,” Cheryl said. “I never said anything of the sort. I am not giving back ownership or control of Golden Sentinels to you. None of this lot trusts you anymore.”
“Is this your revenge? Did you wait twenty-five years for this moment?”
“Did you really think you could waltz in here as if nothing happened after putting all of us in jeopardy?” she said.
“It was just an inconvenience!” he said. “I always put things right. You know me better than anyone.”
“I know you too well. And this was the last straw.”
“Look, I’m sorry, all right? I’m sorry we didn’t get married. I’m sorry you lost the baby. I’m sorry you never met a bloke who treated you well.”
“I never needed that. What I need is here and I’m holding on to it after you nearly destroyed it,” she said.
“Who got you off the drugs, eh?” he pleaded. “Without me, you might have killed someone! You would never have found your place in the world! Look, Cheryl, everything turned out fine! Why do you have to punish me? Do you hate me that much?”
“I don’t hate you,” she said. “I don’t love you anymore either. I just want you to go.”
He stood there in shock. The gods stood outside the glass walls of his office and were filming him and Cheryl on their phones.
“Roger,” she said. “You are going to say your good-byes, nice and smooth, and then you’re going to walk out the door. If you don’t, I will have Ken and Clive remove you. They have my permission to physically remove you all the way to the stairwell and to do with you as they please before sending you on your way.”
Her Fugitive Heart Page 24