The guards looked at each other, and finally the spokesman shrugged.
“We’ll be right outside if you need us.”
“I won’t,” Bill said flatly.
With obvious reluctance, the guards filed out. When they were gone, Bailey asked, “What’s this about?”
“I had you brought here so I could offer you a job, son,” Bill said.
Bailey frowned.
“I’m serving a life sentence in prison,” he pointed out. “I’m not exactly in the market for a job.”
“Maybe the job’s in the market for a man like you. And as far as prison goes . . . maybe we can do something about that.”
Bailey’s eyes narrowed. He asked, “Are you promising what I think you’re promising?”
“I’m not promisin’ anything except the chance to risk your life for the good of your country, and a chance to do yourself some good at the same time.”
“Or at least a chance to get myself killed, eh?”
Bill chuckled and said, “You were always pretty smart, Bailey.”
“I don’t know about that.” Bailey leaned back in his chair. “The smartest thing to do might be to tell you to go to hell and let them take me back to prison.”
“But you’re not gonna do that, are you?”
For the first time since his arrival, John Bailey smiled faintly.
“No, sir, I’m not. Why don’t you go ahead and tell me more about this job you’ve got for me?”
Wade Stillman came in the next day. The security around him wasn’t as heavy. He hadn’t killed anyone, after all . . . at least not as a civilian. Bill and Bailey met the helicopter together and escorted Wade into the same room where they’d had their discussion the day before.
Wade was as suspicious as Bailey had been, although he tried to cover it with a cocky attitude. Bill began by saying, “I understand you used to work in a MegaMart.”
“Doesn’t everybody?”
“I’ve done some work for Hiram Stackhouse myself.”
“Stackhouse,” Wade repeated. “You mean the guy who owns the whole shootin’ match?”
“That’s the one.”
Wade’s eyes narrowed as he said, “Something tells me you didn’t wear a vest when you were workin’ for him.”
“No, I didn’t,” Bill admitted. “And if you agree to work for me, you won’t be wearin’ a vest, either . . . unless it’s made out of Kevlar.”
From the corner of his eye Bill saw that John Bailey was struggling not to smile at that one. Bailey succeeded in keeping his rugged face expressionless.
“There’s something mighty fishy about this whole business,” Wade said. “All the secrecy . . . Is this some sort of spy deal?”
“Not really. But we have to keep the details under wraps until you agree to work with us.”
“You can’t even tell me what the job is?”
“No, just that it’s dangerous. It’s strictly volunteer, too. If you’re not interested, you can leave and go back where you came from.”
“Prison,” Wade said heavily.
“But if you agree, there’s one thing I can promise you . . . you won’t be goin’ back to prison.”
“Because I might be dead?”
Bill inclined his head slightly and said, “Or you might not be.”
Wade thought it over, but not for long. He nodded and said, “I don’t care what it is, you’ve got a deal, mister. Just tell me who I’ve got to kill . . . or who’s gonna kill me.”
“Do I know you, sir?” Megan Sinclair asked as she looked across the table. Bill was seated on the other side, with Bailey and Wade behind him in white T-shirts, camo trousers, and boots, flanking him, both standing stiff and straight and not betraying any emotion.
“We’ve never met,” Bill said, “but I know your father.”
Megan grimaced.
“I haven’t had any contact with the colonel for a good number of years. I believe he’s of the opinion that he no longer has a daughter.”
“You might be surprised about that,” Bill told her. “Could be he still loves you so much it hurts him to know . . .”
“To know that his little girl has become a deserter and a criminal?” Megan shrugged. “You might be right about that. I don’t know and I don’t care.”
Bill could tell she was lying about part of that statement. She cared, all right. She just wasn’t about to let herself show it. She might not even allow herself to acknowledge it, even deep in her heart. But she still cared.
Megan wore a white prison jumpsuit, and even though it was far from flattering, she was still attractive. Bill had seen both Bailey and Wade checking her out, although they tried to be unobtrusive about it. It was easy to understand how she’d been able to get close to unwary male victims all over Europe and help herself to diamonds, art treasures, bank accounts, and assorted other loot.
“You’ve gotten yourself into a heap of trouble,” Bill told her, “but we’d like to help you out.”
“As a favor to my father?” Megan sounded like she couldn’t believe that.
“No, because your country needs you.”
She laughed softly and shook her head.
“I fell for that line once,” she said. “Not again.”
“It’s more true now than it ever was. There are threats—major threats—that most folks never know about. We need somebody to stop one of those threats, and most people will never know about that, either.”
“If you really know my father, you probably know I was in Special Forces,” Megan said. “I know all about the sort of threats that are out there. Somebody else can deal with them. I did my part.”
“I’m not disputin’ that. But we still need you.”
“Black ops? Counterintelligence?”
“Some of that, but more like kickin’ butt and takin’ names,” Bill said. “The sort of thing you never really got to do that much of when you were in the service.”
“That’s because they had me stuck in front of a computer in some command center all the time,” Megan snapped.
“I’ll be honest with you, we need your computer skills, too. But you won’t be stuck in a room somewhere. There’ll be plenty of excitement, if that’s what you’re lookin’ for.” Bill paused, then added, “Considerin’ how you’ve made your livin’ the past few years, I’d say excitement’s pretty important to you.”
She glared at him and said, “You think you’ve got me all figured out, don’t you?”
“No, ma’am. But I’d like to try.”
“Save it. You’re old enough to be my dad. Maybe my granddad.”
“Didn’t mean it like that,” Bill said.
She considered for a moment, then waved a hand at Bailey and Wade and asked, “Are these two part of the deal?”
“They’re on the team,” Bill admitted.
“Well, that might make it interesting enough to take a chance.” She clasped her hands together on the table. “Why don’t you tell me more about it?”
“Can’t do that until you give me your word that you’re in. If you’re not willing to do that, you’ll have to go back where you came from.”
“You’d take my word for something that important?” Megan asked, sounding surprised.
“Like I told you, I know how you were raised.”
Another moment of silence went by while she looked like she was pondering the offer, then she said, “All right, I’m in. But it had better be as exciting as you promised it would be.”
“That,” Bill said, “is one thing I don’t think you have to worry about.”
CHAPTER 27
John Bailey and Megan Sinclair were known quantities to Bill, at least to a certain extent, and Wade Stillman was the sort of man Bill knew and understood.
The rest of the team was a different story.
Nick Hatcher arrived first. He was even taller than Bill and definitely affable looking, not the sort who would be tabbed by most people as a professional bank robber. He was frien
dly, too, smiling and offering to shake hands, although Bill didn’t take him up on that.
“I have no idea why I’m here,” Nick said as he sat down across the table from Bill. “I figured I was just being transferred to another facility, but that’s not the case, is it?”
“This isn’t a prison,” Bill admitted. “But it is a secure location.”
“I’ll say. I think I would have stood a better chance of breaking out where I was . . . not that I intended to try and break out. I’m not looking for trouble.”
“And yet you robbed . . . how many banks was it?”
“Eighteen, I think. Or maybe nineteen. I don’t remember for sure. I just drove, though. I never actually set foot in any of the banks.”
“You drove for people who murdered cops,” Bill said, not bothering to keep the harsh anger out of his voice. “That makes you a murderer, too.”
Nick met his gaze squarely and said, “In the eyes of the law, sure.”
“You don’t feel any remorse?”
“I feel plenty of remorse.” Bill saw how Nick’s hands clenched into fists for a second as the prisoner went on, “I saw that female cop get hit and go down. I didn’t want that to happen. I’m sorry it happened. But I didn’t pull the trigger, and I didn’t tell Harris to shoot her, either. Nobody got hurt in any of our other jobs.” He paused. “It was like everybody’s luck was up that day.”
“But you’re still alive.”
“My partners aren’t.”
“Still, you’re luckier than them, or either of those police officers.”
“I’ve already said I was sorry. I’m doing the time. I don’t know what else I can do.”
“Something to make up a little for what happened, maybe.”
That made Nick’s eyes narrow with suspicion. He said, “Ah, now we get down to it. There’s something shady going on here. This place is off the books. There’s no official record of me being here, is there?”
“As far as the prison’s concerned, you’re sittin’ in your cell right now, Hatcher.”
Nick laughed.
“So you can do whatever you want to me and nobody will care. Is that it?”
Bill didn’t answer that question. Instead he asked one of his own.
“How’d you wind up drivin’ getaway cars?”
“I fell in with bad company at an early age,” Nick replied with a smirk that made Bill want to go across the table and slap it off his face.
The comment also made Bill think of Catalina Ramos, who he hadn’t seen since a few days after the nearly catastrophic incident in front of the Alamo. Clark had promised to help her get set up with a new identity and a new life. Catalina had nothing waiting for her in Mexico, so the best thing would be for her to start over in Texas, or somewhere else if that was what she preferred.
Bill had thought a time or two about asking Clark how Catalina was doing, but he hadn’t done it. She had played her part—as far as Bill was concerned, she had saved hundreds of thousands of lives, maybe more, because they couldn’t have stopped Tariq Maleef from carrying out his deadly plan without her help—and now she deserved to be left alone.
“What did you do when you were a kid, start stealin’ cars?” Bill asked Hatcher.
“As a matter of fact . . . no. I had a friend who got into building hot rods and racing. I talked him into letting me drive some of his cars. I didn’t have any interest in working on the blasted things, but the first time I got behind the wheel, I knew I’d found what I was born to do.”
“Why didn’t you stay with it? Some of those NASCAR drivers make more money than God. More than you’d get bein’ a bank robber, and you don’t get shot at, either.”
“Well, as it turns out, I was born to do something else. I, ah, enjoyed betting on the races, too.”
“Ohhhh,” Bill said in understanding. “Gamblin’ problem, eh?”
“Not at all. I could gamble just fine. It was more of a paying-off-the-bets-I-lost problem.”
Nick grinned as he said it, and Bill realized to his surprise that he found himself almost liking the young man. Nick had an easygoing charm that made people forget he was a professional criminal.
Bill wasn’t going to forget two dead cops, though, so he concentrated on that and said, “Can you use a gun?”
“I told you, I didn’t shoot anybody—”
“That’s not what I asked. Can you handle a gun?”
Nick shrugged and said, “I’ve done some shooting. Just practice, you understand. I never carried a gun on a job. Didn’t want to be tempted to use it.”
“We’ve got a good range here. We can try you out, see how you do.”
“Wait a minute,” Nick frowned. “You’re talking about giving a felon, a convicted murderer, a gun?”
“Just to practice with,” Bill said. “For now.”
Another grin spread slowly across Nick’s face as he said, “You need a wheelman.”
“I didn’t say—”
“You’ve got some sort of job coming up, and you need a driver. But it’s dangerous, so you want to know if I can use a gun, too. I know you’re not a crook, so that means you work for the government.”
“All too often that’s the same thing.”
“No, this is some top-secret military deal,” Nick guessed, demonstrating that he could be intuitive. “Or maybe some sort of spy outfit. And you want to recruit me to help.”
“What if we do?” Bill asked.
“Then it’s going to cost you.”
“How much?”
“My freedom, to start with. After that . . . well, we’ll have to negotiate.”
“How about this for negotiation?” Bill snapped. “You help us, or you go back to a six-by-eight cell for the rest of your natural-born life?”
“I think we can work something out,” Nick said. “I think you’ll find that I’m a pretty good shot, too.”
“You’ll need to be,” Bill said, “or else that cell’s liable to start looking mighty pretty to you.”
Bill felt an entirely different impulse when he met Braden Cole. Just like when he spotted a venomous snake, he had an urge to grab a hoe and chop the damn thing’s head off.
Cole sat on the other side of the table with a tiny smile on his face. He was a physically unimpressive specimen, but there was an air of menace about him anyway, no matter how mild-mannered his appearance.
He pushed his glasses up where they had slid down his nose and didn’t say anything. After Cole had sat there placidly and silently for several minutes, Bill asked, “Don’t you want to know why you’re here?”
“I assume you’ll tell me when you’re good and ready,” Cole said. “Until then I don’t see any point in worrying about it.”
“You’re a pretty cool customer, aren’t you?”
“I’m not given to emotionalism.”
“Yeah, havin’ emotions might be a drawback when your line of work is killin’ people.”
“I was only an instrument. A tool, if you will. A way for other people to get what they wanted.”
“So you do have to rationalize murder to yourself,” Bill said. “Must be a heart in there somewhere after all.”
“Think whatever you want,” Cole said, still smiling.
Bill thought about it for a moment, then said, “I want to hire you.”
He saw a flicker of surprise in Cole’s eyes. So it was possible to get through the man’s ice-cold façade after all.
“Hire me to do what?”
“What you do best, of course. Blow stuff up and kill people.”
Cole tipped his head slightly to the side, reached up with his cuffed hands, and used a fingertip to scratch inside his ear. Then he asked, “Who is it you want me to kill?”
“I’m not sure yet. There may be quite a few folks the world would be better off without. We’ll sort of have to wait and see when the time comes.”
Cole shook his head.
“I don’t work that way. I need a specific target and suffic
ient time to plan. And I decide how much time is enough. That’s the only way I’ll take a job.”
“How about this?” Bill suggested. “We’ll pay you a bonus.”
“What sort of bonus?”
Bill reached in his pocket, drew out a small revolver, and set it on the table in front of him.
“I won’t do the world a favor and blow your sorry brains out.”
Again there was a flicker of something in Cole’s eyes. Fear was too strong a word to describe it. Uncertainty, maybe. For a second Cole wasn’t sure that Bill wouldn’t do exactly what he had threatened.
But then Cole’s natural arrogance—the arrogance of a true sociopath—asserted itself, and he said, “You won’t do that.”
Bailey and Stillman were in the room, as they had been for the other meetings. They had remained standing and hadn’t said anything. Now Bailey drew a Colt .45 1911A1 that was holstered on his hip and pointed it at Cole.
“I will,” he said.
This time Cole did look afraid.
“Stop and think about it, Cole,” Bill drawled.
“Besides the four of us in this room, only a handful of people know that you’re here, and they occupy a high enough level that they don’t give a damn about what happens to somebody like you. You had a hood over your head when you were flown in here, but if you’d been able to look out of that chopper, you’d have seen miles and miles of nothin’. We could bury a thousand varmints like you out here, and nobody would ever know the difference. And even if they did, they wouldn’t care.”
“You’re not murderers,” Cole insisted. “You work for the government.”
“We had a president once who said it was fine and dandy to kill American citizens just on his say-so. I’m not claimin’ he was right or wrong, but hey, with an example like that . . .”
Cole pushed his glasses up again. They seemed to be slipping more now, an indication that while he wasn’t openly sweating, his skin was damper than it had been.
“I asked you before, what is it you want?”
“You’re good with demolitions. I need a man like that.”
“You want something blown up, but you don’t know what it is yet?”
Suicide Mission Page 17