"Stop fucking joking, what's your final price?"
"I heard that Ben is now female, since Ben's term in office ended. You could send her one of your handsome young officers with a big cock. I'm sure she'll turn on the printing presses without any delay," I said.
"Mike, I don't have fucking time for jokes, what's your price?"
"I can make a concession, I can look around for two hundred fifty."
"You can look around and kill this motherfucker."
"Why do you want to dispose of him, he merely killed a few school kids. Is it about the RPG angle?" I asked.
"Yes, I don't like freaks running around with rocket launchers," Dermot responded. "An RPG is a serious investment, anybody who uses this stuff has a grudge against somebody, or against everybody. I prefer to have such motherfuckers killed once and for all. I don't like a wronged freak with a portable grenade launcher roaming our streets."
"Do you have any preliminary intelligence on the event and the guy?" I asked.
Dermot Clenaghan was head of the Research & Execution Agency. I’m not sure if this was his real name though. He liked all things Irish, so he may have assumed an Irish name just for fun. Or perhaps it was his real name. I wasn't too bothered, as long as they paid. Moreover, they didn't live long in their trade unless they were very smart. The Research & Execution Agency was a joint venture between the National Security Agency, the CIA, and Homeland Security. The Secret Service were participating as a separate body even though technically they rolled up to Homeland Security. I think the FBI were on board too, Dermot did mention them a few times. So there were quite a few founding members of R&E.
At some stage in the past they came to the conclusion that the administrative side of keeping the country safe was throttling their effectiveness, so they created a new unofficial agency to operate in circumstances where the regular operatives of these agencies would have to seriously break the law to fix a problem. Research & Execution were under the radar, funded by unofficial money from the three or possibly even five agencies plus various auxiliary sources of income, not legal in most cases. It was well-managed without the red tape, and it coordinated efforts to quickly and efficiently solve problems that their parent agencies encountered. This was a setup where everybody was happy. The government agencies were restricted in what they could do. People would think that they could do whatever they deemed necessary. This was true to some extent, but there was an increasing supervision from Senate Committees over their activities and budgets, and the politicians wanted to have more and more influence. As a side note, politicians loved power without the responsibility. They, the politicians, were the first to rack up trillions of dollars of debt, ruin the economy through lack of foresight, or create an economy based on credit card debt, student loan debt, and sub-prime mortgage debt. Once they were done on the political scene, regardless of the result, even if they bankrupted the country, they still got a hundred grand pension in perpetuity, or were hired by big banks and corporates as consultants for a million a year, or as executives in corporate world for much more. Or, if they were high enough in the hierarchy, like a president or prime minister elsewhere in the world, they would give lectures for a bargain price of five grand per thirty minute speech. So these politicians wielded a big magnifying glass and had a big fine-tooth comb, and they went through every single detail relating to government agencies and asked difficult questions. To simplify things, the Research & Execution department was founded. As far as the public was concerned it was an agency exploring the synergies between the activities of the main security agencies – the CIA, NSA, HS, etc - to ensure the resources were channeled and coordinated without waste or effort. That was the PR line. In reality, R&E were dealing with, as Dermot put it, “hot potatoes.” Occasionally, hot potatoes were scalding hot, far too hot for Research & Execution, and that was when Dermot called me. He would also call me if he didn’t have adequate skills within his team or enough bodies on the ground.
"We don't have any intel yet, my staff are working on it," Dermot said. "We should have some information in a few hours. It's not that difficult to track down an RPG purchase in most cases."
"I'll get my guys working on it right away."
"Do. Find and kill this motherfucker."
I collected my thoughts and suddenly realized there was one more thing. "Haven't you forgotten something?" I asked Dermot.
"No, I haven't. What do you mean?"
"I expect a nice bottle of single malt Bushmills after this project is done. I wouldn't mind the 21-year-old one, but I would be okay with the green one too. You promised that a while ago. Have you made a trip across the pond to source some fine spirits recently?"
"Yeah, I was playing golf in Ireland last spring. I may have brought some nice stuff back then. I'll see if I have anything left. I'm afraid after twenty something years of marriage my wife likes whiskey more than I do, and may have sampled most of nice stuff when I was not at home, which due to this job is not infrequently. If you do well, I'll buy you some online."
"Appreciated."
"And I'll add a little leprechaun as well," Dermot jested.
"Deal."
"But remember, no kill, no leprechaun. And no Bushmills."
"Fine."
4.
DERMOT DIDN'T GIVE me any intel whatsoever. I'd probably get something from him in the next few hours or in a day. These guys were really good. If there was something that looked like a terrorist attack and it wasn't done by professional, they would find the guy or his traces within an hour. They were really quite good at it. If it was an experienced pro, it would take a little longer, a day or a few days. If it was a mastermind, they may not find him. But regardless of that, Research & Execution had a pretty decent track record of finding terrorists and internal or external enemies of the state. Obviously, they sometimes needed help for whatever reason. And that’s when I was getting engaged. I had my own geek squad to do research for me, but I did use Dermot's guys as well. You know, I had to economize to stay in business. Still, I didn’t complain. The fee was generous enough. The fee for a job less expenses, less champagne, less staff costs still left a handsome profit that I could spend on girls and gadgets. Not that I actually spent it that way. And whiskey. I didn’t drink crap. I liked nice whiskey, especially if it was as old as I was. And I was in mid-thirties. I always got a nice bottle from Dermot after a successful assignment. Every assignment was successful. I didn’t make mistakes, or at least in most cases I didn’t.
The great thing about working for Dermot was that I got a nice set of government papers with authorization for any inquiries in any circumstances. This made my life easier. Be it local sheriffs, federal agents, the CIA. I was a busy man. I didn’t like wasting my time. If there was an eager local policeman, I just showed my credentials and gave him a steely, unfriendly gaze, implying I was not fucking joking, and it was usually sufficient to allow me or my team to work without any obstacles.
I liked Dermot. You wouldn't believe it, but I’d never met him. Yes, I did get a bottle of whiskey and a leprechaun after every job, however funny it was. But I had never met him. He was a sort of a friend, although you wouldn’t really have any friends in my line of business. And we had regular catch-ups since he was one of my more important clients. But I had never met him. I had never seen him. To be honest, I didn’t know what he looked like. I didn’t even know if he was a man or a woman. He could be both. Voice modification devices were cheap as dirt. I suppose he could be a woman, who knows? But on the other hand, he knew quite a lot about whiskey, so he seemed rather more of a male person. Or perhaps he was just buying the most expensive stuff to impress me and keep a good relationship with me, a key contractor. You never knew. So he was definitely either man or woman, no doubt about it. Well, let me correct that. These days, you couldn’t be sure of anything. Maybe Dermot was trans-gender? Hmm, it would be funny to have a trans-gender head of a secret government agency. Maybe in twenty years, but it was probably too e
arly for that yet. This was not Sweden or Norway, where prime ministers admit to alcoholism and people go naked to the public sauna. This was the USA, no such thing here.
As I said, I liked Dermot, whatever his gender. I liked the bottle I got from him after every job. But I was not entirely sure he was of Irish origin, despite his claims. It could just be a cover. His accent didn’t reveal that much. At his level of the hierarchy, he surely didn’t want to reveal his identity. I wouldn't be surprised if he was ... of Chinese origin? Why not? His name might not even be Dermot. Needless to say, I did some research for Dermot Clenaghan online, but it was very inconclusive. So I was quite convinced it wasn’t his real name. It was safer for him that way. It was a high-risk business.
"Have you interviewed any of the victims?" I asked Dermot.
"Some of them, yes," he answered.
"Any useful information from that?"
"One shooter, white, automatic gun, RPG rocket launcher. You probably heard it on the news."
"I did. Anything else?"
"What you probably haven't heard is that he looked Eastern European."
"How did you find that out?"
"One of the mothers of the children from that school who witnessed the shooting, and who moved to the US around fifteen years ago from Czech Republic said he looked definitely like somebody from Eastern Europe. She said she bets he’s from further east, like a Ukrainian, Belorussian, Russian, or Lithuanian."
"That could be helpful," I interjected.
"Could be, but let me finish," Dermot continued. "Not the southern or central eastern European lot, like Bulgarians, Romanians, or Polish. To be honest, I don't even know where all these countries are, but I took some notes. As you very well know we do some business in Europe, you did a project or two in Europe for us, didn’t you? Anyway, I know most countries west of the Oder River, but east - I don't care, not much business there so far after the Berlin Wall came down. Although Putin has been going crazy recently. Anyway, none of the witnesses heard him speak, so we can’t pin down his nationality."
"Did anybody recognize the car or write down the number plates?" I asked.
"Mike, these were all terrified mothers. Most of them wouldn't recognize and remember the car even if they stared at the badge and model name for half an hour in less stressful conditions. They just told us this was a nondescript big black pickup. Not very helpful."
"Did you ask any of the boys about the car?" I asked. "I’m sure most of them would know and tell you the exact make and model."
"Well, we haven't thought about that."
"Let me make some inquiries. I'll interview the kids of the deceased male. Where are they now?"
"They’re still at the 'Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh'. Feel free to do whatever you need to do. I can assist you with whatever you need."
"I need your jet to take me to Pittsburgh."
"Well, this one I can't assist you with. You know, we’re in a sort of economy mode here, I can’t afford for now," Dermot lied. Of course they could afford it. "I need this guy caught, but it's not a matter of life and death yet."
"Yeah, right. Okay, I'll pay for this one, but when I need it at short notice, no bargaining. Deal?"
"Deal," Dermot confirmed.
5.
YOU PROBABLY WONDERED what I did for a living. Well, I was a contractor. I was an expensive contractor. My clients wanted problems to go away. And that cost a lot. Most of my clients wanted somebody killed, or somebody saved. Somebody to disappear, or somebody found. I occasionally got more exotic assignments as well. My clients were diverse. Government agencies, the mafia (Chinese, Italian, you name it), corporate entities, private individuals. Corporates were subdivided into greedy, greedier, and greediest. Individuals ranged from posh, through wealthy, to crazy. I wasn’t picky as long as the client paid a lot.
I had an unusual childhood. Some would certainly say it was a fucking nightmare, but I didn't share it with anybody. I am sure psychotherapists would say it had a significant impact on my future life. Possibly. They would probably use a more technical term like formative or something. I suppose they would be right. But I wasn’t so keen to find out, for now at least. Suffice to say, I had a troubled past.
I didn’t fully remember my real parents. I just remembered them vaguely, as though through a haze, through a mist. I did have some pictures of them though. They, or actually we, lived in Germany. My parents were very wealthy. They had a large piece of land on the Mosel River in West Germany and were wine producers. My grandfather (from my father's side) was an American from Philadelphia. He was military and was stationed in Germany after World War II. Luckily, he married well. My mother was actually Swiss, she was born in Geneva. She spoke French as a result. Switzerland was quite a funny country. They spoke 4 languages, German (in fact it was only something similar to German, but hard to understand even if you knew German), French, Italian, and Romansh. The funny thing was the German Swiss disliked the French Swiss, and both the German and French Swiss disliked the Italian Swiss even more. Funny place. Still, they were one of the wealthiest nations in the world, and one of the most militarized. My mother's parents shared their time between Switzerland (where they owned a bank) and Germany (where they owned some large vineyards). Somehow my mother and my father met and they fell in love. Her parents didn't approve, but my father was apparently very handsome and charming (which I must have inherited from him) and they were allowed to get married eventually, the decision surely made easier after my father's promotion to colonel. After they married, my mother moved to Germany to live with my father. After her parents’ death, my mother's sister got the Swiss bank, my mother the German wine cellars and land, whereas their brother, my uncle, got cash to start up his own business, which he never did, but squandered it all within a few years and was supported by his sisters.
My parents died in mysterious circumstances when I was eight. The coroner's report said it was carbon monoxide poisoning from an apparently faulty stove.
After my parents’ death, I was adopted by my mother's brother, the lazy bastard who had squandered all the money he inherited. It was a rough time. I was beaten and tortured emotionally. It was hell on earth. Nobody knew, as the country house my parents used to live in was two miles away from the nearest neighbor. Nobody heard my cries. This lasted two years, more or less. I had no idea why he did it. To prove what? He controlled the estate and was free to drain it from cash. Perhaps he was just a sadistic pig. My aunt, his wife, seemed more reasonable, but she was accessory to his crimes, either because she was intimidated into doing it, or more likely she enjoyed it too.
Anyway, I became a different person. I stopped smiling. I just prayed I would survive and retaliate someday.
After two years of pain and misery, I pretended ultimate submission and resignation. My uncle thought he had broken me and I never mentioned my parents since then in his presence. He probably thought I’d forgotten them. I never forgot them. I would secretly look through their papers, document, pictures, etc. I watched them, who they talked to, who they met. I befriended some of the servants and found out quite a lot about my parents and my step-parents. I was later sent to boarding school in Cambridge in the UK at the age of twelve. I returned home every Christmas, Easter and summer. I learned perfect English on top of my German and decent French (from my mother). I continued to investigate what had really happened to my parents. I seemed to have gained the confidence of my step-parents. They somehow couldn't have their own child. This may have been due to the pinch of arsenic I was adding to their meals and drinks whenever I was present. I was young, but I read a lot and I knew stuff.
Finally, I found an original medical report about my parents’ death. My stepfather was quite stupid not to destroy it. It indeed said my parents had died of carbon monoxide poisoning, but it also mentioned that the doctor had found a strong anesthetic in their blood. This was a report signed by a doctor called Hans Mengelhaus. In the file, I found a check for fifty thousand Deutsc
hmarks (the German currency before introducing the Euro) made out to Dr. Mengelhaus. I was sure my stepfather paid him generously to keep him quiet. I also found another check made out to Inspector Grass, fifty thousand DM again. Inspector Grass was a local policeman. Either he found or suspected something about my parents’ death. It didn't matter, he was guilty as he didn’t pursue the line of inquiry.
This was sufficient evidence for me. My heart was empty, my body toughened by years of abuse, beating, and torture. My spirit was broken and reduced to the absolute basics necessary for survival. I was an animal. But a very clever animal. I wouldn't have survived otherwise.
I gave my step-parents some strong sleeping pills. Then I used a strong inhalable anesthetic. I bound their hands and feet, and carried them to the car during the night (quite a feat to do it in the dark and not waking up the servants in the house), drove them a mile away and left the car on the road leading to our country house. I thought about waiting till they woke up, to tell them I knew everything and then to kill them slowly in a sophisticated fashion. However, although quite vengeful I was still practical and chose to set the car on fire in order to leave no trace and to be able to return home quickly and sneak back to my room, being careful not to alert any of the staff.
Next day, when I woke up, the police were already in the living room interviewing the household staff. One of the servants had gone to do the morning shopping and found the burned car. I was interviewed by the police as well, but was too young to raise any suspicion.
I became sole heir to the whole estate worth more than a hundred million Euros, earning a few million a year. Not bad, isn't it?
After boarding school, well before I disposed of my uncle, I studied business and management at Cambridge. I didn't enjoy it very much. Even in the most prestigious business schools, business was taught by people who either never had a business or failed at business. Consequently, by definition they couldn’t teach you anything. A waste of time and money. It was just for people to feel good about spending fifty thousand dollars a year by letting them think they would actually learn something. Wishful thinking. They teach all sorts of useless theories. Exactly all you'd never need to run your own business. The only good thing about studying was you meet people who run their own businesses and you learned from them. You also did some projects and read a lot and you learned from it too. So it wasn't a complete waste of time for me. I actually learned quite a lot from these other auxiliary sources, apart from the core useless traditional classes. I learned a little, honed my skills, and nearly doubled the income from my estate within just over two years.
The Hunt (Mike Greystone, Book 1) Page 2