One Rough Man - Brad Taylor [157]
“Jennifer, he told me in the car that he blinded Ethan’s daughter. You don’t have to like it, but I’m going to make him tell me what’s going on.”
Jennifer’s eyes widened, but she stood firm. “And then you’re going to do what? Kill him? Just like that? In cold blood?”
“We don’t have time for this. Carlos is still running loose.”
“I get that, Pike, I really do, but I don’t want you to kill him. You’ll be just like him. You’ll become him. Is that what you want?”
Can’t she see he deserves to die? I thought about what had happened today. Who was alive and who was dead. And the gift. Shit. Maybe she’s right. “Okay, look, I won’t kill him. Just get in the car.”
Jennifer hesitated, then jogged away to the car without looking back.
Knuckles and I walked to the man on the ground, now sitting up and staring at us, fear radiating off of him, his face swollen and bloody from where Jennifer had kicked the shit out of him.
I squatted down to his level, tapping his forehead with the barrel of my Glock. “Hey, tough guy. Didn’t quite work out like you wanted, did it?”
He began babbling instantly. “Don’t kill me. I’ll tell you everything I know, but I swear, it isn’t much. I’m just a contractor for a company called Trident Global Threat Analysis. Please ...”
“Trident Threat Analysis, huh? How original. Let me guess, you’re a SEAL.”
The man nodded.
The Trident was the nickname given to the badge awarded after successfully completing Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL, the arduous selection and training course that produced the Navy SEALs. Not too hard to figure out.
“How about that,” I said to Knuckles. “He’s a fuckin’ retard. I can’t believe a SEAL came that close to killing me.”
Knuckles, an ex-member of SEAL Team Six, chuckled and said, “Maybe we should cut him a break for choosing the right branch of service.”
“He’s on the team that tortured and killed Ethan’s family.”
Knuckles’s smile faded. “Maybe you should let me take a crack at him.”
I returned to the driver, staring into his eyes, conveying no mercy. “Maybe I will. Depends on my man here. What’s your mission? Who hired you? Who’s the boss?”
Six minutes later I had all the information I could get from the guy. It wasn’t much. He knew that the company was owned by a former SEAL named Lucas and that the mission had been to simply kill Jennifer and me. The good news was they were the only team on the ground, and the Taskforce had killed or captured everyone in it. As to how the team had found us, the man only knew that it was by electronic means. Somehow, Mason seemed to have an accurate picture of where Jennifer and I had been both in Oslo and in Tuzla.
Knuckles asked, “How could he get a beacon on you without you knowing?”
“I have no idea. It could be our cell phones, but I don’t see how. We’ve had three different sets since this started, and bought each one with cash. The only other thing I’ve been carrying is Kurt’s personal pager. It hasn’t been out of my hands since he gave it to me, so it can’t be that.”
“You don’t have anything else they could have altered?”
“No. We’ve been living like vagabonds. Doesn’t matter now, anyway. The team’s dead and we need to get moving. We can figure it out later.”
Knuckles pressed a hidden switch on his thumb, giving his men commands through what looked like an ordinary Bluetooth cell phone earpiece. They coalesced around us, all reaching out and shaking my hand or giving me an embrace.
Knuckles gave a brief warning order of what was about to happen, then split the team between the two functioning sedans. After they began loading, he looked down at the driver, asking, “What about this guy?”
Fuck turning the other cheek. “Well, I promised Jennifer I wouldn’t kill him, so I guess he stays. Doesn’t mean I can’t make it hard for him.”
I aimed the Glock at the man’s knee and pulled the trigger, shattering the patella. I ignored his scream. You’re lucky you didn’t kill Jennifer. Nothing would’ve stopped me from carving you up.
“Come on,” I said, “let’s go. We can talk as we drive.”
I left the man writhing on the ground