One Rough Man - Brad Taylor [178]
“All right,” she said. “That’s more like it.”
THIRTY MINUTES LATER Jennifer was admiring the view from the living room of our suite, the White House majestic in the last glimmers of twilight. Now that we were alone, she brought out the questions she knew nobody but me would answer.
“Hey, what happened to all the bullshit threats about the Taskforce bringing down the administration? Everyone kept saying we had to do all the work because using it was too risky. Why isn’t there the big disaster everyone talked about?”
I knew what she was asking was highly classified, but it never crossed my mind to tell her a story. More than anyone else, she had earned the truth.
“It turns out that Dr. Evil is a guy in the National Security Council. He hired all of the trained killers. Their attempts in Bosnia gave the Taskforce a way out. We’ve blamed the whole thing on them, saying that a Lone Ranger hired a bunch of mercenaries to stop a terrorist. He’s going to be indicted as a reluctant hero.”
“That’s the guy I saw on the news? Standish something-or-other?”
“Yeah. With all the press talk of the U.S. outsourcing combat power to independent contractors, it’s plausible. The Taskforce is good to go.”
She bristled. “Good to go? Are you kidding? What’s going to happen to him? He tortured and killed a whole family. He tried to kill us. He should be strung up from the nearest tree. Now he’s going down in history as ‘helping America’? How’s that justice?”
I didn’t want to go there. I wanted to leave all of this behind for others to sort out. I tried to soothe her. “He’ll get what’s coming to him.”
Jennifer squinted at me, her expression alone telling me she didn’t think that was good enough. After what she had said to me on the hillside in Bosnia, I wasn’t going to elaborate on what that meant. She wanted justice for the man’s actions but probably couldn’t stomach the Taskforce version. Luckily, she let it go.
“Okay. I guess in Washington getting indicted and suffering humiliation is what constitutes the worst that can happen.”
I crawled onto the bed, trying to find a comfortable position that didn’t rub my burns. “Why don’t you get cleaned up? Maybe we can go get a bite to eat at a real restaurant for a change.”
For the first time, Jennifer seemed to realize she was wearing the same peasant clothes she had worn for days. She ran a hand through her greasy, black-dyed hair.
“Yeah, that sounds good. Great, actually. What am I going to do about clothes?”
“We can go shopping first. Maybe put it on the president’s tab.”
“Even better. He owes me more than a hotel room. Give me thirty minutes.”
She went inside the bathroom and I heard the sink start to run.
Jennifer hadn’t asked the obvious question of why on earth Standish had wanted a bomb to go off in the first place. I had seen his initial FBI interrogation and it had made me sick to my stomach. Made me want to jump through the two-way mirror and slice him open with the broken shards. Of course, the Taskforce would have frowned on that. Not because I had killed him, but because I had done it in front of everyone. Bad form. I’d have to be satisfied with someone else delivering justice.
Standish had been completely unrepentant, shouting at the interrogators that his actions were necessary to protect American lives. He seemed to firmly believe that his efforts were not only legitimate, but good for the nation. The thought disgusted me. He sounded just like all of the terrorists I had ever chased. The only thing missing was him shouting, “It’s God’s will!” Like every other psychopath who justified his actions as nothing more than destiny.
I knew there was no such thing. “Destiny” was a tool used by the vicious or weak to explain a tragedy—nothing more. If God controlled our destiny, then wouldn’t the good guy always win? Where was God when Hitler killed the Jews? Where was He when the planes hit WTC one and two? In the genocide in Bosnia