One Rough Man - Brad Taylor [97]
“Okay. What’s that mean to me?”
“You’ll only get a location when the beacon can see the sky. If the beacon loses signal, it’ll just show its last known location.”
“That’s fine by me. The pager was just a benny anyway. I’ll cut a check to the same account for your time. Is that acceptable?”
“Yeah. Same account.”
Standish paused, internally making a decision. “Before you go, I need to read you on to something that might require your attention.”
“All right. I’m still on your retainer. What’s up?”
Standish’s only weak link now was Pike himself. He had already gleaned both his and Jennifer’s passport information from the station in Belize and had fed that into the gigantic, bureaucratic Homeland Security database, ensuring they would be stopped at whatever port of entry they attempted to use. His only purpose was to tie them up until the terrorists could set off their weapon. Getting arrested as a terrorist associate should do the trick. By the time they got an apology and a pat on the back, the bomb should have gone off. Still, Standish hadn’t gotten to where he was by not planning, and he wanted to ensure he had a contingency in place. He’d play nice first but had no compunction about turning nasty.
“I have a couple of individuals I might need you to deal with.”
Standish gave him a brief rundown on Pike and Jennifer, leaving out the reasons he wanted them stopped. Lucas didn’t ask why or what they represented. It wasn’t part of the mission and thus wasn’t something that concerned him.
When he was finished, Lucas said, “What do you want me to do with them?”
“Nothing right now. I’ll call you if I need you.”
Lucas let the silence extend out a bit to show what he thought of that answer, then said, “Yeah, I get that. That wasn’t my question. What do you want me to do with them if you call? What’s the mission?”
“Get rid of them.”
Lucas sat forward in his chair, looking a little agitated at the verbal dance. “What the fuck does that mean? Tell me what you want done. I’m doing the work. The least you could do is actually say it. You want them locked up, sent to the hospital, what?”
Let him know you aren’t afraid to get your hands dirty. “Kill them. Or do you have an issue with that?”
Lucas stared into Standish’s eyes. “I’m pretty sure you know the answer to that.”
Standish recoiled in his chair, mentally trying to distance himself from Lucas without appearing to do so.
“Yes. I guess I do.”
A year ago, Lucas had been a SEAL serving in Afghanistan, where he had been accused of intentionally killing civilians. That in itself wasn’t remarkable, since not a day went by without Standish’s reading some bullshit report of Americans killing civilians. Ninety-nine point nine percent of those reports were propaganda put out by the enemy to stir up a little Islamic fury. The difference with the accusations against Lucas was they hadn’t been brought forward by some unknown local with an ax to grind, but by his own teammates. Just before the investigation began in earnest, the two teammates died violently in an IED attack. The investigation took a new tack, now looking into the deaths of two American servicemen as well as the deaths of the Afghanis. Before it could build up enough steam, as a favor to his wife, Standish pulled Lucas out of the fire with a few well-placed words, allowing him to leave the military at fifteen years, his only true punishment being the loss of retirement pay. Now he was wondering if using Lucas might be a mistake. He’s liable to kill two hundred people to get this done.
Standish decided to deal with that possibility up front. “I don’t care how you do it, and don’t need it to look like an accident or anything stupid like that, but you have to do it in such a way that it won’t lead back to me. Ever. And don’t kill a ton of civilians just to get them. Understand?”
“What’s your definition of ‘a ton’?”
Jesus. He’s a cold-blooded son of a bitch. “I’ll understand