One Rough Man

58

After the door closed behind Kurt and George, Standish buzzed his secretary and told her to show Lucas in as soon as he arrived. After a minute and a half, Standish saw him coming through the door and was embarrassed to feel his pulse rate go up. He wouldn’t admit it to anyone, but Lucas scared him. Bastard looks like he belongs in Alaska killing baby seals. He was a cousin of Standish’s wife, and extremely useful for certain tasks, but Standish didn’t like being alone with him for any length of time. He watched Lucas plop down in a chair as if he were in his own office.

“No issues,” Lucas said.

“Will it work?”

“No. You pay me just to pretend.” He tossed the phone to Standish, reached into his pocket and pulled out another phone, dialing a number. The phone rang once before the one in Standish’s hand began ringing.

Standish heard Kurt Hale answer after the fourth ring. Lucas said, “Can I speak to Betty?”

Through the phone he held, Standish heard Kurt say, “Sorry, wrong number.”

Lucas hung up.

Standish grinned. With any luck, not only would he get all information relating to the Mayan weapon, but he might also get other useful information relating to the Taskforce, or even Kurt’s personal life. I should have done this a long time ago.

“Can you tell anything was done?”

“Not at a casual look-over. If the phone’s software is scrubbed, they’ll see it was manipulated.”

“We’re good there. No way they’ll suspect this office of doing anything. What about the pager?”

“The pager’s a little different. That panic beacon attempts to transmit on any signal it can find, like cellular, FM, you name it. With that much stuff blasting out on a constant stream, there’s a chance someone will pick up the signal. It’ll also run the batteries down about four times as fast, which might spike the target. I figured it would be better to restrict it to satellite only, so that’s what it will transmit on. The batteries will still burn more quickly, but not enough to spike.”

“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 a collateral damage number of five or less. More than that and you’ve exceeded the rules of engagement.”

“I can do that. You got anyone you want killed right now, or is this it?”

Standish punched his secretary’s buzzer. Get him the fuck out of here.

59

The next morning at 0815 we were both in the lobby of the embassy, with the same Marine flipping through the clearance sheets. Ten minutes later, after checking the massive amount of rosters at his disposal, the lance corporal turned to me and said, “I’m sorry, sir, but you’re not listed.”

I asked for the number to the office and called up. Getting Eric, I was told to hold fast, and he’d come down to me. I hung up the phone, a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.

“Something’s up. I think we’re about to get the blow-off.”

Eric exited the elevator and walked over to us with a big smile.

Shit. This is going to be bad.

“Hey, I guess you didn’t get the word. The meeting’s off.”

Seeing me scowl, he said, “Hold on, now, it’s not my call. My bosses in D.C. told me to cease and desist. Even the guys you brought down left last night.”

“Fine. Got it. At least tell us what you found out from Guatemala.”

“Well, the guys in Guatemala couldn’t get to the Peten region for a couple of days. They were set to go when