Dead Six

My face went blank. “You’ve got a forty-cal Sig in a strong-side, thumb-break cop holster that’s stuck behind your seat-belt buckle. You won’t get it out fast enough.”

Bob chuckled before turning back to the road, shaking his head slightly. “Well, I’ll be. You’re quiet. You’re used to people underestimating you, aren’t you? But you turn it on like a light switch when you feel threatened. That’s something else. But listen, I’m no friend of Gordon Willis. Trust me on this one. Let’s just say that keeping up on current events is a hobby of mine. You could go so far as to say that I’m a bit of a conspiracy theorist, or at least my bosses seem to think so. Dead Six was one tiny operation out of many, all of them secret, most of them illegal, and half of them pure evil, all run by men like Willis, and if you get in the way of their power, you die.”

“What do you know about Project Heartbreaker?”

“Officially? Nothing. Unofficially, an old friend of mine was the assistant ambassador in Zubara. We were on the same ODA. He knew that I was . . . obsessed, I think, was the word he used, about things like this. When things started to go bad there, he called me up, wondering if I could do some checking for him. I did, and found the stink of Willis and his people all over it. I’ve been doing research into him and the others like him for years. So I did some poking, through sources you wouldn’t understand and I wouldn’t tell you about anyway, and I learned about Dead Six. I told my friend, Jim Fiore, about what I’d found, and he was dead within forty-eight hours. I warned him not to talk, but he wouldn’t listen.”

“Why are you telling me this?” I asked.

“Because I want your help,” Bob answered. “Because I need your help. You know things. Come with me. There are plenty of us in the government, the real government, who would love to see these people stopped. We can protect you. You can help us put a stake through their heart once and for all. There are still ways to work through the system. If we shine the light of day on these cockroaches, they’ll scatter. If you come help me, we can . . .” Bob trailed off as I chuckled at him. “What is it?”

“You think I haven’t heard this line of bullshit before? Come sign up with us, serve your country, fight the bad guys, blah blah blah. It’s the same crap every time. Well, you know what? I’m done. I’m done signing up. I’m done joining the cause. I’m tired of being somebody else’s damned pawn.”

“It’s not like that.”

“Oh, the hell it’s not,” I said bitterly. “It’s always the same. I’m just an asset to you. I used to work for a PMC. I know all about being a commodity. At least Vanguard was honest about it and had a good benefits package. What are you offering me besides a bunch of rhetoric and empty promises?

Bob frowned. “I don’t think you understand the gravity of the situation. These people are destroying this country. What you’ve seen is just the tip of the iceberg. If we—”

I cut him off. “No, you don’t understand,” I said harshly. “I don’t care.”

We were stopped at an intersection, waiting for a light to turn green, which seemed to take an eternity. Bob gave me a hard stare. I could almost see the gears turning behind his eyes. His expression softened a bit. “What the hell happened to you, kid?”

I looked down at my lap and exhaled. “That’s a long story.”

“More importantly,” Bob continued, returning his attention to the road as we started moving again, “what are you going to do now? You can’t hide at your friend’s place forever. If certain people find out you’re alive, they’ll kill you and everyone you know. How long do you think you can stay on the run?”

“Who said anything about running?”

Bob shook his head. “The best defense is a good offense, huh?” he asked sardonically. “I’ve known a lot of guys like you. Most of them were Special Forces.”

“I was in the Air Force.”

Bob laughed, somewhat defusing the tension in the car. “You know it won’t work, right? I mean, you know that, don’t you? Majestic is too big to just take out. You can’t kill the beast by running in and shooting everybody. You have to be smart about it.”

“I’m not interested in killing the beast,” I said. “And there’s only one person I need to shoot.”

“You intend to kill Gordon Willis, don’t you?” Bob asked levelly. I didn’t answer. That in and of itself was answer enough, I suppose. Bob shook his head again. “It’s a suicide mission. Majestic won’t let you touch him, and even if you succeed, you’re a dead man.”

“See, there’s where you’re wrong,” I suggested. “You don’t know everything I know. I don’t think Majestic’s got Gordon’s back anymore.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Gordon’s gone off the reservation. Project Heartbreaker failed because of his dirty dealings.”

Bob seemed surprised by this. “What? How do you know this?” I didn’t answer him. He looked frustrated at my intransigence. “It doesn’t change anything. Killing him won’t change anything. Right now you think it’ll settle the score, right whatever wrong happened to you. Trust me, even if you succeed, it won’t change. You won’t get the satisfaction you want. They’ll kill you, and it’ll have all been for nothing.”

In my mind I saw Sarah falling to the mud like a puppet with the strings cut. Not for nothing, I thought.

We went through the drive-through of some all-night burger place. Bob ordered. I was distracted. What would happen if I killed Gordon? Would I even succeed? I knew where he lived. I knew everything about him. It was all on Hunter’s flash drive. But would I be able to find him? What if he went into hiding?

If those thoughts weren’t troubling enough, something else crossed my mind. Ling warned me about trying to exact revenge. She asked me if I thought that was what Sarah would have wanted me to do. I still didn’t have an answer that I liked.

“I’m asking you one last time. Don’t do it, kid. I don’t know what happened, what you lost out there, but I can see that pain inside of you. Don’t let the pain steer you.” Bob set the bags on the seat and started driving. “Don’t throw your life away for nothing.” I glanced over at him. He seemed sincere enough. Was it possible he was actually being straight with me?

I wasn’t used to that. “I’ll think on it,” I lied.

Bob started to speak again but had to stop to answer his phone. He listened for a minute, speaking occasionally, before hanging up. “Looks like there’s been a terrorist incident in my area of responsibility. They want me out there ASAP.”

I shook my head at the surrealism of it all as we pulled back into the motel parking lot.

Bob put the Suburban in park. “Will you at least think about what I said? Look. You’re right. I don’t know you. I’m not trying to help you out of pure altruism. But you helped save my brother’s life. Are you sure you want to go it alone?”

“No,” I replied honestly. “But it’s all I can do. Listen, there is something I can do to help you,” I said as I reached into my pocket. I retrieved Colonel Hunter’s blood-stained flash drive and handed it to Bob.

“What is this?” he asked. The white piece of plastic looked tiny in his huge hands.

“It’s everything,” I said. “Everything on Project Heartbreaker from start to finish. The planning, the logistics, the personnel and assets involved. Almost everything, anyway. We picked up a nuke in Yemen, too. No idea where that ended up.”

Bob’s eyes went wide. He looked at the diminutive piece of electronics as if it were a holy relic. “What? Where did you get this?”

“It was compiled by Colonel Curtis Hunter, the field commander of Dead Six. The last thing he did before dying was give this to me. I’ve gone over it. Hunter suspected Gordon’s activities for a long time and dug up as much as he could. There are still big pieces of the story missing. The stuff highlighted in green is my own notes. I filled in the gaps where I could, but there’s a lot I don’t know and a lot Hunter couldn’t find out. But the hit on your friend at the embassy is detailed on there, though I don’t think you’ll be able to pin it on anyone. A lot of the info has been sanitized.”

Bob couldn’t take his eyes off the flash drive. “Why are you giving this to me?”

“You can use it more than I can,” I said honestly. “It will help you. It has the complete files of all of the people recruited for Dead Six, from the time they were approached to the time they were killed or went missing. All are listed as KIA or MIA. Iedited my own file, changed it to a confirmed KIA.”