Mike shot out a date a couple years after he’d left Operation Slam Dunk, hoping it would trigger some conversation. It did.
“I spent some time in that rat hole. Whole fucking country should be blown to hell.” Lawson shot-gunned the scotch, slammed the empty glass on the desk. “Lot of money to be made there, though, if a man knows how to get it.” He smiled, showing disgusting, pointy little yellow teeth. “I could tell you stories.”
Mike got a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach that he was about to do just that as he poured another two fingers. He was getting sloppy. The sonofabitch couldn’t hold his liquor. Must be the total lack of body fat. Or his ice-cold snake blood.
Lawson was quiet for a while, lost in the good old days, Mike thought sourly. Then he started telling war stories, bragging about his kills. He was slurring his words now.
Mike fought the urge to vomit and forced himself to bait him. “Country’s crawling with opium, right? Lot of profit there for a tight operation.”
“Hell. There was money to be made everywhere in that part of the world. I ran guns to Chechnya rebels, then turned around and supplied the Taliban. It was all a big fucking game.”
He leaned in, grinning confidentially. “There was this sting I ran once… a favor, let’s call it, for someone high up on the food chain. Someone who had a vested interest in the U.S. not getting a toehold in Helmand Province.”
This was it. OSD had gone down in Helmand Province. The “someone high up on the food chain” had to be Lawson’s big boss.
“Because of the opium trade?” Mike asked, hoping to lead him into more details.
“No shit. This certain Spec Ops unit was mucking things up for my—let’s call him a business partner.”
Business partner? Oh hell, let’s call a spade a spade. He was a ruthless motherfucking murderer.
“How so?” Mike asked in a strangled voice. Lawson was too wasted to notice Mike’s tension.
“They were putting the screws to the local warlords who were the main supply source for our lucrative little opium trade. We needed them gone—but it had to look like someone screwed up.”
Mike swallowed back bile. “That had to be a neat trick.”
“Just called for a little creativity. Ended up a real bloodbath. Wasted a bunch of locals to lure the team in, then took most of them out. Made it look like a goatfuck.”
When Lawson chuckled, it was all Mike could do to keep from killing him with his bare hands.
“See, I worked it so the whole deal got pinned on some schmuck—a hotshot chopper pilot.”
“Nice.” Mike felt his eyes glazing over.
“Killed two birds with one big stone. Got the unit out of the area by killing most of them off, and put a lid on anyone who lived to talk about it.”
“So you actually took out a Spec Ops unit?” Apparently he sounded impressed because Lawson puffed out his chest.
“Damn straight. Showed that bunch of gung-ho, rah-rah, take-one-for-the-team patriots. Jerk-offs called themselves the One-Eyed Jacks.”
Mike saw red, then black, and literally had to force himself to breathe.
“And you know the really funny part? One of their own was on my payroll.”
The blind rage consuming him took a backseat to shock.
“Latino guy. Arrogant prick. Fancied himself a real lady-killer.”
“Joke was on him, though,” Lawson went on, seeming so lost in his fond memories, he’d forgotten Mike was even there. “Greased him on the spot. He burned up with the rest of his asshole buddies. Fitting end for a sellout, don’t you think?”
“Yeah. A fitting end,” Mike said grimly.
Eva was beside herself. It was almost midnight, and Mike still wasn’t back. To pass the time, she’d showered, braided her hair, and rebraided it. Paced. Paced some more. There was nothing else to do, and she was way too upset to sleep.
Had something happened to him? Had they found him out? Was he being held captive? Was he hurt?
Footsteps out front had her rushing to the door. Finally! Light-headed with relief, she swung the door open wide.
Mike barreled inside, almost knocking her over in the dark.
“Where have you been?”
He scowled down at her. “Shrew much?”
Worry shifted to anger in a heartbeat. “Uncalled for. I was worried. I thought something happened to you.”
He let out a long breath. “You’re right. I’m an ass. I’m sorry.”
She followed his lead and settled herself down. “I’m sorry, too. I didn’t mean to pounce on you.”
He hugged her against him, then let her go and walked over to the bed. He sank down on the edge and began unlacing his boots, his movements sharp and jerky. “It’s just… hell. I couldn’t get away. When the general decides he wants your company, you don’t decline because the little woman’s waiting.”
The hard edge in his voice undercut his attempted joke. A hard, dangerous edge. She took a good look at him, and saw more than fatigue and tension lining his face. He was beyond angry and trying to hold it in.
She sat down beside him. “Tell me what’s going on.”
For a long time he didn’t say anything, just kept working the laces. When he finally got them loose, he toed off the boots, picked them up as though to put them away, then slammed them back down.
Then he sat forward, shoulders hunched, elbows on his thighs, and stared at a spot on the floor.
Eva waited, understanding that whatever was working on him was taking much bigger bites out of his peace of mind than the issue that had been eating at her all day.
“Mike? Talk to me.”
Stocking feet still flat on the floor, he lay back on the bed and stacked his hands behind his head. “The asshole bragged about it, Eva,” he said finally. “He bragged about slaughtering my team.”
A sick feeling rolled through her stomach as he started talking and didn’t stop until he’d purged himself.
“He was so fucking proud of himself. It wasn’t about human lives. It was about the game. And the money. ‘Lot of money to be made over there back then,’ he said with this good-old-days look in his eyes. Opium trade. Gunrunning. Always someone on the take, right? Always someone who needed someone to do the dirty work for them. He was glad to be that man. Loves the irony of sticking it to Uncle.”
He stopped again, a sick look on his face. “He’s one brutal, sadistic bastard. Completely without a conscience. And I had to sit there and look awestruck, and encourage him to tell me more.”
His voice broke then and he dragged a hand over his face. And grew deadly silent. Silent and brooding, his big body literally vibrating with a rage that was tearing him apart.
“Arrogant, immoral, egotistical, murdering bastard,” he swore in a voice that was so softly menacing, it would have frightened her if she hadn’t known him so well.
And she did know him, she realized as she encouraged him to lie lengthwise on the bed, then wrapped herself around his big, tense body. What she knew was that he had wanted to kill Lawson tonight. But he hadn’t. He’d sat there and taken it. Sat and listened as Lawson bragged to him about how he’d annihilated women and children as though they were lab rats, killed honorable men who had been as close to Mike as brothers.
One of those men had been her husband.
“His only regret,” Mike’s voice was weary as he lifted his arm and made a place for her next to him, “is that it’s harder to keep in the game these days.
“ ‘A smart man like you,’ I told him, pimping for more information, ‘I figure you can still find a way to keep on sticking it to ’em.’ ”
He was so smart, she thought. “I don’t imagine he was able to resist the opportunity to impress you even more.”
“Yeah—that would have been my bet, but he got quiet then. Maybe I pushed a little too hard, because all he said was, ‘You’re right. I am smarter than them. They’ll find out soon enough, too.’ Then his phone rang. Whatever it was, he stood abruptly and told me he was calling it a day. That was my cue to leave.
