The First End (7 page)

The ex-marine raised an eyebrow, impressed
despite himself. “How many of them are reliable?”

Spreading his hands in a gesture of ignorance,
Frank leaned back. “I know this is dangerous, Bill. I’m willing to
pay you half a million dollars to do this.”

Every muscle in Gardner’s body froze. “Half a
million?”

“Yes. This is important. Very important.”

“Expenses too?”

“Yes, yes. Expenses too.”

Bill sat perfectly still. The rage inside of him
threatened to boil over. The man had the audacity to think that
Bill could be bought off with money! What Frank had done bordered
on treason, and now he was trying to cover his own rear end, and
wanting to put Bill at risk to do it!

No way!

The ex-marine exploded into action. He came out
of his seat in a rush, vaulted the desk and planted both feet
squarely into Wastend’s CEO’s chest. With a strangled cry, part
pain, part surprise, the man flew backwards, his chair going along
for the ride. Body and chair crashed heavily into the back wall,
shaking at least two pictures loose to come crashing down around
the startled man.

Following close behind, the lawyer grabbed the
older man’s wrist, twisted, and then pulled sharply, yanking Frank
right out of the chair and to his knees before the enraged
ex-marine.

“Who’s your contact at the Pentagon?” Bill
yelled.

Frank, his face contorted in a painful grimace,
cussed at Bill. The lawyer put more pressure on the wrist hold, and
the older man cried out in pain. From his labored breathing, Bill
guessed his kick had knocked all the wind, but not all the fight
out of the old fool.

“I want that name or so help me, I’ll break your
arm. If that doesn’t get me the information, I’ll just keep
breaking things until you tell me.”

“Let go of me, you little prig!”

“Wrong answer.” Bill twisted sharply, and
something gave with a sharp snap.

Howling in pain, Vellore writhed along the oak
floor. Bill reached over and grabbed the man’s other wrist. “Who is
your contact at the Pentagon?” he demanded again. “And don’t lie. I
will know.”

“General Hynes!”

Bill knew Hynes from his days in the military.
They had occasionally crossed paths when he had been deployed on
special assignment. Once in particular during Operation Coffee—a
reference to Columbian coffee, or more specifically Columbian drug
cartels—Hynes had personally taken the field with Bill to oversee a
raid deep in the jungles.

With little regard for the man’s pain, Gardner
dragged the CEO over to his desk, just as someone started to pound
on the door, demanding entrance. Bill stooped down to look under
the desk, and sure enough found a holstered pistol strapped to the
underside of the desk, the barrel pointing to who ever sat in the
desk across from Vellore.

“You’re a real piece of work, you know that?”
Bill muttered. He pulled the gun out, a .357 mag, checked to make
sure it was loaded and raised it towards the door just as it burst
open and three armed men spilled in.

“Stop!” he snapped, using his best military
voice. “If you don’t want your employer to get hurt, put your guns
down.”

All three hesitated, two of them glancing
towards a short man wearing dark fatigues. The man’s face looked
like it had gone through a meat grinder, and Bill could only guess
at the dark tale that lay behind it. He had no time to ponder such
questions. He hauled Vellore up and rammed the barrel of the pistol
into the man’s temple.

“Drop your weapons,” he ordered again. Scar-face
nodded and all three let their weapons fall to the elegant carpet
that had been spread over the rich wood floor. “Good.” He pointed
to scar-face. “You can stay. Tell your thugs to leave.” Scar-face
nodded again, and his two underlings backed up until they were
outside the office. “Good. Now close the door.”

“What do you want?” scar-face demanded after the
door had shut.

“Are you head of security?”

“Yes. Roy Newman.”

“Very good. What I want, Roy Newman, head of
security, is for your boss here to make a phone call to the
Pentagon. Once he does that and I get to talk to someone there, I
will leave.”

Newman glanced at his employer. “What did you do
to him?”

“Broke his wrist. He has proven to
be…uncooperative, and he needed a bit of motivation.”

A slight smile played briefly across the
security chief’s face. If Vellore had noticed it, he would most
likely have broken the man’s legs before the day was out. He
probably would anyway, but Bill found it comforting to know that
there was little love lost between the CEO and his security
chief.

“What now?” Roy asked.

“You can have a seat there.” Bill pointed to a
chair off to one side. “Oh, are you wired?” The man nodded curtly.
“Then toss it. I don’t want you communicating with your men until
after I leave.”

“What makes you think you’ll leave here?”

Smiling, Bill shook Vellore, who groaned in
pain. “I have a free ticket.” After the security chief discarded
his communication system, Bill turned his attention back to the
CEO. “Okay, Frank. You have a call to make. I don’t want any
excuses either. Don’t let them give you the runaround. Tell them it
is an emergency, invoke whatever clearance you have, pull any
strings you need, make any threats you have to, but get General
Hynes on the phone.” He paused and made sure that Vellore could see
his smile. “Or we go back to breaking things.”

If anything, Frank’s face turned even paler. He
nodded, most of the fight knocked out of him.

“Excellent.”

Ten minutes later, a voice came over the speaker
of the phone. “What is so important, Vellore? I was pulled out of a
staff meeting.”

“General,” Bill said. “You may remember me. I’m
Captain Bill Gardner. I was attached to a special op under your
command back in 2006.”

“Captain Gardner? What the blazes are you doing?
I was told that Frank Vellore needed to speak with me on a matter
of national security.”

“That is more or less true, sir.”

“Well?”

Bill shook Vellore who groaned. “Tell the man,”
he ordered.

Slowly, and with great reluctance, the CEO
repeated his story. When he finished, the line was silent for a
long time. Finally, the general’s voice came through the speaker.
“Gardner, get your butt over to the Pentagon, now. We need to talk.
As for you, Frank, this action of yours boarders on treason. I’ll
make it my personal mission in life to take you down.”

“General, don’t be so hasty,” Bill warned. “You
could use him still.”

“How?”

“Let him foot the bill for this. Whoever you
send over there needs a legitimate excuse. Vellore can provide that
excuse. He has already started the process of trying to cover his
tracks. Let him proceed…or rather proceed under his name and
company. This should provide you with some cover for the operation.
The wily fox is right about one thing. If the other intelligence
services get wind of what is happening, it will turn into a turkey
shoot over there.”

“Fine. I’ll consider it. I still want you here,
Gardner.”

“I’m not in the service anymore, sir.”

“You are now. I’ve just reactivated you.”

“You can’t do that!”

“I just did, Captain. Listen! You have benefited
from the military. You used our program
Vol Ed
. You’re
education as a lawyer was paid for by us. Now it's your turn to
give back to those who have made you what you are now. Get over
here! That is an order.”

His enthusiasm for this entire situation
diminishing rapidly, he muttered, “Yes sir.” He glanced at Newman.
“Sir?”

“What?” The general sounded impatient now.

“Getting out may be problematic. I sort of
created a bit of a mess here and the security chief here would like
nothing more than to teach me the folly of such behavior.”

The chief smiled at that.

“If you are not in my office in six hours,
Gardner, I will personally turn the national guard loose on Mr.
Vellore’s house. I’ll arrest everyone there for treason. Will that
help?”

Bill glanced inquiringly at Newman. The man
nodded. “Yep, that will do.”

“Okay, sir. Looks good on my end.”

“Get over here then!”

The line went dead.

Standing back up, the security chief nodded to
the door. “You best be going. I don’t want to get arrested because
you got stuck in traffic somewhere.”

Bill grinned. “That would be a bit of bad luck
for you, wouldn’t it.”

The man snorted in reply.

“You really want me to do this?” Bill asked,
dumfounded.

“Yes, you gonna do it, Gardner!”

“Forget it. It’s too risky.”

Hynes nodded. “You’re the one who sold me on
it.”

“What? How?”

The conference room was filled with aides and
other strategic planners, even a few intelligence types conferred
together softly at the end of the large cherry wood table. The
General leaned forward, pressing his knuckles hard against the
tabletop. “This has to be a covert operation. You are a lawyer, not
a soldier—”

“You just—” Bill tried to protest.

“Don’t interrupt me, soldier!”

Bill clamped his mouth shut, but he idly
wondered if anyone else in the room noticed the obvious
contradiction. From the looks of them, they didn’t care either
way.

“Captain, the Somalis and anyone else looking
into your visit there will think that you still work for Wastend on
some project. I don’t care what. I’ve taken your advice and we will
be using Frank and his company as cover. You will be there to find
out if we’ve been compromised. Sec-Def has already signed off on
this, so no more arguments.”

“Yes, sir!”

“Good. What I want you to do is determine if any
of the sensitive components have been compromised. If they have, I
want you to retrieve them.” Haynes drummed his fingers on the
table, his shock of grey hair seemed longer than regulations
allowed, but generals often got away with things like that. “Will
you do it?”

Gardner blinked in surprise. “I wasn’t under the
impression that I had a choice, sir.”

“Of course you do. I just needed you to
understand the gravity of the situation before I gave you that
choice. You’ll be compensated of course.”

Bill sat back in his chair, thinking. The money
was irrelevant, and at best, the entire mission would take about
two to three weeks—assuming he didn’t get killed or kidnapped.
Then, of course, there was the whole national security issue.
Whatever else Bill was, he was a patriot. He had spent nine years
in the marines, risen to the rank of captain, and even served a
term with JAG while he acquired his law degree. No, he couldn’t sit
idly by and allow a threat to his nation to go un-addressed. The
general had him pegged.

“Okay. I’ll do it.”

“Good. You’ll go in as Vellore had planned. The
Transitional Government there must not know that this is now a
military operation. We do not want to give them any hint that we
are open to negotiation—not until they crack down on the piracy
problem. That comes from the top. If you are at risk, you will be
on your own.”

“I understand, sir. Do you think that the
government there will actually provide an escort?”

“Yes. We’ve been able to verify that. The
problem you will face is their reliability. There is no way to know
where their loyalties really lie. At the first sign of trouble,
they may turn on you to save their own skins.”

“That’s a comforting thought.”

Hynes grinned. “It will be just like in
Columbia.”

Steel groaned. “I hope not. Both of us got shot
on that one.”

Rubbing his side where he had been shot those
years ago, the general grimaced. “Don’t I know it.” Rising to his
feet, Hynes stuck out his hand. “I knew you would go. I have
commandeered Frank’s private jet. It is fuelled and ready to leave
JFK airport as soon as you can get there.” He paused. “Oh, one more
thing. I’ve engaged the services of a forensic pathologist to
travel with you.”

Bill stopped just short of shaking hands with
the man. “What for?”

“My contacts there have reported some unusual
murders that have taken place in Merca, during the last few
days.”

“Merca?”

“That’s the closest city to where the cargo ship
almost ran aground. Street kids, mostly kids who live in the city’s
huge landfill have turned up dead, their bodies mutilated and
burned.”

“You think there is a connection?”

“There might be, my friend. When there is an
unusual amount of attention focused on trash, yes, I’m curious.”
Haynes came around the table and started walking towards the door.
“Her name is Lieutenant Lorna LaCruz. She has been working for me
on and off on special assignments for some time.”

The ex-marine nodded. “Whatever you think is
best.”

“Good. I’m glad we can agree.”

Bill followed the general out, wondering if
there would be any more surprises along the way. “They always
messing up with me! No letup,” he muttered.

Two days later, Bill ordered his men to spread
out around the landfill that dominated Merca’s poorer section of
town. Idly, Bill wondered if any one section of the old city could
be called anything but poor. In an effort to blend in, Bill and
Lorna had dressed in clothing that were little more than rags, and
no one carried anything that even looked remotely valuable—though
all twelve of the Somalis tasked as his escort sported automatic
weapons. And travelling with a convoy of three military type jeeps
certainly didn’t do much to lower their profile.

“This city was once prosperous,” remarked
Lorna.

“True,” responded Bill. “Merca was a great city
once, established in the fifth century, I think. The first settlers
controlled the region as a trading center and Merca grew into a
prominent administrative center in the Ajuraan Empire.”