I wasn’t sure what they wanted, but I was trying to be nice to my Army buddy’s brother. When he was sharing at Walter Reed, he’d had no problem telling a room full of strangers about what I assumed was the darkest time in his life. The least I could do was let them pet some horses.
We went to the barn entrance, and they followed me inside. I went to the bucket where we kept the apples from the neighbor’s orchard and pulled four out, pointing to one of the stalls. “This is Trixie. She’s a sweet old gal. She’ll be nineteen in October.”
Max took the apple I offered and walked closer to the stall. “We blonds have more fun, don’t we, sweetie? Aren’t you aged like fine wine?” He held his palm flat and let Trixie take the apple while he straightened her forelock and stroked her nose.
Lawry leaned close to me. “Max grew up in Louisiana. I’m sure he ran across horses along the way. Anyway, I work for a company in New York, Golden Elite Associates-America. We provide security of many kinds for our clients, and we help—”
The husband laughed. “They’re overgrown frat boys who want to save the world. They go after people threatening their clients, and they make them wish they’d never been born.” Max stepped closer and took the apples from me as he walked down the barn alley to the next stall.
“That’s Orion. He’s a client’s gelding,” I said as I processed what had been said.
“Hello, Mr. Orion. I’m sorry someone cut off your balls,” Max said as he petted the bay horse and offered it the apple.
“Anyway, I talked to my brother, and he told me what you used to do in the Army. We have a delicate situation on our hands, and we could use some help. Hank thought maybe you would be great for our purposes, under the circumstances.
“He said you were quite proficient with firearms and have incredible threat assessment and tracking skills. He spoke to someone who said you were trying to save a dog that hadwandered into your patrol unit, and it crossed the DMZ. You went into North Korea to get it and stepped on a defective landmine, where you lost your left foot. You’ve been using a prosthetic for three years now, so you’ve adapted to getting around without difficulties. After witnessing your gait, I’d say you’d have no problem looking out for a man whose life might be in danger, correct?”
I was stunned. “How do you know any of that? It’s all classified information. Hell, I can’t even talk about it.”
I glanced down the barn alley to see his husband petting Libby, an appaloosa mare I was boarding for a woman who was in the UK for a show with her other horse.
“Can I go out there and pet the little horse? Can I give it this?” I turned toward his husband, who had an apple in his hand.
“Oh, uh, I’m afraid not. He’s not weaned yet, so he wouldn’t know what to do with it. His momma’s out there, and you can feed it to her, but don’t get into the pen with them. She’s a little finicky about anybody being around her foal. He’s only three months old, and he’ll nurse for a couple more months.”
Max nodded and walked out of the barn, and I turned to Lawry.
“Where’d you get that information about me losing my foot?” I was about to get upset thinking that the damn government was gonna sell me out for being stupid when I tried to rescue the dog. Thankfully, my fellow soldiers told me the dog ran off and didn’t get hurt. I didn’t ask any more questions, preferring to believe the probable lie.
“In my previous life, I worked for theCompany. The CIA. I can find out most anything I want to know, but one of my brother’s best friends works in Army Intelligence, and Hank asked him to check your file for anything that could be a red flag: PTSD, anger issues, shit like that. We already know you’re in recoverybecause you were in that meeting where I spoke. How steady are you with handling your addiction?”
I felt as if I were being recruited for some dark ops bullshit, which wasn’t going to fly with me. I got out of that line of work, and I wasn’t going back.
“Look, I don’t know who gave you classified information, but I’m not interested in going back to work for the US government. I don’t know anyone I served with who doesn’t suffer from some level of PTSD since they left, so I obviously don’t qualify for your... whatever.
“At the moment, I’m not too happy about how the government is treating certain groups of folks, and I can’t see myself wanting to aid anyone in doing more harm to good folks who already have a hell of a road. I’m surprised you’d want to do that against your own community.”
I was really getting riled up, which was sort of unusual for me, but then Lawry laughed. “That’s all good to know. I can promise this has nothing to do with the government. Well, I shouldn’t say that. Our client is a lobbyist for LGBTQIA+ rights and issues, and it’s speculated that the threat is coming from a hate group, though he’s not sure which one. Someone took a drastic step on Friday evening, raising the threat level toRound House. He needs protection, and right now, our guys are overextended. Since you live in the area, we were hoping we could recruit you for a contract job.”
“I, uh... Protection? Like keeping him safe from whoever is after him? I’ve got a barn full of horses and an older mom who can’t take care of any of it. I have nobody to take over for me.” That was no fucking lie.
“You don’t know anyone you could hire to step in for you for a couple of weeks? We’re not planning for it to take even that long. All we need is for you to keep him safe while we work behind the scenes to find out who wants him dead. We’ve got him stashedin a hotel for now, but that won’t work long-term. He’s got a lot of meetings scheduled before Congress breaks for the Fourth of July holiday. The summer recess is in August, so there’s not a lot of time to get things done.”
My Army disability paid the bills, along with Mom’s social security, but there were two mortgages on the house and property that were hard to keep up with, and then there were the taxes. I’d paid two years of delinquent taxes before they were going to sell the place on the courthouse steps, but the previous year’s taxes would be due at the end of September. Some additional money would come in handy.
“How much? If I gotta pay someone to come take care of the livestock, I’ll need more information and a hell of a check to make it worth my while.” Better to be honest up front. If they weren’t willing to pay me enough to keep their client safe, it would be best for us not to waste each other’s time.
Lawry picked up his phone, punched some numbers into the calculator app and handed it to me. “How’s that?”
My eyes bugged out. “What? No. No, that’s too much!” Six figures?
Lawry laughed. “Wait until you meet Sean Fitzpatrick before you decide it’s too much.”
A hundred and fifty grand would take care of back taxes and the second mortgage Dad had taken out to fix the barn to be able to board horses. How the hell could I turn him down?
“Okay, Lawry. I’ll give it a go.”
I could do what he’d asked without much thought, but the issue was that I needed to know exactly what he was asking of me. Threat levelRound Housemeant things were damn serious. I’d done a lot of shit in the Army I wasn’t proud of, so if I had to sell my soul to the devil again, I wanted more details.
