Madison grimaces. “Poor Todd. He’s a world-class tool, but he doesn’t deserve todie.”
“Yes, ‘taking care of him’ is probably not a good euphemism in this case,” Iagree.
She gives it a moment of contemplative silence, then moves to the heart of the matter. “So Fred is in on this, but he’s answering to someone,” she assumes.
“Do you think they’re just using SmarTech’s data?” I wonder.
“What’s the alternative?” she asks. “SmarTechis controlling a hitman website? Why would a security company be ordering hits on people? It still doesn’t make complete sense to me… Although... I mean, the resources required to run the hitman forum are massive—even just from a power consumption standpoint.”
“True.”
“It’s gotta be SmarTech. And from the sounds of it, it’s multiple people there.”
I feel the certainty settle in my gut, and I know she’s right.
That means we have the confirmation we need to start planning our next move. “Who does Fred answer to? You and I can start there. And we can get Mac and Dimitri started on surveillance—learning Fred’s routine. If we can get our hands on him, I’m sure we can get him to tell us what we still need to know. Like how they’re running the program and where they’re keeping it.”
“And the why. That’s what I still want to know,” Madison adds. She thinks for a moment, then shakes her head and stretches, leaning so far over the back of her chair that I hear her spine crack. “Let’s take a break—we’ve been at this for hours. I think I smell lunch and I’m kind of starving.”
“Chock-full of good ideas,” I say, smiling.
“Now he gets it.” She winks, stands, and holds out her hand to me.
Hand in hand, we head out to the kitchen and find the four others together, sitting around the glass table in the kitchen, chatting and eating some sort of casserole I can see on the stove. All of them turn to look at us as we enter the room.
Mac grins, arm slung over Eleanor, lounging. “Wes! Mads! Sit. We were just talking about how the 3 Musketeers got together.”
Eleanor pipes in, “Yeah, I realized I’ve never heard the story.”
Nicole nods, taking a hearty bite of her salad. “Me either. I bet it’s really interesting—three hitmen, from such diverse backgrounds.”
“Color me intrigued as well,” Madison agrees, loading up a plate and joining the group. I follow her lead, taking the seat next to her.
Mac rubs his palms together. “Right, so. How far back you want me to go?”
Eleanor shrugs, picking at her steaming pile of veg.
He grins. “Okie doke. I was born on a stormy April night at 10 pounds, two ounces—”
“Feel free to skip forward some,” Eleanor interjects.
“10 pounds?” Nicole repeats, wincing. “You owe your mom an apology.”
“That’s what she says!” Mac replies, grinning. “Okay… skipping forward… Well, I was a Special Forces sniper for eight years, and when I got out, I hopped from job to job. Lots of guys end up in private security details, but you have to put some time in before any of the good companies will look at you. I was bouncing at a club when this guy,” he claps me on the shoulder, “showed up. Offered me something way better. Better pay, better hours, better life. All I had to do was what I was best at—shoot the bad guys. What was I gonna do, say no?”
He grins at me, and you’d have to know the whole story to even detect the brief tightening around the corners of his eyes.
Because I know the whole story, I see it. I smile back like I don’t.
“It was similar for me. Wesley came to me,” Dimitri says, shoveling a giant forkful of plain chicken into his mouth.
“I know you’re not a storyteller, but you can do better than that,” Eleanor teases.
Dimitri chews, swallows, and narrows his eyes at me. I’m not sure if he’s trying to remember, or if he’s deciding how much to tell. “I had to flee Russia for… reasons I can neither confirm nor deny,” he says, throwing Madison a look that makes her grin. I’ll have to ask about that inside joke between them later. “When I got here, I was still on the run. My contact who helped bring me into the country was caught and sent to prison before he could provide the documentation I needed to start over. I had nothing except a name I could not use and the wrong sort of men after me.
“There is not much you can do in America without the proper paperwork, but I found odd jobs. I was on one such job when I received a curious note under the door of my motel room.”
I smile at the memory. I saw Dimitri’s stats in the file I found in the Russian prison database, but panicked a bit when I came face to face with the real thing. There’s a world of difference between reading 6’8” and seeing it up close. Frankly,I was concerned my offer wouldn’t be enough for him, and he’d wring my neck with his bare hands.
