“Our footprint and our influence are growing, yes. The current administration appreciates what we’re doing. It is our intent to make ourselves indispensable so that any subsequent administration would find it difficult to dislodge us.”
“Right. And you want me to come work for you?” He took another few gulps of beer.
“Not officially.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning…unofficially.”
“A contractor to the contractors.” Kincaid polished off the bottle of Corona as Scardino took his first sip. The former prisoner looked to Blanchard, and Blanchard reached for another beer. Kincaid said, “You guys do security projects for the U.S. government, as well as technical analysis, logistics, HR, et cetera, et cetera, for the U.S. intelligence community.”
“You got it.”
“And you traded me out of prison so I can do…what, exactly?”
“My company has access to classified data. This data we have sold to a client, and the client would like to use this data to further their political and strategic aims, geopolitically speaking, in the U.S.”
Kincaid accepted the beer from Blanchard with a curt nod, then wiped his face with his tattooed hand, and continued regarding Scardino as he did so. Finally, he said, “You’re stealing files, there are names on the files. Spies or informants or troublemakers of some sort, and somebody is paying you to what…toeliminatethose people?”
Scardino did not deny this. Kincaid was a killer for hire. It would be obvious that he was being hired to kill. “Something like that.”
“But you don’t want to use Gauntlet employees to assassinate people all over the world.”
Now Scardino put up a finger. “We don’t want to use Gauntlet employees to kill peoplein America. Overseas…we can, and we do these sorts of jobs ourselves.”
“Roger,” Kincaid said. “How does this work?”
“Simple. You will be given names of people you are to eliminate along with dossiers containing their addresses, any relevant training, their patterns of life. That sort of thing. You will then delete your targets. You have any problem with that?”
“Are you paying me?”
Scardino took another sip. “Of course. Your freedom, as well as a bonus of one million U.S. for every target eliminated.”
“Then no…I don’t have any problem with that. How many names on your list in total?”
Mike Scardino laughed a little. “That’s not for you to know. It’s a big list. You are one of several contract assets we will be using for this operation.”
“Send the other assets home. I’ll do them all.”
Scardino sighed now, and the aircraft began racing down the runway on its takeoff roll.
He said, “You’ll just take care of the names we give you.”
Scott Kincaid said, “What’s your plan? What’s your endgame? Who’s getting you guys to do this? Some rogue actors in America? Or is it Russia? China? Iran?”
“That information won’t be given to you, because you don’t need it.”
The former SEAL swigged his cold Corona. Said, “Just curious.”
“Well, be less curious, because you’ll never know. Just do the work. Don’t ask questions that aren’t of a tactical nature.”
As the Piper Meridian climbed into the sky, Scott Kincaid drank his beer and looked out the portal next to him as they flew over hot undeveloped scrubland.
To Scardino, Lancer said, “You’re the boss, boss. Where’s my first job?”
“Miami. We’re on our way there now. You will oversee a team of freelance specialists. You’ll have them do any legwork, surveillance work, computer work, whatever you need, butyouare the trigger puller.
“You’ll meet your team and hit your first target in a high-rise condo building in Aventura. When you’re done with Miami, you’re off to Chicago. A job at a hotel there. Trust me, these are easy targets, relative to some of the others on the list. I’ll give you a day for each of the first two, plus a day to set up and a day’s travel in between.”
