part0055

S avage narrowed his eyes and peered at the conference room across from the one where Anderson had situated himself. A group of women of all ages had gathered there, dressed in pantsuits and suit skirts, all with some variation of the office-approved haircut. The receptionist he’d thought was a little too loud had joined them too, he realized.

“Who are they?” he asked as the other man initiated the connection with their team in the Zoo.

“Them?” He looked up from his work. “Oh, they’re personal assistants for various members of the board. I’ve learned to ignore them the more time I’ve spent here.”

“Shouldn’t they have their own offices?” The operative leaned back in his seat and released his gaze from the somewhat daunting gaggle of womanhood. “I would think so. They need somewhere permanent to work.”

“They’re personal secretaries,” Anderson explained. “That means they travel around with their bosses, so there’s no need to maintain offices for them in our various locations. I don’t think so, anyway. I was dozing off when Courtney explained the process to me.”

“I’ll be sure to forget you ever said that, boss,” he said with a grin. “Right up until I need something from you, and then it works damn well as blackmail material.”

“Fuck you.” The other man grumbled under his breath but loudly enough for him to hear it and smirk cheekily in return.

“So, what am I doing here?” He moved to sit in one of the padded and definitely more comfortable office chairs surrounding the conference table, then spun it a little before he stopped the swing. “Your message said it was urgent but didn’t really say why. I was in the middle of…”

“Insert preppy sorority girl’s name here?” Anderson asked, raising an eyebrow at him.

“I have some standards,” Savage grumbled. “But basically, yeah. So you’d better have a good reason for dragging me away from Candi with an I.”

“Does my getting an official hit put out on me qualify as a good enough reason? Besides, the ones with an I at the end of their names are always the crazier ones.”

“Yeah, I do attract the crazy kind of woman, I’ve found.” He propped his feet on the conference table and folded his arms across his chest. “An actual hit on you? Do people actually do that? I thought it was something they only did in movies. Like…open? To anyone with a gun and a death wish?”

“It’s more complicated than that,” Anderson said and shrugged as if the explanation required too much effort. “But basically, yeah. If you’re rich enough and have the right connections out there, you can contact all kinds of people willing to kill for the right price.”

“Did Anja have something to do with finding out?” Savage asked.

“Well, we can ask her if this connection ever actually works.” The ex-colonel tapped the piece of tech that was apparently the problem with sharp irritation.

“You can tell him that hitting it won’t solve anything,” Anja said in Savage’s earpiece.

“Anja says that you should keep hitting it. That’ll do the trick.”

“What?” the Russian snapped indignantly.

“Really?” Anderson looked like a kid whose parents had let him raid a candy store. Or an Apple store, depending on their preferences.

Jeremiah was about to continue the charade when the link went online and opened a video channel between them and the Zoo team. At first, all they could see was a startlingly close-up shot of someone’s nostril.

“I really didn’t need to see that today,” he groaned and covered his eyes. “I just had Chinese.”

“Sal!” a voice hissed from the other side of the connection. “You’re standing too close to the camera.”

“Oh, right, sorry,” A younger man stepped away hastily to give them a view of a darker room with computer equipment in the background. The kid didn’t look old enough to be in a place like that, but if the cut under the tank top he wore was any indication, he certainly had the build for it. He looked tanned, too, although Savage couldn’t tell whether it was genetic or courtesy of the sunlight in the Sahara.

His gaze traveled over a few more people in the room. He recognized Dr. Monroe from their previous meetings, although she looked different with her blonde hair loose and wearing comfortable clothes instead of the suit he always saw her wear. A tall woman with short, dark hair and dog tags around her neck stood near a smaller, paler woman seated on an office chair.

“Savage, let me introduce you to our Zoo-based team,” Anderson said with a smile. “You already know Dr. Courtney Monroe, of course. This is Madigan Kennedy”—he pointed at the dog-tag woman—“and that’s Salinger Jacobs. They and Dr. Monroe are the founding members of our little group here. They have a company in the Zoo called Heavy Metal.”

Considering the suits they wore there, Savage could see the connection to the names. He nodded agreeably in response to each introduction.

“Oh, don’t forget about me,” the smaller woman said with a voice that was very familiar to him by this point.

“It’s nice to finally see the face behind the voice, Anja,” he said with a wide smile.

She grinned and spun in her chair in the background.

“Good to see you again, Mr. Savage,” Monroe said with a smile. “You’re looking well.”

“Right back at you, Doc. So, what’s this I hear about a hit put out on my boy Anderson?” He paused when the former colonel cleared his throat loudly. “I’m sorry—my man Anderson.”

“That’s not why I cleared my throat.”

“Well, how the hell am I supposed to know what you identify as?” Savage twisted in his seat to look at the man. “I’m not a mind reader.”

“Asshole.” Anderson chuckled and shook his head.

“Anyway,” Monroe said before either man could resume the banter. “How about we get down to the problem at hand? Anja’s sources were able to track a payment made into an account in Anderson’s name.”

“I assume these people aren’t paying into his 401(k), right?” He looked at his boss. “Do you get a 401(k)? Or do you guys get a share of the company situation.”

“I like this guy,” Jacobs said with a chuckle and nudged the woman introduced as Kennedy.

“No.” Anja cut into the conversation and pulled a couple of windows up on the screen. “They paid it into an international fund used by people looking for… Well, there isn’t a nice way to say it, I suppose. People willing to commit illegal acts for them. This way, the money can’t be traced in either direction and allows the payees to stay anonymous. The target name is usually the name put on the foundation segment—”

“Can’t we skip to the relevant part, please?” Monroe asked and turning to face Anja.

“No, wait, I think this is all very informative and relevant to the mission at hand,” Savage said. “Plus, I think we should all know more about how she has access to all this very illegal information. You should know, Anja, that Pegasus has a very strict no-felon hiring policy.”

“Is that why they never officially hired you?” the hacker asked with a sassy grin at the camera.

“I never did anything…overtly illegal. It’s simply that there’s a flurry of gang violence around these parts, and I happen to be involved in many of the situations. It’s not my fault, right?”

“Technically, neither did I,” Anja said with a grin. “I was merely surfing the net and happened to stumble upon the various members of unknown origin engaging in various illicit practices and immediately reported them to the proper authorities.”

“You’re my inspiration, Anja, I hope you know that.” He pretended to get choked up. “A true blue…Russian hero.”

“Focus, people,” Monroe snapped. She sounded like she wasn’t at all amused by the bantering. “Thank you. Anja, if you could continue?”

“Right. Anyway, the payment that was put into Anderson’s account is already in excess of half a million dollars. It’s effectively doubled over the past week or so. Considering the number of people who have applied for the work, it seems a lot of heat will come down on him over the next few weeks.”

“How much is a lot?” Savage’s voice took on a more serious note.

“Well, I can’t really say about the talent involved.” Anja turned back to her computer and tapped her keyboard quickly. “But there are many local cartels involved that delegate their work to hitters to keep them busy and make money when there isn’t anything for them to do in house. Honestly, I think we can calculate the numbers to be in the metric shit-ton region.”

“Huh.” The operative scowled. “Do you guys want me to run interference on these people?”

“No,” Monroe replied. “We have already identified the source of the hit—Charles Stafford. He’s a board member I butted heads with recently and appears to have been something of a Carlson loyalist. Anja will continue to track his movements and collect data we can use against him. In the meantime, the safe option—especially for Anderson—is for him to stay on the move with security with him, and to have another team with the family.”

“Okay.” He narrowed his eyes as he considered the possibilities. “What kind of staying on the move did you guys have in mind?”

“Thanks to a conversation we had with one of the facility leaders in the area, I was told about a couple of locations out in Nevada that work with Pegasus materials,” Anderson said.

“But—and this is my best guess—we don’t have any facilities out in Nevada.”

“Give the man a pot brownie,” his boss said with a chuckle. “I thought about sending our little team to investigate and try to get our stuff back if needed. But since I have to be on the move, and considering that Davis and Mixon have actually begun to establish a little chemistry with my family, I think they should probably stay to keep an eye on them and make that their full-time job.”

“Oh, they’ll love you for that,” Savage said with a grin.

“Wait, so the two of you will head out to investigate new facilities in Nevada?” Jacobs asked. He looked inordinately suspicious.

“Yeah, how do we know you two won’t head out there to investigate the slot machines?” Kennedy asked, her lips pursed disapprovingly.

“Everyone knows craps is my game,” Anderson said with a shrug.

“I like blackjack, although you can’t really call it a game, or even gambling really,” Anja said. “It’s all about the cards. Get them all right and you’ll make money hand over fist.”

“You know they throw card counters out, right?” Savage asked. “They don’t even break their knuckles anymore. Instead, they put them on a blacklist that keeps them out of any of the casinos in the state. I’ve heard they even share their lists with the casinos in Atlantic City.”

“Sure, that’s an issue if you’re stupid enough to go in there yourself.” The hacker snorted derisively. “For me, I hire someone and supply ocular transmission lenses for them to wear, get them in, make them about ten thousand dollars, and pay out on half of it.”

“Wait, how do you get them to pay your half if they’re the ones with the money?” Savage asked.

“I actually had a problem with that a little while ago,” she confessed. “I reminded the guy that cheating at cards is actually a felony in Nevada and I had a whole lot of evidence of him doing it hanging around unused in my hard drive that I could turn in to the nearest member of the Nevada State Police.”

“But it’s not illegal,” Savage replied. He remembered reading that somewhere. “If he was only card counting, he’d simply be banned.”

“Well, he didn’t know that.” She laughed a little smugly. “I had all his school records and could see that he had never interacted with any kind of law in any capacity, so it was a calculated risk on my part. As it turns out, I’m great at math.”

“Anyway,” Jacobs interjected. “Will you guys use this to hide out until the heat dies down, or will you actually investigate?”

“Well, they’ll be there anyway,” Kennedy replied. “Two competent former special forces should be able to handle it. You only have one Marine on your team, though.”

“Oh…shots fired.” Jacobs chuckled. “You got anything for that, Army?”

Savage shrugged, not sure what wordplay he could offer. He felt comfortable taking jabs from Anja and even Anderson and giving them back too, but Monroe, Kennedy, and Jacobs were all a step above. In simple terms, he wasn’t sure what kind of jabs he was allowed to throw their way.

“Well, I’m thankful I only have to carry one Marine around,” he replied by way of compromise.

“Well played,” Jacobs said. “Honestly, I don’t get to make any of the jokes myself.”

Savage narrowed his eyes and studied the other group quickly. From the way Kennedy chuckled and shook her head, he could tell there was at least some sort of mutual respect. Beyond that, though, something in the body language indicated something more intimate, which wasn’t as surprising as the way Monroe interacted with him. It wasn’t an in-your-face thing, more a light touch on the shoulder or a smile when he was talking that suggested…again, intimacy.

Was he…no. He couldn’t be. Well, the world was more progressive these days, and people were far less judgmental about the intricacies of modern relationships.

He was not one of those people. The truth was, he judged all he liked, especially since he was in a position to do so as much as he wanted since he made the same mistakes. He couldn’t comment, but he could judge all he liked.

“I do get to make fun of geologists, sociologists, and art majors,” Jacobs said, and Savage realized that the kid was still talking. “But I can’t really get into the inside jokes for the armed forces guys. I leave that to Madigan here.”

He punched her in the shoulder, and she smirked as she nudged him in return. The operative frowned but again, refrained from comment.

“Well, I think that settles the business on this end,” Monroe said. She seemed to have similar thoughts to Savage. “Do you think you can handle spreading the work with your team, Savage?”

He nodded in response. “I joke, but like Anderson here said, they do seem to have developed a working relationship with his family. I think they can protect them while Anderson and I check out the slot machines and make sure they’re all working.”

“You joke, but I don’t want to cite all the laws that prohibit that kind of behavior, Savage.” The woman only vaguely sounded like she was joking.

“Understood, ma’am.” He nodded briskly and pushed up from his seat. “We’ll make sure the fraud is covered up as neatly as possible and give you all the plausible deniability that you need.”

He grinned and she rolled her eyes as Anja killed the connection. Anderson looked at him with a trace of respect in his gaze.

“Even I don’t feel safe taunting her like that,” the ex-colonel said with a chuckle as he gathered the papers he had on the table. “You do know she was able to put a full team of assassins in the ground on her own, right?”

“On her own turf, sure.” Savage cackled. “Give a five-year-old time to prepare and they’ll Home Alone that shit like there’s no tomorrow. What do you think a full-on veteran of the Zoo can do?”

“So you’re saying she doesn’t intimidate you?” Anderson asked. He frowned into the other room, where the secretaries remained and seemed to be working. It was still business hours, so it wasn’t actually surprising, but he really wished they might go and take a late lunch and give them the floor to themselves.

“I’m not saying I wouldn’t watch my back around her,” Jeremiah said as he followed him out into the common hallway. “And I’d definitely put serious planning into trying to get a hit on her. But it’s my job to make sure to know how to kill anyone I’m around. That’s how my mind works.”

“How would you kill me?” his boss asked. “Out of pure curiosity, of course.”

The operative looked pensive for a second. “Hypothetically? I’d probably try something from a distance if I were running the operation and had something like, say, Mixon on hand to take care of it. If it were only me and I had to work with anything I could get my hands on, I’d probably choose piano wire and wait for you in the back of your car. Somewhere nice and quiet, where I’d be able to bug out before anyone noticed what happened.”

“Respect.” Anderson smirked. “You don’t think you have a chance against me toe to toe?”

“I wouldn’t risk it if I didn’t have to,” Savage replied. “But that’s simply prudent. The idea isn’t to prove yourself. It’s to get in and out alive. You know this.”

“Yeah, but it’s been a while,” he admitted.

“Don’t worry.” They approached the reception desk and he noted that the girl behind it stared at him with more intensity than he was comfortable with.

“Hi, Marie.” Anderson greeted her with a smile. “Could you email me some requisition forms? I need to run some supervision out of state.”

“Will do, Mr. Anderson,” she said and ducked quickly to retrieve a sheaf of papers from under the desk. “Will you work with Mr. Savage?”

The operative tilted his head and regarded her with a speculative look while he wondered if he’d ever introduced himself to her. His memory said he hadn’t, but he might have forgotten it if he’d done so in the early days when everything had still seemed so new and unsettling. Anderson had also introduced him to a couple of people, he recalled vaguely, so perhaps she’d been one of them.

“He’ll help me with some security supervision, yes. Thanks for reminding me, since I’ll need to fill some paperwork out for him too. Do you feel like helping me, Savage?”

He shook his head and chuckled. “Hell no. The reason why I insist that I remain your external contractor is precisely so I don’t need to fill forms out like that. So, is this a road trip we’re planning? Should I stock up on energy drinks and beef jerky?”

“Please.” Anderson smirked. “You contract for a Fortune Five-hundred company, Savage. Around here, we like to travel in style.”

“Well, I appreciate the heads up, Richie Rich. Message me about where to meet you.”

“Will do.” His boss had already begun to sift through the documents he’d been given.

Savage nodded and tipped an imaginary hat at the young receptionist, who still stared at him in an oddly unnerving way. “I’ll see you later…Marie, right?”

“That’s right, Mr. Savage,” she said. A flush touched her pale skin. “You have a nice day now.”

“Will do.” He turned and wandered over to the elevator. People were weird around there. Corporate America was such an odd place to live in. Give him the social dynamics of an army barracks any day.