Lance Palmer considered himself one of the good guys. As a kid he’d been Luke Skywalker, battling the forces of evil with a plastic light saber. He’d charged into imaginary jungles as a war-painted Rambo, rescuing anyone who needed it and killing as many gooks as he could. Later he’d been a star running back on his high school’s football team in Lawton, Oklahoma, and joined the ROTC at Oklahoma State. He’d signed up with the Army right after graduation.
Lance loved the Army. He’d made it into the Rangers, then Special Forces. He’d spent thirteen years doing the kind of things he’d dreamed of doing as a kid, fighting America’s enemies from Nicaragua to Afghanistan and advising U.S. allies on how to handle dissidents and other lowlifes.
But as much as he loved the Army and the action, Lance had eventually grown discontented with the money. The Army provided its officers with a comfortable, middle-class lifestyle, but he wanted more. He wanted a Beamer and a stock portfolio, while his wife Jess hungered for a beach house in Florida and skiing vacations with the kids in Aspen. Luxuries beyond the reach of an Army major.
But luckily for him, modern American warfare was changing. More and more, the United States was coming to rely on what they called private security firms—no one ever used the word “mercenaries,” which was of course what they were. Some of the outfits the United States and Britain were sending to Iraq were full of crazy cowboys who’d as soon shoot a rag-head as look at him. But Global Tactical Solutions was a professional organization. Yeah, they signed up some South Africans, but they drew the line at hiring the Pinochet-trained Chileans that some of the other firms were sending into Iraq.
After just one year at GTS, Lance had been appointed head of their Special Operations. He was a troubleshooter, the guy who handled their sticky stuff. Basically, he was doing exactly the same kinds of things he’d done as a major in the Army, only now he was getting paid a whole lot better.
“Hey, look at this,” said Hadley. He was in the backseat, flipping through the stream of information coming in over their laptop as the Suburban headed toward the river. “Our girl was in the Navy. She’s even an Iraq War vet.” He let out a low whistle. “We’re talking psycho discharge.”
Lance twisted around in the seat. “Let me see that.”
He’d handpicked the two men working most closely with him on this assignment. They made a complimentary pair: a former Navy SEAL, Michael Hadley was an expert on everything from computers and electronics to explosives, while Sal Lopez, an ex–Green Beret, was always handy to have around to do any necessary heavy lifting.
As Lance took the laptop from Hadley, Lopez turned down a narrow street crowded on both sides with lines of parked cars. He slapped the steering wheel with the flattened palm of his hand in frustration. “What the hell is going on around here?”
Looking up, Lance nodded toward the empty shell driveway of a darkened two-story on the corner of Patton and Nashville. “Just pull in there.”
Lopez rolled the Suburban to a stop and killed the engine.
They were parked across the street from October Guinness’s house. Lance had spent enough time in New Orleans to recognize the style. Shotgun doubles, they called them. A kind of duplex built without halls, each side of the house had one room opening right behind the other so that if you fired a shotgun in the front door, the blast could pass out the backdoor without hitting anything. Or so Lance had heard.
“Doesn’t look like she’s home yet,” said Lopez. Both sides of the double lay dark and silent, the ornately turned wooden balustrades and colonnettes of the front gallery in deep shadow. “What’s she do now that she’s out of the Navy?”
Lance scrolled through the information. “She’s a student. Tulane. Twenty-four. Single.” They had photos from her passport, her driver’s license, her old military ID. Not a bad looking woman, if you liked the type. Dark blond hair. Brown eyes. A square chin. He flipped through her Navy records and grunted. “Almost failed her PT twice. Can’t run. Can’t shoot. She was only in for two years.”
“And the psycho discharge?” said Lopez.
“Post-traumatic stress syndrome. Iraq. Looks like something weird happened out in the desert when she was wounded.” Lance glanced through her medical report, catching key phrases: “reported seeing visions…suffers from hallucinations…poor grasp of reality.” He wanted to laugh. From the sound of things, the girl had reacted badly to a spontaneous viewing experience. The Navy, in its infinite wisdom, decided she was crazy and kicked her out.
“This is good,” said Lance. “We’ll set the death up to look like a suicide.”
Lopez smiled. “She sounds easy.”
Lance grunted. He had no qualms about what he was about to do, just as he had no regrets about what he had already done tonight. The girl had seen enough to be dangerous if she—or someone else—put it all together and started asking questions. Collateral damage, that’s what the military called civilian deaths. There was always collateral damage in a war. Regrettable, but necessary.
And they were at war. The President was always telling them that. Lance was simply doing what needed to be done to protect his country. He was fighting for freedom and democracy and to make the world a better place. Henry Youngblood and October Guinness had become threats not just to the security of this country but to the future of the world. They had to be eliminated. Quickly.
With the air conditioner off, the interior of the Suburban was already heating up. Lance slid down the window, his trained gaze studying the neighborhood.
The shotgun double had a small side yard, dark now beneath the heavy shadows of the spreading oaks that lined the street. Beyond that stood an old corner grocery store that someone had turned into a combination nursery and florist shop. Two other houses faced the small, narrow street on this block, both shotgun doubles with camel-back second floors. Only the house on the corner showed any lights.
“Who lives in the other half of our girl’s double?” he asked.
“A guy by the name of King,” said Hadley, back on the computer. “Ambrose King. A musician. Works at some club down in the Quarter.”
“Which means he won’t be home anytime soon.” Lance opened the door. “Hadley, you stay here. Lopez, come with me. Let’s take a look around before our girl gets home.”
Silencing her was going to be a cakewalk, Lance thought as they crossed the darkening street. They just needed to make sure all knowledge of the results of her little session with Youngblood would die with her.