Thrill Ride (Black Knights Inc. #4)(74)
“What happened to him?” Becky asked.
Rock shrugged. “Don’t know. I turned in my interrogation tape. Time passed. Then I heard scuttlebutt that local PD were investigating him on charges of kidnappin’ and child molestation.”
“Says here,” Boss pointed at the dossier, “that he got drunk, fell overboard on his fan boat, and found himself in the path of an alligator.”
“Yeah,” Rock mused. “And even though I was pissed at the time because he hadn’t been brought to trial before he died, I satisfied myself with the knowledge his death was appropriate.”
“How so?” Becky asked.
“The man was cold-blooded, after all.” Although in hindsight, maybe prison would’ve been preferable. Inmates did have a very unsavory way of punishing child molesters…
There was silence around the conference table as that little bit of logic sunk in. “And, of course,” he continued, “it wasn’t too long after that, Halsey’s company got pinched for dumping chemicals again—that second trial Ozzie mentioned—and got shut down. I always kinda assumed my interrogation was used to help in that endeavor somehow.”
“So, in the end,” Ozzie said, “it was a win for the good guys.”
“Here’s what I don’t get,” Eve said, and it occurred to him he’d completely forgotten she was listening in. It was one thing for the Knights to know what he’d done, but Eve? What would she think of all this? He held his breath as he waited for her to finish. “I don’t get how you can’t know who you were working for within the CIA?”
Seriously? After all he’d just admitted to, kidnapping, forced interrogation, false imprisonment, that was her question?
He made a face and shrugged. “Sometimes in the government-engineered secret interrogator/spy world, there are no clear associations. You see, durin’ all my years of trainin’, when I’d get leave from SEAL work, the only people I ever came into contact with—outside of office administrative types, that is—wore black masks. I wore a black mask. At the time, I reckoned it was supposed to help protect everybody involved with The Project. I mean, come on, I was being trained to kidnap and interrogate U.S. citizens. If that story ever leaked…” He whistled between his teeth, shaking his head. “And then, after the training was over, I received a message saying The Project had been put on hold, and I was to await further instructions. A few months later, Rwanda Don contacted me, tasking me with interrogating the first man on that list, and Rwanda Don’s been my only connection to Langley ever since.”
“So how’d you get paid?” Ozzie asked. “Surely there’s a way to trace the money back to its source, to the specific department within The Company…”
Rock looked at the kid and smiled. “I didn’t get paid, mon frère.”
“What?” Ozzie wasn’t the only one to squawk the question. Rock heard at least three distinct versions of it.
“It was my understandin’ that because the work I was doing was technically illegal, there was no way to compensate me for my time. Not that I’d have taken payment for my services in this particular endeavor anyway.”
“Why you?” Vanessa asked. “Why did they choose you?”
“Why’d they choose to burn me?”
“No,” she shook her head, her dark hair swishing against her shoulders, which caused one long, inky lock to curl invitingly around her right breast. Her perfect, perfect right breast. And, merde, there went the brainless wonder again, stiffening up like a reprimanded corporal. “Why did they choose to recruit you in the first place?”
“Like I told you,” he said, “I studied psychology in college, but more than that, it was criminal psychology. So I already had a pretty good idea of how a corrupt mind worked. Plus, the psych tests I took while applying for BUD/S training probably showed I was keen on justice and not averse to personally playing a part in handing out that justice when the occasion called for it. Of course, I’m sure it helped that I’d come from a town decimated by exactly the type of man The Project intended to go after. Add to that the fact that I had no family left, nothin’ to keep me from going in as deep as it gets, and I was the perfect candidate for the job.”
“And everything was going along fine until Fred Billingsworth,” Boss mused.
“Oui,” Rock nodded. “Out of everyone on that list, he was the only one who was innocent. And I knew he was innocent. After interrogating the guy for only thirty minutes, that much was clear.”
“So why is he dead like the other nine men on this list?” Ozzie queried.
Rock shook his head, the kernel of bitterness that’d taken root in his belly over six months ago and had since grown to the relative height of a cornstalk, threatened to choke him. “If I knew the answer to that, I think I’d know the answer to who burned me. See, after I interrogated Fred and determined his innocence, I tried to get in touch with Rwanda Don. Fred was different. He wasn’t guilty like the rest. And I wanted to make sure I hadn’t screwed up somehow. But, no sooner had I started trying to find a way to contact Don, to make sure he understood Fred was innocent, than I hear Fred is dead. Supposedly from falling asleep at the wheel and running off the road. Which got me to thinking about those other two men I’d interrogated whom I knew were also dead, presumably by natural causes. I began to wonder if this thing, The Project, wasn’t simply a means of gathering information and evidence against these guys, but also a way of having them deleted. You all know what I discovered.” He nodded toward the dossier still clutched in Boss’s big hand. “That document there says it all. Of course, after I found out about the deaths, then I really started to ask questions. I mean, this wasn’t what I’d signed on for, right?” He made a face, shaking his head. “Less than four hours after my first phone call to Langley, my Burn and Delete notice came over the wires.”