Ambush (Michael Bennett #11)(64)

“And you worked for him.”

“You don’t shit gold bricks, either, princess. I didn’t believe the rumors until after they sent me to nail you. Everything changed after that.”

We both looked at the picture of James Osborne. Sarge gave him a sardonic salute with his beer.

“What ugly fucking freak show,” Sarge said, “did our man Kane walk into?”





CHAPTER 17

The past leaps out without warning and grips you by the throat.

Forget trying to stay on your feet. You can’t even breathe.

—Sydney Parnell. Personal Journal.

Clyde and I walked Sarge out to his pickup. Sarge pressed his key fob, and the truck flashed its lights.

“I’ll call as soon as I know something,” he said.

“Likewise.”

We’d formulated a plan. For the time being, I would keep digging, see what I could learn about Vigilant Resources and James Osborne. I’d try again with Valor Industries, too, see if there was anything floating around on the Dark Web.

Sarge, meanwhile, would drop in on a friend who was still in the business. This friend, Hutch “the Handler” Voss, was closer to the inner circle of the Alpha’s organization than Sarge had been. But the two of them were tight. Hutch might, with half a bottle of Jameson’s inside him, be willing to cough up information about the Alpha. We figured every little bit would help.

I’d stayed quiet about the key in Dougie’s compass. Sarge might have a few guesses what box that key would open. But I wasn’t ready to cross that line with him. Not yet. He had to prove himself.

Sarge opened the truck door, then turned to me.

“I appreciate the trust,” he said.

“Why don’t you explain it to me, Udell. What you did last winter. And why you never came back to finish the job.”

He frowned. He looked bad in the fading light. Whatever he’d done to someone to cause the blood in his apartment, he’d taken a few licks of his own. One eye swollen shut, his lower lip split. A bandage over his left cheek. We were a pair, I supposed, with our injuries and our anger. But while we stared at each other, something softened in his face. After a moment he closed the door and leaned against his truck.

“Fair enough.”

I crossed my arms.

He nodded. “Like I said, I was told you were hiding intel that could affect the state of the free world. I had a new mission. You can take the boy out of the Marines, but you can’t take the Marines out of the boy. Then . . . fuck.” He ran his hands over his stubbled hair. “When you said you weren’t hiding anything, you were pretty damn convincing. Plus, you let me go free when anyone else would have laid me six feet under. And there was the fact you got one of my guys off a murder charge. Tucker Rhodes, man. He’d have been in a bad way, otherwise. So no way I was going to hurt you any more than I already had. Not what I signed up for when I set out to save the world. I believed you didn’t have the goods, and I backed off. Later . . .” He sucked in a long breath of air, eased it out. “Later I learned they were still after Malik. I got out.”

“And then did what?”

He gave a rueful shake. “Oh, I played like I was still in the game, but I didn’t do anything useful. I ditched my phone, lost myself in Texas for a time. Then they killed Kane. I’ve spent the last couple of days shaking the tree, trying to roll something loose. Haven’t won myself any friends that way.”

“The blood in your shower.”

“I sent some questions up the chain. The Alpha answered with a cleanup man.”

“Who you killed.”

“Law of the jungle.”

“You know I will kick your ass, then put a bullet in your brain if it turns out you’re lying to me about any of this.”

“What I like. A girl who knows how to sweet-talk a man.” His teeth flashed in the dark. “Now let’s get down to business. We got us some Alpha ass to fry.”



Back in Paul’s office, with the jukebox in the bar bellowing out Led Zeppelin, I scrounged once more through his desk until I found a crumpled pack of cigarettes. With a book of Joe’s Tavern matches, an apologetic shrug toward Colorado’s smoking ban, and a promise of never again, I lit up. I filled my lungs and carried the half-empty beer bottle to the window. Clyde resumed his spot under the window and sprawled across my feet.

“Hey, buddy,” I said softly.

Clyde twitched his ears and closed his eyes.

Darkness pressed against the glass.

My mind kept tossing up images of the Marines who’d been brought into MA during the time Sarge had talked about, the time of the EFPs. Young men, barely past being kids, ripped apart so that putting them together was like working a macabre jigsaw puzzle with half the pieces missing.

The Sir standing in the bunker telling us to pencil in the missing parts.

Shade it black.

I swallowed. My throat and chest burned like someone had poured acid down my windpipe. I finished the beer and tapped ashes into the empty.

There was no reason under the sun for Iran to have weapons or technology from an American firm. At least, no good reason. We’d severed diplomatic relations with Iran and put the country under economic sanctions in 1980, after they’d taken fifty-two of our embassy people and held them hostage for over a year.