No Fortunate Son (Pike Logan, #7)(4)

Saying he was “our” cat was giving a little too much credit. Jennifer had rescued him from a garbage can outside of our place, and he showed her every bit of love in his vicious little soul in return. He hated me, and believe me, the feeling was mutual.

He was a skinny calico with a potbelly and bald patches from some unknown disease. I couldn’t count the number of times he’d jumped on me when I was sound asleep, tearing his claws into my back.

He twitched his tail in disdain and trotted over to her, rubbing up against her legs and purring. She picked him up with one arm, cooing in a faux baby voice directed at me. “Was Pike mean to my little Knuckles? Hmmm?” The cat looked at me, and I swear he was smiling.

One day, you little shit.

The only good thing about him was his name. Jennifer had decided to anoint him with the callsign of my best friend as a little punishment. Knuckles had given her the callsign Koko on a mission—as in the talking gorilla—and it was something she despised but couldn’t shake. Everyone on our team perpetuated the name no matter what she did. Calling the rat with claws “Knuckles” was her version of payback, although it fell a little short because the satanic beast treated his human namesake just like he treated Jennifer. Apparently, I was the only one worthy of his ire.

Jennifer dropped him to the floor, and he sauntered away, now supreme in his kingdom with the queen preventing any harm. She looked at me, and I prepared to start my defense, but I saw no anger. Before I could begin my groveling she held up a letter in her hand.

“We got something from Blaisdell Consulting.”

Which was really odd. All the transactions for our company ran through Blaisdell for pay purposes—an umbrella cover company for the counterterrorist unit that employed us—but electronic transmissions were the order of the day. Snail mail was some old-school stuff we didn’t do.

She said, “Well, you want to open it, or you want me to?”

Feeling a little flow of adrenaline, I sat down, saying, “Go ahead. Must be pretty important.” Which meant it must be a mission outside the usual scope. Something even crazier than what we habitually did. A little high adventure that had the potential to be a lot of fun.

She slit it open, and I saw her eyes scrunch up. She looked at me in confusion. I said, “Well? Where do they need the expert services of Grolier Recovery? Bali? Phuket?”

She said, “We’ve been fired.”






3




Since I’d been expecting to hear about a mission-impossible tasking, the words made no sense. I stood up so fast the chair I was in fell over.

She said, “It’s a letter saying they no longer need our services.”

I took it and saw professional letterhead, wondering what intelligence egghead had created it. I read Dear sir, While we hold your services in the utmost regard, we won’t be requiring your assistance in the foreseeable future. . . .

The rest was a bunch of legalese BS about settling accounts and turning in any outstanding equipment. It was signed Kurt Hale, President.

What the hell?

Jennifer said, “They can’t fire us. We aren’t even in the government.”

I said nothing, only staring at the official piece of paper that would destroy my life. I knew I’d gone a little overboard on our last mission, but it had turned out pretty damn good. In fact, better than good. If I hadn’t gone off the reservation, tens of thousands of people would have died. Knuckles had warned me of the repercussions, but I never thought it would come to pass. I mean, surely results mattered. Didn’t they?

She said, “Pike?”

Brought out of my reverie, I said, “I don’t know, but Knuckles will.”

I knew he was in North Carolina running our unit’s Assessment and Selection, so he would be away from the flagpole and able to talk. Although it sort of pissed me off that he hadn’t called to warn me in the first place. He was still on active duty and tied into the goings-on of the unit we called the Taskforce.

An unorthodox command so far off the books it didn’t even have an official name, it routinely flouted the law to protect civilian lives—and did so successfully. There were many, many souls walking the streets unwitting of how close they had come to seeing the afterlife. Firing me for exceeding the limits of operational risk was like handing out speeding tickets at Daytona. At least that was my opinion.

I pulled up Knuckles on speed dial and it connected on the third ring. “Hey, Pike, what’s up?”

“You got a minute?”

“Yeah, just finished the final. Candidate is a bolo. He’s headed back to the hole. I think he’ll jack it in shortly.” Meaning someone had just failed to solve the problem and was being transported back to the “resistance training laboratory” for more interrogation. Knuckles thought the candidate would quit instead of starting over.

I said, “Call me back secure.”

He did so, saying, “What’s so top secret? You and Koko on the rocks?”

“What’s going on with Colonel Hale?”

“Huh? He’s got some shit sandwich on his plate. How’d you hear about it?”

That meant nothing. Kurt Hale always had a shit sandwich on his plate.

“Tell me you didn’t know.”

“Pike, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”