The Last Protector(Clayton White #1)(12)

But back at Vauxhall Cross, his meeting with the head of the counterterrorism division hadn’t gone well. Someone in Afghanistan had leaked information about a prisoner’s death, and the situation had turned messy. Reporters had started asking difficult questions, and the chief himself had decided—for the good of the service, Oxley was told—to cut ties. But before Oxley could explode in righteous anger, his boss at the counterterrorism branch had pushed a smartphone across the table.

“Don’t go too far, Roy. You’re out of the service, but your services are still needed.”

The next day, after completing all the necessary paperwork, Oxley had quietly retired. A week later, the phone his former boss had given him rang.

“How would you like to become the CEO of Oxley International Shipping Lines?” the foreign secretary had asked him. “Given your . . . singular expertise in certain matters, we think you’d be perfect for the job.”

And this was when things had started to become interesting. And lucrative. But Oxley needed help, someone he could trust. It didn’t take much to convince Krantz to team up with him. A decade and a half of fighting in one of the most elite units in the world had taken its toll on Krantz’s body, and it seemed that his knees, shoulders, and back weren’t what they used to be. When Oxley offered to quadruple his salary, Krantz had signed on.

Ninety days after what would be his first and only call with the British foreign secretary, Oxley was overseeing a fleet of four container ships, all financed by the good people of Great Britain through a special projects fund at the Ministry of Defence, though Oxley knew the Americans were chipping in a substantial amount too. Although three of the four ships were indeed carrying regular goods, and sometimes sensitive military equipment, to regions where the British and American governments preferred to keep their activities under the radar, one of them had been transformed into a floating prison for enemy combatants believed to be in possession of information too valuable or time sensitive for the standard prisoner-processing protocols.

The name given to the operation was CONQUEST, and the decisions about which terrorists were designated for the ship were made by a select few at the very top of the British and American special operations commands, including the American generals Alexander Hammond and Maxwell White. Due to the outpouring of support for the Abu Ghraib prisoners and the widespread condemnation of the treatment they had endured, it had been critical to keep CONQUEST far from prying eyes. Even at the height of the program, there had been fewer than one hundred people who knew about it. Even the tier-one operators who’d bagged the terrorists had no idea where their detainees usually ended up. Not that they would have cared.

The intelligence acquired from the prisoners was vital to the war effort—or at least that’s what Oxley had been told by General Hammond and his British counterpart—but since it had been obtained using methods most people would have found reprehensible, Oxley had been left with a significant problem on his hands: What to do with the prisoners once they had no further value? Both the American and British governments had flatly refused to take them in. Truth was, they were in a difficult position, especially since CONQUEST had been funded through black funds.

So, seven years ago, when he got word that the program wouldn’t be renewed, he was unofficially told to keep the four vessels. Neither government cared what he did with them, though someone suggested at least one of the vessels should be sunk. Oxley took care of the problem. All the problems. In a very definitive manner. And no one had asked any questions.

That was, until six years ago. General Maxwell White, whose involvement in the operation had been fairly limited, had caught wind of how Oxley had disposed of the prisoners. The man and his conscience had become a problem, though Oxley, through Abelard Krantz, had taken care of that one too.

During the following years, through an aggressive growth strategy of mergers and acquisitions, Oxley International Shipping Lines had grown into a fleet of fifty-one vessels and owned approximately half a percent of the worldwide market share of container shipping. Its rapid growth had attracted the attention of the two largest container-shipping companies in the world. Both had made offers of purchase, and Oxley had decided to accept the most lavish one. Three billion dollars. Le Groupe Avanti was days away from finalizing its financial due diligence, and until two weeks ago, Oxley had been confident that once all his debt had been paid off, there would be a cool billion left in his pocket.

That money, in combination with his status as a winery owner, would open a lot of doors for him. By the time he was done, everybody that mattered in South Africa would know his name.

And then the snag had hit. Veronica Hammond and her damn mobile application, Drain. With the upgraded capabilities planned for Drain, how long would it take for users to identify the underwater cemetery? And hadn’t she mentioned repeatedly on social media that the coast of the Arabian Peninsula was one of the areas she wanted Drain users to focus on?

Bloody hell. He should have sunk the bodies in the middle of the Indian Ocean.

The irony of Alexander Hammond’s daughter threatening to expose CONQUEST wasn’t lost on him. It had become obvious to Oxley that Hammond wasn’t going to do anything to rein in his daughter. Perhaps the man believed that he was off the hook. Oxley had wondered at times if Hammond had manipulated the covert files so that if the deaths of the prisoners ever came to light, Oxley would take the fall. Never mind that Hammond had given the instructions. Oxley had seen exactly what a short distance Hammond’s loyalty extended. After all, he’d given up Maxwell White.