The Rescue(88)
“I’m thinking about the legislation initiated around the time of Meghan Steele’s kidnapping,” said Gunther. “And its relation to Praetor.”
A long pause ensued before Harcourt responded. “Point taken.”
“We need to assume that Decker will connect the same dots.”
“Which lead back to me,” said Harcourt.
“And Senator Frist? I wonder how he might react to these new developments.”
“Another point well taken. I imagine he won’t respond well.”
“And if Decker connects him to Praetor . . . ,” said Gunther, intentionally pausing to let Harcourt finish.
“We need to make sure the two of them never cross paths.”
“Is this something you’d like me to take care of?” said Gunther. “I’m woefully unengaged at the moment.”
“No. I can handle Frist and whatever Decker throws our way. I need you to focus on Mackenzie. We have to assume that Decker will share everything with her and that she’ll pass the information to her associates.”
“We’ll bury them all. No trace.”
“That’s what I like to hear. You have no restrictions when it comes to dealing with this. Take whatever action is required, and I’ll deal with the fallout. Understood?”
“Understood.”
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
Decker stared though the windshield at the dark nothingness ahead of them. Beyond the barely visible dashed line separating the two eastbound lanes, their headlights reflected nothing but the occasional bush that grew too close to the interstate’s shoulder. It was enough to lull you to sleep within minutes without a cup of coffee or a Red Bull.
The original plan was to drive through Dallas to Texarkana, six hours away, and stop for the night, but neither of them seemed up to it. Less than an hour outside Sweetwater, Pierce was already grumbling, and Decker agreed. They’d be lucky to reach Dallas before calling it a night. Ideally, they’d get through the Dallas–Fort Worth area, putting a little more distance between themselves and the mess they left behind outside Sweetwater.
Then again, why should they worry? There was no way the authorities could link them to what happened on the Alemans’ property. The pilot might put two and two together, but he wouldn’t be able to provide any useful information. They’d paid him with cash and hadn’t driven their own car to the airfield, not to mention the fact that the pilot had dropped them over private land—which was illegal. Decker figured the pilot would keep his mouth shut once word got out about what had transpired at the Alemans’. He had nothing to gain by bringing it to anyone’s attention.
Their only real concern was Aegis, and judging by the fireball that rose from Aleman’s bunker, he didn’t think Aegis had the resources to make anything happen in Texas tonight, or anytime soon. Between the IEDs, the 50-caliber sniper fire, and the explosion, Decker couldn’t imagine more than a handful of mercenaries surviving. The survivors would have the same priorities as Decker and Pierce: get as far away as quickly as possible. The only way he and Pierce could run into trouble tonight was if they booked a room in the same motel as the surviving mercenaries.
Decker turned his attention back to the laptop. The Praetor file was comprehensive, to say the least, filled with several hundred PDF copies of newspaper articles, government filings, and congressional testimony. He’d sifted through it for the past hour, searching for concrete support of Aleman’s five-page, single-spaced conspiracy theory, which was admittedly light on factual connections, from what Decker could determine. That said, he was working at night on a laptop, in a moving vehicle—hardly the most focused setting.
He needed to get the contents of the thumb drive to Harlow, who had a team assembled in the right setting to parse the voluminous information and make sense of its greater connection to Aleman’s premise. They’d need more than a conspiracy theory to bring these allegations to light. They were just as outrageous as they were damning—unthinkable on every level.
On the surface, the word Praetor didn’t sound menacing. Its early-Roman context was equally innocuous, most commonly associated with an elected magistrate given broad authority and power over a jurisdiction, answerable only to the consuls that outranked him. Over time, the expected duties of a praetor expanded beyond judicial and civil responsibility to encompass military command. The result was a permanent military class of praetors, wielding considerable power within their jurisdictions and Rome itself.
With their positions under constant threat from political enemies, the praetor generals formed elite guard units to enforce their judgments and protect them against the constant plotting by their rivals. Comprised of veteran soldiers loyal only to the praetor’s gold, the Praetorian Guard model gained enough popularity to inspire Augustus, the Roman Republic’s first emperor, to form his own Praetorian Guard, numbering in the thousands—beginning a notorious tradition that would plague Rome for another four hundred years.
By the early second century AD, Praetorian Guard units had grown in strength and size under each successive emperor to rival even the most robust armies fielded by the Roman Empire. Based in and around Rome, where regular armies were forbidden, the guard became the dominating force of the Roman life—influencing policy, instigating mutinies, and assassinating public officials. At the apex of its power, the Praetorian Guard had assassinated close to a dozen emperors and raised several of their own choosing to power.