Surviving Ice (Burying Water, #4)(68)

I hit Pause on the VCR as my stomach sinks. Bentley said that everything Royce was claiming was pure lies. But I’ve met Mario, and my ten-second gut read is that he’s a nutcase, and someone I don’t trust. He went against Bentley’s orders just by approaching me, and he seems hell-bent on not being tied to any crime, either overseas or here. Plus, he basically admitted to what’s on the tape as being true. And if that’s the case . . .

Bentley didn’t create Alliance to rape innocent young women. That isn’t for the greater good.

Taking a deep breath, I let the tape keep playing.

“He get into trouble?” Ned asks.

Royce smiles, and it’s not at all pleasant. “Who’s gonna give him trouble?”

“You said this was a private company, right? Ain’t the owner worried about employees doin’ that kind of stuff?” Ned has obviously been listening—and understanding—far more than he’s let on.

“John Bentley doesn’t give a f*ck what happens over there as long as the contracts keep coming in. That’s why I got paid off and told to keep quiet.”

My stomach clenches. That’s got to be the bullshit Bentley was talking about. I know Bentley well enough to know that he would care about rape.

“Don’t nobody say nothin’?”

“This is war. It’s so easy to cover that kind of shit up, and all the other shit. And people there are scared. Say the wrong thing and you may find yourself with a bullet in your head. Enemy fire, of course.”

“But you’re back home now.”

Royce pauses. “Nobody in America wants to hear about how a Medal of Honor recipient stood by and watched women get raped.”

Ivy’s uncle works away and listens, dropping a question here and there, as Royce spells out countless other horrific things he saw while working for Alliance, all the times that basic human rights were clearly violated by Mario and Ricky and other employees—not to protect American lives or interests, but for pure, sadistic enjoyment.

But what about Royce? Did he partake? Is he saying he was always just an innocent bystander?

Their conversation eventually shifts to menial things, and then nothing at all, and after four hours in the chair, Royce is passing over a wad of cash. “I’ll wanna come in next week to finish this piece up here,” he says, tapping the top of his shoulder. “Same time, same day?”

“Sounds good.”

Ivy’s uncle sits at his desk and stares at the door for a while, long after the guy has left. Processing everything Royce just admitted to, I’m sure. Clicking a key on the keyboard, he waits for his computer monitor to light up. Then he types something into Google. I can’t see what it is, but when a website comes up that I know like the back of my hand—with a black background and a picture of founder and CEO John Bentley on the left-hand side—I know that the wheels have begun to churn in Ned’s head.

He gets up to pull the metal screen across the entryway, locks the front door, and disappears down the hall, to the back where there is no surveillance.

And then the tape cuts out.

And I’m left staring at my reflection in the monitor.

Royce may have deserved to be punished for his part in all this, but he didn’t deserve a bullet to his head to shut him up.

And Ned . . . well, he was a f*cking fool to get involved, but he definitely didn’t deserve to be killed over this either.

But Bentley was telling the truth about one thing: If this confession—from a Medal of Honor recipient, no less—gets into the hands of the American public, Alliance is finished.

The bigger question is: Do Bentley and Alliance deserve that end? Is this just a case of a contractor or two going rogue? How often is shit like this happening over there? How many of these guys, with God complexes, are doing inexcusable things to innocent human beings?

I’m about to hand over the only evidence that might ever spark an investigation into those questions.

Dammit.

I shouldn’t have watched the tape. I can’t simply unsee that, unknow that.

And yet Bentley’s paying me to do a job.

I need to finish it.



The sun is just cresting over the horizon when Bentley meets me at the front door of his Napa villa. I wordlessly hand the tape to him and his shoulders sag with relief, while mine hum with tension.

“Where did you find it?”

“Her tattoo kit, which she brings everywhere. Her uncle taped it to the inside, under the foam.” So obvious.

He snorts, shaking his head. “And she had no idea?”

“None.”

He heaves a sigh. “As always, you’re the most proficient man I know at getting the job done.”

“I wouldn’t have guessed you felt that way as of late.” I don’t hide the sarcasm.

He hangs his head and offers me a sheepish smile. “I’m sorry about that. It was a moment of panic, I suppose. I just finally squashed that civilian shooting issue, so having this to worry about was more than even I could handle.”

Because this will destroy everything you’ve worked hard to build.

“I’ll have the money wired to your offshore account in the next hour. You can go back to your Greek haven, and we can get back to regularly scheduled programming.” He turns to head back inside.

“What about Scalero?”