The Black Wolf (In the Company of Killers, #5)(56)

It feels strange being on a mission and not hearing his voice in an earpiece; not having him here to tell me what to do, which pieces to move across the chess board. I miss him. I wonder what he’s doing right now.





Victor





Somewhere in Virginia




“You’ve been on our radar for eight years, Mr. Faust,” Dan Barrett, one of Flynn’s superiors, says across the elongated table from me, dressed in his finest cheap suit. “If we wanted to take you down—”

“Do not make it sound easier than it is, Mr. Barrett,” I tell him. “Do you think I would be sitting here in front of you like this if it were that simple?”

Dan Barrett’s mouth pinches on one side; his nostrils flare kind of how Izabel’s do when she doesn’t get her way—only it’s sexy when she does it; this man I’d very much like to punch in the face. He’s been nothing but mouthy since we arrived here: trying relentlessly to intimidate me; pointing out the things he knows, some of the people I’ve killed (though not even a fraction of the actual number)—his way of holding something over my head to get me to cooperate. That will get you nowhere, Mr. Barrett, except your own personal plot in the cemetery we passed on the way here.

I look to the man on his left, Barry Connors, the only one out of the six men at this table with Fredrik Gustavsson, Dorian Flynn, and me, with a cool, reasonable head. The other four men haven’t said much yet; mostly I believe they’ve been taking mental notes, sizing us up, picking apart our brains so they can better piece together their professional versions of my and Gustavsson’s profiles later; add to our M.O.s they created on an Excel spreadsheet somewhere, or posted on a whiteboard with words scrawled in Sharpie like ‘dental obsession’ and ‘expert marksman’; more an FBI thing, I suppose, but they seem the type.

“Let me repeat myself,” I say, looking to Barry Connors. “If I choose to offer my services to you, I would work for you and with you, but not under you—there is a difference. Any surveillance still on me or anyone in my Order would be terminated immediately, including any other undercover operatives who might still be implanted in my ranks.” I glance at Flynn to my left, for only a moment. Unless you want them dead.

They would never completely terminate their surveillance, I know, but they would some of it to make it seem they are holding up their end of the deal, and some is better than none.

“We do understand your terms,” Barry Connors agrees.

He starts to say more, but I interrupt.

“I want to see the files—everything—that Flynn gave you on us.”

I feel Flynn’s eyes skirting me nervously; he inhales a deep breath; I never take my eyes off Barry Connors.

“What does that matter?” Dan Barrett asks smartly. “If you’re worried about how much we know, Mr. Faust—we know what you do; it’s enough to put you on death row.”

Barry Connors puts up his hand. “Not that we’re threatening you, of course,” he assures me.

“But just the same,” I say, “I am curious about the kind of information Flynn gave you.”

“But it’s beside any point,” Barrett says with a grunt.

“Just give him the files,” Connors says with the dismissive gesture of his hand. “We have copies.”

Barrett thinks on it a moment and then agrees.

“OK, Mr. Faust,” he says, nodding, “we’ll get the files to you in—”

“Now,” I cut in as kindly as possible, “would be preferable.”

Barrett’s upper lip crinkles into a snarl. He reaches into his suit jacket pocket and pulls out his cell phone, touches the screen and then puts it to his ear. “Print off the files on I.D. 44160742-A and bring them to me.” He ends the call and slides the phone back into his pocket.

“Do you mind if, while we wait,” Connors begins, folding his hands on the table in front of him, “we tell you what we know about Vonnegut, at least, so we can collaborate when the time comes? Get a head start?”

“If you would like,” I say, opening my hands to him. “But I’ll offer you nothing in the way of information, or even my opinion on the information you have on my former employer, until I’ve agreed I’m going to work with you.”

“Fair enough,” Connors says.

“I’d like to know,” Mark Masters, sitting on the other side of Connors, speaks up, “how you feel about working for a man who sells weapons to terrorists, innocent girls to men who violate and murder them, and drugs to children?” He would spit in my face if it would not instantly end our meeting and possibly his life.

I say nothing. Because I haven’t agreed to a deal yet and this man is apparently slow to understand that. Or just stubborn. Probably more the latter.

“I apologize, Mr. Faust,” Connors says, doing damage control. “Mr. Masters tends to speak without thinking; you have to understand we’re usually working on the other side of the fence, not with the…criminals, so to speak. I admit, even for me it’s a little difficult to be sitting at this table, having a seemingly civil conversation with a hitman and…” He pauses and glances grimly at Gustavsson; a lump moves down the center of his throat. “…And a man like him.”