Collateral Damage (21 page)

Heart racing double-time to his careening thoughts, he broke out in a cold sweat and pressed his palms to his eyes to stop the images flashing in his mind. The dead. The dying. The gravely hurt. The women. The children. His men.

All because he’d made a decision. A decision that as a commander he’d make over and over again. A decision that given the way it played out, he couldn’t seem to live with as a man.

Collateral damage was the prettied-up phrase to describe untargeted death in warfare, or more accurately, the accidental murder of innocents. Friendly fire was the palliative phrase for accidental murder by a royal fuck-up. Legally excusable murder, and both of them sat squarely on his shoulders. But that wasn’t the worst part. Every commander, every soldier realized the world wasn’t perfect and shit happened. That in any war there would be collateral damage. That in any battle friendly fire could happen. It was what he had to do every day in the aftermath of Lebanon that had him torn completely in two. Lying to the world and to the men who trusted him most.

But the only salient point—goal, objective, whatever tag the military and Presidential brass wanted to put on it—in the situation was to avoid fanning the flames of World War at all cost. A big picture that Roger agreed with as much as he disagreed with covering up of the truth. Thus his grueling state of turmoil.

His cell phone vibrated and he quickly dug it from his pocket, hoping it was Officer Cain with the news that Mari’s attacker had been apprehended or, better yet, dead. But no such luck. It was Beck, DT’s best friend and the one man Roger didn’t want to talk to at the moment but didn’t dare to avoid. Beck was the wild card that could bring the cover up down like a house of cards.

“Weston.” Roger ascertained that the hallway was empty. Just to be sure though, he kept his voice low.

Beck didn’t say anything, but then given Beck’s recent behavior the man might be too drunk to speak.

“Where are you, man?”

“Sober.”

“That’s good.”

“No, sir. That’s not so good. You see, at least drunk I can rationalize what we’re doing to DT, Rico and Pecos. Sober I can’t. Just fuck the rest of the world, sir.”

“We can’t and you know it. It will set the radicals on fire.”

“You can’t but I’m pretty damn sure I could. And in case you haven’t seen the news today, they’re already on fire. We sacrificed our souls and lied for nothing. Christ, if I could go back and do it all over again, I would have never identified that Muhammad al Qassem entered the terrorist’s hideout. DT would have nailed al-Qaeda’s number two SOB from the inside anyway. I never fucking imagined you’d send in a missile.”

“You’re not remembering it all. Comm—”

“I know. Communications were dead.”

“So were—”

“The signs of life signals. I know. I do remember shit. And I remember saying that I still heard gunfire inside the hideout.”

“Which, given the data we had, meant that the men Qassem brought with him were firing on the terrorist. Most likely there to take Prime Minister Shalev’s daughter and Ambassador James’s daughter hostage from the original kidnappers. The odds that DT, Neil, Rico and Pecos were still alive were minimal at that point.”

“But they were damn it, and I knew it in my gut.”

Weston turned to face the wall and rested his forehead on the hard cement.

“Beck, you and I both know that sometimes decisions can’t be made on gut feelings. We had to go with the facts. That we now know about the existence of Wipeout and its ability to disable our systems doesn’t change the decision we had to make then.” Experts were still trying to analyze the jamming device the terrorists had used. The downed communications and signs of life signals had been bad, but the effect the device had on the Samson’s GPS had been a disaster. The Samson was the newest air-to-surface missile in the precision strike arsenal with an accuracy of less than a meter. The missile, launched from a UH-60 Black Hawk, was the US’s compliment to Israel’s Delilah and had a small but effective warhead designed to keep collateral damage to a minimum. But it was the stored explosives, both in the terrorist’s hideout and in the building next door, a supposed orphanage, that had caused the devastation.

“You’re wrong, Commander. You were wrong then and you’re wrong now. DT, Rico and Pecos deserve the truth.”

“Damn it, Beck. We’ve set a course and we have to see it through. Do you have any idea what the global ramifications would be if you blew the lid off of this? The orders came from the top and it’s our sworn duty to—”

The line went dead in Roger’s ear. Shit. Bad just turned worse.

Chapter Twenty-One

0330 hours

“
¿Y ahora que,
George
?
” Andreas demanded, wanting to know what would be next in the continuous plague of disasters following Bill Collins’s betrayal. Flying at the top speed of four Rolls-Royce Trent 977/B engines in an Airbus A380 customized by Design Q in Worcestershire, he sat in the fully outfitted Turkish bath with George at his side, agitated that he couldn’t relax and enjoy his newest acquisition. He’d recently bought the flying palace off the hands of an oil-rich prince whose well had run dry when his father disapproved of his repeated dalliance with a junked-out pop star.

The thought of having eighteen hours to twiddle his thumbs before reaching
El Santuario
had him stretched over a torturous rack of painful frustration—pain that the incompetence of Fidel’s hired operatives in Atlanta only sharpened. The therapeutic benefits of the mint showers and eucalyptus steam room did little to help ease him. Not even Mozart’s “
Eine kleine Nachtmusik
” being broadcasted live from the musicians in the concert hall above helped. Minute by minute the reports feeding in from Atlanta went from bad to worse. Bill’s wife and children had escaped and they had help now. Someone who could handle a gun, a man by the name of Jack Hunter that Andreas’s resources were having difficulty in getting information on. Hunter’s abandoned rental car had been found on Angie Freemont’s street about fifty yards away from where Lauren Collins had parked hers.

Sure at any moment he’d be driven past his soft-spoken vow to screaming like a maniac, he shut his eyes and upped the volume of the music. He tried to focus on easing his anger as he turned his mind to his home above all others,
El Santuario
. Almost as big as an entire Peruvian region,
El Santuario
housed Andreas’s perfect home, his research and development facility, and George’s personal primate reserve, where a number of George’s wild brethren roamed. The area also provided an ample and secretive operational base for his special ops teams as well as anything else he wanted to keep from prying eyes. He imagined exactly what he would do the minute he arrived. Bill Collins’s body would already be there and so would the traitor’s wife and children. Andreas would personally extract what in the hell Collins’s had planned to do with the formula for GXP from his wife, using the children, of course. Then he’d make an example of Collins’s family.

Putting the fear of
Diablo
himself into the people working for him was the only way to close ranks on Collins’s betrayal. The video of the event would make the current executions on YouTube look like Walt Disney films. Andreas prided himself on speaking softly and carrying a big stick—the binding, torturing and killing of a betrayer’s family made for a really big stick—one that he anticipated George would have a hand in this time.

The kids would never even see it coming. Cute, funny chimp suddenly going murderously wild. The video would likely go viral.

Andreas must have had the music unusually loud because he never heard Fidel knock. He felt George move and opened his eyes to see Fidel standing fearfully before him. George had moved to stand between Andreas and Fidel, clearly agitated and wanting to protect Andreas. Andreas’s heart swelled.

Fidel had better have good news. “
¿Que?
”

“We’re f-f-finally learning that J-J-Jack Hunter is part of the US Military, and Guru has decrypted one of Collins’s email acc-counts.” Fidel’s skin color went from green to white and back to green.

“And?” Andreas stood, barely choking back the accompanying yell that went with his question. Why should he have to pull information out of his own assistant?

“C-C-Collins’s l-l-l-left you a m-m-message on it.”

Andreas blinked. “
¿QUE?
” He almost shouted when Fidel didn’t say a more. Instead he bit his tongue until it bled.

George immediately went ape shit, jumping up and down, holding his ears and crying.

“The n-n-note s-s-says that proof of your involvement in the terrorist acts h-h-has been sent to a n-n-number of sources along with the f-fuel formula.”

“
¡Madre de Dios!
” Andreas screamed.

George went for Fidel’s face first, ripping skin, biting off ears and then Fidel’s fleshy lips. Fidel screamed and flailed in horror and shock, thrusting his hands out to stop George. George only ate them and ripped them off the man. The Turkish bath ran red with the spewing blood. Andreas breathed in the acrid scent, remembering times when the smell meant his power and rule were supreme. He didn’t intervene. It was time for a new Fidel anyway.

When Fidel was nothing but pieces, Andreas calmed George down. He cleaned them both up in the mint showers. Then he sent George off with his nanny to rest. After shoving Fidel’s remains into a garbage chute that would be jettisoned over the Atlantic, Andreas went to find Guru with his usually soft spoken calm restored and the tones of “
Eine kleine Nachtmusik
” bolstering his resolve. He supposed he shouldn’t feel too bad about losing his control and yelling. After all, the Godfather had had his moments as well.

Dios
, whatever diabolical double cross Collins had set in motion had to be stopped dead in its tracks immediately. And so did everyone else the bastard had involved. Nothing and no one was going to interfere with the legacy of safety that economic and environmental justice would bring to his son. No matter what the cost.

When Guru heard that Fidel was out of a job, the man worked like a genius on steroids and soon produced emailed confirmations from Collins’s account of packages delivered just two days ago. The names and addresses of the recipients were conveniently included. One to Lauren Collins. One to Matt and one to Mitch Collins. One to Conrad Gardner. One to Thomas Ettinger. One to Edward Weiss. One to Bob Cantrell. And one to Ray Branson. Assassins were immediately dispatched.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Buford, Georgia

0900 hours

“Thomas’s house is the next one on the left,” Laruen directed as Jack drove. The morning was bright and peaceful and at complete odds with the hellish night she had spent. Violence from the day, the heat of Jack’s kiss and his haunted words afterward had run roughshod over her mind, making her shiver in fear, sweat with need, and writhe in pain for him until she’d given up trying to sleep and spent the rest of the night sitting in the desk chair, staring at the letter Bill had written.

She still didn’t have a clue as to what Bill meant. Now she was sleep deprived and feeling self-conscious over her complete abandonment of everything beneath Jack’s potent kiss. Kiss? It was more like a rehearsal for a grand slam home run. He’d conquered second base, had touched on third, and there had been nothing to stop him from scoring.

Fire filled her cheeks again. How had she let it happen? Angie and her sons were in the other room. She’d only met Jack less than ten hours before. To hell with the whole quality verses quantity crap. That amount of time compared to the strength of her desire was pure insanity.

Could be worse
, a little voice said, much like her son’s would say when they were caught being bad.
What if you didn’t regret it?

She didn’t.

Could be worse
, the little voice said again.
You could want a repeat and more
.

She did. Every single moment of it and every bit of him. His demanding tongue, his hard erection, his hot hands. His intoxicating scent, powerful muscles and gripping passion. The whole damn package.

“Lauren, hello, are you with me?”

Lauren blinked and focused her eyes on Jack, whom she had been apparently staring at as she recalled him and his kiss. She shifted her gaze as a knowing gleam flickered through his green eyes.
He knew. He knew what she was thinking and OMG, he knew she wanted more
. “Sorry, I was thinking about Bill’s letter,” she said, primly. “What did you say?”

Well, it was partly true. She had thought about it for a brief moment.

He snorted his disbelief. “I asked you if Ettinger usually kept his security gate open.”

Lauren sat upright, her gaze riveting to the open gate looming ahead of them. “No. The man is a stickler for security. He has Conrad Gardner’s security company upgrade his system every year.”

“I don’t like it.” Jack hit the gas and rushed on past Thomas’s driveway.

Lauren gripped her seat as Jack quickly snaked around several curves before bringing the car to a stop just inside another driveway on the left. He edged the car to the right of the road so others could pass and killed the engine.

“I don’t know what I was thinking.” He pressed his palm to his temple. “I should have left you safe at the hotel with Rico.”

Rico was an army buddy of Jack’s who had shown up early this morning after Jack called him in the middle of the night. Even with his right arm in a sling, the dark-haired, dark-eyed man looked extremely capable of handling any safety issue that might arise and made Lauren feel immensely better about leaving her sons with Angie at the hotel this morning.

Rico stood several inches above what she’d guesstimated to be Jack’s six-foot height and had studied her intently when introduced. She’d met his gaze head-on and waited for him to pass judgment. He obviously knew of Bill’s terrorist activities and she wanted to cringe inside. It hit her that people would think she was involved in what Bill had been doing.

She hadn’t thought of it but Jack figured the men after her would know who he was by now from the rental car left on Angie’s street and would then find record of the second car he’d rented. He had Rico bring him a car and they’d left the old rental car at the mall this morning.