Williams waved his hand dismissively as though swatting away the stench of rancid meat.
Trent worked his jaw, angry that Williams hadn’t even acknowledged the girl whose intel gave them the data they needed to support this strike in Cairo. He was trying to keep it together as the image of her jumping in the path of a bullet haunted him.
Though Kylie only ever saw Trent as a soldier, Trent had wanted so much more from her. He never got the chance to tell her how he felt. Her loss was going to hit Trent hard, once he allowed himself to feel it. For now, this was just business. He had to think of it that way, or put a bullet in Williams’ head himself.
Trent paused at the thought. He watched his Director mutter incoherently to himself and touch the fragile flesh draped over his face like it was a kitten to be stroked.
Williams sickened him. Everything was sickening now that Kylie was gone. He fought the urge to go find her body. He needed to see for himself that she was truly dead.
Just then, Stanley Marks, Williams’ personal bodyguard and manservant, stepped out from behind the limo door, his hand held to his earpiece listening.
“Sir, local police are here sweeping the area. It’s time to leave.”
Williams nodded absently as he turned to step back toward his luxury vehicle. He was still muttering to himself about “his daughter.”
“Sir?” Trent forced himself to get his Director’s attention.
Williams paused and looked absently over his shoulder.
“Sir, what are your orders?”
“We already know they’re headed back to the States. During my meeting with Greg Burns three months ago, I learned so much.” Williams shrugged nonchalantly. “He offered a wealth of information once he was relieved of his eyes. Not only had he told us of Margo’s location here in Cairo, but he also shared their address back in Texas before I tired of his company and had him incinerated.” Kenneth Williams turned back toward his car and started to climb into the back seat but stopped long enough to nod toward his manservant.
“Stanley, give Kerry Braden their Texas address, would you?”
Obediently, Stanley reached into his coat pocket, pulled out a piece of paper and walked it back to a confused Kerry.
“Oh, and Braden. Don’t screw up. You have thirty—seven soldiers at your disposal and one objective: Kill them all.”
“Sir?” Trent looked as if he didn’t know what to question first. He frowned, eyes darting between Williams and Kerry Braden, his second-in-command. Deciding he’d probably misunderstood the Director, he pressed forward. “Thirty-eight soldiers remain.”
The Director nodded to Stanley Marks, who had silently slipped a Beretta from its holster. Before Trent could move to defend himself, metal on metal clicked.
Pop, pop, pop!
Trent Hollier crumpled to the ground, dead.
“You have just been promoted to Company Leader, Kerry Braden. Congratulations. It would be in your best interest not to fail me.” Williams removed his suit jacket, slipped into his car and closed his door on the horrified face of his newest “in command.”
Once inside, Williams turned his attention to the putty-faced Chaunders and the glistening syringe in his fat hands. Williams unbuttoned his cuff and pulled up his sleeve, exposing a vein. He leaned back and smiled at the cold antiseptic cleaning the crook of his elbow and waited anxiously for the sweet relief of pain to follow.
13 Plan B
“We’re still in this, sir.” Adrian Roth, the Senator’s campaign manager, asserted. He knew he needed to produce a plan to salvage the evening’s political loss and he was ready when Arkdone called him foaming and incensed.
“How the hell do you plan to spin this, Roth?” Arkdone’s bow tie hung unknotted around his neck, the first two buttons of his tuxedo undone. He was pacing the room, looking every bit the caged animal. His face was blood red with explosive anger dwelling precariously behind his gritted teeth. He only stopped his pacing to slosh more Scotch into his goblet—his second glass in ten minutes.
“You won twenty-seven percent of the votes tonight, sir.”
“I know. I lost. Do you have a point beyond the obvious?” Arkdone growled.
“We go to the winner, Joe Hawthorne tomorrow and tell him if he doesn’t choose you as his vice presidential running mate, you will run against him as an Independent.”
“Go on.”
“You tell him if he doesn’t agree to add you, your Independent ticket will take away that twenty-seven percent from his corner. Essentially, a vote for you would be a vote for the opposing party.”
“How could we be sure we’d get enough of the electoral votes to even make a wave?”