Forte nodded. Any closer and it’d be too obvious where he and Sophie were hiding. Having support at some sort of distance still left the chance open to their pursuers passing them by. If shit started, though, Forte could hold off attackers until Sa and his team could arrive.
“We’re still at an information deficit.” Forte sighed. “We know her employer was laundering money for several clients. She had too much initiative and was too detail oriented, got into files her employer didn’t want her to see. There’s enough evidence to convict him. But we don’t have enough evidence to put away the actual individual responsible for the bomb or the break-in at her apartment. Could be the same person or it could be different people. But we have an idea of what organization they work for.”
“Seems redundant to invest in more than one resource to eliminate a single civilian target.” Sa sounded hesitant to offer the observation. Then again, they hadn’t worked together in the past. They were feeling each other out.
“Maybe. One of our close friends had a series of incidents in the last several months. There was a single private investigator hired to track her and a backup team watching him in case he managed to flush her out but didn’t get ahold of her.” Forte didn’t like the way the situations were escalating over the course of the year. With first Lyn, then Elisa, the situations and people responsible had been unrelated for the most part. “We made sure all the parties involved were unsuccessful in acquiring their target.”
Sa chuckled. “No offense intended, but you all are victims of your own success. You were already making names for yourselves based on the qualities of the dogs you trained. You might be retired from active duty, but it’s obvious each and every one of you is fit for duty with the experience to make you incredibly valuable assets. My squad wants you as allies, but others?”
“Maybe not so much.” Forte was inclined to agree.
There was a demand for quality private services, for mercenaries. As long as there’d been acts of war, there’d been a market to hire those with the right skill sets and experience. And it was a valid career choice after service in the armed forces, or even without experience in the military at all. Like any other industry, there were always up-and-coming companies being created and establishing themselves. The best any one person could do was decide what organizations were the right fit for them.
Different companies with varying levels of ethics and corporate goals meant some would be a cultural match, and some wouldn’t
“We’ve had a brush with at least one group. The outcome didn’t leave anyone walking away with warm and fuzzy feelings,” Forte admitted.
Sa grunted. “That’s going to happen. Sometimes you respect each other in the morning and sometimes you don’t. You think they came after your lady to make a point?”
Yes. “More likely someone offered them money and they were happy to accept a contract on a civilian connected to me and my colleagues.”
“Gotta love the assholes out there who jump at the chance to be paid for something they probably thought about doing for free.” Sa bent and picked up a stone, tossing it up in the air and catching it. “Can’t say I haven’t considered something similar, but involving a civilian isn’t right. Going after a target like your lady? She didn’t have a chance on her own.”
“She’s a smart woman.” Forte was sure Sophie would make good decisions in an emergency situation. “Level-headed.”
Sa nodded. “Not arguing. But a bomb in the car. Without your dog there, would you have known it was there?”
No. Haydn had been with Forte by coincidence. Forte could’ve had a different dog with him for the outing, one with alternative training like narcotics or corpse detection or human search. And he’d run into Sophie unexpectedly, too.
“Exactly.” Sa took his silence and filled it. “You all haven’t shared much, but I can piece together the hints. They didn’t intend to give her even a chance to walk away from the encounter. They’d intended to do the job. It was a freak accident she came away from it alive.”
Forte wasn’t going to argue. He’d gone through the same logic, but there was a sense of validation in hearing it come from someone else. Plus, gave him the chance to take a step back and view the entire situation with some perspective.
“The break-in, from what I gather, was intended to look like a robbery, but she would’ve been just as dead.” Sa’s tone was grim. “They wrecked her stuff to hurt the people who’d be there to gather up her belongings, to let the people in her life know it’d been done out of spite. The second time wasn’t just about the job and eliminating the target; it was about sending a message to you.”
The thought process made sense. “They won’t leave room for accidental survival the third time. They’ll want to make sure.”