“You realize, you stupid fuck, they’re only usin’ a pinch from those pouches. How much more painful do you think a handful would be? So let’s try this again. Who were you workin’ for?”
This time Biesel’s hollow voice sounded a little ragged, and thick with rage. “I don’t owe that asshole a thing. So you want to know his name? Fine. Eric Manheim. Good luck touching him, motherfucker.”
Eric Manheim.
Of all the names Biesel could have shouted, Manheim’s shocked him the most. The billionaire, hell, more like trillionaire, was one of the wealthiest men in the world. Among the one percent of the wealthy who controlled most of the world’s wealth . . . except Manheim spread his wealth around. He funded countless charities and nonprofit organizations. His wife was the face and voice of the Focus on Hunger program. His was the least likely name to come up in conjunction with terrorism and blackmail.
“Eric Manheim,” Rawls repeated slowly, trying to wrap his head around this news and figure out if the asshole was lying to him. “Why the hell would he be involved in somethin’ like this? The prototype Faith and her team were workin’ on wouldn’t affect him. His money comes from financial institutions.”
In fact, the Manheim family trust owned most of the banks in the world. On the other hand, the family also had enough cash and influences to run the kind of operation required to take down an airliner, and frame anyone that got in the way.
Now that Biesel had started talking, he got downright chatty. “His interest has nothing to do with money. It has to do with how it would affect the rest of the world. Manheim belongs to this crackpot conglomerate of Richie Riches who see themselves as the new ruling order. Christ, they even call themselves that. The NRO—New Ruling Order. Humanity’s not-quite-so-benevolent dictators.”
“The NRO?” Rawls repeated, making a note to remember the acronym, and to do some googling as soon as he got back to a computer.
Out of the corner of his eye, Rawls saw the four elders sitting on the benches, along with Wolf, react to the acronym. Hell, Mr. Stoic, who was standing next to him, actually rocked back on his feet, surprise registering on his hard, normally blank face.
“You know this organization?” Rawls asked, turning to address Wolf.
“It would appear,” Wolf said with a tight, cold smile, “that your enemies are our enemies.”
Well that was news. Good news too, considering the arsenal of technology and weapons Wolf had at his disposal.
“Where is the NRO located?” Rawls asked Biesel, and knew from Wolf’s grunt of approval that he wasn’t the only one wanting to know the answer to that question.
“There is no united location. They meet in secrecy, in undisclosed locations, a couple of times a year and plot and scheme to advance their agenda.”
“Their agenda of what? Takin’ over the world? Sounds like an unsubstantiated conspiracy theory,” Rawls said.
There was nothing quite like a conspiracy theory to get many of his SEAL brothers all fired up. Hell, you get a couple of these true-blue believers in the same room and they’d argue the merits of various conspiracies for hours. Generally, there was just enough truth in the telling to make one wonder—which was undoubtedly how the originators of the theories hooked their believers.
“From the sourpuss expression on the Big Bad Wolf’s face, I’d say he’s run into the living embodiment of this debunked conspiracy theory before.” There was a hint of dryness to the hollow voice.
Rawls stole a glance at the man standing so dangerously still beside him. Biesel was right about that. Wolf looked like he’d just swallowed an entire package of Warheads.
“Tell me about the lab we apprehended you in. Were you part of the team that kidnapped the scientists and faked their deaths?” If they could find the scientists and extract them safely, they could exonerate his team and bring Manheim’s involvement out in the open.
“Yeah, you have any idea how hard it is to effectively fake that many people’s deaths?” The hollow voice dropped to an irritated grumble. “But did the big boss appreciate that? Hell no.”
A dizzying sense of unreality swept through Rawls. Sweet Jesus, he was standing here interrogating a ghost, listening to it bellyache about unfair working conditions.
Wolf stirred beside him. “Was this biitei involved?”
“Yeah,” Rawls said slowly, for the first time realizing that Wolf couldn’t hear what Biesel was saying. The Arapaho warrior was reacting to Rawls’s responses. Not Biesel’s answers. But what about the four elders? “Can any of you see Biesel?”
“No.” Wolf’s voice was abrupt. “Only those who have crossed over and back within a short time of the biitei’s crossing can see it.”
Rawls mulled that over. If he understood that answer correctly, that narrowed the field down to him and Faith.
“Many among us can sense them,” Wolf continued after a moment, his voice slightly less tense.