Dead Six (6 page)

My mouth fell open. “You . . .” I cracked a smile and began to laugh. “You’re a
dick
, you know that?”

“Yeah, I know,” he said matter-of-factly. “Even still, you shouldn’t rush into something like that when you don’t know anything about it.”

“Says the guy who shows up on my doorstep and tries to get me to take a mysterious job with a mysterious company he doesn’t know anything about,” I said, a wry grin appearing on my face.

“Okay,” Tailor admitted, “but we’ll be there together. If there are any problems, well, we’ll deal with it. We’ve been in bad situations before.”

“The money’s too good, Tailor. Something stinks.”

“I know,” he said again. “I think it’s something to do with the Middle East.”

“As in Afghanistan? I really don’t want to go back to Afghanistan, Tailor.”

“No, I think they’re going to send us someplace that the US ain’t supposed to be. I think that’s why the pay is so good, and that’s why there’s so much secrecy.”

“Huh,” I said. “How’d you find out about this?”

“Friend of a friend got me in touch with this guy named Gordon Willis.”

“Who’s he?”

“I don’t know. He’s pretty cryptic about everything, but he’s obviously got a lot of money behind him. All he’ll say is that he represents the best interests of the United States.”

“That sounds, um,
ominous
.”

“Right?” Tailor asked. “I know, Val, I know. Like I said, the money’s real good. Everything I’ve seen from these people is on the ball. They pay in advance. And their cars have government plates.”

“You’re really going along with this?” I asked.

“I’m already signed up and everything. I ship next week. That’s why I’m here, Val. I want you to go with me. Whaddaya say?”

I was quiet for a long moment, as our waitress brought us our check. “You know, last night at work I got bitched out by an employee at the facility. She showed up at the south gate at about zero-two-hundred and wanted a temporary badge. The south gate doesn’t open until zero-six. So instead of going to the front gate, she sat there and bitched out the dispatcher on the phone until he sent me down there. Then she bitched
me
out until I issued her the temporary badge.”

“That’s bullshit,” Tailor said. “You should’ve told her to go to the main gate or sit there all night.”

“I can’t. We’re always getting nasty-grams in the e-mail from the Branch Office, reminding us that serving the client is the number one priority, that we’re there to make things better for them, blah blah blah,” I said, waving my arm theatrically. “Basically, if I enforce the rules I’m supposed to enforce, people complain and I get in trouble. If I
don’t
enforce them, people complain and I get in trouble.”

“Why don’t you look for a new job?”

“Like I said, it’s hard to get jobs with my skill-set. Normal jobs, anyway. I mean, what am I going to do, sell cars? Flip burgers? And I don’t have anything else going on. I don’t really have any friends here. I don’t have a girlfriend. I mean, I guess I could go out to bars or whatever and try to pick women up, but what am I going to say?
Hey, baby, I know I’m emotionally damaged and unstable, and I spent the last five years shooting people for money, and now I’m a security guard and everything, but why don’t you overlook all that and come have sex with me in my crappy little apartment?
”

Tailor let out a raucous laugh. “Then come back to work, Val. To hell with it.”

“Yeah . . . yeah. I mean, why not? I can’t possibly hate my life any more than I do now. Screw it, let’s do this. It’ll be good to work with you again.”

“You sure, Val?”

“I’m sure. Hey, what did Skunky say when you called him?”

“He wasn’t interested.” Tailor shrugged. “Says he’s got his own thing going on or something.”

“I’m glad he’s doing better than me. Come on, take me home. I’ve got some arrangements I need to make.” Tailor grinned and stuck his fist across the table. I made a fist with my left hand and bumped it against his.

VALENTINE

Las Vegas, Nevada

January 19

1059

“Mr. Valentine! It’s good to see you,” the man said earnestly, giving me a firm handshake. “My name is Gordon Willis. This is my associate, Mr. Anders,” he said, indicating a tall, muscular man with tan skin and cropped blond hair. Anders looked like an old Waffen SS recruiting poster. The
Übermensch
grunted. “Please, sit down,” Gordon said then, indicating a chair on the opposite side of a cluttered desk.

Sitting down, I studied Gordon for a moment. He was in his late thirties or early forties, with a slick haircut and an expensive suit. He smiled with perfectly straight, perfectly white teeth, and observed me with piercing blue eyes. I immediately distrusted this man. He was slick, but my gut told me he was a snake. I tried to ignore it and listened to what he had to say.

“I trust Mr. Tailor has filled you in on the job opportunity I can offer you?” he asked, folding his hands on the desk in front of him.

“Uh, yes,” I said, trying to quell my unease. “He didn’t have a lot of details himself, but he told me about the pay. Twenty-five thousand dollars a month?”

“Yes!” he said, beaming. “Tax exempt, of course.”

“How . . . how is that possible?” I asked. “The tax law says that—”

Gordon interrupted me with an obnoxious little chuckle. “Mr. Valentine, I’m sure you have a lot of questions. I’m afraid that there are a lot of things I simply can’t tell you unless you sign. All I’m at liberty to say is that you won’t have to worry about paying any taxes. We’ll take care of the IRS documentation and filing for you. You’ll keep every cent of what you earn.”

“Who are you people?” I asked flatly, my eyes narrowing. “What’s this all about? I can tell that this isn’t your office,” I said, moving my arm to indicate the small storefront we were sitting in. “You probably rented this place out a week ago.”

Gordon sat back in his chair and studied me with a knowing grin on his face. “Mr. Tailor was right about you,” he said. “You’re very sharp.” He then pulled a large manila envelope out of his desk drawer. He opened it and began to read to me. “Your real name is Constantine Michael Valentine, yet you somehow managed to get
Constantine
left off of your military ID.” My mouth fell open, but I didn’t say anything. I hadn’t heard anyone say my real first name in years. “You served a four-year term of enlistment in the United States Air Force, including a six-month combat deployment to Afghanistan. You were involved in an incident
there, and while you were discharged honorably you have a reenlistment code of RE-3. They asked you not to come back.”

“Okay, so you were able to pull my DD214,” I said. “Are you with the government?”

Gordon set the papers down before speaking. “Something like that. I’m afraid I really can’t say much more at this time. Ever since Mr. Tailor indicated that you might be interested in the job I’m offering, we’ve been doing a very thorough background check on you. I know that you went from being a career contractor with Vanguard Strategic Solutions International to working as a night-shift security guard for a local defense contractor. Your annual income is about one quarter of what it was last year, and that doesn’t include the generous operational bonuses or hazard pay that Vanguard was famous for.”

“So?”

“So, Mr. Valentine, your friend Mr. Tailor told me that you’re
better
than this. And you know what? I agree. I’ve studied your entire dossier, going back to when you were in high school. I know what happened to your mother, and I can only imagine the effect that had on you.”

“Mr. Willis,” I said coldly, “You have no
idea
the effect that had on me.”

“Ah, I see,” he said, his voice softening. “I apologize, Mr. Valentine. I didn’t mean to bring up bad blood. All I was trying to say is that I think what I’m offering is perfect for you.”

I sighed, pinching the bridge of my nose between two fingers as I did so. “Mr. Willis, what exactly
are
you offering me?”

“Straight to the point.” He beamed. “I like that. You wouldn’t believe how many guys we get through here that get intimidated when we pull out their file. I’m not going to lie to you,” he said, leaning in closer. “This job is going to be dangerous. You’ll have to be able to deploy right away.”

“I see. That shouldn’t be a problem. How dangerous are we talking here?”

“As I’m sure you’ve guessed,” Gordon said, “absolute discretion is required. Look at the world situation right now, Mr. Valentine; war in Mexico, war in the Middle East, war in Southeast Asia and Africa, more in-fighting in Russia, and an uneasy cease-fire in China with a thousand-mile-long DMZ along the Yangtze River. The world is spiraling into chaos and our country’s conventional military and intelligence assets just aren’t enough to deal with it all.”

“I’ve been shot at in half the places you just listed, Mr. Willis,” I said. “I’m
well
aware of the geopolitical situation.”

“I’m sure you are, Mr. Valentine. Since joining Vanguard you’ve been on—” he trailed off as he checked my file— “
five
major deployments overseas. Nearly five years of your life fighting other peoples’ wars. I’m offering you a chance to serve
your
country again. There’s a critical situation developing, and we need the best people available to manage it before it gets out of hand.”

“Don’t you have the CIA and Special Forces for that?” I asked. Something about this whole thing stank. The money was too good, and the facts were too few.

“As you can imagine, they’re stretched thin as is,” Gordon replied.

“I can’t imagine you’re having trouble recruiting people with the money you’re offering.”

“You wouldn’t think so, but many of our candidates have the same professional paranoia as you, Mr. Valentine. Due to the nature of the situation, I’m simply unable to disclose much more than I’ve told you before you sign. Many otherwise promising candidates have balked at the lack of information.”

I chewed on that for a moment. It was disquieting, to be sure, but I had a feeling there was more to it than that. “I see. Am I to assume that this will be a combat operation?”

“If all goes well,” Gordon said, “the combat will be minimal. We’re trying something new in our area of operations. You’ll be trained in mission-specific skills above and beyond door-kicking and trigger-pulling. As I said, the utmost discretion is required. I’m also required to inform you that while you’re away, you’ll only have minimal contact with loved ones back home. We regret this, but security is necessary until the operation is completed.”

“What kind of time frame are we looking at here?” I asked.

“Hopefully, we’ll have everyone home by Christmas. Now, I’m sure you’ve heard that before, so I’m not going to mince words. The contract is for an undetermined period of time not to exceed three years. You’re ours until the mission is over, basically. Obviously, at the pay rate we’re offering, it’s in our best interest to accomplish the mission as soon as possible.” Gordon let out a convincing chuckle at his own joke.

“Tailor told me he got a signing bonus.”

“Ah, yes!” Gordon said, retrieving another manila envelope from his desk. He opened it and placed a piece of paper in front of me. It was a standard government direct-deposit form. “If you’ll fill this out,” he said, “we should have that in your bank account in three to five business days.”

“And . . . you’re sure there won’t be any problems with the IRS? This is all going to my regular checking account with the Las Vegas Federal Credit Union and I’m not going to have the tax man breathing down my neck?”

“Don’t worry, Mr. Valentine,” Gordon said, grinning. “We’re bigger than the tax man.” That sounded more ominous than promising. I realized then that the big guy, Anders, was still standing in the corner behind Gordon and hadn’t said a word the entire time. He observed me with a bored look on his face, but I didn’t doubt that he’d made a plan to kill me the moment I walked in the door. These guys undoubtedly knew that I had a concealed-firearm permit, but they hadn’t said anything about it.

“Who, exactly, is
we
?” I asked, looking over the contract Gordon had pushed in front of me. It was full of vague legalese and only referred to Gordon’s organization as
the party of the first part.

Gordon grinned. “I’m afraid you’ll have to sign to get filled in on all of that, Mr. Valentine,” he said and set an ornate pen down in front of me. “All I can say until then is that you’ll be serving the best interests of the United States and will be protecting your country from enemies foreign and domestic.”

I picked up the silver pen. It had XII, the Roman numeral for the number twelve, engraved on it. I wondered what it meant. I took a deep breath and signed the document. Gordon smiled.

“I guess I’ll have to call my boss and tell him I’m not coming in Monday,” I said.

“Don’t worry about that,” Gordon answered. “We’ll take care of everything. You can take the direct-deposit form with you if you don’t have your bank routing number available right now. Within forty-eight hours, you should receive a packet with everything you need to know. You’ll be deploying within two weeks.”

“Deploying where?” I asked, handing him back his pen.

“Everything will be in the packet,” he said. “Until then, take some time to get your affairs in order. You’ll likely be out of the United States for an extended period of time.” Gordon stuck his hand out. I hesitated, then took it. He had an excessively firm handshake. “Welcome aboard,” he said and stood up. I gathered my papers and stood up as well. “You did the right thing.”

“I hope so,” I said, taking my papers and turning to leave.

“Mr. Valentine?” Anders, the big guy, said as I opened the door. I turned and looked back at him. “If you fail to arrive at the deployment location at the appropriate time, we
will
come get you. It’ll be best if you’re punctual
.
”

“I get it,” I said and closed the door behind me.
What the hell did I just do?

LORENZO

Confederated Gulf Emirate of Zubara