John Gilstrap - No mercy

Hawkins lowered his hands. His expression was pure suspicion. “You mentioned that. What are we going to talk about?”

“The Green Bees.”

“I don’t-”

“And please skip the denials. We’re in an alley, for God’s sake, because you made like a track star last time I mentioned the Green Brigade.”

Hawkins shifted his eyes between Jonathan and Boxers, and as he did, he seemed to find resolve. “Maybe I don’t run so good, but I’ll tell you right now that I don’t scare easy. If you’ve got blackmail on your mind, I got nothin’ worth extorting.”

“We’re not here to extort anything, Mr. Hawkins. Can I call you Andy?”

Hawkins scowled. “Not even my mother calls me Andy. Andrew’s fine. And what’s your name again?”

“Leon,” Jonathan lied.

“That’s no more your name than mine is Mona,” Hawkins said.

Jonathan neither confirmed nor denied. “You’re the leader of the Green Brigade. Yes?”

Hawkins watched as Boxers worked his way around to block his only escape route. He sighed. “Look, the true answer is no, but I know if I tell you that, you’re gonna beat the shit outta me.”

“What makes you think that?”

“If you didn’t want me to think that, you wouldn’t have brought Lurch here to block the sun.”

Jonathan smiled in spite of himself. Back in the Unit, a few people had tried to make the name Lurch stick for Boxers, but the big man didn’t like it. Really didn’t like it. “He’s back there because you looked twitchy as hell inside, and because you ran. Think of him more as a roadblock than a menace. All we want is the truth.”

Hawkins shrugged. “I used to be the commander of what used to be the Green Brigade. But it doesn’t exist anymore. At least not as I knew it.”

Jonathan cocked his head.

Hawkins patted his shirt and then his pants pockets before he stopped himself. “You gonna shoot me if I get a cigarette?”

“If the cigarette doesn’t have a trigger, you’ll be fine.” As Jonathan spoke, a gentle press with his right elbow reconfirmed the presence of the. 45 on his hip.

Hawkins told his story as he slid a Marlboro between his lips and lit it with a flourish from his Zippo. “When I joined the Green Bees, it stood for something. We were an environmentalist group. We talked trash, smoked a little weed, organized protests, and circulated petitions.”

“What were your causes?”

“A lot of animal rights stuff. Habitat preservation, clean air legislation, that sort of thing. You know it’s shameful how we treat the defenseless creatures of this planet.” He caught Jonathan’s telltale glance toward his clothing. “Yeah, okay, I know. The leather belt and shoes argument. I eat meat, too, but it’s different. You don’t want the whole stump speech, but let me tell you, the day will come when s even on the tattoo.” Jonathan’s shocked expression made Hawkins laugh. “That’s some shit, ain’t it?” He patted his left breast, over his heart. “Right here. To be a full member of the tribe, you had to get this ugly-ass coat of arms lookin’ thing tattooed on your chest. Red, white, and blue, with ‘brigadier for life’ across the bottom. I mean, the thing is fuckin’ huge.”

Jonathan and Boxers shared a look. Unless Stephenson Hughes had a matching tattoo, it looked like Jonathan was wrong about him being the mutilated corpse from Sergeant Semen’s jurisdiction. “Let’s talk more about Fabian Conger,” Jonathan said. “I get the impression that you two were friends.”

“There were no friends in the Brigade. Only fellow brigadiers. But given that, I guess Fabe and I were about as close to friends as you can get. I haven’t heard from him since the last time I was at the retreat.”

“How did he and Ivan-Palmer-get along?”

Hawkins shook his head. “You’re not getting it. You’re assuming some kind of social motivation, and I’m telling you there was none of that. There used to be, back when I was in the leadership, but not after. There was the mission, and there was nothing else. No one ‘got along’ as you think of it. People followed orders and they drilled and they listened. Every now and then, they’d actually launch a mission, but more often than not, it was all about preparing for some unnamed apocalypse. If you haven’t been there, I know it sounds stupid. Hell, it was stupid, but I’m telling you that’s the way it was. As for Fabe and Palmer, I think the best way to put it is Fabe was an acolyte. A disciple. Palmer thought about saying ‘jump’ and Fabe was already out of his chair.”

Jonathan turned what he’d learned over in his head, weighing what they knew coming in against what Hawkins was feeding them. It was time to go from the general to the specific. “Does the name Carlyle Industries mean anything to you?”

Hawkins jumped like he’d been zapped with electricity. He whipped his head around to see if anyone was listening. “Holy shit,” he hissed. “Who told you about Carlyle Industries?”

Jonathan said nothing, made no move. His face remained pleasantly impassive.

Hawkins raised is hands in surrender and turned to walk back inside. “You guys are hell-bent on getting me killed. I’m outta here.”

Boxers blocked his way, and Hawkins looked as if he might cry. “Come on, guys,” he whined. “Please don’t do this to me. People are gonna know where you got this shit, and they’re gonna come after me. As it is, the Brigade is paranoid that I don’t come around anymore. All I’ve got going for me is their trust that I won’t screw them.”

“Quit panicking, Andrew,” Jonathan said.

“You don’t know these assholes. Panic is all I got.”

“Think about what you’re saying,” Jonathan coached, his voice the essence of calm. “They can’t know that you told us about Carlyle because you didn’t tell us about Carlyle. The first time the name came up is when we mentioned it to you.”

Hawkins’s expression turned to an odd miVehicles. Their Government Services Division made computer programs for project management tracking and fire protection systems for military installations throughout the world. Meanwhile, their Defense Systems Division was in charge of unnamed specialized munitions for delivery by “multiple interservice weapons platforms.” Clear as paint. Nowhere in the annual report was there a mention of chemical or biological warfare agents.

She turned to the page that displayed the salaries of the key employees-$8 million a year for Bunting and Rooney, down to $320,000 for Charlie Warren, in all cases before benefits and bonuses. Further down the page, she found the list of key suppliers and contractors, and on that list she saw the name that made her heart jump.

Last year, Carlyle Industries paid $527,468.27 to Ivan Patrick Enterprises for “unspecified security services” performed for the Special Projects Division.

“Good Lord,” she whispered aloud. Her heart racing and her brain screaming at her to shut down the search and contact Jonathan right away, she paused.

What is the Special Projects Division? she asked herself. She navigated backward on the file to reread the entire description of the company, but there was not a word to be found.

“Hmm,” she mumbled. Research became a thousand times more interesting when you had specific questions to answer.

She dug deeper and hit bedrock. The Carlyle files were all heavily encrypted. Venice smiled. This was going to be fun.

Walking into the lobby of the Frederick Palace Hotel was like passing through a portal to the past. Small by the standards of modern hotels, the Frederick Palace’s soaring lobby and dark hardwoods gave a sense of charming warmth that even further endeared this little burg to Jonathan. At Andrew Hawkins’s request, they chose a conversation group in a corner of the lobby farthest from the front doors, across from the empty lobby bar.