Greg Rucka - Patriot acts

"Money, sex, or power," I said. "Those are the reasons for murder."

"Protecting your own," Panno said.

"We call that self-defense. It's not sex, so it's either money or power. And Hayner, that's not enough to steal Earle's power, not all of it, at any rate. So it's money. And Alena's right: We have to be able to threaten an incredible amount of money for Earle to go to the lengths he's gone to."

Panno glanced at Trent, who was staring at me as if waiting to see how many more words the monkey could string together.

"Gorman-North, is that it?" I said. "We're not threatening Earle: We're threatening Gorman-North."

"All it took was spelling it out for you," Trent said.

"So why don't you spell out the rest?"

He made an almost contemptuous snort, then said, "John."

"The three of you aren't the only ones who want Earle taken care of," Panno told me. "There are other people who have an interest. People who have been trying to get him removed from his position of influence for a few years now, and who haven't been able to do it."

The sound of the oars slowed, Alena coming to a stop.

"Phoenix Resource Consultancy," I said. "Just who do you consult for, John?"

"Right now? Not working for anyone." He smiled at me. "This is a favor for Mr. Trent. But if you're asking for people I've worked with in the past, the only one who should interest you right now is a man at the Pentagon."

Alena got to her feet. "The conflicting reports."

I looked at Panno, at Trent, and then back to Panno. "Is there anyone who doesn't know we're planning to kill the White House chief of staff?"

"There are eight people who know," Trent answered. "Four of them are in this room."

"And the other four?"

"They're in the E-Ring."

"Jesus fucking Christ," I said. "You're using us for a coup." "It's called profiteering," Panno said. "Whether you like it or not, whether you even believe it or not, we are at war, and will be for the foreseeable future. There's something FDR said during World War Two that's relevant. He said, 'I don't want to see a single war millionaire created in the United States as a result of this world disaster.' Harry Truman called the act of war-profiteering treason.

"It is. People die as a result. Soldiers, civilians, ours, theirs. Our people don't get what they need, or when they get what they need it doesn't do what it's supposed to, or there isn't enough of it, or it falls apart because the suppliers are cutting corners, massaging the bottom line.

"Gorman-North provides services to American military personnel all around the world. They build our bases, they staff our bases, they supply our bases and our soldiers with materiel and support services. They are everywhere in the system.

"And they're making billions on the deal. Billions and billions of dollars, and when we talk about that much money, even one percent of it not reaching the battlefield is a problem. When we talk about that much money, we're talking about hundreds of millions of dollars. And like I said, this thing isn't going to end anytime soon. There are going to be more and more contracts. And more and more of that money isn't going to make it where it's supposed to go."

Panno stopped speaking, his eyes locked on mine.

"It's not a coup," Trent told me. "Don't make it worse than it already is."

"It's already pretty fucking bad," I said. "If the Pentagon knows, if four fucking people there know, then that's the fucking military moving against the civilian government. What else do you want to call it?"

"No one is talking about bringing down the government," Panno said.

"Earle has been in the White House shepherding contracts for Gorman-North? You guys know this for a fact?"

"Yes."

"And we're just supposed to take your word for that?"

Trent gestured to the desk, the milk crate. "There's the paper, you want to go through it."

Alena seized on that. "So who exactly is it we're working for, Mr. Trent?"

"I'm a private citizen," Trent answered.

"Of course you are. Perfect deniability for your friends at the Pentagon. Where did this task originate? Somewhere oblique, I should think. The Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict, perhaps? Something similar?"

"Earle can't be budged," Panno said, studiously ignoring everything Alena had said. "And nothing gets past him if it's about Gorman-North. You're going to do the job anyway. This doesn't change that, because it doesn't change why you're doing it, or why Mr. Trent wants you to do it. It's just an added benefit."

"We'd be doing your friends in the E-Ring a favor," I said.

"That's probably a good way to look at it, Atticus," he said easily.

"What do we get in exchange?" I asked.

"Logistical support, intelligence. Money, if it's needed. All of it indirectly, of course."

"We're already being paid."

"You're going to incur added costs."

"I want something more. Something else."

Panno knew exactly what I was talking about. He didn't even blink.

"For both of us," I added. "For Alena and for me."

"You do this right," John Panno told me. "You'll get it."

"Then let's figure out how we're going to kill this son of a bitch," I said.

Several years ago, I was drinking at Paddy Reilly's, just sitting at the bar and killing the afternoon slowly. This was before Paddy's got discovered and got hip and you couldn't squeeze your way inside, and just after my car wreck of a girlfriend at the time had introduced me to the place. The bartender, who had come over from Belfast, and I got to talking, and the subject of my profession came up, as it does, when someone asks, "So, what do you do for a living?"

"I'm a personal protection specialist," I'd said.

"What's that when it's at home, then?"

"Bodyguard."

Which had, in turn, led to a conversation about protecting people, and my thoughts on it at the time. Being from Belfast, and having grown up with all that entailed, the bartender had a very intimate view on violence, very different from that of most of the people you meet. In the course of the conversation, the difference between assassination and murder came up.

"I've known the rough shooters, mate," the bartender told me. "They'd make you wet yourself you saw them coming."

"That's not what makes me wet myself," I said. "What makes me wet myself is the ones I don't see coming. The professional assassins, the ones you don't know were there until they've already left."

The bartender, who was a couple years younger than even I was at the time, shook his head. "That's James Bond bullshit. You want somebody dead, whyn't you just come at them with a bomb or a gun, eh? Why muck around with all that other garbage? Just seems to me like more ways it can go wrong."

"You're talking about killers, not assassins."

"Same difference, mate."

"No," I said. "A killer is who you use when you don't care if people know it was a murder. An assassin's who you use when you don't want anyone to know it was a murder."

The bartender had digested that, then bought me another Guinness on the house. The trick wasn't simply killing Jason Earle, it was doing it in a way that wouldn't look like murder, either before, during, or after the act. It was going to have to be a snow-white hit, with not even a smudge left behind. Trent and Panno were both very clear on this, which, I suppose, meant that whoever it was back at the Pentagon who had given this particular execution of nastiness his blessing had been, as well. (I was sure it was a him; to my knowledge there had yet to be an Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict, for example, who had been female.)