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  "So, what's in it for the Director? Why is he taking these risks running an operation against a client right under Mr. Galbraith's nose?"

  "It certainly isn't for money. Like you said, we are compensated well enough to extinguish all but the most avaricious. I understand that Lars has a son and that he is his contact within Darius. He must have a special bond with him," Jake surmised.

  "A son? I did not know that. This changes things. Where did you get this information?"

  “I have my sources. You never tell me where you get yours, so we’re even,” Jake said.

  “Fine. What do you know?”

  "I know he went to the University of Connecticut to study civil engineering. I know he was raised by his mother in upstate New York, know he was hired by Darius three years ago, and that is about it. I have tax returns, cell phone records, and Christmas card lists. Nothing points back to Lars. He supposedly hasn't seen the young man since he was five."

  "That doesn't make any sense. Why would he cover up his own son’s existence?" Gary pondered.

  Jake shrugged.

  "We know the contact exists, we just don't know the form. It doesn't matter. The best idea for us is to protect the interests of our employer. In the process, we can save our own hides,” Jake explained.

  "So, you expose this to Galbraith who in turn blows the whistle as if they provided the information. That could work. The only thing is…"

  "You don't trust the whole team," Jake interjected.

  Gary looked at him, his face set.

  "Violet has it out for you, man. You embarrassed her. That doesn't set well. As communications director and liaison to Lars, she is in a position to hack your plan to pieces."

  "It's a chance we will have to take. Besides, Violet isn't the only one we have to worry about trusting."

  "Sam?"

  "No. Giselle."

  Chapter 8

  The Alright Corral

  As Jake strolled the hallways of the fiftieth floor, he imagined an old Western soundtrack playing. He dreamed for a moment that he was wearing chaps and spurs, boots and a six-shooter. He had long sideburns and a droopy mustache. He had not bathed in days and his sweaty Stetson was askew on his head, rakishly covering one eye.

  He could not help feeling like this would be a showdown. Jake realized the irony of an assassin feeling that he was taking the moral high ground. Of course, to do so, he had to be deceptive and disingenuous. What were some creative lies in comparison to murder and corporate greed?

  In his eyes, he was entering this meeting wearing the white, but somewhat sullied hat. The Darius brass would be wearing dark black Irish bowlers, three-piece suits with ascots, and monocles. Lars would be wearing a black cowboy hat and smoking one of his disgusting cigars.

  His heart was calmer than he had expected. He normally was pretty cool, but this meeting unnerved him. He understood the power and the corruption that Galbraith represented. Mr. Galbraith was publicly a philanthropic and socially conscience billionaire. However, the Para Contra branch of the Galbraith Alliance had a mission statement of bella omnium contra omnes, meaning, "war of all against all." This reflected Zeke Galbraith's philosophy in a nutshell. For such an international outfit, this was certainly a cowboy mentality. Of course, some of the best westerns ever were directed by Italians.

  Jake did not mistake this philosophy for a carte blanche in regards to betraying allies or misusing corporate funds to pursue personal vendettas. This would especially be true of projects that were in direct conflict with current customers. His participation would be interpreted as complicity. He was gambling that this would work. Failure meant certain death. Cement shoes, a particularly Russian form of roulette, death by torture, or worse.

  He tried to push to the back of his mind the burden that his life was not the only one on the line in this venture. Gary, Sam, and Violet could also find themselves in danger if this did not go as planned.

  Of course, he thought with chagrin, there wasn't really a plan, per se.

  Of Giselle, he could not even spend a moment thinking about her now. He did not want to allow a stray thought to tip his hand. He needed to be as engrossed in his performance as the compliant, ignorant, and eager to kill assassin as he could muster.

  The double oak doors were already shut. He would have to knock. He suddenly noticed his palms were sweating. He could not go in like that. He stopped and waved his hands vigorously. He did not want to seem to have an itchy trigger finger.

  Jake checked his piece tucked neatly inside his jacket under his left arm. He had picked up a new holster in the armory early this morning just after having his usual caramel machiatto with an extra shot of espresso. He felt a little fuzzy. He closed his eyes and tried to clear his head. He breathed slowly, listening to his body. He tried to focus and be open at the same time.

  He was getting nowhere standing in the hall shaking his hands and trying to find clarity before jumping off the precipice, so he grabbed the door knob with confidence and put a surprised smile on his face.

  The wolves were calling and he needed to meet them with a smile and a handshake. The snakes were slithering and Jake needed to stoop lower than their bellies to leave this room alive.

  "Mr. Monday," Lars said with false warmth. Jake could see the truth stuck between his teeth like some week-old beef. "We were just discussing your role in our new project. Come join us."

  The sun glinted off the fourteen-foot council table in front of the bank of windows. The full glory of downtown New York rose in the distance up river. Jake was not afraid of heights, but this view to the north always made him a little dizzy. He imagined the bright sun made him squint, his eyes narrow like a drifter staring down his enemy. It made him want to spit tobacco on the carpet and deepen his scowl.

  He took a plush leather chair and swiveled it around so he was not staring directly into the morning sun rising to the east. He did not bother shaking anyone's hands. He knew that was taboo here. This was not business. This was not about manners and the lies that surrounded small talk and the other sycophant behaviors regarded as etiquette in the corporate world.

  This was about vengeance. No handshakes needed for dealing death. Only loaded pistols and blood running in the dust at high noon.

  He nodded at the balding Xavier Darius as a sign of respect. He noted the long, serious faces of his brothers and his eldest son. No Calvin, evidently. Too small to show, or merely too dangerous?

  Jake perused the countenances of the seven men seated across from him. He could not see all them clearly because of the glare. He believed three of the board were present. In addition, Xavier's son, Matthew sat next to him, a perma-scowl on his face.

  He wanted desperately to be able to stow his normal tendency to crack a joke for a different set of company.

  No one here with a funny bone in their body, Jake thought.

  He knew they would suspect that something was wrong if he did not succumb to his customary benign banter. He desperately wanted to push the Stetson down in front of his eyes, kick his boots up on the long table and take a nap. He fought the urge.

  "Talking about me behind my back again, Lars? I knew I shouldn't have taken down those bugs in here last week," Jake said with a plastic smile on his face. He could almost hear it squeak against his teeth.

  He saw Gary's grimace. Gary sat with his palms on his lap. Jake saw his leg working nervously under the table. It was a good thing that Gary always appeared nervous.

  The general consensus at the table was a frown. Two thick men in dark suits stood in the corner, their eyes boring holes into him. Their muscles rippled beneath their ill-fitting, off-the-rack jackets. The bulges of their tell-tale Berrettas were so obvious, a third grader could tell they were packing.

  In his mind, a high pitched, western whistling echoed. He fought the temptation to smile.

  He wondered at these fellas. Why would Darius bring obvious mafia beef into a complex full of trained mercs, assassins, and highly-trained support personnel? It made no sense. They would be dead in seconds if Jake sneezed wrong.

  Did the Darius Electric Cooperative owners feel safer with four hundred and eighty pounds of meat protecting their backsides? If their IQs were equal to their chest circumference, the bodyguards might feel a little daunted and overwhelmed with the audacity of their employers.

  Jake was reminded of the national economy. It suffered from a similar misconception of expectation. Over promise, under deliver. Good choice.

  Lars cleared his throat.

  "We were just saying that the demands of this assignment are simple and straightforward. Nothing you can't handle. Once we agree to the timeline, we can get the other formalities out of the way and get started. Sound good?" Jake felt his eyebrows rise and his eyes bulge. Sound good?

  His cheery manner was completely out of place. Was Lars scared? And, when was the last time the Director asked if something sounded good? He attempted to keep the surprised look from his face. This was all so dubious, his hairs were prickling at the base of his neck.

  He was treading very deep water.

  "Sounds fine, Director." He wanted to sound official. If this was "under the table," as he suspected, it would be best if he kept up appearances.

  "Great. You received the dossier with the information you need. Is that correct?"

  Jake had found a three-inch folder on his desk this morning. He had not even looked at its contents. He knew what it would contain. Excuses, lies, plans, uninteresting information, mission parameters, success and failure directives. It was a file with more specific details than the folder Lars had given him last week. Giselle was named, obviously, as the target.

  "Absolutely. Just let me know when I can get started. I am anxious to do what I do best with my particula
r set of skills." He was trying to throw in as many cheesy movie lines as possible. He wanted to inspire greatness in the mafia suits. He was supposed to be some sort of hero here. He needed to fill the role. Cocky. Brash. Overeager. Capable. Professional. Jerk.

  So far, so good. He did not want to celebrate too early, though. He had not received an offer. He trusted that the folder still on his desk held information regarding Ms. Chaput's itinerary, her residence, hotels booked, credit card information, cell phone number, email address, favorite perfume, and underwear size. Ideas for confrontation, infiltration, and elimination would be detailed. Proposals for extraction, transportation, and ammunition would be suggested.

  "Mr. Monday, we know you are capable of carrying out the mission parameters. You do understand that the target is New Year's Eve?"

  Jake was only mildly surprised. He did not show it.

  "Of course. I am looking forward to celebrating the new year in style." Now he was laying it on thick. He could see a smile creep across Xavier's face. He was delighting in the baseness of this.

  Jake wondered if anyone in the room besides him had ever killed another human being. The mafia guys looked like pounders, not duelists. Perhaps they had bludgeoned someone to death, or sat on them until they suffocated.

  There was no romance in it. Murder was not an aphrodisiac. Snuffing out another's life was merely a vivid reminder of one's own mortality. As a race, humans could be so soft, weak, and vulnerable. Men and women could die in a million different ways.

  The only joy that could be extracted from slaying a fellow human was that somehow your life continued as theirs passed. Joy was not the word. Relief was a better approximation of the feeling as you stood over someone with four bullet holes in their head and chest and a three foot diameter pool of blood on the floor.

  The group of “business men” were nodding with glints of approval in their eyes. Their morbid condoning of Jake's task made his stomach lurch. He did not regret doing his job. He just took no pleasure in it. Some did. It just felt wrong. It felt perverted. It was just a job to him. The more he did it, the better he became at it, and the more he had the feeling that what he did was terrible. Powerful, incredible, and awful.

  "Then we have an agreement. Your assignment is set and the package is to be eliminated. A camera and laptop have been provided for you to make a visual confirmation," Lars said. It sounded hollow. He was just going through the motions. Lars was almost robotic in his delivery.

  "We suggested using a head-cam, but your Director refused. He said that it will interfere with your ability to do your job. What do you think?"

  Jake considered Matthew's question. Evidently, he had watched one too many spy movies.

  "The problem isn't the glasses themselves. The resolution is bad, the live connection spotty, and the guise too obvious. The glasses tend to be too large, but that can be played off as a fashion faux pas. The only danger is that the risk of using them is too great to justify the poor production value. The Director is correct to suggest a post mortem visual confirmation."

  That was probably his most professional monologue ever. He hoped he was convincing, because the glasses would be a great idea if they were going to do the assassination straight. As it was, wearing glasses would not allow him any room for negotiation with Giselle. Staging her death would be more problematic as well.

  "I see," Matthew said, nodding at his father.

  "Then I see no reason why we cannot shake on this agreement like businessmen."

  Jake stood, delighted that this was going to go off without a hitch.

  "I think the glasses are a good idea. I disagree with Mr. Monday and the director," Violet said, her voice shrill and demanding. He had almost taken her presence for granted. She was the only female at the table. She was so suffused in anger and self-pity, Jake had hardly registered her at all.

  Jake saw the director swing his head around, his eyes wide in fury and disbelief.

  So much for that promotion, Violet, Jake thought.

  "Excuse me? Why is that, Ms…."

  "Sanger. Violet Sanger, communication specialist and mission liaison, Dr. Darius."

  Jake was impressed. She had done her homework. But what is her ploy? Jake wondered. He imagined she had just pulled a Dillinger from beneath her petticoats and was holding them all hostage with the single round in the chamber. Maybe he was wrong and it was really a Gatling gun.

  "The problem with the typical glasses used in surveillance is that they are using tech from the nineties. We have a new model using Foster Grant and Chaps brand frames as well as couple of sports frames and wireless ones. The camera is embedded into the ocular lenses of the glasses rather than the frames and use a nano technology that includes Bluetooth connectivity and upload speeds of up to sixty megs per second. This is faster than most wifi upload speeds because they do not use the same frequencies and therefore don't have to fight the bandwidth."

  Xavier laughed.

  "I suppose you can explain that to me in English, Matthew?"

  Matthew stared at Violet, his mouth agape.

  "Uh. Yeah. Sure," he said, stuttering. He looked at his father and then glanced at his uncles who stood watching him expectantly. Could Matthew be the mover and shaker here? Daddy certainly deferred to him enough."Basically, she is saying that the models of glasses they have available can provide us real-time views of Mr. Monday's work."

  Xavier barely managed to conceal the pleased smile that came to his thin lips.

  "I am looking forward to that. Keep me posted. You have our information, Lars," Xavier said in a lazy, half-bored voice.

  The Director had a constipated look on his face. He looked like he would implode. Defcon 9, at least.

  "Yes, sir."

  Jake guessed that it rankled his boss to be addressed by his first name in front of his team. Pride was on sick leave today, evidently.

  Xavier glided down the table and took Violet's hand in his. He lifted it to his lips. Violet, to her credit, did not blush. She just stared into his eyes meaningfully and nodded with a smile. Xavier lifted his chin and closed his eyes. He placed his hand on his brother, Brandon's, back and escorted him from the room, the sun reflecting from his prodigious bald spot.

  Jake still stood by the chair. It seemed everyone had forgotten him. The dusty street began to clear. The sun shone on the lonely hero. Nothing to see here, folks.

  The Director had edged from his seat to the coffee table set against the windows. He opened a carafe and looked inside. Jake guessed that Lars had filled that one with Vodka.

  Jake imagined his smoking revolvers were aimed at Violet's meddling head. He was not angry, but she had just put them all in jeopardy. He always enjoyed a challenge, but for what he was attempting, this could be suicide.

  Gary was standing at the end of the room now, nervously watching the mafia suits file out of the room behind the Darius brothers. He glanced at Jake, a look of desperation and doom.

  Jake shrugged and smiled.

  Only Matthew remained, chatting quietly with Violet. Jake was amazed as he watched Violet write down a number on a slip of paper and he took it, a sparkle in his eye.

  Wonders never cease, Jake thought wryly.

  Chapter 9

  A Girl's Best Friend

  Camilla Cross knew his type. He sat with his back against the window, watching the other passengers with curiosity. He was cooly confident, eyes like a hunter, built like an athlete, with an aggressive intelligence and an inflated sense of self. She liked to take men like him down a peg.

  It was a bonus when her assignment was to humiliate someone who deserved it, who could possibly build a little character from it.

  From her briefing, this was a very delicate assignment. The Farm knew that international terrorist organizations were employing counter measures for what they had once coined “CHATTER.” A combination of drugs and other mind bending techniques were employed to create loyalty, suppress memory, and to heighten aggression, mental and physical acuity. Instead of uncovering truth by breaking down barriers, terrorists sought to create a new truth, to build up walls, and bend individual’s talents to their own agenda.

  She was looking at a puppet. The only question was, who was pulling the strings? The marionette in this case had to have deep pockets and a very secretive agenda.