SUED FOR PEACE (The Kurtherian Gambit Book 11) (20 page)

“You mean the ass that shot me in the back?” she asked him, and he nodded, “Yes. You don’t get to shoot a Ranger in the back and live to tell about it.” She looked like she thought for a second, “You know, that is a new rule. Remember that Ryu.” Miguel noticed one of the men nod sharply.

He wanted to scream when the knife, sword, whatever the hell it was tickled him painfully in the crotch again. “I not only killed George, but I also took the money the Chinese paid you to hurt a bunch of companies.”

Miguel pressed his lips together.

She noticed, “What, I left you over five hundred thirty thousand in your second account, so stop being so pissy.” Now, Miguel was sweating a little more. If she knew how much he had, that meant she might have been able to take it.

He had to ask, “Why didn’t you take it all?”

She replied, “I don’t give a shit what you did to get the other money, that isn’t my job.”

“What are you, a cop?”

She looked exasperated, “Do cops often come into your club to tickle your testicles after withdrawing a hundred-thou out of your accounts?” Miguel shook his head no, “I didn’t think so. I’m a Ranger for the Queen Bitch. These Chinese motherfuckers have taken me off a personal vendetta to find a few assholes that really need my attention. You are just a pain in my ass, call it a boil, that needs to be popped. I can either pop it right now,” Miguel could feel the sharp pricks as she barely pushed a couple of times on her sword to make her point, “or I can pay you a hundred-thou to stop doing it.”

“That was my hundred-thousand,” he grated out.

“It’s mine now and might I add you are a hard-headed ass. I’m beginning to wonder if it wouldn’t be better to just make a pincushion out of you and let your second in command take over in your place.”

“I don’t have a second,” he admitted.

“Well, I’ll have bimbolina of the double-d’s deal with it,” she told him, “I’m sure she just wants to suck you out of your money, anyway.”

Actually, he couldn’t argue that point. “Or?”

“Or, you agree to tell me what you know of the ones who hired you, I go have this talk with them and pay you another twenty-five thousand once I take their money.”

“What’s to stop them from coming back to me?” he asked, relieved that the pressure on his cock was reduced.

“Me.” Miguel was surprised when the sword was taken off all of the way. He noticed it as she placed it back inside her coat. “Miguel, I’m a Queen’s Ranger, and I’ve been given a task. I stomp on ant-hills, I see who scurries out. Those that don’t hide quickly enough have bad nights. Like you. Those that try to get pissy with me?” She looked at him hard, her eyes becoming daggers, “like say try to pull a pistol out of their holster and shoot me?” She started to slide out of the booth, “I’ll just kill them.” She got to the end of the booth and asked, “So, what’s it going to be? We going to do business, or do I open the position at the top and continue looking elsewhere?”

“Twenty-five G's and my other hundred?” Miguel asked.

“It’s my hundred, I stole it fair and square so ownership is one-hundred percent of my law. Yes, the deal is a name, a location and one-hundred back in your account before I leave this table. I’ll send you another twenty-five as soon as I acquire it from my next visit.”

“No one knows about this?” he asked, “This agreement?”

“Only if you tell them. I’m not here to fix every damned wrong in society, and frankly, I’m about to have a discussion with people I really don’t care about. I’ve been nice to you. They have already pissed off my boss, so they are screwed whether I do it, or God protect us if she gets ahold of them. I can only kill them.”

“What can she…”

“Don’t. Ask.” she smiled grimly, “Table tennis with your testicles is child’s play. You might not like me, but I doubt you would accept someone putting three bullets in your back, so George had it coming. I’m telling you that the hundred thousand will be back. As long as you don’t make up some bullshit that is less than respectful to me, I’ll let you make up a story. However,” she paused before continuing, “if I find out your story is disrespectful? Then you had better never go to sleep because I will come back and cut off your Johnson and put a popsicle stick in its place.”

Miguel considered the options and decided going after the .44 wasn’t the best choice. Furthermore, he could spin this fairly well and keep his place. His money would be back, Boz would let others know that an additional twenty-five was inserted into the account as well.
 

Win-win.

He had to make sure the story didn’t get changed in the retelling so that it became disrespectful to her. That would be easier than shooting someone who might be able to take a couple of .44's to the back and come back to kill him.
 

“Here,” he pulled out a pen from his jacket and grabbed a napkin, “is the name and address where I met them. I don’t know much more than that and the list of businesses. Give me a contact email address and I’ll forward the business email they sent me to you.”

He noticed she pulled a phone out of her jacket and did something on it before putting it away. “I’ve sent you an email, use that email address and I’ve moved a hundred thousand into your account.”

She slid all the way out of the booth, took the proffered napkin and stood up, “Here’s a final piece of advice.”

He waited to hear what she had to say.

“Don’t use that bank, their security is some of the worst I’ve ever seen.”

He pulled his own phone out and checked his account. Sure enough, he could see a pending transaction for the hundred thousand. He slid the phone back into his jacket and realized he needed to stop the request to find her that he had running on the streets. He wasn’t sure what a Ranger was, but he really didn’t enjoy having discussions with one.
 

Nor did his cojones
.

Washington D.C., USA

Bai was on the fifth floor of the mid-level hotel in Washington D.C. He poured the hot water over the bag of Earl Grey tea that he had picked up on his first night in town. While he could get tea back in his home country, this was his preferred brand. He waited for four minutes before taking the bag out of the water and setting it aside.

He had received his orders and cased his subjects. They had a varied route and could not be depended upon to take any particular path to any destination. He was pretty sure it was by design, not by accident.

He took a sip of the tea and exhaled, allowed the peace to settle in his limbs. Taking the honey, he squeezed out a tablespoon and added it to the tea. Stirring slowly, he allowed the sweetness to saturate the drink. He set the hot spoon aside and continued his ritual.

One should always have a ritual before killing another human. The only time Bai did not was when it was a firefight. In those situations, it was permitted to pray for the deaths after the fact.

He looked at his wristwatch and confirmed he had fifteen minutes for the soul cleansing efforts he needed to take.

Bai had learned a decade past from those who also undertook his tasks that if you did not honor those you killed, your soul hardened, and you would never be able to retain the ability to stay human. It was a most difficult responsibility to kill another, and Bai chose to never disrespect those he was sent to kill.

Even Americans.

He had dossiers on the three reporters, but little on the two guards they had with them. No one in their group was able to get more than a single name for either Richard or Samuel. Nothing about them suggested much. One report believed they came from Australia due to a high usage of Australian idioms.

Bai had found this hotel across the street from their own a week ago. He had stayed here a week and left today. No security camera had him coming back into the building or this room again. Nor should it. He hacked the security cameras on his second night here. It took him another five days to decide that shooting from the bedroom window across the street through their windows was his best solution.

He took another sip of his tea.

Military intelligence suggested TQB would seek to hide the results of the attack, much like his own country would.

His group had tried to attack a different TQB group in this town just a few days back and had been unsuccessful. His team’s bodies had been found by the person driving the escape van. The last group member alive was barely able to retrieve the dead men and leave before someone found them and called the police. There was too much blood to act as if nothing had happened.
 

But, no bodies, no foul.

His team, a specialized group of the PLA, based out of Gansu, were responsible for all operations requiring deniability. On their base, there were over five-hundred focused on highly-deniable worldwide operations and support. Their teams joked that the reason there were no other Army located at their base was so that the Chairman could destroy the base if needed and there would be no incriminating or annoying witnesses.

Fortunately, a small group of high-level Generals worked out of their operations center. It helped assuage the concerns some had about whether the Committee would be willing to just bomb them out of existence if necessary. Those that were the most cynical suggested that the generals who were with them were not in the good graces of the Chairman, and it was a pointed comment that their next mistake would be their last.

Bai hadn’t heard that anyone in his teams had been tasked with killing any of the generals at the base, but if they did their jobs, he wouldn’t.

Finished with his tea, Bai cleaned up and put away everything in his little plastic sack. His rifle was ready in the next room. He walked into the darkened room and stepped close to the window to look through the drapes.

The lights were on across the way.

He looked at his watch, it was time. He opened his window in the dark and parted the sheer drapes and checked out the street. It was mostly empty at this time of night.

Bai picked up his rifle and set it on the stand he had created to help hold it steady. He figured he would get at least one, perhaps two kills before he needed to disassemble his gun and walk out and disappear into the night.

TQB Base, Australian Outback

“I’m telling you, the operation is short, sweet and simple,” Malcolm told Jedidiah.
 

“Says you,” Jedidiah replied, “You didn’t have to hump those two damned missiles this last week. Fucking a’ you asshole, even with the four-wheel drive help, the last two-hundred meters were a cock beating bitch.”

The two men squirmed the last meter to carefully peek out over the rocky outcropping eighty-six meters above the Australian outback and two-thousand meters from the location of TQB headquarters. It was hard to believe that there was much happening at the base. Malcolm had seen snapshots from high-resolution photos and it looked like a bunch of ground had been tossed around is all. Not much on top of the soil at all.

Malcolm put the high-magnification binoculars to his face, “Yeah, look. We just need to make sure nothing looks amiss, and we are out of here.” Malcolm looked around the location where the base was and could barely see the small opening used for people to walk into and out of the area. “Just those stupid rocks they brought in and some wire up in the air. Don’t know what the fuck that shit is about. Looks like they started a project and never finished.”

“Probably the bloody winds and dust out here messed it up,” Jedidiah commented, “I’m itching something fierce right now in me bum.”

“Information I’d rather you didn’t share,” Malcolm told him while still looking through his binoculars. “I don’t see anything else.” He handed the glasses to Jedidiah, “Your turn.”

“Yes, you’re right.” Jedidiah looked hard at the wires, “They cover the opening, do you think they were trying to build some sort of shade cover?”

“Oh?” Malcolm scratched at his beard and wiped to get some sand out of it, “That’s not a bad suggestion. That’s probably the reason. Hell, even underground the sun’s got to be making it a blooming oven over there.”

Jedidiah gave the binoculars back, “Yeah,” he told him as he started to shimmy backward, “That’s not a bad plan. Shame they won’t need it.”

Malcolm slid backward beneath the rock top, “There is that. Let’s get off this rock face and get the hell out of here. We’ve done our job.”

—

Lance Reynolds chewed on the unlit cigar, “I want those two sum-bitches!” He told no one in particular.

Peter was standing next to him, with Todd Jenkins, his counterpart for the Guardian Marines on his other side who spoke, “Don’t worry Lance, they will be picked up as soon as they get off the outcropping. The Wechselbalg says they are talking about some sort of missile up there.”

“So, we got possible inbound,” Lance considered what he wanted to do next, “E.I. Ares, do we have all defensive inbound railguns online?”

“Yes, General,” the Electronic Intelligence, programmed specifically for the base’s protection, had the requested electronic voice imprint that Lance preferred. He wanted to make damn sure he knew that when he was talking to the electronic intelligence for his base, there wasn’t any misunderstanding that it was a computer. “We are live on all defensive and offensive armament.”

“How about our defensive shield?” he inquired.

“Yes, General. It will be activated according to the programming unless you care to change the parameters?”

“No,” Lance said. “No need to show our hand, but when was the last time you confirmed all connections and pieces were working?”

“Ten seconds ago,” Ares answered.

“How the hell,” Peter started saying before he shut his mouth as Lance glared at him. Peter was involved as a watch and see. Answer questions if asked, no comments otherwise. He was finding it hard to accomplish his orders at the moment.

“The base defensive shield has seventy-two connections powered by nine medium level gravitic power sources. It is fairly easy to push a minimal amount of power to confirm we have proper connectivity, Guardian Peter,” Ares informed him.