Alex (In the Company of Snipers) (2 page)

“Then check again.”

“Yes, Boss.” Taking her place at the conference table, Mother didn’t react to his rudeness. He forced a deliberate breath.

Tone it down, Stewart. These people don’t even know what happened yet.

The room filled in silence. Three senior agents, four junior agents, and two genius info techies comprised his fledgling team. He needed more agents, and maybe he needed better men, but for now, they were all he had. His men were ex-military snipers, perfect for the work he needed done until today. Zack Lennox nodded grimly. He always was good at reading people.

Alex took another settling breath.
No need to preach to the choir. Settle down.

Before the last person took his seat, he flipped the switch to lower the video screen. Stalking beneath it, he snapped a finger at the statuesque blonde seated at the computer console. “Roll it.”

Don’t take it out on her. She didn’t do it.

Ember Davis, Mother’s assistant, logged in, but, just as the feed came on-line, her screen went dark before the picture could materialize. Hurriedly, she worked the keyboard until it flickered back to life.

“Anyone want to tell me what happened out there?” Alex jerked his thumb at the screen. It blinked off again. He lowered his head and bit his lip to keep his anger in. Everything seemed to be working against him today.

Cool it, Stewart. Focus. Think.

“Sorry.” Ember continued at the keyboard. The picture came to life.

“What happened out there?” He didn’t mean his question to come out so accusing, so mean. But it did.

Silently, all eyes studied the overhead display. He watched their faces. Jaws dropped. Eyes widened. Mother covered her mouth with both hands. Ember blinked wide green eyes. Murphy Finnegan growled without any attempt to use actual words. Zack pushed away from the table, contempt etched in his face at what he was viewing.

Good. Now you see what I see. Now you know how bad things can get when an agent fails.

Roy Hudson paled, if that was possible for a black man. He scrubbed his hand over his face. Only David Tao seemed unaffected, not like Alex was surprised. Even on a bad day, David would be calm. With his anger checked Alex blew out a slow deliberate breath. It was safe to proceed now. He was calm. These were good people. They weren’t anything like Rod.

“What’s wrong with this picture?”

No one responded. The thing about blowing your cool in the past is that people remember. His team had taken more than their fair share of tongue-lashings, all of them undeserved.

“I’ll tell you what happened.” He steadied his fingers to the table. “Our intel to the Air Force was wrong, and because of our wrong information, innocent people were hurt this morning. The target who I contracted to hit is still out there, and he is still killing American soldiers.” Alex glared while everyone else avoided eye contact. Even Zack looked away. “This is not how we do business!”

Murphy Finnegan spoke up. He was the only one who dared. “Rod Kensington blew the op, not these folks here. Air Force OSI is looking for him right now.”

“The Office of Security Investigations won’t find him. I’ll bet Kensington isn’t even in the country anymore.”

Murphy sighed. “You know these things happen. They’re every bit as bad as friendly fire. It’s a sad cost of war.”

“Not in my company it isn’t!” Alex let his cardinal rule sink in. His rage peaked again, threatening to override his common sense. Surgeons must never be wrong. They didn’t have the luxury of making mistake with other people’s lives. Neither did he or his team.

Murphy gave up and focused on the pen in his hand.

Alex turned back to Mother. “Find Kensington. Track his GPS. Do whatever you need to do, but get him on a plane tonight. I need someone out there who can get the job done right.”

She nodded obediently as if he had been polite. That simple reaction was the final straw. Abruptly, Alex stormed out the door. His anger won. Again.

“I might as well do it my damn self!”

The meeting only angered Alex more, and the calm with which his team took his abuse was beyond his comprehension. Once more, he had failed, made a fool of himself, and embarrassed them. If anything, he pitied them because they worked for him. Except for the errant Junior Agent Kensington, each of his agents gave back tenfold, while all Alex seemed able to return was hostility and impatience. Try as he might, his anger ruled. If he had worked for the man he had become, he would have quit a long time ago.

Out of control with no way to change, he cursed himself most of all. Even now, he wanted to upend his desk, throw a chair out the window, or hit something. Anything. He didn’t. Instead, he seethed.
How do others do it? How could anyone lose their entire family and still function?
He didn’t understand, and he didn’t want to.

A thousand ways the guilt came back to him.
I should’ve been there.
As if he didn’t know that? Four years without them was not living. A man can’t have his family wrenched out of his life and not feel like the wretch he had become. Every day was a trial, full of loneliness and one endurance test after another. It was torture.

Murphy would knock at the door soon, come in and talk about the weather, or something business related. That was another thing Alex couldn’t believe he had done. Why did he, ex-Marine and current idiot, ever think he could start a business?
I’m a sniper. A soldier. Not a businessman. How stupid am I?
Anger fueled his already throbbing migraine.

The simple truth was that everything had fallen so easily and too quickly into place. He had even been bankrolled by the very prestigious Jed McCormack, an entrepreneur just up the road in Rosslyn, Virginia with friends in Congress and plenty of cash. Once Jed found out about Alex and his idea for The TEAM, he had put forth a magnanimous offer Alex couldn’t refuse, and all because he had saved McCormack’s son during the first Gulf War. Brady McCormack was a good Marine, a good soldier, and now a quadriplegic—but alive.

Jed’s gratitude knew no bounds. It allowed Alex to own the building they resided in outright, lock, stock, and barrel. The ceilings high, the windows expansive, the modern building spoke of understated elegance. Polished aluminum lined black marble countertops, and each agent’s workspace boasted the same spacious design. His own executive office was more window than wall. But now he stood with his foot on that low windowsill and wondered why he ever thought he needed an office with a view.

He should be proud. Beautiful Alexandria, Virginia, sprawled to the Potomac below with people coming and going, friends meeting for lunch, tourists sightseeing, and families vacationing. He hated them all, but more than anything on this green earth, he hated himself. Four years ago was just yesterday, and the deaths of his wife and daughter just as painful now as then. Bitter rage ignited all over again.

I should’ve been there.

Dressed in the executive uniform of the day, charcoal suit, burgundy shirt, and black tie, he looked like any other captain of industry. Even the early gray at his temples belied his youth and added an air of distinction he didn’t deserve. Salt and pepper he could live with. He just couldn’t live without—them.

Two blond-haired beauties materialized in his mind—Sara, the love of his life, and Abby, the child he would give anything to hold one more time. Their blue eyes still smiled, full of the happiness he missed every day.
How do people stop hurting? How do they recover and move on?
He didn’t know. His hand reached out to touch their sweet faces. The cold window reminded him again. They were gone.

Cabin.

A single word bubbled up through the bitter caldron within his mind. Alex glanced at his watch. He felt for the people in that video clip. Those wailing women were the impetus to his decision to become a USMC scout sniper all those years ago. Collateral damage was not acceptable. Never.

And now he would have to deal with an Air Force demand for mitigation, possibly litigation, and they were right. He would settle. The Air Force would expect redress, and no matter how much it cost, he would give it to them. It might be millions. He didn’t care. They might never hire his company again. That much was sure. He owned a six-month old business that already had a black mark against it. Again, he didn’t care. It was those people a world away that would haunt him now. Kensington might have blown the op, but Alex took it personally.

Cabin.

The single word persisted. He pushed it aside. Like anything else in life, a man’s word was his reputation, and now his sucked. His personal code was simple. Never late. Never wrong. Never miss. Anger smoldered hot and potent. He pressed two fingers to the temple that hurt the worst and cursed Rod Kensington as much as he cursed himself.
Never should’ve hired him. Kensington was nothing but a hired gun. Absolutely nothing but.

Cabin.

He glanced at his watch.
What month is it anyway?
A quiet rap at his door interrupted his thoughts. He pushed the anger back where it belonged. Stowed it. Locked it up. Wished he could throw away the key.

“It’s open.”

“Need you to sign another contract, young man.” Right on schedule, in came good old Murphy, as calm as Alex was volatile.

He had first met Murphy during a joint military operation when they were both still active duty. Murphy knew The TEAM inside out. He had been with Alex through the months of preliminary market research, of building a rock-solid business plan, and the nightmare of coming up with sufficient start-up capital. Thanks heavens for Jed. At least he had made that one problem go away, but thank heavens more for Murphy. It was the intangible benefits he brought with him that eased the burden of entrepreneurship. The old Army Ranger liked people. At this point in time, Alex did not. The truth was The TEAM could probably survive without him more than his right hand man.

He looked at his watch again. The silver and gold face declared the month of June.
Already? Seems like only yesterday ….

He blew out a deep sigh. “I’m taking a few days off, Murph. Soon as I talk with the Air Force, I’m heading west to do a little fishing.”

Two

Alex

Alex took one last glance at his pickup, parked, locked, and left behind at the Gas-N-Go, a combined service station and food mart. He had made arrangements with the owner years ago. The moment Dan Fletcher saw the truck, he would know Alex was in town. He might never see Alex, but Dan would keep an eye out for his friend’s truck. That was one of the benefits of soldiering. Friends showed up in the darnedest places.

Calling his dogs, Whisper and Smoke to his side, he walked briskly into the trees, his mind already eight miles deep in the forest and sitting relaxed on his cabin steps with a cup of coffee in his hand. That’s all he wanted, time to not have to keep up with all the balls he had set in motion. The drive across country had already restored some of his peace of mind. The solitude of this particular place ought to do the rest.

It might not make sense to others that he kept a cabin so far from where he lived, but it worked for him. Twenty-seven hundred miles between work and play made a decent buffer zone. Besides, this tract of twenty acres was the only thing his old man had ever given him. A son doesn’t walk away from an inheritance like that.

He didn’t know how his father came to own the land, and he didn’t care. It was a decent chunk of property, so Alex had developed it with a cabin that was nothing more than two rooms and an indoor bathroom closet under a cedar shake roof. To keep things civil, he installed a septic tank and minimal indoor plumbing a couple years back. He had added a few amenities over the years—some dried food storage to supplement a successful day of fishing or hunting, and an outdoor shower that relied on gravity when he was ambitious enough to lug water.

Eight miles south of the two-lane highway, the tract of remote wilderness butted up against Forest Service land on the southwest side, and private property on the rest. The Forest Service kept easement rights to an old dirt road through his land, but Alex had never seen so much as another hunter, much less a ranger in all the times he had been there. The road came in handy to haul building supplies by ATV back then. The remote cabin was perfect for the remote man he had become. At least his old man got that one thing right.