Clarity (The Admiral's Elite Book 3) (24 page)

Game as ever, she smiled. “Okay.”

Laying aside her file so she didn’t drop it, Becca put both feet on the floor and cleared her throat.

And jumped.

***

“He was already there when your unit arrived?” Gabrielle’s question was clear through Michael’s ears. Staring at tan patterned wallpaper there was nothing to distract her from their voices.

“Right, my unit was coming in to replace another cycling back CONUS. Bill, Senator Jordan’s, unit got there before so we operated out of the same base for three months.”

“How did Senator Jordan get mixed up with heroin? Was it back when you were in Vietnam?”

Rustling, maybe fidgeting sounds came through the wall.

“Has he been crooked his entire career?” This from Ryan.

“No.” Ed’s reply was firm. “No, but that was where he got his hooks in him.”

“Who’s he?”

“Come on, Ed.” Ryan again. “You can’t tell me someone was holding something over him but you don’t know who it was.”

“I don’t, he never said.” He stopped, it sounded like he was holding his breath. They way he would if he was going to say something and stopped
.
Oh God, Dad, what do you know?

No one spoke for a long moment. Becca pictured those three faces, stony. Judging. Even her hard assed father would crumble under that sort of pressure.

“I don’t know who it was, but...” Of course he broke. “But I kno
w
wha
t
it was.”

Nothing again. Not a group prone to impatience, they waited for the human to come to terms with breaking the senator’s confidence. Even posthumously a reputation was everything in this town.

Becca fiddled with a string on her cuff. She did not have the same patience as her team.

Finally, she heard her father’s sigh. “It was a month in on my tour. Both teams were back from operations and hanging at base. Bill and I were friendly. Nothing tight, we didn’t share more than a beer and conversation when we were in the same space. One of the guys, I don’t even remember who, but he’d been there longer, knew some of the local places where we could get things.” A very uncomfortable sounding throat clearing.

Becca imagined the intense gazes pointed his way and wanted to squirm for him.

“What kind of things, Ed?” Gabrielle prompted him.

“Uh, you know, entertainment. The kind a young man needs to let off a little steam.”

“So what sort of entertainment did you pursue that day, Ed?” Gabrielle pressed again.

“Girls. We went there for the girls.”

“Gross, Dad.”

Michael sniffed.

“Bill had a buddy in the auto pool so he got us a jeep. We figured a few beers, a little fun for a couple of hours and we’d be back, nobody would miss us.”

Funny, listening to her father, Becca didn’t need to see his face. The short pauses, the deep intakes of breath, and years of watching the man who was ever her unreachable idol; she could see his face as though she sat across from him.

“There was a central bar. Just a thatch roof with no walls, but they had a few places to sit, decent local food, and beer. Piss warm, but better than an MRE and warm fucking water.” Sarcastic snort. “We had a beer while we waited, then the girls came out. Everybody picked one and we went our separate ways. When we were done we met back at the bar. Bill was already there when I got back. Said his girl took him to her place and there was a little kid there. He couldn’t do it in front of her kid.”

“We figured we’d have another beer while we waited for the others to finish up.” The sound of glass on wood and a pause. He was drinking something. Becca felt her heart rate pick up. Her dad knew something. Would it be enough to get him hurt too? Whoever killed the senator might be cleaning up a forty year old mess. Was he safe? Was he the man she thought he was? Which was worse?

“There was some sort of commotion. No gunfire, but lots of yelling. You didn’t know over there. Like our boys are facing now, it was a different sort of war. Not always a uniform or clear cut sides. Bill and I were thinking maybe we made a mistake, maybe the village wasn’t so friendly. We had our guns, you always carried. But so did they.”

The glass slid again.

The sound of liquid pouring. A refill.

“Thanks.” A pause and audible swallow.

“Who were they? Ours? Viet Cong?” Kenneth. He would know, he’d been turned while serving in that war. He was probably seeing it with Ed; the jungle, the people, the women forced to sell what they had out of opportunity in an age old desperate attempt to feed their children while war stole their men, fathers, brothers, and safety.

“Neither,” Ed sounded tired. “A warlord. The locals feared him, you could tell by the way they scattered as he made his way toward us. Americans on his turf. He dressed like a local, spoke the language, but when he got close we saw his face. He was as foreign as we were.”

“Was he American?” Ryan wanted to know. “I heard about some of ours capitalizing on the chaos, going AWOL and living like locals.”

“No, this guy was dark, like a Latino, only not. Seeing what I’ve seen since, I’d peg him as North African. Like Moroccan or Libyan. They called him the Unitarian.”

“Describe him to me.” Gabrielle’s voice sounded odd, choked.

“Dark hair, dark eyes, about five foot nine, one eighty. Not huge but sturdy and definitely not built like a local living on rice and bush meat.”

Gabrielle made an odd sound and there was a bang, scraping of chairs, glass being knocked off, a struggle.

“Gabs!” Ryan was moving.

“What was his name?”

“I told you, they called him the Unitarian.” Ed sounded like he was choking.

Becca was up, hands on the wall like she could stop it. Anything could happen in that room long before she could get in there. “Please, Ryan. Please help my dad,” she whispered. A cool hand touched her shoulder.

“He’s got this.”

“Did you get a name? Where he came from?”

Ed wheezed.

“Gabs.” Ryan again, softer now. Soothing her. A partner in every sense. Whether Gabrielle wanted it or not, Ryan wouldn’t let her do something she would live to regret.

Becca mentally scanned through the case files, trying not to picture her dad being choked to death by a freaked out werewolf. Was there one who got away? One they hunted but couldn’t find fitting that description? What could detonate Gabrielle’s ultra cool veneer?

The scuffle ceased, two bodies breathed hard.

“Ed, did anything about this warlord or his people stand out? Anything different?” Ryan’s chair squeaked. His voice came closer. He was leaning forward. “Something you couldn’t quite put your finger on?”

“Yes.” Ed answered slowly. “He acted like he was...apart. Like he had nothing to fear.”

“From you or the locals?”

“From anyone. Like he knew nobody could touch him.”

“So what happened? Why was he there?” Kenneth.

“Heroin. The Golden Triangle. Heroin trade was based in Southeast Asia back then, Afghanistan wasn’t much of a player for the American drug trade yet.” Anger and frustration tightened his voice. “We went there for a war we didn’t have a chance of winning, got hooked on their poison, shipped it back here, and they made millions on Americans dying. Disgusting,” he spat.

“So how does this relate to you? Did you see something?”

“He made sure we did, that was his point. When they first saw us, after he rolled in, the big men in the village made a noisy stink about Americans being there. Like they hadn’t been taking our money for weeks. Not this guy. He took one look at Bill and me and calm as you please, he smiled. Like he was happy to see us. Walked right up to us, read our names off our uniforms and I’ll be damned if he didn’t laugh.”

“At what? Soldiers have been tasting local honey since the first boot hit foreign soil.” Kenneth.

“That’s the thing. This guy was smart. He knew Bill’s family was in American politics. Knew William Jordan Sr. was second generation politician and their money came from shipping. He got the read right away; soldier boy goes home, lands high up in the family business, gets groomed for Washington.”

“Shipping business,” Ryan growled. “Son of a bitch figured he won the lottery.”

“But how did he know so much about Bill’s family?  Politics I get, maybe he’s heard the name in the paper, but to know where the family got their money? It’s not like he could Google the name on the spot.” Gabrielle was back under control.

“Shit, we were weeks behind out in the jungle like that. No word for a month sometimes.”

“We kicked that one around more than once,” Ed replied. “This Wolf guy was smart, connected, obviously came back there a lot. So did we. We figured he had the locals get our names when we came to visit, he could do his homework and come out when he heard somebody interesting was back. Made to order blackmail.”

“Blackmail takes leverage,” Gabrielle reminded him. “What did he get on you?”

“Nothing on me, I wasn’t worth his time. Bill though, he knew how to set him up. How to get him on his hook.” Another slide of glass and clunk. “He called out a few orders, sent the locals scurrying. The brought the rest of the boys back, took Bill’s gun, shot Emerson in the throat. No threats, no offers for a deal. He pulled the trigger and looked right at Bill. While we watched Emerson bleed out in that fucking jungle he pointed calm as can be and said, ‘You’re mine.’ Then his boys loaded us into the jeep at gunpoint and drove us almost home, hopped out, told us not to come back until we were sent for. A few days later a little boy came out of the jungle looking for Senator Bill Jordan.”

“Senator?”

“Yep, bastard put it right out there. Reminds him what’s on the line with his family name and future all in one.”

“What did he do?”

“He went with the kid. Wanted me to stay back but no way was I letting him go in alone. We took the jeep again. We were dumb, thought if we had a ride we could get away. There’s no getting away from this guy, he’s everywhere.

The kid took us to him, he was waiting for us. He had pictures of Emerson, left to rot who knows where. Pictures and a proposition if you could call it that.”

“Here we go,” Ryan leaned back, voice gaining that bitter edge.

“Bill was heading home soon, he had a package to carry in his pack. A few bundles to put on a freighter leaving the week before he shipped out.”

“Just a few bundles?” Kenneth was incredulous.

“At first.”

“Ah.”

“Get a little bit into the States on one of their freighters and nobody would know how our off the record whoring got a soldier killed.”

Light bulbs all around.

Ryan gave voice to what they were all thinking. “The senator had to work for the blackmailer. A scandal like that kills his family’s political career, his too after he comes home. How often did he do favors for this guy? I’m guessing it turned into a long, slow ass fuck?”

Gabrielle made a disgusted noise.

There was a pause, presumably while Ryan shot her a dark look. Then he rephrased. “I’m guessing the guy wasn’t satisfied with a few shipments here and there, he found himself a golden goose with the senator.”

A sigh from Ed. “At first that’s all it was, get someone at the docks on that side to let a guy walk into the yard, a container wasn’t sealed until he left. Time went on and he got more demanding. After Bill was elected, the shipments went up in quantity and frequency until it was once a week from Asia, another shipment picking up in India.”