Jeff reached Farris and slid behind him. He was no longer a threat since he was weak and out of bullets. He used him as a shield now that he was facing Hingle.
“Let her go now, it’s over!” Jeff shouted.
Hingle’s reaction was to fire again at him. The four rounds landed in Farris and killed him. Jeff cowered behind and felt each gunshot’s impact, but wasn’t otherwise hit. On top of that, he was ecstatic by what he saw at the exact same time.
With Hingle’s arm fully extended, Manon Riley saw an opportunity to help her son. Although her body was properly bound, she was able to throw herself sideways on Hingle’s arm and move it aside. She lost her balance and fell to the floor.
“Ah!”
Flooded with rage, Jeff aimed the revolver forward and fired all six shots into Ross Hingle’s body. Two bullets ripped apart his head.
After a moment to catch his breath and to make sure Hingle was really dead, Jeff picked up his Glock from Farris’s hand and stood up.
“Mom, are you okay?”
“Y-Yes. Yes, I’m fine. What about you? What’s happening?”
He found a knife behind the bar and untied her. She cried as she hugged her son. She knew he worked for the government, but had no idea it involved danger. They needed to have a long talk later. She brought the knife outside to free her husband.
Meanwhile, Jeff picked up the phone behind the bar and called Ottawa. Avoiding being arrested for murder hadn’t been covered in his textbooks.
Chapter 69
Jeff returned to the office in the afternoon even though it was Saturday and the last thing he wanted to do was to think about work.
But his mind couldn’t rest. He still couldn’t believe what he had done the night before. Killing Hingle had not kept him from sleeping. No, it was what he had done after that played tricks on his conscience. He had called the agency and the CSE switchboard lady had transferred the call to Bellamy’s house.
The G Group Deputy Director had ordered him to use the booze as accelerant and to set fire to the place. So Jeff had done it, he had committed arson.
The reasoning was that if the investigators ever came close to them, they would have a sympathetic RCMP officer claim an undercover case had taken a wrong turn. Until then, the owner of the establishment would get the insurance money. It was the lesser of two evils and tied up the case with a pretty little bow.
After setting the place ablaze, Jeff had spent the next ten hours with his parents since it beat driving back to Ottawa. Montreal was much closer. Following a few hours of sleep, which he desperately needed, he had explained to his folks that his recent promotion now had him traveling often and associating with shady characters.
He didn’t go into details about his work, but since they had already been kidnapped, there was no sense lying to them. Telling them he had good people continuously watching over him didn’t reassure his mother though.
Trying to change the subject, he told them about how he had found the woman of his dreams, but they still urged him to consider joining the family business. His father noted, however, the enthusiasm in his son’s voice when he spoke and thanked God he had finally found a career he was willing to stick with for the long haul.
Only Jeff wasn’t so sure, especially here in his boss’s office.
He saw his mission as a failure. His assignment had been to retrieve the prototype and he had not been able to do so. For all he knew, Hingle had mailed it to one of his cohorts on the international criminal syndicate circuit.
And even if it was only lying in a hotel room, someone was bound to find it. He recognized his incompetence and expected to be fired. It looked like he wouldn’t have a choice and would have to ultimately join his parents at the store after all. It was best if he got used to the idea.
The one silver lining in all this was bittersweet. He had been told that the British soldier who had rescued him on the ship, Paddy Wilson, had single-handedly prevented another attack in London yesterday. However, he had been wounded in the process. Jeff decided that he would reach out to him. Someday soon he would fly to the UK and have a beer with him. He needed some closure. He needed a friend.
Bellamy caught the expression on his protégé’s face. He pulled a bottle of Chivas from a drawer and poured two glasses.
“What’s this, the condemned man’s last drink?”
“I’m drinking to a successful mission.”
“I didn’t know you could be such a sarcastic bastard.”
The older man leaned back in his swivel chair after handing a drink to Jeff and taking a sip of his own.
“Let me go over the situation,” he began. “Three men devise a plan to steal and sell a secret prototype with military applications. Didier Ledoux is supposed to secure the financing, you participate in providing the material proof of his disloyalty to his government. French police arrested him yesterday.”
“Cool,” Jeff replied.
That was good news. He drank some scotch.
“Gustavo Morales, the Venezuelan banker, is responsible for finding the buyer. The guy wants the money to finance his terrorist organization, FARC, and eventually a revolution in South America. You join a special ops team and keep him from doing any harm to anyone. At the moment, he’s being detained by the Venezuelan authorities.”
Jeff nodded. It was strange to have this whole thing summarized after having lived through it. It sounded a lot simpler.
Bellamy continued, “And this brings us to Ross Hingle, the mastermind of this whole operation. You got the evidence that he had the prototype and forced him to run off. Through an unfortunate twist of fate, he got your parents and forced you to cooperate. Under these conditions you performed brilliantly, even if it left a couple of corpses in your wake.”
“Gee, you make it sound like I’m a god or something. Not that I’m complaining, mind you, I can see the comparison, but the truth of the matter is that the prototype is not in our possession.”
“Remember Rufus Spellman, the CEO of Polar Tiger Industries? He called me this morning with some very interesting news. The son of a bitch told me we’d been chasing after something valued at about eleven dollars.”
“A decoy. The company was in its last few weeks of research. When the thieves took the false prototype, it gave them an opportunity to finish up working on the real thing, the pressure was off and as long as people thought they had the real one, risks of theft were nonexistent.”
“So I risked my life for nothing.”
“You still nailed a trio of scumbags. But now it’s over.”
Jeff closed his eyes and was surprised when he began laughing. The absurdity of intelligence work caught up to him. He finally understood what it was all about. Micro movements had macro consequences. And it all had to remain secret.
Bellamy refilled his glass. “So, when do you think you can take on another mission?”
“You mean I’m not fired?”
“Haven’t you been listening? Take a vacation, rest up, and I’ll see you in a bit. There’s no way I can let my best recruit jump ship.”
Jeff was oddly thinking the same thing.
He had to take it easy for a while, if for nothing else than to catch up on his sleep. Chasey expected him in Emmetts Run. He had promised to show her a special technique, hadn’t he?
He would lie in bed and watch her write the articles that would make her famous. He couldn’t wait to get down there – hell, just to hear her beautiful voice. He would spend the weekend, the week, maybe even the month with her.
But he would be back.
THE END
About the Author
Steve Richer is the bestselling author of the action thriller The President Killed His Wife. He went to law school and film school before considering becoming a sherpa, though he abandoned the idea upon discovering what a sherpa really was. Now he spends his days writing books.
He specializes in fun, over the t
op thrillers that read like action movies. He splits his time between Montreal and Miami.
You can Like Steve on Facebook for all the latest news.
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Also by Steve Richer
The Pope’s Suicide
The President Killed His Wife (Rogan Bricks 1)
Counterblow (Rogan Bricks 2)
Terror Bounty
I’ll Kill Her for You
The Kennedy Secret
The Gilded Treachery
Never Bloodless
The Atomic Eagle
Sigma Division
Table of Contents
Author’s Note
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
About the Author