TechGen-One security consultant Chris Grove stood up from the crouch he and the two mechanics had assumed when Major Missy Malden had started running in their direction. He’d been tracking her since he’d placed a tiny sticker on the back of her sweatshirt in front of the base lodging, and thank God he had. Killing her in front of the mechanics would have been messy.
Not that he hadn’t planned out exactly how he’d do it. In the few minutes that he’d known she was on her way, he’d decided that he’d snap her neck and then move a set of aircraft steps next to her plane and leave her at the bottom, with a foot between the rungs. Before anyone would have conclusively determined that it hadn’t been an accident, they’d be long gone.
“Come on, let’s get this done. We’ve taken too much time already.”
The senior tech guy stood up in the office, too, looking angry. “That wasn’t our fault. Gallagher wasn’t used to the schematics on the Eurofighter Typhoon. He did fucking well for never having installed the PreCall device on one before.”
“I don’t care. If he couldn’t do it, he should have told the boss he couldn’t do it. But he didn’t, so that’s on you, and him.” Jesus. All he was there for was to manage security while they installed the software that General Daniels had been forced to permit. And tweak it a little for Major Daniels and Flight Lieutenant Dex Stone from the Royal Air Force.
Major Daniels had overheard a sensitive conversation between her father and Grove’s boss, Mr. Danvers. A very sensitive conversation. One that would expose TGO’s illegal dealings, bribes, and kickbacks to government folk, right up to the most important people in the White House.
Danvers didn’t like loose ends. Or loose lips. They had to get rid of her—and given that she’d been spending plenty of time with the British pilot as well, it was safest to take them both out. Cauterize the wound before it spread.
The new technology had been designed to enhance an aircraft’s maneuverability. It took about two hours to collect data from the pilot’s manner of flying, and then it would anticipate the pilot’s every move. It was a good product that the TechGen-One CEO had already presold to the Russians. Secretly, of course.
This sneaky software shit wasn’t exactly the way Grove was used to operating, though. His style was doing things out in the open. In the military, you had carte blanche to kill people whenever you wanted to, really. No one questioned you; no one minded a bit of torture. That was what he had told himself, anyway. But he’d been wrong—and then dishonorably discharged for behavior unbecoming. He hated the fucking military now, and he loved TGO.
Danvers had taken him off the street, virtually. He had valued the things about him the military hated. He didn’t judge Grove; he directed him. And Danvers needed people he could rely on. Loyalty and the ability to do the job, no matter how hard, without question. And Grove got paid handsomely for it.
All this scavenging around aircraft, uploading sketchy software, and stuff like that? It wasn’t his scene. A shot straight into the forehead was more his style. But here, on the military base that he swore he would never return to, he got a kick out of targeting these fresh-faced, naïve officers.
The kind of officers who used to look down on him. The kind of officers who’d judged him and had sentenced him at his court-martial. They had no idea what it was like outside the wire. Few officers did.
But Danvers paid him to follow orders, and if that meant babysitting two engineers who could upload something fast—well, it was supposed to be fast—then that was what he would do.
It never ceased to amaze him how easily a mind was focused when a muzzle was applied to a temple. It’s funny how quickly the muzzle gets warm, blends to the skin’s temperature. He knew how that felt. Every day for a week after being fired from the military, he’d pressed the muzzle of his revolver against his temple, angled slightly backward to ensure a clean shot. But that was before Danvers.
Before TGO.
Now he had a new job, money, and the ability to scratch an itch every time Danvers wanted someone to disappear.
And God, he hoped Danvers wanted to do away with Major Missy Malden. When she’d looked in his eyes, the brief flicker of fear had turned him on. As it always did. But she was not his to take, unless Danvers ordered it.
He was looking down at the engineers working on Major Daniels’s aircraft. They knew what to do, how to get in to the airframe’s system, without a scratch on a screw or dent on a rivet. That’s why they paid them the big bucks.
“Are you done yet?” He could see a trickle of morning light eat through the windows at the top of the hangar above the sliding doors. He felt no fear, though; he would take out anyone who came between him and his mission.
The head engineer rose and nodded at him from beneath the wing of the F-16 that was going to kill Major Daniels. If anything would keep her father in line to deliver the rest of the military to TGO, it would be showing how easily they could get to his family.
So now they were done. Between the three of them, they had killed two pilots, even though the pilots didn’t know it yet.
He felt like God. Or maybe Jesus. Maybe Danvers was God. All he cared about was doing his job well so he could keep on getting paid to do what he loved the most—taking lives and making people scared of him. Danvers had given him power over the very people who had tried to wreck his life. He loved his fucking job.
He closed up the engineer’s laptop, tucked it under his arm, and climbed down the stairs to the hangar floor. “Let’s go,” he said to the two engineers. It worried him how nervous the younger one looked. He wasn’t used to TGO employees looking nervous about anything they were told to do. He would have to report that back to Danvers.
“Good job, guys,” he said with a smile. “You work well under pressure.”
The young engineer became more relaxed at his words. He smiled and nodded. They left the hangar through the back door, which led directly onto the taxiway; this meant no early-rising troops would catch them on the flight line.
“So, have you been working for TGO a long time?” he asked the younger of the two engineers.
The older, grizzled engineer gave him a long stare, but he ignored it.
“No, sir,” he replied. “Just for a few months.”
That was bad news. But I guess they would find out in a few short hours whether or not he would be able to keep his mouth shut. If he was the type just to appreciate his salary and the fact that he got to work on an F-16 today, or if he was the type to report Grove for holding a gun to his head. He hoped it was the former. Only because Langton, the older engineer, was a tough Vietnam vet, not known for taking shit from anyone. He wouldn’t put it past him to make a play for him if Grove tried anything with the new guy.
Not that he couldn’t take him, as long as he wasn’t ambushed, but things were complicated enough without having to deal with the help as well.
Three of them walked back toward Danvers’s office, a night’s work well done.