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“They’re not just rumors. We farm out all sorts of shit to independent contractors. Stuff MI6 doesn’t want to be connected to in case it goes wrong. Other countries do it, too – especially countries that used to be in the Soviet Union. Hungary… Romania… Ukraine’ll pay a lot of money for certain Russian targets, and vice versa for the Russians.”
“How do you know about all this?”
“I’m a researcher,” he said, like Duuuuuh. “I research terrorists, and they ain’t exactly on Facebook. You have to go onto the Dark Web and, like, root around.”
The Dark Web was the term for a vast ocean of websites you couldn’t access with an ordinary internet browser. To enter a Dark Web site, you had to have the exact numerical address – a long string of numbers – and the password to get in. It was like an endless hallway of identical, blank, locked doors – and the only way to find the door you wanted was to be told by someone else who was in the know.
The Dark Web was built for secrecy, and behind many of those locked doors was illegal activity – some of it absolutely horrendous. There used to be a site on the Dark Web called the Silk Road where you could buy anything: drugs, rocket launchers… human beings…
I didn’t deal with the Dark Web for my job. I just went to foreign countries and took out whomever MI6 told me to.
But Sean dealt with it a lot.
And it apparently took its toll.
Sean stared out into nothingness. “I see a lot of really bad shit out on the Dark Web… but I also see some shit where I’m like, ‘Huh… I kinda hope they do hire somebody to kill that asshole cuz he deserves to get whacked.’”
“So there are jobs where you can get hired to kill murderers and rapists and child pornographers?”
“OH yeah.”
“You’d have to research them, though,” I pointed out. “To make sure you weren’t getting hired by some psychopath to kill his wife so he could avoid paying her off in a divorce.”
“Well, yeah, obviously,” Sean said and burped. “But that’s what I do. I research shit.”
“Are there jobs in the UK?”
“There’re jobs all over. I’d advise you not to do any in the UK, though. Don’t shit where you eat.”
“‘Advise me not to do any in the UK’ – that’s funny. I don’t even know how to access any of this stuff.”
“It’s easy. I can teach you.”
“Or… you could just pass along jobs you think are legitimate…”
Sean scowled. “NO.”
“…for a finder’s fee.”
Sean paused… then asked, “Hypothetically speaking… what kind of a finder’s fee?”
I shrugged. “Ten percent?”
“TEN PERCENT? Ten percent to go swimming in mental sewage every day, having to deal with the absolute dregs of humanity – ”
“You have to do it anyway.”
“Yeah, but I don’t have to do it for you. And if our bosses – sorry, MY bosses, since you fuckin’ quit – if MY bosses ever found out I was hustling jobs out to you on the side – ”
“So what do you want?” I interrupted.
“…twenty percent,” he said, unsure of himself.
“Fine.”
“Shit, I knew I should’ve asked for 25%,” he grumbled.
“Twenty percent is pretty good for not having to kill anybody. ”
