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“You know I wouldn’t have come to you if it wasn’t important.” Rowe leaned forward, placing his forearms on his knees so that he could look directly into Cal’s tired eyes. “We have reason to believe someone is hunting down and killing people from Noah’s team. It’s got something to do with the Afghanistan ambush and Erik Johnson. I’m not letting anyone take Noah from me. I’ve already lost a wife. I can’t lose him too.”
“It’s a hornets’ nest you’ve stepped in, my friend,” Cal warned.
“Tell me.”
“It actually starts before the ambush. I never met Erik Johnson, but I’ve heard of him and I know his type. Hotheaded, stubborn, and sure he knows more than the smartest man in the room. He started out as a marine. Probably wanted to prove he was the toughest man on the planet. But he finally got into one too many fights. Nearly killed a man. Was dishonorably discharged after three years in and did some time in prison. After he was released, he pulled together a mercenary group of ex-military.”
“He wouldn’t be the first to go that route.”
Cal nodded. “Nope. There’s a lot of them out there, and the money can be damn good. Particularly if you’ve got connections, which Johnson did. His people were willing to take on some crazy missions. If you didn’t mind high body counts, then he could get a job done for you. Moron didn’t even mind putting his own people at risk. The CIA hired them for a number of missions. And from what I understand, so did a lot of groups.”
“Where’d it all go wrong?”
“Syria. Bunch of civilians were killed in what should have been a low-key extraction. Images were blasted across the news, and a lot of people were made to look really bad who would have preferred to stay out of the limelight.”
“He lost his contacts?”
“All of them. He became persona non grata in the global intelligence community. No one was willing to risk hiring them after that mess.”
“How does the Afghanistan ambush figure in?”
Cal opened his mouth and started to answer but stopped at a soft knock on the door. A second later, Cal’s wife walked in with a tray of lemonade and little finger sandwiches.
“I thought you might want a little snack as you talk,” Maggie said with a smile.
Rowe instantly jumped to his feet and hurried across the room to take the tray from her. He thanked her and placed the drinks and food on the table between him and Cal. “I can see why Cal has been enjoying his retirement so much. You take too good of care of him,” Rowe teased.
“Only because he promised to help me hang some curtains later. You boys have a nice visit,” she said with a little wave before leaving the room again.
Rowe returned to his seat and picked up a sandwich of chicken salad. He hummed a little as he ate. “You are definitely spoiled,” he murmured to Cal with a smile.
“I thank God every day for Maggie,” Cal said. “I’m lucky to have her.”
Rowe knew the feeling. He’d been lucky to have Mel for as long as he did. He was too damn lucky to have been given a second chance with Noah. He was going to do everything within his power to keep Noah safe.
“I would imagine being shut out from some of the most lucrative contracts was enough to finally push him over the edge. When the Afghanistan ambush happened, we were quick to blame it on the Taliban. But when we saw that one of the missing was Erik’s brother, Dave, we knew it was likely that he hit the convoy. His brother could have easily provided him with inside information, and he’d done enough missions with us that he would have known all the procedures.”
“And of course it was covered up because we couldn’t let anyone know that American soldiers were killed, and weapons were stolen by an American mercenary that we’d used in the past for missions.”
Cal glared at him for a moment and Rowe glared right back. The small sandwich he’d eaten was no longer sitting right in his stomach, and he wished he had something stronger to drink than lemonade.
“He should have been put down a long time ago,” Rowe growled.
“I’m not arguing with you. He’s dangerous. A loose cannon. But he also knows a hell of a lot of secrets and information that the intelligence community would rather not get out to the general public.”
“So…what? You struck a deal with him.”
Cal sighed again and stared down on his hands. “Of sorts. If he keeps our secrets—all of them—then we will continue to feed him contract work.”
“And by all of them, you’re including what happened with the Afghanistan ambush that killed American soldiers.”
Cal nodded, still not looking at Rowe.
