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Eighteen
LIAM
“And you’re sure their operation is legit?” I asked for the third time. “They’ve been doing everything correctly, according to—”
“Yes,” Julius nodded, from behind his desk. “They’re as legit and by the book as we could ever ask. Even down there.”
I marveled at how clean and utilitarian he always kept his desk, without any extraneous bullshit. Two sleek black monitors bisected it perfectly, set before a wireless keyboard and matching mouse. There was nothing else. No photo frames, no scraps of paper... not even a pen.
“And we’ve got the resources?”
“For what we’re looking to do, yes,” said Julius. “We’d send three, and Wraith would too. Team of six. Keep it small and clean, for easy insertion.”
I looked up, through the floor-to-ceiling windows and out into the rest of the Shop. Such windows were required for transparency all around, throughout the entire upper office area. It kept all five mercenary companies operating out of the building honest, even as it created privacy and separation. That part had been Julius’s idea, too.
Right now it was late, and everything was dark. There were three men lifting weights in the lower area, which was a vast gymnasium and workout center. To the casual observer, we operated the most exclusive ‘fitness club’ in upper Manhattan. But to those within the fold…
“How long has the target been missing?” I asked.
Julius looked at his watch. “Going on ninety-four hours.”
I let out a long whistle. “You know he’s most likely leopard food by now.”
“I know it and you know it,” Julius waved me off. “The leader of Wraith knows it too. But his client is despondent over the loss, and still insists. ‘No expense spared’, is what they told us.”
“I like the sound of that,” I admitted. “Even as much as I hate this mission.”
“So do I,” Julius agreed. “On both counts.”
It was a genius idea; consolidating the resources of five different mercenary groups in one central place. We shared intel as much as we shared living space, and we could draw upon a much larger pool of skillsets when it came to putting together missions. We even had a weapons vault in the basement, just behind our underground shooting range that only a handful of city officials — whose palms we greased — even knew about. It contained enough of an arsenal to take over half the city, if it ever came down to it.
“Look, the mission sucks,” said Julius. “In all likelihood, it’s only going to end one way.”
“So why take it?” I pressed.
“Because there’s still a chance, no matter how remote,” said Julius. “If the odds of recovery were zero, I would’ve shut the whole thing down without even telling you about it. But the client wants to know… either way.”
“Shit.”
“Right,” Julius said. “But at least this way, we’re still doingsomething.”
I slid over to his side of the desk, where a detailed map of lower Uganda lay stretched across both screens. From what I knew, the client’s son had been abducted near Mukono, by the increasingly shattered remnants of the Lord’s Resistance Army. The warlords of central Africa were cruel and brutal, roaming the jungles, forcibly recruiting children from villages, and committing all sorts of human rights abuses that went unpunished.
In short, the nastiest shit possible.
“And they haven’t tried to ransom him?” I asked. “In all this time?”
“Not that we know of,” Julius answered. “It’s speculated they probably don’t even know who they have.”
I shook my head. That part didn’t make sense.
“The kid would’ve told them,” I countered. “He would’ve tripped over himself letting them know who his father was, and how they could get word to him.”
“Depends on his condition when they took him,” said Julius. “These people are unreasonably brutal. They’re definitely not known for being smart about things.”
I lowered my gaze, shuddering at the idea of being held prisoner by such a violent and irrational group of people. They’d been known to mutilate entire villages with machetes, just to send a message. Wreak havoc among the innocent people of the central Congo, just for the sheer notoriety.
“Volunteers?” I asked finally.
