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“Or perhaps you’re conspiring against me,” I say. “Maybe you’re sabotaging me out of spite.”
“We haven’t had to,” says Franco Silvestri, prompting a round of laughter. “You’ve got it covered.”
In eight months since I took over, none of them have dared speak to me with such cavalier disregard for the fact that I could kill any of them at any time. I see what’s happened: they’ve decided that I need them, and that I can’t just slaughter them for their impertinence. They’re not totally wrong.
There is also one other possibility: they simply don’t care. They’ve made peace with imminent death and are living their final days on their own terms. It’s what I would do, in their position.
“We could have told you eight months ago that you’re not qualified to lead,” says Umberto Diaz. Skin leathery from age and cigar smoke, he looks already dead and decaying. The oil magnate has lived on one Caribbean island or another since his twenties. According to Jamison, Diaz has fucked a courtesan every day without fail since he joined the Masters, despite his advanced age. “Five of us have died since you showed up — Victor, Sidney, Ingram, Timo and Lincoln. They’re all dead because of you, Anton.”
“Do you think we’re all just members in this club?” says Merwin Locke. “Before you took over, we were powerful because we were more than the sum of our parts. Now we’re less than the sum — and we’re missing several of our key parts, thanks to you.”
“Did you think we didn’t matter? You’re failing because you’re failing us,” adds Lewis Croft.
“No,” I say. “You’re failing me. You grew so used to your own power that you left yourselves vulnerable to attack. You didn’t think anyone could, so you didn’t think anyone would.”
“And you did?” counters Jamison. He rises from his seat and strides over. “Maybe you’re right, and we grew complacent in our power. But if we did, then so did you.”
I glower at him, but don’t interrupt. He can speak his piece if he wants.
“Did infiltrating our ranks and taking us over in one masterstroke make you think you were invincible? You planned for years how to take your revenge on Ingram and steal his position at the same time, and it worked. Bravo. How much thought did you give to what would come next?”
Admittedly, not much — once I’d taken over, it would mean I had won. What’s happening to us now shouldn’t be possible.
“Were you under the impression my job was easy?” Jamison asks. “Did you think that my role here was to sit on the throne? We have faced challenges before, though none like this. Do you know why this is different?”
“Educate me,” I say.
“Because, until your coup, we were a brotherhood,” he explains. “When a challenge arose, we knew we could trust each other. If one of us needed a hand, we all helped. Between all of our abilities and resources, we solved every problem that came our way. But you can’t trust any of us, not truly. You can threaten us into obedience, but that’s not the same.”
“Does that mean it was one of you who betrayed me?” I ask. I have to. It’s the obvious question, even though none would come forward. Of course, they’re not the ones behind this anyway. They weren’t informed about my visit to Saudi Arabia. They’re under my surveillance — if they had passed any information to someone else, I would know.
Jamison laughs.
“Us? We’re the ones being targeted!”
“Then who the fuck is doing this?” I roar. “How is this possible? How can anyone be capable of challenging us? What’s the point of being the most powerful organization in the world if someone can show up out of nowhere and kill us, one by one?”
No one replies at first. My chest heaves. I release my fists. I shouldn’t have lost my cool in front of them. It’s a failure of discipline, a byproduct of losing control.
“We were the most powerful organization in the world,” Jamison says at last. “Then you took over. If you hadn’t betrayed our trust and plotted your way to the top, we never would have put you in charge.”
I reach into my jacket pocket and pull out my phone. My hand shakes as I do. My jaw hurts from gritting my teeth.
The Masters glare at me, but stay silent, knowing what I can do with this phone. One word for one life — or one word for all their lives, and there’s not a damn thing they can do about it. But, if they no longer fear death, then what power do I really hold over them?
I know I shouldn’t kill them all now. They still have their uses. They’re not wrong in their assessment of what happened. This is my failure. Eliminating them wouldn’t fix my problems — it would only ensure they can’t betray me in the future, but that’s not enough. For now. I put the phone away.
“Jamison,” I say, “take your best guess: who is doing this?”
“If I knew, we’d have done something about them before it got to this point. We wouldn’t have let them kill Timo and Lincoln.”
Logical. Not helpful, but logical.
“If I were in your position, Anton,” Jamison continues, “I would try to figure out Death’s real endgame. Is he really trying to destroy us, or is he after something else?”
“What do you think?” I ask.
He sighs.
