Dying For LA by Ian Jones (top fiction books of all time .txt) 📕

Warner nodded his huge head.

‘Yeah, well we are pretty much the same. We got involved after some witnesses under protection got murdered around the New York area. Four people in total, all under assumed names and hidden. It was a big case. But they were all killed in the space of maybe two months. Feds were working on it with the local PD and they find an email on various computers belonging to three of the victims. No text, just an attachment which was a photograph of an outline of a body like you see after a murder scene, you know on the ground. In the shape was the words 1-Too. We talk to the Feds, they start digging, and get a connection to a guy who flew in from Beirut. So, we get busy, and find out the same as you Brits did, it was a part of an operation but nothing else. Dead end.’

Judy picked up the story.

‘I have been working on this ever since. In total we can put eleven deaths in the US down to 1-Too, make that sixteen with the five yesterday. Essentially, they were all assassinations. But I never could pin down any personnel, they are like smoke. We get a lead, and prepare, move in, but they are already gone. Every time.’

‘And that is why, we have decided no PD,’ Keane said.

John nodded in agreement.

‘Basically, we had the same problem. Neil says we made too much noise in the investigation, we had the Met and MI-5 involved. The bad guys had connections, and were warned, so they always vanished.’

‘It was exactly the same from our side,’ Judy agreed.

John sat back, looking at the other three and wondering why they were telling him this.

‘So … what we are thinking is that we run this as a small team. Just us. Kyle has spoken to his people, and Judy to hers, and well, this is why I’m here,’ Keane said, almost apologetically.

They all looked at John expectantly, and he realised what they were saying.

‘Hold on, hold on, look I don’t work for the government anymore. I’m nobody. I’m self-employed, I just tidy things up for people.

Keane shrugged.

‘Listen John, take a look. What do you see? None of us are, what you would call operational. Kyle, well he’s a big man, but kinda outta shape if we’re being honest. Sorry Kyle.’

Warner held up his hand.

‘No sweat.’

‘And Judy has been out for a long time. She’s got other people beating down doors. And me, well I’m a year past sixty. And what you did last night, you know you just picked that gun up and started shooting. You dropped three just like that. Ballistics say you fired three rounds, three for three. That is good shooting.’

‘I can’t get involved in this. Seriously, I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. I don’t have any right to be a part of anything,’ John maintained.

‘Yes, you do.’ Judy told him.

‘Oh yeah, you do.’ Warner agreed.

‘You’re exactly what we need. Nobody knows who the hell you are. Anyone on the inside at the PD, or the FBI or the CIA won’t be able to make a connection. You are exactly what we need right now. Your file is incredible reading, you are used to this shit. We need you John. We really do,’ Keane told him earnestly.

John looked back at him, unsure. He lived a quiet life these days. Mostly. Apart from the confrontations, the frequent broken bones he inflicted and the overall threat of violence most of his work involved.

But this time all he had been doing was travelling back to his hotel. He hadn’t been working, he was literally minding his own business.

Why not? The fuckers had fired a gun at him. Maybe unintentionally, but it had been very close. He had the wound to prove it.

The others in the room were all gazing at him.

He raised a hand.

‘OK.’

This would be interesting. It could be a good morning after all.

Chapter Five

General Morgan was not having a great morning. He had a new driver, who picked him up late and then took a crazy route to the Pentagon, moaning about the traffic all the time and the general walked in more than fifteen minutes later than he normally did. The general didn’t like that.

Normally, due to his rank and high level clearance he breezed through the complex and diligent security without any issues, but that morning there had been an alert increase which meant he had to queue like everyone else, so by the time he got up to his office after all the delays it was well over an hour later than normal, and he didn’t like that either.

And then when he finally sat at his desk his secretary didn’t come straight in with his coffee, and didn’t answer the intercom when he wanted to know exactly the damned reason why not. So, he had to get up, and go out into the pool only to discover she had been moved to another position, hadn’t been replaced yet and nobody had bothered to mention anything to him. So, he had to go and get his own coffee, and he really didn’t like that.

He realised finally what everyone else around him already knew, that six months into his position and placement at the Pentagon he really didn’t have the respect he believed he deserved and that was another thing he wasn’t happy about.

Then to cap it all, he got a message on his personal mobile phone, which he absolutely did not need at all.

He looked at the calendar on his wall. The third of March circled in red. A little more than three weeks away.

Grand Marshal Yin looked out the window of his office high up in the Ministry of National Defence building.

A chilly Beijing spread out before him, a billion lights twinkling in the darkness.

He considered the message he had just received, and looked at the calendar next to the window. The third of