Danger Close by James Sumner (classic novels for teens txt) 📕

He failed to suppress a smile. “Kim, I’m fine, I promise.”

“I’m ordering you some lunch. And I swear to God, I will feed you myself if I have to.”

Buchanan nodded respectfully. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Damn right,” Kim muttered. She left, closing the door gently behind her.

Buchanan rubbed his eyes and stretched, then paced over to the window. He looked out over the square mile compound that housed one of the largest corporations and the largest private army in the world.

After a few moments, there was another knock on the door. This time, it opened immediately after. Jericho, Julie, and Collins walked in and stood in a line in front of Buchanan’s desk.

He turned to address them.

“Thank you all for coming back on such short notice,” he said. He looked directly at Julie. “I’m genuinely sorry to ask you here.”

Julie waved the comment away. “It’s the job. Besides, I could use the distraction.”

He smiled humorlessly. “Well, distractions I’ve got.”

“You sounded more stressed than usual on the phone yesterday,” said Jericho. “What’s happened?”

Back behind his desk, Buchanan sat down heavily. He fidgeted with his tie, which wasn’t fastened properly around his large neck. Then he took a folder from the pile and slid it toward them.

“This is the list of people involved in the warehouse raid you carried out two nights ago,” he began. Julie picked it up and started flicking through it as he continued. “We have enough intel to link the stolen weapons to Tristar Security. Couple that with the information you… gleaned from their systems a couple of weeks back, and there’s a pretty goddamn watertight case to be made against them. They’ve been up to no good for a long time.”

“Well, that’s great, right?” said Collins. “Let’s mail it all to the FBI. Hell, I’ll hand deliver it myself if it gets those bastards off our desks.”

“Sadly, it’s not that easy,” said Buchanan.

“We don’t have enough information obtained legally,” added Julie, as if finishing his thought.

Buchanan nodded. “Pretty much.”

“So, where does that leave us?” asked Jericho.

“It leaves us knowing Tristar has been our enemy for longer than we realized and unable to do a damn thing about it. At least, for now.”

“How d’you figure that?”

Buchanan checked his watch. “I have a meeting in an hour with a member of the board of directors for Orion International.”

“Are you serious?” asked Julie.

He nodded. “I’m taking a different approach. I’m going to assume that, despite owning Tristar, Orion don’t know what they’ve been doing. From one billion-dollar empire to another, I’m going to tell him what we know and see if he wants to get involved. Give them the chance to get their house in order and take the responsibility off our plate.”

“Is it our responsibility, though?” asked Collins. “I mean, those Tristar bastards ain’t shy of a body or two themselves. Plus, all the arms trafficking and black ops nonsense they’ve been doing on the quiet for the last six months… they mean business. Yeah, someone needs to stop them. They’ve essentially privatized war crimes. But why should this be our problem?”

Jericho and Julie looked at him, then turned to Buchanan, genuinely intrigued.

Buchanan didn’t hesitate. “It’s our problem because we can fix it. I’m not sure anybody else could. It’s way beyond being a local matter, which rules out the cops. Because of Orion’s connection to it, the Feds would be too scared to sneeze within a mile of Tristar’s offices. What’s left of them, anyway. Anything to avoid a decade of legal battles. Nobody else can do this. And if we can but choose to not to… hell, we’re no better than the bad guys.”

Collins shrugged. “Okay. Fair point.”

“Do you think that will work?” asked Jericho. “Taking the corporate approach?”

“Can’t hurt. And honestly… I’m running out of options. We only know half the story here. We know the who but not the why. And the bits we do know, we can’t use because we exploited the freedom we have been gifted and bent the rules a bit too much. So, I’m giving this a shot.”

Silence fell inside the office.

It was broken after a few moments by Julie. “What can we do?”

Buchanan sat upright and began moving the remaining folders around on his desk.

“I’m glad you asked,” he said. “I have three jobs. You get one each.”

Collins raised his hand. “If ya have one that involves two weeks of recon in St. Lucia, I’d like to volunteer myself…”

Buchanan cast him a disapproving glance but ignored the comment. Instead, he picked up a folder and handed it to Jericho.

“Probably the highest profile client we’ve ever had,” he said. “President Miguel Lucas Herrera.”

“President?”

“Yes, he’s the president of Paluga, and he’s just spent a significant amount of their GDP to hire two thousand of our personnel with no end date.”

“Where the hell’s Paluga?” asked Collins. “I’ve never heard of it.”

“It’s an island nation about thirty miles off the coast of Uruguay,” said Julie.

Collins looked at her blankly.

She shrugged. “What? I like geography.”

“What’s happening in Paluga that requires such a show of force?” inquired Jericho.

“Herrera took office three months ago. The first democratically elected president the country has ever seen. He’s spent every day since his appointment trying to undo three generations of dictatorship.”

“He sounds like a good man.”

“He is. Unfortunately, his policies have divided the people, and there’s been almost non-stop rioting for the last three weeks.”

“So, he wants GlobaTech for crowd control? Surely, we would do that for free as U.N. Peacekeepers?”

Buchanan shook his head. “No, he wants us for protection. It’s not just his people that are divided. His military forces are too.”

“He’s concerned about a coup,” observed Julie.

“That’s right,” said Buchanan. “He wants our people to work with those still loyal to him to help bring some stability to the region. If necessary, we’ll have to go up against his own army to maintain the peace long enough for laws to be passed and changes to be made. If we went in on behalf of the U.N.,