In the Company of Killers by Bryan Christy (ebook reader for pc and android .txt) 📕

Booker’s. Kids all drink this.” He took down a bottle of Bulleit bourbon.

“I’ll have a beer,” Klay said. He checked the tap handles. “Guinness.”

It was in motion now. He had his role to play in Barrow’s plan and then he would be free.

The bartender poured the stout. It arrived in front of Klay with a little shamrock design in the foam. Klay took a sip and looked up at the flat-screen television maybe four times the size of the one at the Pigeon. All of the television’s colors were what they were supposed to be, too.

“Would you like some pita chips?” the bartender asked, setting a basket in front of him, along with a dish of hummus.

Klay chuckled.

“What’s funny?”

He reached for a chip. “I’m usually over at the Gray Pigeon. Billy’s not much for snacks.”

The bartender’s face fell. “It’s a crying shame,” he said.

Klay got a sick feeling. “What is?”

“You don’t know?” The older man picked up the remote and began flipping channels. “It’s all over the news.”

“Hey!” The Hill rats looked up from their nachos. “The game!” they said. “Turn it back!”

The bartender ignored them. A PGM news anchor with that somber, post-tragedy newscaster expression was interviewing someone via video link. The camera cut to the interviewee, and Klay sat up. Tanned face. Perfect teeth. Ollie North haircut. A banner beneath the man’s image read “Terrence Krieger, Perseus Group CEO.”

“We grieve for their families,” Krieger said. “We grieve for the Navy. This situation is all the more painful because this type of accident—one of six major accidents in the past two years—could have been avoided . . .”

A chyron scrolling beneath Krieger’s image screamed, “BREAKING NEWS. The US Navy reports a major accident has occurred aboard the USS Shiloh during US–Japan joint exercises in the South China Sea. Dozens of bodies have been recovered. No survivors have yet been found. Search and rescue continues . . .”

“Avoided how?” the reporter asked.

“Proper technology. We don’t yet know the details, but we do know that this ship was near retirement age and terribly off course. Sadly, its Aegis radar system has been around since Richard Nixon, and its navigation software was not designed for this platform. At Perseus Group we’ve developed AI-based systems to eliminate these kinds of disasters. We’ve offered to assist the Navy to evaluate its entire fleet—free of charge. We want to make sure this type of accident never happens again.”

Stock footage of the USS Shiloh filled the screen.

The news anchor returned. “Unexplained systems failures . . . Explosions . . . Possibly an entire crew lost. When we come back, we’ll have the man responsible for the Navy’s Seventh Fleet, Vice Admiral Everett Tighe . . .”

Klay stared at the screen, processing what he was seeing: Krieger, again. The universe conspiring to show him something. Billy’s grandson was on the Shiloh.

Another terrible Naval accident.

What was the opposite of that? Klay asked himself.

Not an accident.

Krieger offering to help the Navy.

What was the opposite of that?

Klay closed his eyes. He could hear Botha’s voice: Who benefits, counselor?

Answer: Krieger, if he could convince the Navy to hire Perseus Group. But hadn’t Krieger been blackballed by the US government?

What if a US Navy contract wasn’t Krieger’s objective?

The next biggest defense contract opportunity in the world was with China. Taking the Ultimate Silk Road Project into consideration, the opportunities for security contracts and attendant services were the greatest in the world. Barrow himself had said Krieger followed China around like a cattle bird. Barrow had it wrong, Klay realized: The target in Kenya was not Bernard. The target was more likely Simon Lekorere, the politician who stood in the way of China’s Ultimate Silk Road Project. Bernard’s death was collateral. No, he checked himself. Bernard was not collateral. He’d been killed to keep Klay chasing Botha. Both murders were planned.

“Forget Krieger,” Barrow had urged, patting Klay’s shoulder. “Chuck Yeager was a helluva pilot. But he never went to the moon. Didn’t have to. Moon was for other folks.”

“What other folks?” Klay had asked. “In this particular case.”

Barrow hadn’t tapped his incisor at that. Instead, he’d shrugged. When it came to Terry Krieger, Barrow was toothless. So was the rest of the world.

It wasn’t that different from how Little Nicky took over Atlantic City, only on a much larger and more lethal scale. Anyone paying attention could see what turning the keys over to Terry Krieger meant. But instead of objecting, they gambled. People took what benefitted them and ignored the rest. Conservationists gratefully accepted Krieger’s wildlife-tracking technology. Farmers deployed his agricultural drones. Governments used his security services. People tuned in to his easy-to-digest, hate-mongering Perseus Group News. Even the CIA had invested in Perseus Group stock. The list went on. Behind Perseus Group’s new and popular technologies was a second truth: many of those same technologies were being used for terrible ends. Everyone knew it, but no one did anything about it. They got what they wanted and left policing Krieger to someone else. But there was no one else. Barrow had confirmed that.

Someone had to stand up to him.

“Something wrong?” the bartender asked.

Klay looked up. He’d been talking to himself. “No,” he said. “Just something a friend of mine said once. About history repeating itself . . .”

“It tends to do that,” the bartender said, but Klay didn’t hear him.

He didn’t hear the bartender calling to tell him he’d left too much money, either. He was moving too quickly. Outside, on the sidewalk, Klay took out his cell phone and dialed South Africa.

“Botha,” he said. “It’s time to go hunting.”

HERE LIES TOM KLAY

Greenwood Cemetery

Alexandria, Virginia

He had killed before. That was his thought. A boy riding a bicycle. It was raining now, too, a soft rain, nearly a mist. Klay stood out of view on a rise far above the grave site, near the grave digger’s utility shed, watching Tenchant’s mourners arrive. He reminded himself that what he was seeing was their reality, not his. Tenchant was the victim of a terrible crime. Klay was in mourning for Tenchant, not because of him.

“My husband,”