The Bleiberg Project (Consortium Thriller) Read Online Free

found Mommy crying her eyes out. From that day on, I only kissed a shadow. Adolescence turned sadness into hatred. An engine just like any other to keep going. As soon as I could, I took Mom’s name, Novacek. Dad never showed his face again. Now he’s dead, twenty-five years after walking out on us. My identity flew the coop and took all the markers I’d laid down with it. Military discipline and values hit the can. I wanted success, money and fast living. Straight A’s at Richmond opened the doors to the world of finance. I rose quickly, headed for the holy of holies. Only Wall Street was big enough for my ambition.
    Lost in thought, I fiddle with Mom’s locket. My fingers glide around its perfect oval rim. A click, and the locket opens, releasing an object that bounces off the beige leather couch and lands at my feet. Cursing, I lean forward and retrieve a small key. I peer at my strange find. The miniscule flat bow of the key is solid and tinted with rust. I delicately scratch it with my nail. The decomposed matter comes away to reveal an engraved motif. I gaze at it. I’m holding in my fingers a key embossed with a swastika.

CHAPTER 5
    Virginia, same day .
    A mateurism really jerks my chain. You see, my friend, a hit takes preparation. You watched too many westerns when you were a kid. Cowboys draw, shoot from the hip, and, bam, the baddie’s full of holes. In the real world, it doesn’t work that way. For example, you didn’t take me seriously. You rock up here with a gun in your hand, your ten-gallon hat and your hick boots. You don’t study the lay of the land, and, wham, you wonder how come you’ve got a bullet in your knee. I should be offended, you underestimating me like that. And quit groaning, you’re pissing me off.” Sitting on a tree stump dampened by the mist hanging over the hillside, the giant pulled a lighter from the pocket of his combat pants. He lit the butt of a cigar taken from his canvas jacket. Beside him lay a camouflage-painted sniper’s rifle with a telescopic sight. He scanned the lush, moist Virginia forest.
    At the smoker’s feet, a man in his early sixties writhed in pain, clutching his left knee with both hands. The red blotch on his gray pants was getting bigger by the second. Judging by the hole and his sorry whining, walking would be a major complication in the future. If he had a future.
    “We don’t have much time, so if you want to live one day more, let’s cut to the chase. Where’s the safe, Agent Pettygrow?”
    “Jesus, what safe are you talking about? You’re crazy, man. You know that, don’t you?”
    “Your tone is very upsetting. But if you want crazy, you haven’t seen anything yet.” The cigar-smoking giant ran his hand over his shaven head. Water moistened his palm. He wiped it on his pants and, in a single movement, whipped out a hunting knife with a serrated blade. He hunkered down next to the wounded man and inserted the tip of the blade into his right nostril.
    “A swift recap of the situation will help you understand just how deep in the shit you are. One day, for a reason I don’t know and don’t care to know, you betray your country by selling classified information. You come across a buyer who wants intel on a former Air Force man who’s also working for the CIA. You excavate the file and feel your sphincter clench when you realize how sensitive the information is. You don’t trust your buyer, and you think that by smoking him just after the transaction, you’ll kill two birds with one stone: You keep the money and the secrets. Trouble is, your buyer’s even more paranoid than you, and he blows your kneecap away. And now here I am about to cut your nose wide open. Screaming won’t stop the pain, by the way. Then I’m gonna slice your eyelids off. This is getting gruesome now. Shall I go on, or have you got the general idea?”
    A few minutes later, he had answers to his questions. The bald giant gave the wounded man a friendly pat on