Wolf: A Military P.A.C. Novel Read Online Free

closely. The feed had disappeared, gone without a trace. Nothing. As if it hadn’t been there in the first place, except that Gerund had seen it. Since the client ordered the contract, Hillman had been trying to find out what that feed meant. Why it had been covered up? It had to do with Captain Scott, his men, and the war. His instincts said it related to the death of General Ariyan’s son. He just didn’t know how. None of which had anything to do with his contract with the private client.
    But why was all of it so high profile three years ago and now it was forgotten, even by the newsies?
    “And the interrogations?” Gerund said.
    “Without a hitch. The gas took; the client went in, spent his hour. We got notice and dosed them with the antidote.”
    “The ones the client supplied? No deviations?”
    “None, sir. Just as the contract stated. And no one in or out of the area during the meets.”
    “And they were alive?”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “And Michael Scott?” asked Gerund.
    “Writing his next best seller.”
    “Wintering in the Rocky Mountains.”
    “Yes , sir. His third since he retired.”
    “Anything else ?” said Gerund.
    “It’s his doctor. There are records stating that he treated Michael Scott for altitude sickness.”
    “He winters at twenty-four hundred metres. That’s not unusual.”
    “Yes , sir. The doctor wasn’t in town that day. He was at a conference.”
    “Poison?” said Gerund.
    “We think so, sir.”
    “Bit ass backward isn’t it.”
    “Sir?”
    “Not talking to you. Get a satellite swinging over the Rockies. I want pictures, and sound. For the client,” said Gerund.
    “Yes, sir.”
    “And the doctor?”
    “We don’t think he’s in any danger. He reported the discrepancy to the medical advisory board. Our peripherals kicked in. People related to the contract.”
    “I know the protocols, I set them up. What’s your name?” Hillman heard the man on the other end of the line swallow, a sharp gulp to the phone’s sensitive pickup.
    “Timothy Hardwick, sir.”
    “File for a bonus —on my desk in the morning.”
    “Thank you, sir.”
    The agent hung up and wiped the sweat from his brow. The last man to bother the boss in the middle of the night hadn’t been seen in months. And there weren’t even any rumo urs to judge what had happened. That scared Timothy more than anything else did. Gossip was king in most branches of the government. Blackwater was no different in that way. But the punishment . . . Timothy knew when to keep his mouth shut and his teeth clamped.

Chapter 4 Michael
    The boy and his father stood over a grave. A granite angel, her wings poised to fold or fly, tears coursing down her cheeks, rose up from the pedestal that held Rebecca Scott’s name and the remains of her body. The man’s face was seemingly as carved as the angel, though his eyes said something different. The son could see that, the regret in the stone face different from the pain that dragged at his father’s heart. The boy controlled his quivering lip as he looked to his father, but tears still leaked from his eyes to drip on the suit that barely fit him anymore.
    “Did she have to die, Dad?”
    “Everyone does, Son.”
    “You could have sto pped her.” A hint of anger seeped into the boy’s voice.
    “Then she would n’t have been the woman I loved, or your mother.”
    “I’m going to join the army. Be like her.” The resolution in the boy ’s words was firm, even though his voice cracked at the moment he said them.
    “Then we have a lot of work to do. An IED isn’t easy to avoid.” The father didn’t hold back the thought or the words. His son already knew how his mother died.
    “Tomorrow.”
    “No, next week is soon enough.” The man’s voice softened. “We need to feel this.”

    Michael’s heart shattered in the depths of Faelon’s cry as he stared at her under the moonlight. This was the woman he had always wanted at his side. Her strength, her presence,