"Shoved a gun in your back because you went for yours," the other CIA man said.
"Help doing what?" Troy asked, ignoring the second agent's comment.
"Help us with a discreet investigation."
"Of who?"
"Of Firehawk in general and Raymond Harris in particular."
"You want me to spy on my own company?" This time Troy did laugh. "That's a joke. Why?"
"We suspect that Firehawk may be a danger to the security of the United States."
"You train a dog to guard your junkyard and freak out when he gets rough with other dogs?"
"Have you ever heard Raymond Harris make statements about the use of PMCs to overthrow and control countries?"
"That's not new. I can name about seven, including Malaysia at the moment, that are already controlled by one PMC or another."
"Overthrow the United States?"
Troy paused. He realized that some of the things that Harris said about the ineptitude of politicians and governments could be taken out of context. More than once, he had said that the world would be better off if Firehawk ran it, but Troy had always considered this merely a form of blustering.
"If you locked up everybody who made crude remarks about politicians, you'd be locking up half the country,"
Troy said. "You'd also probably be locking up most of the politicians."
"This is not about crude remarks. It's about a loose cannon pointing himself at this country."
"He blows off a lot of steam, but I've never heard him say anything about overthrowing the United States government," Troy said, racking his brain to recall whether this was, in fact, true. "As far as being a loose cannon, I've always found him to be the kind of commander who runs a tight ship, runs well-planned missions and—"
"Stretches the rules?"
"I suppose."
"Breaks the rules?"
"Gets the job done."
"Ends justify the means?"
At that, Troy paused.
"What are you trying to say?" Troy asked.
"That he'll step on anybody to 'get the job done." " "Step on who, specifically?" Troy asked.
"You say that he runs a well-planned mission?" "I said that." Troy nodded.
"Tell me about a raid on a Sandringham facility near Kuantan."
"Which raid? There were a couple."
"The first one, the one where Harris was unaware of the presence of F-16s at the base until you yourself ran a recon."
"How do you know that?" Troy asked.
"We're the CIA," the man said, smiling for the first time. "Knowing is our business. Is what I said true?"
"Your source has it right," Troy replied. "So what? Lots of missions are flown with last-minute intel."
"Were you ever briefed on where those F-16s came from and who was flying them?"
"Sandringham," Troy said, acting bored.
"Do you know who was flying them?"
"It doesn't matter to me," Troy said, recalling his dinner with Aron Arnold. After that night, it really didn't matter. He had learned to divorce the job from his emotions.
The CIA man opened his thin briefcase and took out a folder with some photographs.
"As you have gathered by now, the CIA has been keeping an eye on Firehawk. It may interest you to know that we did reach the wreckage of that F-16 that you shot down."
"You guys went to a lot of trouble, then," Troy said, taking the photos that were handed to him. "It was pretty deep in the jungle."
At first it didn't register.
Faint recognition became solid recognition as he reached the third photo.
The images were close-ups of the cockpit of an F-16. The canopy had come off, and the pilot remained still strapped in his seat. His head was tipped at an angle that suggested a broken neck. His eyes stared lifelessly into space, his mouth was opened slightly, and dried blood covered his chin and left cheek.
The name strip on his flight suit read "H. Coughlin."
Chapter 32
Troy sat in the lobby tearing open a padded envelope.
Inside were his cell phone and his gun, the magazine having been removed and emptied. When he and the CIA men parted company, they said that they'd leave his things at the front desk, and they had. That they'd emptied the magazine told him that they didn't completely trust him. That they did not take his cell phone battery told him that they didn't care who he called. They'd be listening.
The meeting that morning had not happened.
No routine camera surveillance of any part of the hotel showed the three men together. No routine camera surveillance of the lobby recorded a padded envelope being handed to a bellman, who wrote the name and room number on it in his own handwriting and handed it in to reception to hold for Mr. Loensch.
In a meeting that had not happened, Troy learned that he had killed the man with whom the story of his life had been tightly intertwined since they were both in OTS. That seemed like a very long time ago.
Had Harris known that Hal Coughlin was flying for the Sandies?
How could he?
The meeting that morning had not happened — the CIA men had said so. But they had also given him instructions for contacting them when — not if — he wished to not have a second meeting.
Jenna Munrough.
He realized that she had not crossed his mind since he had crossed paths with the CIA.
Yesterday, though, Troy had had little else on his mind, knowing he would soon be seeing her. Months ago in Las Vegas, he had taken the high road, refused her advances, and had often regretted this decision. On his last visit to the Firehawk home office, he had allowed himself to be seduced by this Ozark tigress. It was hot, wild ecstasy, but he had often regretted this decision. He regretted the dishonesty of what his delicious encounter meant to an unknowing Hal Coughlin, the man whose ring Jenna wore.
Then, he'd killed this man.
In less than an hour, he'd walk into the Firehawk headquarters, and he would come face-to-face with Jenna. Did she know it was him?
What would she say?
What should he say?
How could he look into those blue eyes of hers knowing that he had killed her fiance?
The man who was scheduled to receive a corporate commendation that was to be the equivalent of the Distinguished Flying Cross, the first in Firehawk history, entered the building not the same conquering hero as on his last visit, but a wary, conflicted man. This afternoon, he would play the role of conquering hero in front of Firehawk's adoring home office staff, but the man inside the shell inhabited a murky world of guilt.
There were layers upon layers of guilt that began with leaving Hal Coughlin for dead and ended with actually killing him. Amid the layers was the fact that he had decided to tell no one at Firehawk that he had been approached by the CIA. Of course, that meeting had never happened. Indeed, it felt like a bad dream.
Fortunately for him, it was in a crowd of people that Troy next looked into Jenna's eyes. There was an informal buffet luncheon ahead of the presentation, and Jenna was there.
She smiled broadly, but there was no hug.
"How are things?" Troy asked.
"Oh, y'know… so-so," Jenna replied, setting down her paper plate of potato salad. "Did you know that Hal died?"
"Oh," Troy said.
Jenna took his look of surprise that this was the first thing she said as surprise at hearing that Hal was deceased.
"Yeah, it was over in Malaysia where you were," Jenna continued. "He was working on a hush-hush project for Escurecer. They had just gotten a contract to supply an air combat component for Sandringham Partners. He went over with the first batch of F-16s. They had just arrived in country when Firehawk went to war with Sandringham."
"That must have been awkward. for you, working at Firehawk and having him… on the other side….."