Contracts, Matt Rogers [phonics reading books TXT] 📗

A nod.

‘And the middlemen weren’t able to contact him. They weren’t able to tell him he was way out of line. They couldn’t even find out who it was. Someone was ruining their profit margins by going rogue. Disrupting the whole goddamn industry. Everything had been chugging along in perfect harmony for long enough, but now this was threatening to ruin their business.’

A nod.

‘So they saw you as a solution. They’d pitch in staggering amounts of money to your future campaign if you used your position in the government to help them quash this little problem for them. You’re in black operations. Your connections are unparalleled. They knew if you or your family were in jeopardy, the government would pull out all the stops. They’d send in the best. They’d send in us.’

A nod.

‘To them, you were a home run. You were easily influenced because you wanted the presidency. Dollars meant more to you than the average bureaucrat, because you knew what you could do with them. And you also knew how good our government’s elite soldiers are. You figured — what’s the risk? Sure, you had to leave your kid in the hands of a band of rogue kidnappers for a few days, but they’re focused on smooth transactions, aren’t they? They wouldn’t actually harm their hostage. And besides, you’ve been coordinating the most feared and respected elite soldiers on earth for years. You know what your black-ops killers can do. You figure, it’s the perfect storm. Let us hunt down and neutralise Mukta, shutting down that particular problem, and round up most of your campaign money in the process.’

A nod.

‘You’d think the donors wouldn’t make enough money from the kidnapping industry alone to justify the cost, but there’s two aspects to this. There’s the problem of the rogue kidnapper, and there’s also the problem of the Maoist insurgency. Mukta’s been using the rebels as his own personal militia, but your donors don’t like them much either. They’re a splinter group, and they’re making everything unstable. They’re converting rural villagers to communism. They’re carrying out violent attacks on infrastructure here in Nepal. They’re trying to stir up a rebellion. Which is bad for multinational corporations who have business endeavours over here. They’ve invested heavily in the developing third world, and they need to keep the peace. So paying you huge sums of money isn’t a problem. The elite soldiers who come to your aid will take care of the rogue kidnapper and the insurgents all in one go.’

A nod.

‘And then, after you kickstarted the process, you realised you’d fucked up. Mukta or one of his goons lifted your laptop, which had actual evidence you were being paid to coordinate this. You weren’t expecting that. You thought they’d just take Raya and either one or both of your bodyguards and leave everything else untouched. So, in your panic, you invented some bullshit story about HQ locations to make us prioritise getting the laptop back. You didn’t expect us to actually look through it after we retrieved it.’

A final nod.

Slater said, ‘You used us as pawns to carry out your dirty work, Aidan, and you got your daughter murdered in the process.’

Parker finally broke down.

He pressed his face to the cold floor of the storage room and wept.

87

When Parker finally resurface from his anguish, he moaned, ‘I didn’t even know they were going to kill Winston. I was promised a smooth process. I didn’t know…’

‘You did know,’ Slater said. ‘But you chose to ignore it. You thought ignorance would be bliss. Because if it all went to hell, which was always going to happen, you could just tell yourself it wasn’t your fault. Clearly it was the failure of the operatives, or the miscommunication from the donors. Surely it couldn’t be your responsibility that you let your own child get shot in the head by a lunatic kidnapper.’

Parker bowed his head.

King said, ‘That’s what the weakest of the weak do. They blame everyone else. They shirk all responsibility. They do anything and everything to advance their own position in society, and if it all falls apart they throw their hands up in the air and say, “What else could I have done?” You slaughtered your own kid. You’ll have to live with that for the rest of your life.’

Slater snatched Parker by the collar and jerked him forward, so he had to look Slater in the eyes.

The man’s eyes were bloodshot and teary.

Slater said, ‘I want you to know that I blame myself for Raya’s death. I’m sure King blames himself, too. Because that’s what good men do. They try to find any area they could have improved, and they vow to do just that. If we were a little faster, or a little sharper, or a little more resilient, then a fourteen-year-old girl would be here with us instead of dead at the top of a mountain. But that’s not what happened.’

Parker said nothing.

Slater said, ‘I want you to see what good men do. So maybe you can realise how pathetic you are before the truth comes out and you get vilified for it.’

‘Can you kill me?’ Parker said in a voice barely above a whisper.

‘No,’ Slater said. ‘That would make it too easy.’

Silence.

‘We should,’ King said. ‘You know how close your little scheme came to killing both of us? You know what we went through to get back here?’

‘That wasn’t the plan,’ Parker moaned. ‘None of this was the plan.’

‘That’s too bad,’ Slater said.

Parker scrunched up his face.

King said, ‘Do you actually expect us to feel sorry for you?’

‘I guess I expected you to show mercy.’

‘That’s not what this is,’ Slater said. ‘Maybe in the movies we might get cut and shot and beaten and exhausted half to death, then come back here and find it in our hearts to forgive you. But that’s not how the real world works, Aidan. You used us as your own personal enforcers. We came within a hair’s breadth