Total pages in book: 155
Estimated words: 146392 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 732(@200wpm)___ 586(@250wpm)___ 488(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 146392 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 732(@200wpm)___ 586(@250wpm)___ 488(@300wpm)
“Some of it could depend on who they blame it on since we know they won’t take credit,” Parker continued. “I think that’s why it didn’t work in Jakarta. The group they blamed was able to quickly prove it wasn’t them, and without a bad guy, things settled down. I think Manny’s group underestimated the Indonesian government. He’ll try again.”
“And why would he want that?” This was the part TJ didn’t get. As far as he could tell this Huisman guy was a doctor. He ran a charitable foundation and had written books on trauma and forgiveness. He had plenty of money as he was the last one left of his wealthy family.
“Because Emmanuel Huisman wants to destroy the world so he can rule the ashes,” Parker said quietly. “But I don’t expect any of you to believe me. MI6 doesn’t, but they do think there’s something going on with The Jester. Several of the bombs he sold that were used in the Jakarta attacks were next level, but they malfunctioned. I believe the loss of life would have been times a hundred if those bombs had successfully deployed.”
Now he understood why they wanted The Jester. “You think it’s only a matter of time before the bombmaker figures out what went wrong and fixes it. So you think if you get to The Jester, you get to the bombmaker. But the Jakarta bombings were a few months ago. Oliver said he’s been working on this for longer.”
“Because those weren’t the first bombs,” Samantha interjected. “Two years ago, RaSP discovered a small device attached to a vehicle.”
Lou typed. Royalty and Specialist Protection. They protect the royal family.
He nodded. It was kind of nice to have his own spy translator. The truth was up until this point he hadn’t asked a lot of questions. They weren’t encouraged. He was there as muscle and to follow orders.
Lou’s job was more complex. A couple of days ago that might have been a problem somewhere deep in his brain—or maybe the better word was his ego. But he was over that. It was funny. Watching her work, knowing how hard she’d trained, had changed his mind about a lot of things.
Lou was special. Lou deserved everything the universe could give her.
He’d spent so much time trying to figure out where he fit into his extraordinary family, worried he was the normal one, the dumb one, the useless one.
His parents hadn’t made him feel that way. Never. It was a fragility that had been born inside him.
It was something he could overcome because he’d found his real place. He was Lou’s support. He could be the strong center of whatever family they built.
“You mentioned something about anti-monarchists back in Australia,” Kenzie prompted.
“I believe that’s a group the inner core of Disrupt is working with,” Ben replied. “I believe my boss sent your boss some intelligence.”
Big Tag shook his head. “It’s a lot of conjecture and not enough clean lines to connect the two. I want to know about the bombs and why this is new information if they’ve been around for a while.”
“You should talk to your boss,” Sami said. “We’ve given the Agency the information. We believe that this bombmaker is close to building what we call small arms nuclear weapons. We think he’s trying to target specific areas while leaving others standing and without worry about nuclear fallout. It could change urban warfare in ways we can’t imagine.”
“And make genocide easy and fun,” his uncle muttered under his breath. “Lou, look into this. I want a report on how this would work and how far along the research is.”
“You could read my report,” Ben offered, sounding slightly offended.
“I want Lou’s analysis,” his uncle insisted. “What I will take from you is any and all intelligence that leads you to believe Sergeant Taggart is involved.” His uncle looked his way. “I’m going to ask you again. Do you know anything about this situation?”
He was so happy he could be open and honest. “Nope. I know they have a picture of me they say is a meeting with The Jester in Berlin. Only thing I did in Berlin was get a briefing on an op and drink a lot of beer. I know nothing, but I’m willing to answer questions. Most of the answers will be I don’t know.”
His uncle gathered the papers in front of him. “I’m going to read this and call Langley, however I’m going to do it from the comfort of my home so I don’t have to be in this rat hole where things happen that I shouldn’t have to watch.”
“That sounds good to me,” Kenzie said, her eyes on Ben.
His uncle shuddered and started to stand.
Lou stood as well. “I should come with you, boss. I need to get you that research.”