Total pages in book: 107
Estimated words: 98561 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 493(@200wpm)___ 394(@250wpm)___ 329(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 98561 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 493(@200wpm)___ 394(@250wpm)___ 329(@300wpm)
The man picked up the phone on his side of the divider and I did the same. “Keeping fit, I see,” he said, nodding at the towel.
American, but there was no mistaking the accent that ran underneath. Irish. Northern Irish. And suddenly, I knew where I’d seen him: on TV. Standing next to the most powerful man in the world.
It’s very rare that I’m taken by surprise, but this was one of those times. “You’re Kian O’Harra,” I said slowly.
He nodded, watching me closely.
Some years back, someone tried to kill the President’s daughter, Emily Matthews. And it turned out that their plans went a lot further than that. The guy who’d saved her—who’d saved the whole country, according to some—was her Secret Service bodyguard and lover. The man who was sitting in front of me right now.
I wondered if he was still seeing her. I hadn’t bothered to keep up with the news in here.
I came right out with it. “What the hell do you want with me?!”
Kian put his elbows on the table and leaned forward. “I’m putting together a team. For when the government has a problem and can’t do anything officially. Or when someone’s in trouble and the normal agencies can’t help, or won’t help. A mix of specialists, all with particular skills.” His eyes gleamed and his hand tightened on the phone. “I’ve got a former Marine sniper who spent six years living in the wilderness: best shot I’ve ever seen. An Army Ranger turned bounty hunter who can take anyone down in close combat. There’s this former SAS guy: put him behind the wheel of a car and no one, no one is going to be able to catch us. And then there’s my brother…he’s never served but he’s got his own special skill set.”
“A jarhead, a ground-pounder, a Brit, a civilian…that’ll never work.”
“Oh, it’ll work. The pieces are all there, I just had to find the right guy to make them into a team.”
“You’re not leading them yourself?”
Kian grimaced as if that was a sore point. “My face is too well known. I’ll be running things from behind a desk. I’ve got someone special to lead them in the field. He’s just what they need.”
I leaned back in my chair. “What’ve I got to do with any of this?” I tried to sound nonchalant but I could feel my heart speed up. Because really, there was only one reason for him to be telling me all this.
Kian looked me right in the eye. “I want you on the team.”
And there it was. There was a moment of disbelief and then it hit me, the feeling I’d kept locked away for so long, I’d convinced myself it was gone but it suddenly tugged like cloth snapping taut in the wind: the thought of serving again, of being a part of something again, of having guys I’d die for and who’d die for me.
Then I came to my senses. I wasn’t that guy anymore.
“You got the wrong man,” I muttered. “I’m a thief.”
“You’re the thief,” Kian corrected softly. “The Bank of Indonesia. The National Gallery in London. The Vatican Museums in Rome. You know how to get in and out of places. You see angles no one else would see. You lie, you cheat, you con. The sort of people we’ll be up against don’t fight fair. I need someone on the team who doesn’t play by the rules. And I need your connections, your contacts. Our jobs will be off the books: we won’t have the government to back us up. I need someone who knows who can get us guns in Sao Paulo, who can sneak us across the border into China. I need someone who knows every dirty cop in Paris, every Russian mafia boss in New York.” He leaned back in his chair. “That’s you.”
It was me. I had to glance away so he didn't see the pride in my eyes. “In case you hadn’t noticed,” I told him, “I’m a little indisposed.” I gestured at my orange jumpsuit, at the concrete walls around us.
He looked me right in the eye again. He was good at that: there was something about him that made you want to trust him, and I don’t trust anybody. “The government has authorized your release into my custody, conditional on you joining the team for ten years. He leaned forward and stabbed at the tabletop with his finger. “You can be out today. You can be free.”
The magic word. It didn’t matter how cushy my cell was, prison is prison. I could be out.
But it would mean ten years with Kian’s team. Three years longer than I had left to serve. I couldn’t just take the deal and then disappear after a few weeks: they’d never stop hunting me and I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life looking over my shoulder. I’d have to do my time with the team and then go retrieve the gold and live the high life. Ten years of following orders again.