END GAME (Thomas Blume) by PT Reade

Author:PT Reade [Reade, PT]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: www.ptreade.com
Published: 2018-05-18T22:00:00+00:00

TWENTY-ONE

I’d been staring at the bottom of the glass for five minutes—or two years, depending on how you looked at it—when Daly returned from her phone call. She’d disappeared a few minutes earlier, to check in with her superiors and avoid further suspicion. When she dropped back into the booth seat her features were tense.

“Bad news, huh?” I enquired.

“They’ve called me back in, and I can’t stall them much longer or they’ll know something’s off. We don’t have much time.”

“I understand,” I said, draining the last traces of the whiskey and enjoying its comforting burn. “But I need to know. What’s in this file that makes it so dangerous?” I leaned back against the soft leather. The events of the day weighed heavily, and fatigue pulled at the corners of my mind. I couldn’t remember the last time I had a good night’s sleep.

“They call it the Blacklist,” Daly said. “For months, we thought it was a myth. A legend to talk about around the water-cooler at Langley or Vauxhall Cross. But recent intelligence intercepts suggest that it may be real.”

“And what’s on this list?”

“Hard to say. If the intel is correct, a series of mission reports from dozens of unsanctioned and very wide-reaching ‘black’ operations carried out over the past twenty years. Illegally funded and completely off-the-books.”

“What kind of operations?”

“Basically, a series of unofficial actions overseen by a small group of very wealthy and influential individuals. Jobs carried out by deniable intelligence and military operators to discredit foreign governments, place the blame firmly on extremist groups and line the pockets of those pulling the strings. It supposedly includes several major acts of terror, a couple of which, wars have been fought over.”

“Jesus.”

“Yeah, but again, rumors. So, we need to know for sure.”

“So, who’s in this thing?”

“You mean the names on the list? We can’t be sure. Only a few people claim to have seen it and none of them are around to talk about it now. The only intel we have was pulled from a partly decrypted email sent to Quinto’s sister. It talks about payments and research, with the help of ‘the Brit.’ We assume she meant Teach.”

My mind raced. “You mean information from his past operations as an assassin?”

“Maybe.” Daly shrugged. “But it runs deeper than that. Not just his own exploits and information on his former employers. That stuff has some weight, for sure, but it’s just the surface. I’m not positive, someone was good at covering their tracks. Wire transfers between corrupt officials both here and in Europe, maybe. Rumor is that many of the ops Teach and his crew ran were illegal. Completely unsanctioned by any government. Basically, some individuals were playing puppet master with their own personal death squad.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah. If the intelligence is right, we’re looking at a massive exposé, bigger than anything anyone’s ever seen before. Teach had inside knowledge of these ops and some security clearance. Combine that with Quinto’s penchant for digging into places she wasn’t supposed to, and you have a particularly explosive combination.

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