Private Rogue

Chapter 41

“You don’t have to do this,” Beth Singer told me.

She’d left the children watching a movie in the family room and had joined Jessie and me in the living room.

“I know,” I replied, and turned to Jessie. “Hadn’t we better get going?”

She checked the time and nodded. “Alvarez and Taft should be here any moment.”

A buzzer sounded. Jessie went to the video intercom and lifted the receiver. On the screen, I saw the faces of two operatives I recognized: Roni Alvarez, a tough, snarky former Bronx cop, and Jim Taft, a huge, bull-necked ex-Secret Service agent. They were here to guard Beth and the children.

Jessie buzzed them through the gate and turned to me. “Let’s go.”

“Please be careful,” Beth said. She took my hands and squeezed them tenderly. “Thank you.”

“I’ll be in touch through Jessie,” I replied.

I checked I had my phone, passport and wallet, and followed Jessie outside, where we met Roni and Taft.

“Traveling light?” Roni asked.

“Yeah,” I replied.

“We’ll keep them safe until you get back,” Roni said.

“Stay frosty,” Taft added.

“Thanks,” I scoffed.

They went into the house and shut the door, and Jessie and I got in the black Nissan and started out for LaGuardia.

Brooding clouds hung low over the quiet highway. Jessie drove cautiously through the slush and grit. She’d chartered a private jet, so there was no danger of the aircraft leaving without me.

“Do you want me to come with you?” she asked as we rolled along I-95. “Roni and Jim will be okay with Beth and the children.”

“She trusts you,” I replied. “She might need a friendly face with her.”

There was no need to explain why. We all believed Joshua Floyd was still alive, but the report there were no survivors might be true.

“Dinara is sending a team to Kabul,” I added. “I’ll be fine.”

I’d used Private’s secure messaging system to send Dinara Orlova my travel plans, and she’d replied to let me know a member of the Private Moscow team would be in Kabul to meet my plane when it arrived.

“You need to learn to trust people, Jack,” Jessie said.

“I do,” I replied. “Otherwise I wouldn’t be leaving Beth and the children with you.”

“It’s not my place to analyze you,” Jessie said, “but most people running a company of Private’s size don’t get involved in frontline operations. You’ve got nothing to prove.”

“I’m not trying to prove anything,” I replied, but somewhere inside I knew that wasn’t entirely true.

“You don’t have to save the world single-handed.” Jess smiled.

“I know. I’ve got you to help me. We all want to be heroes. That’s why we’re in this business.”

She shook her head and grinned broadly. “You’ve always got an answer, Jack Morgan.”

We spent the rest of the journey discussing operational issues at the New York office, and after fifty minutes, Jessie delivered me to the executive jet terminal at LaGuardia.

I saw my Gulfstream G650 waiting at one of the stands, and, after thanking Jessie for the ride, passed through border control without issue, grateful Rafael Lucas had cleared the person-of-interest alert off my record following the motel incident. A few minutes later, I was airborne.