The Killer

EIGHTY-FOUR

17:02 UTC

The administrator closed the door behind him and walked down the busy hospital corridor. He made sure not to look at the janitor lingering close to Tesseract’s room. A simple nod would have been the signal for his man to enter and execute the injured assassin, and Roland Procter did not want his new employee killed unnecessarily.

Locating Tesseract had been relatively simple. After Sykes had finished briefing Procter, he had used local assets to do the searching. It hadn’t taken that long. There were only so many recently hospitalized white guys in the city.

Procter thought about Ferguson. This whole thing had happened because the old bastard hadn’t had enough slaps on the back for doing his job twenty years ago. It was no excuse to turn traitor for a few million. It was a sorry end to a once fine man’s career. Procter wasn’t driven by money; it was power he wanted. Power could buy everything that money could as well as everything that it could not.

He exited the hospital in an excellent mood. Within a few short days he would have compiled a case against Ferguson so compelling even the hacks on the Hill couldn’t brush it under the carpet. With careful leaking of information to the press, Procter would ensure his face was seen at every breakfast table in the city. Savior of the CIA was quite a catchy title, he’d decided.

He expected to be promoted within six months. Chambers was only there until they found someone else, and Procter would soon make himself the perfect candidate. With Ferguson dead, it would give even more weight to Procter’s ascension. Sullying the name of a dead hero would be worth even more than destroying a live one. Everyone who mattered, in the agency and on Capitol Hill, would want a scandal of that magnitude kept under wraps. If he elected to keep quiet, the amount of political currency Procter could gain from the top brass was immense.

Having Ferguson killed barely caused a tremor on Procter’s moral compass, broken as it already was. Ferguson was a traitor and a murderer and it was only just that he be executed for his crimes. Procter had ordered far-more-honorable individuals killed than Ferguson and still slept like a chubby baby. Plus, this killing came with an extra bonus: it brought Tesseract on side. Now Procter had his very own pet hitman.

He smiled. It would all work itself out beautifully, though Procter reminded himself not to be too cocky. He was good, that much was certain, but it was always the ones who didn’t realize they weren’t invincible that failed to achieve their fullest potential. He wasn’t about to make the same mistakes Ferguson had made.

Procter knew he was far too good for that.

A gaunt man joined him on the street outside the hospital. He wore a white linen suit and seemed particularly uncomfortable under the Tanzanian sun. Sweat made his pale face shine.

Procter walked alongside him. “How did it go?”

“Nothing recoverable,” the man said. “The frigate is a mess and the missiles onboard are in pieces, corroded, or both. As for the truck, well, the missiles were half-rusty anyway. The fire finished them off. If anything survived it’s been looted.”

“Would have been nice to have brought one back,” Procter said. “But you can’t win them all.”

“No, you never can.”

“What about Tesseract?”

“Our people got here too late to get fingerprints without his noticing, but we have a blood sample from when he came in and, more important, photos. And there are a few other things to follow up on when we get back.” The gaunt man sidestepped a group of laughing children heading the opposite way. “It’s all in here.”

He handed over a slim file, and Procter opened it briefly. “Good job, Mr. Clarke.”

Clarke showed little in his expression. “You don’t really think he’ll stick to the deal, do you?”

“He doesn’t have a choice.”

Clarke looked anything but convinced.

Procter spoke: “When you bring a dangerous dog into your home, waiting until after it takes a chunk from your ass is leaving it too late to establish who’s boss.” He glanced Clarke’s way. “We’ll make sure to let this animal know right from the start he’s at the very bottom of the pack. If he doesn’t stay house trained, there’s a simple solution. We have him put down.”

“If you remember,” Clarke said. “The last time someone tried that things didn’t work out too well.”

“True,” Procter said with a nod. “But we have one irrefutable advantage over our predecessors. With this,” Proctor tapped Tesseract’s new file, “we own him.”