over the years, you’ve deposited funds in excess of ten million dollars straight out of LeedTech into your personal Swiss bank account. Tax free, too, and all those unreported assets you’ve got stashed in half a dozen shell corporations in the Caribbean, that’s going to bite you in the ass, Rook. You should have known better than that.”
“Y-you’re wrong, Dylan.” The old man wheezed and let out a cough, before he could continue. “The money is for black ops, a slush fund, duly authorized by the agency’s director. You’re digging your own grave here, not mine. You need to … to release me now.”
Not very damn likely.
“No, Rook. That’s not the way it’s going to work tonight,” he said, watching Kid leave through the main door to go up and relieve Quinn. “Buck Grant is on his way, and if he doesn’t bury you, I will. But first I want Jane Linden and J. T. Chronoplous back. If you can help me, good. If you can’t, I’ve got no use for you.”
“Use for me?” The old man let out a short, strained laugh. “You’re insane, Hart. It’s why the team has to be destroyed. Crutchfield!” He turned his head to face the lawyer and shouted again. “Crutchfield, tell him. He can’t prove anything. Nothing, not … not anything.”
Dylan glanced at the lawyer, but Tyler Crutchfield wasn’t having any of it. If any man could have ever disappeared while taped to a chair, Crutchfield was going to be that guy. Lancaster was on his own.
“Actually, I can prove everything. The trail leading to you and Atlas Exports is starting to look like the Beltway at rush hour,” he said. “I only beat the Department of Justice to the LeedTech files by an hour, and I left them a copy, so you might want to be thinking about that.” He paused for a moment, but just a moment, before giving in to his darker side and pulling the small stainless steel case of syringes out of his pocket.
White Rook had been his friend, his savior, he’d thought, but now … now things had proven different.
Walking slowly forward, he opened the box. Four syringes left.
He stopped a couple of feet in front of where Lancaster hung from his ropes and chains, the open box in his hand.
“And you might want to start thinking about these,” he continued. “You know what they can do to you, old man. If you help me, they’ll stay in the box. You can start by telling me everything you know about Scott Church, MNK-1.”
Lancaster’s face was deathly pale. “MNK-1?” The question was a bare, harsh whisper of a lie. The bastard knew exactly who he was talking about.
“Your boy Monk is here, in Denver. He kidnapped my friend, and I want her back. I want her back badly enough to break you in ways from which you will never recover.”
“N-no-no, n-no no,” Lancaster murmured, his body starting to shake. “No. No.”
“He’s a long way from home,” Dylan said. “And somebody left King and Rock dead in an alley over on the west side. They were broken up bad, Rook, and somebody cannibalized King, took a bite right out of him.”
Trembling, Lancaster stared at him in silent terror, his mouth agape.
“Do you think J.T. could have done a thing like that?” He had to ask, it didn’t matter how tough the questions were, or how bad the answers might get.
“N-no,” the old man said. “Souk’s men … the soldiers he helped—”
“Helped?” Dylan should kill him for that alone.
“Enhanced,” Lancaster clarified. “Th-they were never like … like MNK-1. Patterson went too far … too fucking far. Monk shouldn’t exist.”
But he did, thanks to Lancaster’s greed.
“Can you call him off?” Dylan asked, his voice stone-cold serious. “Can you get my girl back?”
He wasn’t in the mood to ask twice, and when the seconds passed one after another without any answers coming from the old man, he took a red syringe out of the box.
He was done with the bastard.
A faint whimper escaped the man, and Dylan swore in disgust. He had no tolerance for traitors or cowards—and Lancaster was both.
Out of patience and out of time, he stepped forward and pushed Lancaster’s sleeve up. Buck wasn’t going to like it—getting here and finding a mumbling, babbling mess of a high-end State Department diplomat chained in the basement—but that wasn’t going to be enough to stop Dylan.
He thumbed the protective cap off the syringe, and Lancaster started to twist and struggle in