his various high-ranking endeavors, he was always the smartest guy in the room, no matter who else was present, and he’d played some of the toughest rooms in the world, from the Oval Office to Number 10 Downing Street.
The room he was in at Denver’s newest luxury hotel, the Kashmir Club, was no different. His assistant, Tyler Crutchfield, a young Harvard-trained lawyer, was a particularly brilliant protégé destined to work himself into a cabinet position someday.
But today was not that day.
Today, Crutchfield still worked for Randolph, still had a lot to learn, and still had a job to do.
“Skeeter Bang has a reputation for being tough and smart,” Randolph said. “But she’s got a soft spot when it comes to her husband, Dylan Hart. We threaten him, and she’ll come around, guaranteed.”
“Yes, sir.” Tyler Crutchfield was East Coast born and bred but had the blue-eyed blond good looks of a California surfer, if California surfers ever wore handmade Italian suits.
“You cut her from the herd, get her to meet you, and we’ll have this game on our turf. But watch yourself, and I mean physically. She’s an operator, an independent thinker, as tough as the rest of that crowd, a wild card. That’s why we’re here to rein them in.”
“Yes, sir,” Crutchfield said. “What about Traeger and the girl, Scout Leesom?”
“Traeger’s a mercenary, plain and simple. If he’d stayed in the Army longer, he might have become a contender for LeedTech’s export program, but as a civilian, he doesn’t pose a threat, and the girl matters only if she gets in the way. Karola and Walls will make sure she doesn’t. All we need is Conroy Farrel, and if we can do a hostage trade, Skeeter Bang for Farrel, then Ms. Bang can go to bed at night dreaming of her happily-ever-after.”
For all the good that was going to do her in the end. She was his leverage in the deal, nothing more. If his guys could capture Farrel without him getting his hands dirty with the woman, all the better. If not, she was his backup plan. Either way, her fate was sealed, but she wouldn’t know it, until it was far too late.
“Don’t worry,” Crutchfield said, his smile and his gaze filled with all the confidence conferred by inherited wealth and an Ivy League degree. “We’re offering her a good deal. She either meets with me, or her husband ends up in Leavenworth for life, and she probably right along with him. I’ll convince her we can make the case for treason, because we can.”
Randolph almost returned the smile—almost, but not quite. The boy was like a bulldog with the prime directive, pumped up with self-righteous conviction, focused on the goal of shutting down a rogue team of black ops warriors, dark shadow warriors who had tapped into American taxpayer dollars to fund their own skewed vision of the nation’s defense. Assassins, Randolph had told him, operating outside the bounds of the military and intelligence communities that had spawned them. Special Defense Force, SDF, needed to be wiped off the face of the earth as if it had never existed.
That last part was true. Randolph had started SDF, and he was going to end it tonight, right here in Denver. LeedTech was turning into a disaster for him. His house of cards was slipping out from under him. He needed distance, and he couldn’t get it from LeedTech with Conroy Farrel breathing down his neck, and he couldn’t get distance from Conroy Farrel with SDF breathing down Farrel’s neck. So they all had to go. Their total annihilation was the only victory that offered him any protection.
“Where’s Walls?” he asked. “I want him backing you up. She might not go with you willingly.”
“I can handle a woman, Randolph,” Crutchfield said, not bothering to hide his irritation. “I was the captain of my water polo team for two years running.”
Clueless, Lancaster thought. Crutchfield was absolutely clueless about what it meant to be an operator of SDF’s caliber.
“She’ll be armed.”
“So am I.” The lawyer opened the jacket on his Italian suit to reveal a semiautomatic pistol in a shoulder holster. “Don’t worry. Once I have the meet set up, I’ll contact Walls and pull him off Steele Street. He’ll be there to make sure she cooperates.”
“Are King and Rock locked on a target yet? Or are they still chasing their tails?” he asked.
He’d brought four operators with him, and he damn well expected them to do their jobs. He had