Midnight Kiss (Men of Midnight #7) - Lisa Marie Rice Page 0,31
one could ever know but particularly Bard could never know.
Court hadn’t redacted in the end. All the intel was in the clear. He trusted Resnick, who’d proved himself trustworthy over and over again. Inside that flash drive was essentially a confession of murder 25 years ago. Resnick needed to have that info to do what had to be done.
“That intel is highly confidential,” Court said, keeping his voice emotionless. But something must have bled through because Resnick’s head came up sharply.
“Understood, sir. You can count on me.”
Yes, he could. Resnick was a money man. People were driven by sex, money or power. Sometimes by all three. People driven by sex were pathetic and burned out early. What was left was money and power, two highly respectable motivators. Resnick had been born poor and Court understood very well that the money Resnick was accumulating was precious to him in a way he himself could barely understand. He’d come from money and had always earned very well. To him, money was the ladder to power. A tool, nothing more. But to Resnick, it was life itself.
Resnick was amassing what to him was a fortune. He could never earn anywhere else what Court paid him. Court knew Resnick would rather rip out his lungs than forego the money he was being paid.
He’d be discreet. Oh yes.
Shit happens, but Court was counting on shit not happening with Resnick. It was also helpful that Resnick hated Bard. He wasn’t going to talk to Bard, tell him the truth. Which was lucky because if there was one person in the world Court feared, it was his son, Bard Redfield.
But Bard at the moment was probably OUTCONUS, having ignored his father’s invitations to take part in his campaign. So be it.
“Who do we have in California?” Court asked.
Resnick frowned. “Not many operatives, sir. Four. Hawkins, Peters, Colucci and Li. How many operatives do you need?”
Damn it! The Ellis creature was one girl, an expert in computers and data analysis. No military training. But she must have powerful protectors if she’d been able to evade his operatives in Boston. And was able to vanish off the face of the earth.
But if she started digging deep, there was one place she was bound to go.
Court weighed efficacy and discretion. His men operated well as a team but this was delicate stuff. Not everybody would be as comfortable as Resnick with killing your own blood. So for the moment, he wanted Resnick alone. If he needed help, he could call it in.
“As many as you can, but put them on stand-by. Pull off everyone you can from non-urgent tasks and have them wait by a plane. I want you to head this team up, but if you can finish the mission on your own, that would be preferable. Intel is there in the flash drive. I want you in Sacramento tomorrow. You’ll know where to go and what to do.”
Resnick closed his big hand around the flash drive. For a moment, Court hesitated. That flash drive was like a bullet propelled from a gun, stopped an inch from his chest. There were secrets in there that had been kept for 25 years. Secrets that would derail his presidential run if what he planned to do came out. Secrets that would send him to jail.
Secrets his son could never know. God knows their relationship was fraught enough.
Goddammit! Court’s eye caught a portrait photograph in a silver frame on the bookshelf next to his desk. Bard, in full dress uniform, with an impressive array of his medals on his broad chest. The last official photo of him, and only because the Navy insisted. He was so young and so handsome and looked like what he was — a goddamn hero. Someone any father would be proud of. A real asset.
Even more of an asset would have been Bard leaving the military after an appropriate period, marrying an appropriate woman and having appropriate kids. Court could have had another portrait on his shelf, with Bard, a smiling wife and kids. Maybe a fucking dog. On a slope of green lawn, celebrating July 4th.
Instead — nothing. Bard had stayed in the military and stayed almost invisible, on covert missions abroad. The very few snapshot photos in existence of his son were on ops. An almost feral being, a tough, frightening man with a graying beard, weather-beaten skin, in filthy combat clothes. Not photogenic, not polished. He looked like what he was — a killer.