aren’t many privately run special ops groups around—but we hit them all, I guess.”
“So you’re saying you hired those assholes from the old Blackwater?” Batman asked him. “And DynCorp? And EOD?”
“I’m not sure,” Audette insisted. “I know we got a lot of eyes out there looking for this thing.” He paused, then added: “And a few bent noses, too.”
Batman and Twitch just looked at each other. “Bent nose” was code for …
“The Mob?” Batman asked him. “You got the freaking mafia involved in this, too?”
Audette just shrugged. “Hey, it’s a tradition with us,” he said. “Ever since World War Two. They’re watching the ports in the U.S. for us, checking to see if this thing comes in anywhere. Someone’s gotta do it.”
Batman was growing furious. “So you guys hired a bunch of groups like us and then, what? Pitted us against one another? While not letting one group know it was in a competition?”
Audette nodded again. This time it looked painful for him.
“And everyone’s going for the hundred-million-dollar prize?” Batman asked.
“Yes—you got it right,” Audette said. “I know it was dumb—but you have to remember, we want this thing back very badly—and if this doesn’t prove it to you, nothing will. We thought if we had more than just one private special ops group going after it, the chances of retrieving it were that much better. I mean, you guys are the pirate specialists, so I was sure you’d have a leg up on the rest of them. But we never dreamed that one group would find out about the other and then throw up roadblocks against them. We went to great lengths to make sure not a word of this ever leaked out.”
Twitch spoke up. “You know what this sounds like? This sounds like a fucking reality show. Like you got the big prize hidden somewhere. One team fucks up the other. Winner take all.”
Batman looked into Audette’s eyes.
“This isn’t some kind of weird loyalty thing is it?” he asked him. “Or the Agency’s weird idea for a psy-ops experiment.”
Audette replied quickly. “No—of course not,” he said. Then he thought a moment and added, “At least I don’t think so.”
Another silence. Then Batman asked him, “So let’s get back to this Bobby Murphy character. He’s the CO of another special ops outfit, I take it?”
Audette seemed to want to bite off his own tongue.
“I can’t tell you anything about him,” he said. “But yes, he’s the alpha dog of another group of operators. Very independent operators. In fact, when it comes to busting terrorists, his group is considered the best special ops group in the world, military or civilian.”
“If that’s true,” Twitch said, “how come we’ve never heard of them?”
Audette just nodded.
“Exactly,” he said wryly. “But I didn’t sign them up, I swear. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if he found out about it somehow on his own and just wormed his way in. That’s the way his guys are—guys and girls, I should say. They’re like phantoms. Supposedly they travel around in this old container ship, whacking terrorists, completely unauthorized shit. But they’ve got a lot of weapons and people who can use them. So, believe me, I’m sure they’re the ones who are glitching you. They probably stole your ten million, too, because while they’re in the business of terrorizing the terrorists, they’re usually cash-strapped because no one in the U.S. Government wants to fund them—they’re just too ‘out there.’”
Audette paused for a moment, then asked: “Did you actually meet him? The man himself?”
Batman shrugged. “How would we know?”
“Well, this guy you said came to you in the penthouse,” Audette replied. “This guy Maurice? What did he look like?”
“Like the most ordinary person in the world,” Batman replied.
Audette shook his head emphatically. “Yep—that’s him, the bastard,” he said. “He looks like your favorite uncle or the guy next door. But he’s into some crazy shit. His bunch are like you guys, heroes running around after 9/11. He’s the one who punked you, though. I’m sure of it now. Only he could pull off something like that in that casino. It sounds like he arranged that chase to get you out of that penthouse—and the Harrier thing was the cherry on top.”
“Son of a bitch,” Batman moaned. “So we were sideswiped even before we knew it.”
“Fucking dicks,” Twitch said. “Trying give us the shiv—and steal our money!”
“That’s the way they operate,” Audette said. “They live, eat and breathe psy-ops. Just ask bin Laden’s cub scouts. They’re deathly