Prologue
ELITE MANAGEMENT PARTNERS INC. (EMPI)
Denver, Colorado
August 3, Friday
9:43 a.m. MDT
Jason LaGrange scowled at the start-up costs for his business plan. As ludicrous as it seemed, that seven-figure windfall wasn’t enough. Staffing, servers, software, hardware, and subscriptions required for surveillance alone could take as much as half.
He swiveled his chair toward the window, pondering other options. A Small Business Administration loan, perhaps? Except it probably wouldn’t fly for a mercenary business.
He jeered with disdain. Then again, maybe it would, given the current administration.
His annual combined salaries from the NSA and EMPI were over six figures, first number not a one, but insufficient to amass that kind of cash in a timely manner. Besides, his job with EMPI would end as soon as they brought in that guy from the Army Corps of Engineers to oversee PURF to completion.
His NSA assignment started out as Bernie Keller’s handler for what should have been a no-brainer security contract. A Top “Dirty Little” Secret job that Keller’s team botched from Day One.
Could that bunch of yahoos even tie their own shoelaces?
Especially team lead, Eddie Johannsen.
What an arrogant SOB.
Not researching the targets, a simple task given their resources, set them on a path to self-destruction. Using excessive force was a serious violation, except it morphed to acceptable once they stumbled upon Bryan Reynolds’ hacking escapades.
An unbelievable stroke of luck.
Luck that failed, however, when Johannsen’s behavior at the wreck site aired on network TV, courtesy of the vehicle’s dash cam.
He chuckled, remembering the GPS tracker’s erratic path as Johannsen’s truck careened over the side of the same canyon where this debacle began.
Reynolds’ widow miraculously survived the initial wreck. Now she was exposing what her husband unearthed, causing troublesome headaches for corrupt higher-ups and their lobbyist cohorts.
That national broadcast flipped to Keller’s benefit, however, when those with much to lose hired his band of wannabes to finish her off, once and for all.
The job that ultimately became Jason’s $1.7 million windfall.
Having infiltrated the team for a closer look, he did his best to help. Handing over that designer poison formulated in some U.S.S.R. spy hidey hole should have made the job a done deal.
Until Johannsen messed that up, too.
He scowled.
Maybe, maybe not.
Perhaps the stuff degraded, being organic and decades old, based on the fact it took a few days before the toxic effects manifested. During the interim, the target survived long enough to attempt another TV appearance.
Security footage from NBC’s Manhattan studio indicated she’d succumbed, but was resuscitated and transported to a Brooklyn ER quickly enough to save her life. According to the hospital’s database, she’d defied death yet again.
Who was Sara Reynolds, anyway? Wonder Woman?
A window washer working the upper half of the Marriott City Center across the street, one of Denver’s iconic monoliths, caught his eye. Suspended on a scaffolding a few hundred feet above the sidewalk, he chuckled at the vision of the guy dropping the squeegee on some unsuspecting pedestrian on his way to a four martini corporate lunch.
Ka-bam! Lights out!
Life was like that.
Things blasted out of the blue, sometimes good, sometimes not.
Just like the wreck in Dead Horse Canyon that started it all.
Still, it wasn’t over. And wouldn’t be as long as Sara Reynolds was alive.
Keller’s second payment was due when she was proved dead. Some believed she was. The official FBI record was still open though it implied as much with her status “assumed dead,” based on hospital release papers that stated, “referred to Hospice.”
Really? Assumed?
The ones who wanted her silenced were less trusting, withholding the second payment until Keller produced the death certificate. Not likely to happen with him in jail on conspiracy charges, even if she was.
Jason could forge one easily enough, but of all the personas he’d assumed throughout his career, a liar wasn’t one. In his line of work, trust by those he worked for, whether informers or clients, was essential. With the caveat, however, that when immersed in a particular role such actions didn’t constitute a lie as opposed to an improvised script.
His eyebrows lowered with his thoughts.
If he finished the job, the second payment would be his.
Another million bucks!
Perfect!
All he had to do was inform the client he was Keller’s duly appointed representative, which would be a cinch.
Then convince them this time the job would get done right.
Copyright (c) 2024 by Marcha Fox and Pete Rising Sun – All Rights Reserved
The Curse of Dead Horse Canyon 