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Rhett smiled. “I want to re-establish the Agency’s partnership with the Zetas. The administration is getting increasingly worried about all the cheap Chinese-sourced Fentanyl that the Cartels are shipping across the border. I know the Zetas are not exactly buddies with the Colombian and Mexican Cartels. There are ways our two organizations can help each other.”
“It starts with me helping you first, I presume?” Diego snorted. “And it ends with a bullet in my head when your dirty work is done. We both know how apartnershipwith the CIA works.”
Rhett shrugged. “Can’t say you’re that far off base.” He paused a beat, glanced over to the sofa, then flashed a sharp look towards Diego. “But you don’t have a lot of options. Hear me out and not only do they survive this, but you might too. Besides, mydirty workmight be right up your alley.” He cracked a grin. “I’m guessing you don’t have a particularly soft spot in your heart for John Benson after his team wiped out your Zetas on board theRivington, then brought down Northrup Capital.”
Something flashed behind Diego’s eyes. “You want me to kill John Benson?”
Rhett nodded coolly. “And Martin Kaiser. I’m meeting them at Senator Robinson’s empty townhome tomorrow night. It has to be done there.”
Diego stared in silence, then snorted. “Martin Kaiser is the Director of the CIA. As you so wisely pointed out earlier, I am not the suicidal kind of psycho. Get somebody else to be your patsy, your Lee Harvey Oswald.”
Rhett laughed, then shook his head and sighed. “I’m afraid it has to be you, Diego. Obviously, this can’t come back to bite me in the ass, which means I can’t use any of our local CIA assets—not to kill their own damn Director. Can’t trust some freelance gang-hitman either for something this sensitive. No, it has to be you, Diego.” He shrugged. “Look, I'll be honest with you. If you get caught, it’s already rumored that you’re gunning for the Senator. It would look like Benson and Kaiser got taken out by mistake while you were targeting the Senator’s home. You could scream to the heavens that I put you up to it, but it’ll just be your word against mine. Good luck getting anyone to take you seriously. You know how finger-pointing plays out when it comes to the Agency. You can’t win that game.”
“Oh, yes, I know.” Diego chuckled darkly. “Plausible deniability. You CIA snakes are all the same.” He blinked, took a breath, let it out slow. “At least you are honest about being a double-crossingputa.” He stroked his beard, narrowed his eyes. “Why do you want Benson and Kaiser dead? Personal or business?”
“Both.” Rhett’s eyes flashed. “Benson is personal. Kaiser is business.”
Diego gazed curiously at Rhett. “What sort of business?”
“That, my friend, is none ofyourbusiness.” Rhett leaned back in his chair. “All you need to know is that if you get this done clean, you will have a very powerful friend in the CIA.” He smiled. “Powerful enough that your new Zeta Nation might be better off with Senator Robinson in the White House than the cemetery.”
Diego shifted in his seat, was silent for a long moment, then exhaled. “The Senator’s townhome is a fortress, just like you said. Windows are bulletproof, doors are reinforced steel. Can you get me inside the house?”
Rhett shook his head. “Too risky.” He cracked a half-grin. “Not just for you but for me too. I know you’d happily take me out along with them if you can. Maybe evenjustme.” He chuckled. “I might be a forked-tongued snake, Diego, but you’re a ten-headed dragon with a trail of blood that rivals Genghis Khan.” He grinned, gestured towards Mercy with his gun. “Does your piece of ass over there know that about you, Diego? Does she know how many tortured souls are waiting for you down in hell?”
Diego’s face darkened as Mercy visibly flinched on the sofa. The sounds of a cranky little girl stirring awake came through now. Mercy hushed the child, whose name appeared to be Cari. Soon enough the girl settled back down.
Diego looked down at his hands, then nodded and glanced up. “It appears we understand each other well enough. All right. How do you want it done?”
Rhett tapped the gun against his knee, leaned his head back and gazed down his nose at Diego. “I read your file. You started off in Mexican Special Forces. Trained in demolition techniques. Explosives of all kinds. Car-bombs too, from what I know of how the Zetas have taken out Cartel leaders or pesky politicians who won’t accept bribes.” Rhett paused a beat. “Benson and Kaiser will probably arrive in the same car—Benson’s Crown Victoria. The townhome doesn’t have much of a driveway, so they’ll park out front, in the cordoned-off section right outside the home.” He shrugged. “Once we’re all inside the house, you’ll have the car to yourself for maybe thirty minutes—assume twenty to be safe.”
Diego frowned. “What if they come in Kaiser’s car? CIA Director’s vehicle would be blast-proof, armor-plates beneath the car too. You’d need an anti-tank missile to blow up that thing.”
Rhett shook his head. “They’ll take Benson’s car. Kaiser’s would be too recognizable. And it requires a driver, which Kaiser won’t want. Trust me, he’ll want to keep a low profile for this meeting.”
Diego’s frown cut deeper, his eyes narrowing like he was wondering what the hell kind of game Kaiser and Benson and Rhett were playing. “Who else will be there? Senator Robinson still has a couple of his private guys watching the house even when he’s out of town, right?”
“They’ll be pulled off duty before the meeting. Benson’s bringing one of his off-the-books Darkwater guys—former Delta named Jack Wagner. But he’s part of the meeting, so he’ll be inside the house with the rest of us for at least some of the time—I’ll make sure of that.” Rhett shook his head. “Nobody else. Kaiser won’t bring any other CIA guys.”
“Nobody wants any witnesses there, eh?” Diego smiled thinly. “A den of CIA snakes all trying to bite each other. What is this, the O.K. Corral at dusk?”
Rhett showed nothing but a tight smile. “You’ll have to source your own explosives. I don’t want my hands on any part of this chain. A man with your resources and connections should be able to manage that in the next eighteen hours, yes?”
Diego took a breath, then nodded. “How do I contact you?”
Rhett snorted. “You don’t. I don’t want any record that we communicated. Either Benson’s car explodes or it doesn’t. If you pull it off, then leave the country, wait a few months, then find a way to get in touch with me discreetly and we can discuss our future partnership. You’ll know who I am by then.”
Diego frowned. He shot a glance towards Mercy, then back at Rhett. “All right. But the woman and the girl have nothing to do with this—or with me. I’ll do what you want. Even though I know once it’s done the right move for you would be to take me out.” He shrugged with lazy confidence. “But for that you will have to find me again. I got sloppy once. I will be more careful the next time. As for your so-calledpartnership—well, if this plays out and you do become a man of power and influence, then perhaps we can be friends someday.” Diego narrowed his gaze, and now Rhett saw the dragon in his eyes, heard its fiery hiss in his voice. “But if I do what you ask cleanly and you still choose to come after me, then you will have made yourself a very powerful enemy, remember that.”
“I don’t doubt that for a moment. I also don’t doubt that it would be very difficult to find you again once we part ways tonight—especially now that you know your cover has been compromised.” Rhett held the gun steady, held his gaze even steadier. “So much so that it is a distinct possibility that once this gun is no longer pointed at your head, you will decide to simply disappear again. Yes, I can see that my offer of a potential partnership is tempting, especially since even a man of your abilities must acknowledge how hard it would be to get to Senator Robinson once the Secret Service is involved. Of course, I was counting on my offer being tempting enough for you to follow through.” Rhett gazed languidly towards Mercy and Cari, then sighed and looked back at Diego. “But fate has offered me an insurance policy that will lock you in, take away any consideration that you might reject my offer of friendship. And you know I have to use it.” He shrugged, sighed again. “They’ll be leaving here with me, Diego. I took the precaution of slashing your van’s tires, just in case you’re reckless enough to follow me.” He gazed coolly at Diego. “Once Kaiser and Benson are dead and I’m safely home tomorrow night, Mercy and Cari will be sent safely home too. You have my word.” He glanced at Mercy’s keys on the table. “You can lock up the store for her. She’ll have to trust you not to rob the register.”
Diego’s eyes blazed, his jaw tightened, his body tensed up to the point where Rhett feared he was going to leap across the six feet of space between them, force Rhett to put a bullet in his head, then walk over and put two more in that mother-and-child combo that could have been an insurance policy but turned out to be just collateral damage.
But Diego stayed in his chair, controlling his rage with the discipline of a man who’d survived in the shadowy world of violence and deception for decades.
Rhett watched Diego’s eyes to make sure the guy was smart enough to stay put. He was, and so Rhett got Mercy and Cari moving, directing his attention to that mother-daughter insurance policy.
And as he walked them out to his Chevy Suburban, his mind drifted to the strange parallel with his own mother-daughter twist in the tale,