Page 55 of The 9th Man

“Why is that so hard a question?” she pressed.

“I don’t know why your grandfather was killed, and that’s the God’s honest truth.”

Jillian was about to say something, but Luke cut her off with a raise of his hand and tried, “Does this involve an old rifle?”

Talley did not reply, but the look in the older man’s eyes provided the answer.

Yes, it did.

Talley shook his head. “I’ve said too much already. Listen, as it stands, I’m not even sure I can sell this.”

He understood. “That we turned the tables on Persik and killed them all? By the time you got here we were gone.”

“It’s a tall order. Persik and his men were highly trained and ruthless.”

“But a little too trusting of a co-worker, right?” Jillian said.

“Something like that.”

“So what’s going on here?”he asked Talley.

“I’m giving you a head start. And a warning. If you persist with this, everything will be thrown at you, and we possess nearly bottomless resources. Which will all be pointed straight at you. Let this go. Leave it alone. Let me handle it.”

Okay, he got it. Whoever was in command had a long reach. But—

“I have resources too,” Luke said.

“I know. But this doesn’t involve the Magellan Billet.”

Good to know he was not a stranger to this man. Which meant he’d been identifiedbeforeTalley arrived.

“Tell me a name and I might be able to solve your problems. I have the U.S. government behind me.”

Talley chuckled. “You’re so damn naive. This is different. Keep on and everything will be on the line, including your lives. That includes the people you love. Nothing is off limits to the person I work for.”

“Like my grandfather,” Jillian said.

“Precisely.”

Time to make things clear. “I’m not backing off.”

“Neither am I,” Jillian added.

“Haven’t either one of you heard a word I’ve said?”

“We heard you,” Luke said. “But we have a job to do.”

“You do realize that if I hadn’t shown up you’d both be dead, covered in a lye slurry and buried under those trees out there.”

“I get that,” Luke said.

“Okay,” Talley said. “So we’re clear, you and I are even now. The debt is paid. You need to leave and get going, wherever it is you’re going. Do your job, and I’ll do mine. Our paths are almost certainly going to cross again, and soon. Count on that. And when that happens, Ranger, things will be different.”

23

TALLEY WATCHED AS LUKE DANIELS AND JILLIAN STEIN FLED THEhangar and headed back to the Range Rover parked beyond the old fence line. Taking that vehicle would be consistent with the report he would make to Tom Rowland. Contact was made with Persik. Daniels and Stein’s capture had been completed. Interrogation was about to begin. Talley traveled to the rendezvous point alone in Luxembourg to observe. Upon arrival he found Persik and his men all dead, Daniels and Stein gone. Hopefully, with no one left alive to contradict any of those details, Rowland would accept them. His employer had never had reason to question anything he’d done before and, with Rowland’s patience with Persik apparently at an end, the entire scenario was both plausible and believable.

His team was waiting in Luxembourg City. He’d summon them shortly. The land around him belonged to Rowland through a series of shell corporations, bought long ago and occasionally used by the CIA as a Central European staging area. It once served the Nazis, now it served a modern-day manipulator.