Page 9 of The 9th Man

“My grandfather, Luke. They murdered my damn grandfather. Shot him in the head. He was dying of cancer and they just shot him.”

He felt like he’d been punched in the stomach. Though he’d never met Benjamin Stein, he felt like he had from listening to her talk about him. When she was six Jillian’s parents died in a car crash. Benji, as she called him, and his second wife, Karen, had raised her. He’d been military, so she became military. Luke had heard all of the Benji stories.

“I’m sorry, Jillian.”

“Promise me you aren’t part of this, Luke.”

“Is that a serious question?” he asked.

“Promise me.”

“Cross my heart. You texted, I came. Nothing more to it. And by the way, why contact me?”

“I decided to find the one person in this world I thought I could truly trust.”

“So what’s all this about? Who were those people? What do they want?”

“Question one, I have no idea. Questions two and three, it deals with my grandfather. I was researching something and must have triggered their interest. I think I got Benji killed, Luke.”

“You don’t know that. Where can we meet? We need to put our heads together.”

Jillian replied, “I’m in—”

“Don’t tell me where you are. Tell me where you want to meet. Pick the place and time. Somewhere public with lots of entrances and exits and a police presence.”

“Give me five minutes.”

It took two. Luke’s phone pinged with a text.

Grand Place. Brussels. De Gulden Boot. 4:30 p.m.

4

Maryland — 5:46A.M.

JACK TALLEY FOUND HIS LUG BAG AT THE BACK OF THE CLOSET WHEREhe kept it on ready. Cordura nylon. Fifty-five liters of storage space. Loaded with compartments, some even fleece-lined. Perfect for the most brutal of environments. Inside were all the essentials. Two Beretta M9s with extra magazines. A fixed-blade knife and multi-tool. An equipment web harness. $5,000 cash. False passport and identification linking him to the FBI, which made carrying weapons so much easier in Europe. Portable radio with headset. First-aid kit. A few calorie-dense rations. A flashlight. Thirty feet of paracord. Duct tape. Fire starter. And a compass.

How many times had he retrieved his go-bag over the past seven years?

Too many to count.

That was how long he’d been in Thomas Rowland’s employ. At first, he’d been grateful for the job. His army career had come to an abrupt end with a bullet to the leg. It had taken three surgeries and months of physical therapy just to be able to stand again. Running? Out of the question. Walking with a limp? That had been his fate. And when he refused a desk assignment he’d been medically discharged and sent on his way without even a thank-you.

That sting still hurt.

Rowland had found him and offered a steady income with a generous salary. Both for his expertise and for discretion. Especially discretion. Thomas Rowland was, if nothing else, complex.

Jack had managed to learn a lot about him.

An only child with a loving, discontented mother, he grew up in Maryland horse country in a big house with few neighbors. His father, Charles Albert Rowland Jr., had been recruited into the OSS in its infancy, at the start of World War II, driven by both ambition and a sociopathic streak that made him perfect, after the war, to head the newly formed CIA’s ugly-underbelly, paramilitary faction. Lots of assassinations, coups, murders, and bribery. Most of which failed to accomplish much more than cement Charlie Rowland’s power.

On the home front his father was gone far more than there, appearing every so often and staying just long enough to stoke Thomas’ own sociopathy. He did that with ridicule and by moving the goalposts, which steadily drifted farther away all through high school. His father pushed Thomas into Yale. Back in the early days of the CIA, Yale attendance was considered pro forma for any serious job consideration. Eventually, pleasing his father mattered less than following his own path, so he shied away from the CIA and found the Secret Service. In 1964 he finally surrendered and joined his father at Langley, determined to outshine him as an even uglier and crueler manipulator.

Which he accomplished.

No question.

Tom Rowland succeeded his father and headed up the CIA’s special operations division for nearly three decades. Just a new fancy name for paramilitary missions. Along the way he managed to acquire and utilize the power of information. He took a lesson from J. Edgar Hoover, who was a close friend, and learned so much about so many. But unlike Hoover, whose files were all destroyed at his death, Rowland still possessed his. People in power had a tendency to do stupid things, which dug some fairly deep holes, and extricating themselves often proved difficult. Too many complications, too much exposure. That’s where Rowland came in. His reward? A favor done was a favor owed. And Tom Rowland was an expert in accumulating favors.