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“We didn’t work for you,” Cobb said, opening his to peek at what was inside. “Holy sh—never mind.”
Curious, Reid slipped his finger under the sealed lip and pulled out the Non-Disclosure Agreement, which didn’t surprise him, and a sizeable check, which did. It was every penny of his salary that had been direct deposited into his personal bank account since he’d joined Fariq.
“Your account has been closed and classified,” Markoff told him when he glanced up. “We’ve added five years severance pay on top of it and free medical care for the rest of your life. You will, of course, not be able to keep a penny of what Fariq has paid you over the years.”
“That’s fine,” Christian said, knowing there was no way they knew about the bulk of that money that he had squirreled away in a dozen hidden accounts. “Not a problem. I don’t want it.”
“Wait a minute,” Aliya said from beside him. She made no move to open the envelope he’d given her. “I don’t know that I actually ever worked for you, either. I was given the impression what I did was more of a volunteer kind of thing… for the greater good, as they say.”
“Your envelope,” Markoff stated, “contains the details concerning the inheritance your brother ensured we wouldn’t be able to touch should something happen to him. Most of it seems to have been passed down from your father if that makes a difference.”
“I don’t want it.” She immediately dropped it on the table, but just as quickly, Reid picked it up. “I don’t want it,”she repeated as he opened the envelope and poured out the contents.
There were two bank forms, legal contacts in Rome as well as Switzerland, and another NDA from the government, although under an independent contracting company name to prevent anything from leading back to NATO should she go back on her word somewhere later down the road. Her check had four more zeros than his did. She’d been given houses in Morocco, Scotland, and Finland. She owned an 8-acre island in Fiji, a 169-acre island off the coast of Greece, and was the reigning stockholding in eleven major worldwide companies, including JP Morgan Chase. She was also a founding member in the world’s leading investment company, BlackRock, a position she wasn’t able to inherit and was even now being cashed out.
The man had been a crook, a thief, a terrorist, and nothing short of a wizard when it came to money.
He didn’t need to worry about Aliya. Financially, she was going to be just fine.
The look she gave him said she realized it, too.
Grabbing the wheels of her chair, she jerked back away from the table and would have pushed herself out the door if he hadn’t grabbed her wrist.
“She’s going to need a permanent visa,” he told the general.
Closing his briefcase, the general shook his head. “I am under orders to strongly encourage you to find somewhere else to live. I am also under orders to tell you this is a package deal. You all accept, or you all get put away, and I promise my half-chewed ass and I will find the worst prisons on the planet to put you in. I’ll give you a few minutes to decide.”
He left, closing the door behind him, although not for a second did Reid believe no one could hear them.
“We all either accept the deal or we all ‘get put away’?” Brody asked, the first to speak up. “What’s to stop them from doing that after we accept the deal?”
“We stick together,” Cobb said.
“What, for the rest of our lives?” another asked, then groaned. “Because I’ll tell you, I’ve been stuck in a cell with Alex for only two days now, and I’m already plotting how best to kill him. The man snores like a chainsaw.”
“You think it’ll be any quieter in prison?” someone—possibly Alex—shot back.
“If we separate, we won’t notice if some of us start disappearing until it’s too late,” Cobb interrupted. “Plus, I hate to say it, but the U.S. government is the least of our worries. I don’t know what the rest of you have done, but one of my last jobs was the bombing of an African warlord at the request of another, who Fariq then betrayed to the U.N. So, whoever throws the dart, just stay clear of Africa.”
“Mexico, too,” another said.
“And pretty much the entire Middle East,” a third added.
“Suits me fine. I’m tired of heat and sand. I want to go skiing. Hey, we should do that!” Brody said with enthusiasm.
“Go skiing?” Cobb asked, arching his eyebrow.
“No, well… yes, but I mean, we could pool our money, open up a ski lodge in the middle of nowhere in Switzerland, maybe the Matterhorn. Somewhere we haven’t pissed off the ruling entities,” Brody continued. “Hell, we could even gear it toward people in the lifestyle.”
“Yeah. Half the year, we could run a nice, quiet, relaxing, off-season resort that caters to those so inclined. We could build a helluva dungeon with this kind of money. And on top of that, people could spend their time fishing, camping, and hiking,” Alex continued, warming to the idea.
“God knows, we’d be able to keep people safe, maybe even become the local experts in search and rescue for lost hikers,” one of the others said.
“And the other half,” Alex said, “we can make our money work for us by operating a first-class ski resort, catering to those with our mutual bent. We can have the best subs and pretty little ski bunnies bouncing on our balls.”
“We could vet Doms and subs and make it a safe place for folks to play.”
The men exchanged glances and included Reid in their non-verbal agreement to band together.
