Page 10 of License to Kill

“We’ll head to the campground, I’ll make use of some of my contacts, acquire a target list, and take names. If the names prove to be associated with this outfit, we commit some crimes. Premeditated murder is at the top of the list, although we’ll have to fit in some breaking and entering, assault and battery, and some other goodies while we’re going about our business. I’m hoping for some good old arson and mishandling of dangerous substances while we’re at it.”

“Mishandling of dangerous substances?”

“Explosives, to be specific.”

My eyes widened. “You want to use explosives?”

“I want their careers as terrorists and murderers to end with a bang.”

I spent all of thirty seconds thinking about that. “Can I press the button?”

Amelia snickered. “Sure, Karma. You can press the button.”

“I’ve always wanted to press the button when they had demonstrations during training, but for some reason, we were never allowed to. It’s like they expect the actual professionals to handle any explosives while in the field.” It wasn’t much, but it was something to look forward to. “How can I help?”

“I have a list of names from the black market operators of people associated with those who put the hit out. As they dislike when they aren’t paid, they were particularly helpful with this, as they listed how they were associated. We’ll have to decide how far to take it, but the ops don’t care. They’ve been taken for more money than they’re happy with, and if we can solve that little problem for them, they’ll look the other way.”

“How much did this cost you?”

“About five hundred dollars,” she admitted. “And I get paid if I make a few of them disappear. But the five hundred was their lowest fee for the intel. They could have charged me that per name, but they’re pretty pissed over it.”

“And if these people are associated with the Greenwich case, it could be as little as five hundred to close that case?”

Amelia chuckled. “And if I sink them and provide evidence, I get paid a cool quarter of a million dollars. I’ll split it with you, especially since you’ve been put out in the cold. That’s enough to get you started just about anywhere for a while. And if we make a good team, well, there’s more jobs like that available. The black markets always need someone to bring those who break the rules back into line.”

As I’d run out of things to lose, I nodded. “It’s an option.”

“People like you need options. If you’d had options and work to do, you wouldn’t be here right now. Well, not here under these circumstances. You probably would have ended up in that mess anyway.”

I agreed with her, as I would have given a great deal to patch things up with my ma and pa. If things had been better with Jake, he wouldn’t have minded me going out with my ma, especially if he believed I could patch things up with my family.

My pa still would have died, and I still would have been shot.

The only difference would have been me working to return to him rather than working for a darker purpose.

If walking out the door hadn’t killed what remained of our relationship, going rogue would, once he found out.

“That’s quite the expression. What are you thinking about?”

“How going rogue will definitely kill what was left of our relationship. He’s not very forgiving of that sort of thing.”

“He’ll get over it.”

It was my turn to stare at her as though she’d grown multiple heads. “Why would you even think that?”

“Fenerec don’t marry someone without loving them, and once they love them, they don’t give up. Fenerec tend to take the ‘till death do you part’ portion of their vows seriously. He’ll get his head out of his ass eventually, and he’ll forgive you anything because he’ll think you went insane without him.”

“He already knows I’m at least a little insane, so that’s not a far leap,” I admitted. “But he’s not the kind to forgive that.”

“As long as you don’t kill any law enforcement, he won’t care. They do tend to get upset about the murder of law enforcement. Unless you can prove they’re a traitor, in which case he’ll whistle while looking the other way.” Amelia went to the small refrigerator, dug out a soda, and handed it to me along with a pair of pills. “In two hours, you get dinner and the pills that send you back to nappy land. Until then, you’ll start going over our list of names and prioritizing them by who you think is the juiciest hit.”

I cracked open the can and took a swig, popping both pills without caring what I took. “Two hours of work before a nap beats no time working before I nap, so let’s get to work.”

“I think we’re going to get along just fine.”

Each day, I improved enough to please Amelia, and I worked on her list of names. Her drugs couldn’t ease the cold dread plaguing me, and since whining about it wouldn’t accomplish anything, I bottled it up and pretended I could handle anything she threw at me.

The bitter truth ate away at me from the inside.