The Paris Betrayal by James Hannibal (the dot read aloud .txt) 📗

near these monuments. The foot soldiers of America were lost in the great ordered sea of white stones farther south. Ben altered his course to join them.

The wide swath of grass and graves where Ben stopped to wait offered plenty of visibility, and the patches of dogwoods and magnolias provided enough cover to keep the Director’s security detail happy. Ben didn’t concern himself with the cemetery’s roving guards. If one appeared from the trees to challenge him, he’d know the Director hadn’t come, and there’d be little point in going on with his journey. None did. The only guard in sight marched in slow, even time before the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier a hundred fifty meters away.

The moon had reached its peak, giving the gravestones their own luminescence. Ben scanned the rows. The night, the stones, the tomb sentinel reaching the limit of his post—all stood still.

“Calix!” The voice rolled from the dogwoods like thunder. The Director followed, still shouting. “Who do you think you are?”

Men and women in dark suits and overcoats emerged from the trees to the north, south, and east—seven that Ben could see, all carrying Swiss APC9 submachine guns and not shy about letting them show. They formed a circle around him.

Ben felt the weight of the SIG in his waistband holster, but he kept his hands well clear, out in the open despite the biting cold. He’d hate to get riddled with lead before speaking his piece.

The Director turned up the collar of his gray wool coat, breath fogging as he spoke. “Son, when I ask you a question, you answer. Who do you think you are, summoning me in the middle of night?”

“Sir, there’s—”

“Speak up!”

Ben coughed, fighting to recover at least a portion of his voice. “There’s . . . there’s been a mistake. My severance. It’s . . .” He faltered again, and the Director’s glare threatened to shove every rasping word back into his mouth, but he had to get it out. “It’s wrong, sir.”

“I see. Well, why didn’t you say so before?” The Director paced the circle of his detail, matching cadence with the sentinel at the tomb. As he passed Ben’s shoulder, he barked, “Stand up straight and face me like a man. Or have you forgotten all your training?”

Ben turned.

So did the Director. “You’re leveling quite an accusation, son.”

“No, sir. I didn’t mean to—”

“Oh, yes.” The Director pressed his lips together, cocking his head. “I think you did. The words you used were clear. Mistake. Wrong. You’ve questioned my actions, not just to my face but to several of my subordinates. So, now I’m here. Let’s hash this out.” He shoved his hands into his coat pockets, weighing it down about his shoulders, and thrust his chin at Ben. “Think of me as a walking suggestion box. No consequences. File your complaint.”

No consequences? That didn’t sound right. But what else could the Director do to him?

“I . . .” The words refused to come. All that time—begging Sensen, Hale, Tess, and Dylan to get him this meeting—and now the disease eating Ben’s body and clouding his mind robbed him of his last words.

“Clock’s ticking, son.” The Director tapped a wrist with no watch. “Spit it out.”

“Unjust.”

“Couldn’t hear you. Louder, please.”

Ben raised his eyes to meet his boss’s hard glare. “I said, it’s unjust, sir. This whole thing is unjust.” He gained speed and clarity as the argument he’d been preparing for days fell into place. “The severance, hounding me when all I’m trying to do is serve the Company, my country—it’s wrong. Massir tricked me, and Rome went bad, I know, but not bad enough to merit a severance. I’m a good spy, sir. Why are you doing this to me? I deserve an answer.”

“Mm.” The Director gave him a sage nod. “Good speech. But you’ve got some flaws in your logic. Let me ask something. Are you on the Company’s oversight committee?”

“No.”

“No . . .”

“No, sir. I am not. The Company has no oversight.”

The Director returned his hands to his pockets and started pacing again. “No oversight. Sustained for decades. An unprecedented achievement in the history of America’s intelligence forces. Impressive. And is that your achievement? You aren’t oversight, but you’re determining this severance’s justness or unjustness, so you must have founded this Company, right?”

Ben kept silent.

“I’ll take that as a no.”

A man in the security detail suppressed a snicker, doing a poor job of it. The Director, still pacing, smacked him in the chest with the back of his hand. “Stow it, Mardel.” He came to a stop with the spotlight from the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier splitting the mist behind him. He thrust a thumb over his shoulder. “Can you hear them?”

“Sir?”

“The whines and complaints. All those warriors, dumped into holes on muddy battlefields, burned into oblivion, ashes scattered to the four winds. Anonymous. Forgotten.” The Director put a hand to his ear. “Listen. Can’t you hear their cries? ‘Unjust! Unfair!’”

“No, sir.”

“No. No you can’t. They gave it all. Good soldiers, every one.” The Director looked back, as if seeing them—as if he’d recognize the Unknowns by their faces and the name tags on their uniforms. He returned his attention to Ben. “And what are you, son?”

Ben knew the answer his boss wanted. Hale had asked him the same question a thousand times at the schoolhouse. “I am a soldier, sir.”

“Correct. Like the Unknowns, although many of them were drafted.” He raised a finger. “Here’s a significant difference. You volunteered.” The Director drew in the air with an imaginary pen. “You signed your life over to me, so I could create something new. And for my part, I housed you. I fed you. I trained you.” He stopped face-to-face with Ben and leaned to within an inch of Ben’s diseased, puss-oozing, blackened nose. “I made you, son. And I will unmake you at my pleasure.”

Ben swallowed.

The Director huffed and walked around him, catching him hard with a shoulder and stopping a half step past his ear. “Now that we’ve settled the pecking order. Do you