Page 69 of Exit Strategy
“That’s a romantic notion, and we’re going to make sure that it doesn’t come to that.”
I grunted out, “Appreciate that.”
“It is pretty rough, I had to leave too. It’s nothing but women, and they are laying it out like blood eagles in there.”
“What the bloody fuck is a blood eagle, mate?” I asked, almost feeling my neck pop from how quick I turned to look at him.
“Viking business,” he said. “Something along the lines of cutting a man’s chest or back in such a way that you pull his lungs out of his body but leave them still attached. Bastard is still alive but suffocates because he can’t get air in or out of his lungs. That’s what’s going on in there. She’s telling them everything, and I can only imagine what’s not being held back now since I’m not there, keeping the space co-ed.”
“I don’t want to know. I just need names,” I said.
“I’m sure there will be a chance for that,” he said. “Are you familiar with any of the other women who’ve left New Eden and tried to blow the whistle?”
“I’m not.”
“The cult comes after them with a smear campaign if they have a public face. If they’re nobodies – not famous or important – some of them just go silent, vanish. Missing persons. There are dozens, if not hundreds of people formerly associated with New Eden who’ve gone missing and there is nothing that the police are interested in, or willing to do.”
“So, what’s the plan there?”
“You know they’re going to send people to try to bring her back, to silence her if they can’t?” he half-said, half-asked. I nodded in agreement. “So once this is out, they’re going to come for her publicly, and that’s where Fallout is going to be her shield. There will be shouts of divorce, annulment, infidelity, and all that, like almost any bad celebrity breakup.”
“I totally expect that,” I said, knowing that there was nothing I could do about it.
“Then they’re going to come for her covertly. If I were them, and this were my job, I would find a way to paint this, making her the victim of her own actions, and the two fastest ways to do that are suicide or drug overdose. We’ll keep an eye out for those sorts of words in their releases, and that will tell us what they’re doing.”
“That sounds like something the captain would lay out.”
“Well, it should, because he did,” Kyle said. “He has this all planned out and the only reason he didn’t come himself is he said he has work to do, and he hates stairs.”
“We didn’t take any stairs, though.”
Kyle shrugged.
“When he says ‘no’ these days, I don’t push.”
“Is there a real plan?”
“As a matter of fact, there is,” he said. “This meeting is going to be set on a delayed release, so that Fallout’s people should be able to get everything lined up. Then, if we luck out, they take a few hits and then the feds get involved. We see ourselves out and let the guys in the shitty off-the-rack suits clean up the pedos and false prophets.”
“Do you think that is really going to work?”
“No fucking way,” Kyle said, giving the cigarette a final puff before flicking it off the balcony. “That amazon warrior princess you told us about is going to try to take her back, while her friends in tactical black attempt to get rid of us.”
“If you think this will fail, why are we doing it?”
“Roan said it’s blood in the water. Something aboutMoby Dick, I’m not sure. He reads more than I do. But we do this, and deal with the scrubs that try to finish this like they’re some fucking SEAL team. If they come hard enough, we go take care of them.”
“You mean like… actually go to the New Eden Centre and bring it down?”
“That’s ambitious, I love it. Do you know anyone who has a cruise missile for sale? That would be easier than breaching that big-ass building.”
“I don’t, no.”
“That’s fine. I know three assholes who know all about asymmetrical warfare. You don’t mind that I call you an asshole like Roan and myself?”
“No, that’s fine.”
“Nice work on choking Arik out, by the way.”
