Cain's Blood by Geoffrey Girard Read Free Book Online

plausible cover-up, not
surprised that they’d visited the house. Always trickier, however, to get
the job done right while being misled by the very people you’d been
brought in to help. An occupational hazard he was all too familiar with.
    Walking the house’s dark, silent halls, he found himself truly alone
for the first time since Colonel Stanforth had called, since he’d genuinely understood what the mission was about. It was not a good feeling.
Being alone meant too much time to think about what he’d seen, to
question the ethical and legal implications of what was being done to
those boys in the name of defense and profits. he wasn’t naïve, by any
means. he understood the way the world worked—had certainly been
involved in covert activities that had been ethically and legally debatable. But this . . .
    he trailed his hand along the wood-paneled wall, studied the corner
into the next room. found what he was looking for. Got you! he traced
his finger down the left frame of the concealed door and found the
small keyhole. And just behind that door?
    Castillo again felt the overriding urge to just get out, drive straight
to the airport and back to Albuquerque. Fuck it. he’d found other ways
to make money, after all. Other ways to get through another day without
the army. But then Stanforth had called. And despite all he’d worked on,
the sessions and meditations, the “life-after-war” he’d prepared for, it’d
felt damn good to get that call. OK, so I should have said no. The moment
Stanforth had mentioned the kids, he should have hung up. Smashed the
phone into a hundred pieces. But he hadn’t. One call and he’d instantly
felt part of things again, the real deal, not just running routine security
for some regional insurance company, pretending to be a soldier. Not the
guy forced into retirement at thirty-five with an honorable “medical”
discharge. Not the guy everyone was talking about behind his back.
    Damaged goods. Fucking NUT JOB.
But THIS, he thought, leaving the mysterious hidden door and
whatever-lay-behind-it as he stepped into the next room, THIS is who I
am. What I do.
    he’d enlisted at eighteen. And from the half million soldiers in
the u.S. Army, he’d become one of only two thousand selected to join
the elite rangers. They’d taught him counterterrorism, counterintelligence, desert warfare operations, and demolitions. from those two
thousand rangers, forty had been selected to join Delta force. There,
he’d captured men named al-Jazari, Binalshibh, and Sheikh Mohammed
in places like yemen, Somalia, Iran, and Pakistan. he had twenty-three
confirmed kills. he’d earned a degree in international economic history.
Awarded three Purple hearts, four Bronze Stars for valor, two Silver,
and a Distinguished Service Cross.
    God damn it. Was this a guy who should be sweeping corporate
office buildings for competitors’ bugs or riding shotgun in oil fat cat
limousines as needless security? In answer, his mind kicked up an image
of the dog-eared paperback stuck in his gear, and one of a hundred underlined quotes: Look you now, how ready mortals are to blame the gods. It
is from us, they say, that evils come, but they even of themselves, through their
own blind folly have sorrows beyond that which is ordained.
    Then, naturally, he thought of her. And, not for the first time today,
he thought of calling.
In the dark house, alone, Castillo called his boss instead.
Anything waited behind that damn door. Best to check in before he
discovered any more than he was supposed to.
Colonel Stanforth had also officially gone civilian. he was a “Mr. ” Stanforth now, just like Castillo, but he still worked for the DOD and
its Special Activities Division as a “consultant.” Nothing, of course, anyone could ever really confirm for the newspapers, or Congress, or in a
court of law.
“Our new friends aren’t playing nice, sir,” Castillo told him. The
“sir”