Monster by Bernard L. DeLeo Read Free Book Online Page B

intel. I have a doctorate in forensic pathology. Tom and Jen both have masters degrees in computer engineering.”
    “Very impressive. Any of you do profiling?”
    “Unfortunately not as much as I know you have, which was another reason your name kept coming up. I read in your file the CIA used you as a profiler.”
    “My general outlook on people is cynical and bleak. That makes me pretty good as a profiler. I’m best at tactical situations.”
    “How do you mean?”
    “I find out what needs to be done and then I come up with a way to do it with the least casualties. I have experience in hostage situations as well as combat.”
    “But not within the continental United States, right?”
    “Hughes was my first in the US.”
    “Not a very good start,” Reskova observed.
    “From Hughes point of view maybe.”
    “Which brings us full circle. We don’t do that type of work.”
    “Obviously, someone wants the option, or I wouldn’t have been asked to join. In any case, I think I know what you’ll need. We can butt heads later on how I supply what you need.”
    “I don’t think I like this dual standard crap. So, when things get tough, we turn our backs while you break the law?”
    “That seems to be the position I’ll be filling,” McDaniels agreed.
    “In other words, the end justifies the means. I…”
    “Cut the bullshit and get off your high horse, Reskova,” McDaniels broke in, an edge to his tone for the first time. “No one will be asking you to get your hands dirty or take the rap for something I do. If things don’t work out, and I’m just a liability, you can get me canned.”
    “You wouldn’t be doing this at all if you hadn’t burned all your bridges with the military and CIA.”
    “What makes you think that? The CIA doesn’t function anymore like a Muppets Go To Disneyland movie. We’re at war, Reskova.”
    “So, you’re still in?”
    “Once you do work for CIA, and they find what you do useful, you’re never out. I doubt I’d be much use to them with the notoriety I’ve managed to attract this last time.”
    “They sent you after Hughes?” Reskova asked with a stunned look. “CIA has complicity in…”
    “No, no, no,” McDaniels intoned, shaking his head. “Certain circumstances came together. I was put in a position where a few different outcomes were possible.”
    Reskova stood up, clearly agitated. “I’ll be here to get you around ten o’clock. We’ll leave for Detroit immediately after. Tom and Jen are already there.”
    “I guess you’ll fill me in on the way?”
    “Unfortunately. Goodbye, Colonel.”
    McDaniels watched Reskova walk out, admiringly. His guard approached, getting McDaniels’ attention, rather than laying hands on him.
    “Ready, McDaniels?”
    “That sure is one fine looking woman, huh?”
    The guard grinned up at McDaniels. “To tell the truth, she looks like the kind of woman in whose company you sleep with one eye open at night.”
    McDaniels shrugged, walking towards the room exit. “I sleep with one eye open anyway.”

Chapter 5
    Air Marshals
     
    Reskova recovered her personal belongings. She turned to walk away but then returned to the property cage. The woman guard inside, short haired and short tempered, looked up again with an annoyed look on her face. Her jet black hair made her pale complexion even more striking. Her thin face, with eyelids half closed, twitched a little in a ‘what do you want now’ look.
    “Sorry to bother you,” Reskova said, trying not to antagonize the woman. “The other guard mentioned an altercation out in the yard where Colonel McDaniels seriously injured three other inmates. Do you know anything about it?”
    The woman’s hard look softened noticeably at the mention of McDaniels’ name. “I saw the whole thing. He could have killed them if he’d wanted to. What do you want to know?”
    “I wondered how it happened and if there had been a way McDaniels could have avoided it.”
    “He was