Alone and Unafraid (American Praetorians Book 3) Read Online Free PDF

something that’ll effect whether or not we take this job, I have to know about it.”
    “I don’t know anything for sure,” he said, staring at the table and rubbing the back of his neck uncomfortably.  “The guy I know kind of went quiet a few years back.  I mean he just dropped off the face of the earth.  At first those of us in the know figured he’d just headed back out, but when he didn’t crop up again, we figured he’d quit.  Hell, if he’d died, one of us would have heard about it.  We didn’t hear anything.  He was just gone.”
    “Was he good?” I asked.
    “Very,” was the reply.  “He was a spook’s spook.  Strong convictions, too, though you wouldn’t know it unless you knew him very well.  I thought I did, until he disappeared.”
    “Why’d you think he quit?” I asked.  I was looking for any insight whatsoever.
    He chuckled dryly.  “For the same reasons I went private sector a couple years later.  The agency was getting too obsessed with internal politics and ass-covering instead of doing the job.  Assets were getting cut left and right, and the Clandestine Service was the first on the chopping block.  It was all about the techies, and the ones who were trying to save their careers were going to do it over as many bodies as it took.  Real-world threats didn’t matter as much as keeping a spot in the building.  I know Renton was disgusted by it.  That was why we thought he’d just quit, but we could never get an answer when we started digging.  The trail just kind of went cold.”
    “That doesn’t seem normal,” I said.  “Hell, I know for a fact they’ve got a file on all of us.”
    “If they can find it, yeah,” he replied.  “But Renton knew the right people, the right ears to whisper in, the right palms to grease.  If anybody could disappear without a trace, it was him.”
    “So, assuming this is the same guy,” I said, “what’s he want now?”
    “That’s the question, isn’t it?” Haas said.  “And if Alek’s gunshy…you know him better than I do, but I’ve gathered from what communications I’ve had with the guy that he doesn’t get this close-mouthed with his compatriots lightly.”
    “He doesn’t,” I said.  “He and I see eye-to-eye on that; the more the team knows, the better.  He said there are ‘a lot of tangled threads’ involved, whatever the hell that means.”
    “But he wouldn’t go into it?”
    I shook my head.  “Not over the phone.”
    He looked bemused.  “Those sat phones are encrypted.”
    “Yep.”
    He nodded slowly.  “Whoever he’s concerned about has some serious technical capabilities, then.”
    “Not that that necessarily narrows down the list all that much in this day and age,” I pointed out.  “The obvious candidates would be the US , Russia, or China…”
    “But the private sector has been catching up fast, especially in the last few years,” Haas finished.  “The cyber-war dimension has gone more and more asymmetric in the last decade.  I know for sure the Iranians have some capability, and with some of the support they’ve been getting, both directly and indirectly from outside, some AQ factions have the capability, too.  For damned certain quite a few organized crime syndicates can play in that arena.”
    After another long pause, I asked quietly, “You have any idea what’s going on?”
    He shook his head and spread his hands.  “I’m sorry, man.  Even if it is the same Renton, I haven’t seen the man in years.  I have no idea where he went or what he’s into.”
    I was even more uneasy as I left than I’d been when I got off the phone with Alek.
     
    The meeting with Daoud al Zubayri didn’t go well.  He was distracted, distant, and flippant throughout, in spite of the fact that I was going over the security plans and threats for his section of the city.  There was a lot of empty smiling, nodding, and complete lack of communication, in spite of the fact that the guy