Deal Gone Bad - A Thriller (Frank Morrison Thriller Series Book 1) Read Online Free PDF Page A

fault.”
    “Sure, whatever. I’ll take
it. But it’s crazy to mull over this. That was the past, this is now. We have
to look forward.”
    “That was a ten million
dollars deal, Morrison. Only two were found in the car. You’re pretty relaxed about
it. Tommy says there’s something funny about this.”
    At that precise moment,
Morrison thought about the key hidden in his shoe. Thank God they hadn’t found
it.
    “Maybe our inside
information wasn’t so good after all,” he said. “Maybe there only ever would be
two million dollars. Who knows?”
    “Don’t you want to know?” Mike
said.
    “Water under the bridge. I
prefer to focus on what lies ahead.”
    “Seems easy for you to look
forward.”
    “Prison tends to do that to
you.”
    There was a pause in their
exchange.
    Then Morrison got it.
    Inside, he half-sighed
with relief. He finally understood what this was all about.
    This was a pre-emptive
strike.
    They were worried about what he would do once he got out of prison, so they had decided to undercut him. Don’t
you want to know? Now that he was thinking about it, Mike’s question seemed
genuine. Not just rhetoric.
    And to be honest, it was a
question he had asked himself. He had pondered over it in his prison cell far more
than he let on.
    In retrospect, the whole
deal that had led to his arrest seemed patchy and frayed. No operation ever went
one hundred percent according to plan. It’s impossible. But few went as bad as
this one. Morrison was thirty-three. He had dropped out at sixteen. Always made
a living outside of conventional society. Yet that was the first time he was
ever arrested. Before, he had always managed to lay low. No doubt, that whole
operation had been one unmitigated disaster.
    In the meantime, the
realization didn’t change anything about his situation. He was outnumbered
three to one. Two guys were still pointing their guns at him. He was alone with
only his bare hands against them, staring at a deep hole ready to swallow him
for all eternity.
    Mike still had the upper
hand. He still called the shots. But now, at least, Morrison knew he was about
to ask him for something.
    “Take a hard long look at
this hole,” Mike said. “This is where you’ll end up if we don’t get good answers
to our questions.”
    So that was it . Morrison had been ready
to move on from that deal gone bad. But obviously not Mike and Tommy.
    “Why didn’t you try to
find out by yourselves?” Morrison said.
    “We did. But we went
nowhere. Tommy thinks you can have a shot at it.”
    Fight or flight? It’s a
conditioned response, deeply embedded into the sympathetic nervous system. The
result of thousands and thousands of years of hard and brutal trial and error. Without
it, the human race would’ve become extinct long ago. Morrison’s own ability to
make the right choice was stellar. Honed into a sharpened and polished skill by
years of his own personal Darwinian experiences. Right then, he knew he would
have to fight this out. No question. If Mike, and especially Tommy, had set
their sight on this, no way could he avoid it. They were serious. If he fled,
they would find him. And where would he go anyway? Thailand? Belize? Mauritius?
Morrison had absolutely no intention of leaving the United States. That’s where
his future lay.
    So he simply said, “What’s
in it for me?”
    “One-third of what we can
recover in the process, if any.”
    “You’re not gonna let this
go, are you?”
    “No way,” Mike said.
    “OK,” Morrison said, “done
deal.”
    Mike nodded to his guys
and said, “OK, you can relax now.”
    Morrison shook his head
and said, “Christ, Mike, you didn’t have to dig that hole …”
    At the corner of the
grave, the slicked-back hair guy put the safety catch back on his gun and slid
it into his holster. At his side, the blond guy didn’t drop his. Instead, he
just swiveled on his feet a quarter of a turn, toward his left. Where the slicked-back
hair guy was standing. In