Fucking Harper. I miss her more than I’d like to admit because there’s just no telling how all this shit will play out. I have no idea who is on my side inside the Company or who is actively working against me. They might be using her to get to me. They might be using me to get to her. Hell, anything is possible at this point. I don’t know if a single person can say they understand their loyalties these days.
It’s a sketchy world at the best of times, but the Company has seen the last of the best of times. Ever since Harper and Nick took off with that file, everyone’s been on edge.
What’s on the file? Only one person knows that for sure. The person who made it.
And he’s dead.
I don’t know a lot about it, but I do know they can’t access it. Before Nick took it, they had every expert on the planet trying to get past the firewall.
That’s one reason they brought in Merc. And fuck—what good luck for them that the guy was a professional mercenary. He was working private security when I was sent to Europe to recruit him. He was not interested and it was dropped. But we got to be friends over the years. He’d call me. I’d help. I’d call him. He’d help. Debts, man. Debts make the world go round.
And then one day… a call came in to his home phone while he was busy and I was minding the shop. And I listened to that message.
And who do you think that call was from?
Ford fucking Aston.
Turns out Merc has a similar quid pro quo arrangement with Aston, and this call was a cash-in for a debt Merc owed him.
It was a small identity theft request. But that wasn’t the interesting part. The interesting part was when Ford said, I’d do it myself, but I need to keep my distance.
Which told me two things. Ford was not above fucking with people’s lives. And he had skills in his own right. Both of which might come in handy for me.
Tet took over from there. Merc came back from that job, it was a total fuckup, and as soon as he walked in the door, the message was playing.
I’m not sure if he knew about Tet before he came home that night, but he sure the fuck knew of him by the time we were done.
Tet blackmailed him. Either he does the job I need him for, or I call Ford back and get him involved.
And for some reason, Merc is loyal to that asshole in a suit. He caved. I gave him a number, Seven, and a calling card. If your name is already Merc, it only makes sense to become mercury.
As far as I know, Merc kills whoever he wants, whenever he wants, and he has never actually bothered to poison someone with mercury.
Which is why the Company started thinking up ways to get rid of him once his usefulness wore off. He’s not exactly a team player.
Hence the ‘accident’ up in Wyoming last Christmas.
The Admiral was not happy about that fuckup. I know that for a fact because I was sent to eliminate the assassin who botched the job when both Merc and Sasha showed up alive the next day.
Of course, this is all hindsight shit. I didn’t know what the fuck was happening last year. All I knew was I was being sent to kill people who were supposed to be on our side.
No one knows who to trust these days.
We’re all guilty. We’re all killers, even if we’re not all numbered assassins. We’re all wary of each other.
Because that file has been floating around for more than a year now. And from what they say, that file has enough dirt on it to cut the entire Company off at the knees.
I don’t get this file. I have no idea what’s on it. I think just your basic who’s who kind of info. Which means I’m in there. My family’s in there. We’re all in there, I guess. But who gives a fuck? Really, if some investigative reporter gets a hold of it and flashes that info for everyone to see, who would believe it? It’s like a very bad Dan Brown conspiracy book. This shit is so twisted, and the people involved so high up, and the accusations about what we’re doing so outlandish no one would even believe it. People just ignore shit that’s too big. You tell them small things—like we busted a terror cell in Colorado but the guy’s in custody, or there was a helicopter crash in Afghanistan and ten Navy SEALs died—and they’re OK with that. People can process that shit.
But when you get a guy who climbs the White House fence so he can get on TV and try and tell people what we’re doing by naming names… nope. That’s crazy talk. People don’t process the big shit well at all.
A plane ‘disappears’ over the Indian Ocean and everyone goes, huh? Wonder what happened.
A plane goes missing. Hundreds of people. Missing.
No one bats an eye.
So who gives a fuck about this file? That’s what I don’t understand. It’s big shit. It’s a list of global criminals masquerading as lawmakers and politicians. But there’s so many people on it—so many government agencies, charities, movie stars, and moms and pops—it’s gotta be bullshit. I mean, come on. How could this shadow world exist right under everyone’s nose?
So I can give a fuck about this file.
But that was before One killed Harper to get it back. Now that file is all I think about. And my sister. He mentioned my sister. He said she was in on the plan. And holy motherfuck. I can totally see that. I can totally fucking see that. It’s like all these little bits and pieces of my life and memory are all coming back to me.
But that file. It’s all wrong how it went down.
Nick steals the file, gives it to Harper, tells her to poison a ship full of Company elite, and then sends her away. But he only gives her the outward appearance of escaping. He only gives her just enough cover to make her think she’s getting away.