Chapter 8 #2
“Yeah, right ,” Dom grumbled, red-faced now and turning to confront Amy.
Then the door to this room opened. The same boss man walked in that she had seen the last time. She smiled. “There you are. I wondered when you would show up.”
He frowned at her, saw the other three captives, then turned to look at his minions. “This again?” he asked.
“Haven’t had a chance to get started yet,” Dom said to Burly.
But Dom’s demeanor did change, as if somewhere along the line he’d taken a couple of dressing downs, which she was glad to see, but it also meant that the boss had more control over Dom than she’d expected, and that wasn’t good.
Certain things she was okay with, but surprises like that were never good.
Dom looked over at her and smiled. “See? Now you’ll be in trouble.”
She stared at him in amazement, shaking her head. “Just like a two-year-old. Blows me away.”
Burly stared at her, then asked Dominic, “What’s going on?”
When Dom wouldn’t reply, Amy interjected, “Dom got in trouble with you, didn’t he?”
Burly laughed. “Very true, but so are you. You had no right to leave, but you went ahead and did just that.”
“I had every right,” Amy declared. “You kidnapped me and held me against my will, so of course I had the right to leave. That’s how it works. You, as the kidnapper, try to force me to stay. I, as the prisoner, try to get the hell away.”
Burly blinked. “It’s not as if there are any rules to this.”
“There sure as hell are,” Amy argued. “It’s a rule of nature between predator and prey. You can’t get mad at me for self-preservation.”
Burly shrugged. “You do have a point.” He turned back to Dominic and the others. “You are now picking up MI6 agents?” he asked, walking over to stare first at Terk and then at Jonas. “And your reason for that?”
“Because they’re idiots,” Amy shared.
Burly turned that gaze on her, and she wondered if she’d finally pushed it too far.
“You’ve got a mouth on you, that’s for sure,” Burly noted, “but you might want to watch it before I decide you’re too much trouble.”
She felt Wallace squeezing her hand in warning. She smiled up at the boss. “Maybe so,” she conceded, “but, if you’re just here to kill us anyway, what difference does it make?”
“Why would I kill you?” he asked, looking at her curiously.
“Considering what you did to that poor man in the hospital, that seems to be your MO when people don’t cooperate .”
He frowned at her, then turned to his minions again. “He survived?”
They all nodded.
“That does not make me happy,” Burly muttered.
“ Right ,” Amy noted, “so the poor guy wasn’t even intended to survive.”
“No, he really wasn’t,” Burly admitted. “We’ll have to take care of that now too.” He turned and looked at Dom. “That is another one of your fuckups that you’ll have to unfuck . Where is he now?”
One of his minions shared, “He’s still in the hospital, and he’ll be there for a while.”
“Arrange for him to have an accident,” Burly suggested. “Better make it a sudden embolism or something,” he added, with a wave of his hand. “If the local authorities have already talked to him, I really don’t want him out there spouting off more shit,” he explained.
Immediately she felt bad for having mentioned it. Chances were, Gerry would find out soon enough, but now she wanted to warn everybody about what would happen next.
The boss looked over at Jonas. “So, Dominic here has some vendetta against you. Apparently you turned him down for the same job that I hired him for.”
“That’s because he’s unstable,” Jonas repeated. “I work for the government. You know as well as I do that stability is important.”
“Sure it is,” Burley agreed, “but instability allows you to do more things, to use them in better ways, special ways.”
“It does, but there are consequences when you work for the government.”
“Something I’m not too bothered about,” Burly muttered, with a laugh.
“I can do far more without the government holding us back. You should be happy that I’ll at least carry on your wishes and find others like him to hold a team together,” he added.
“I’m sorry that didn’t work out for you guys.
It would have been fun to watch you struggle but crash and burn. ”
“What makes you think it didn’t work out?” Jonas asked curiously.
“I heard it was canceled,” Burly stated, studying him.
“Your information is wrong. Obviously we’ve had to change a few things,” Jonas conceded, with a shrug, “but we’re still going ahead.”
“That is, if you can find anybody.”
“That’s always the challenge, and, of course, we need stable people,” he repeated for a third time, nodding at Dominic.
Dom glared at him. “I’m perfectly stable, asshole,” he snarled. “You just didn’t want genius.”
“And obviously your nose is still out of joint,” the boss noted, turning to give him a hard look. “I don’t want any personal vendettas here.”
“Of course not, but what was I to do. Leave him there? He was talking with this guy.” Dom waved a hand at Terk.
At that, the boss faced Terk and frowned. “Do I know you?”
Terk shrugged. “I have no idea, but I don’t know you.”
“Right, that makes sense. Who are you?” Terk gave his name, and the other man shrugged. “Don’t know the name. Why were you there?”
“Because Amy’s a friend of mine, and, after what she was put through, I offered her a place to recuperate. Just a favor for old times’ sake.”
“Ah,” Burly replied, “a good Samaritan. You haven’t figured out that being a good person results in getting your ass kicked, huh ? Maybe you will after this. That is, if you survive.”
Terk didn’t say anything right away, watching Burly closely, then spoke. “What is it you’re planning on doing with a team of psychics?” he asked curiously. “That’s been done before.”
“It’s been done before, just not successfully,” the boss clarified. “I plan to change that.”
“It’s hard to do if you don’t have stable team members,” Terk pointed out.
At that, the boss turned once again to look back at Dominic. “So I hear—repeatedly,” Burly muttered, “and it’s something I’ll keep in mind.”
Amy tried to hide her smirk, tried to keep from telepathically sharing the Gotcha reverberating in her mind. Burly’s words gave the impression that, if Dominic became a problem, he would be disposed of.
Burly shrugged in response to Terk’s point.
“You’re right. It has been done before and with some varying degrees of success, but, where there’s a will, there’s a way, and I’m certainly getting word about some teams who have had the right abilities,” he shared.
“I think it’s just a matter of finding who can do what. ”
“Could be,” Terk agreed, with a nod. “I don’t imagine finding that out is an easy job. How do you test them? How do you figure out who’s telling the truth and who’s just full of shit?” he asked, as he nodded toward Dominic.
The boss laughed. “You guys really don’t like Dom, do you?”
Amy snorted. “He is responsible for my being here twice now.”
At that, the boss laughed again. “Good point. We actually wanted Wallace.” He turned and looked at him. “So, sorry, bud, you’re it.”
Wallace stared at Burly. “Why do you want me?”
“You were heading for the same interview, were you not?”
“Sure, I was, and, like Amy here, I also didn’t pass.”
He turned and looked at Jonas. “Why not?”
“Same thing,” Jonas muttered. “I need people who are stable.”
The boss looked over at Wallace. “Interesting. So what’s your story that renders you so unstable?”
“One of the requirements is no family, no friends, making sure that you can go out and get your ass kicked and not give a shit,” he replied, staring at him.
“That tends to be a problem for a lot of people. Plus, when I get asked questions about my personal and private life, I tend to tell people to shut the fuck up. Job interviews don’t go so well after that, you know? ”
Burly laughed. “I can’t believe it was actually a job interview.”
“No, not a job interview, more of a discussion in advance of something possibly happening,” Wallace pointed out.
“They hadn’t got the paperwork together, and he was just starting to do the groundwork for it.
But he couldn’t make a case for the government if he didn’t have people identified that he could potentially utilize.
So, he was attempting to get together a list of people who might be willing. ”
“Would you be willing?” Burly asked.
“Not really, because it seems the reason why people want psychics is… suspect ,” he explained, “for lack of a better word.”
“Meaning you have morals, and you don’t want to be pushed into going against them?”
“Exactly,” Wallace replied.
Burly smiled. “The good news is,… if you have abilities, I’m interested. The bad news is, if you have abilities and don’t want to utilize them on my team, I have no problem keeping her to ensure you behave yourself.”
At that, she stiffened. “That shit again,” she muttered.
He nodded. “Yep, that shit again. What does matter is making sure that people are obedient, and, for me, loyalty is everything.” He gave a sideways glance to Dom.
“I can handle some instability, as long as the loyalty is there. The minute the loyalty is in question, then you have nothing.” He turned and looked at Jonas. “I’m sure you would agree with that.”
Jonas nodded. “Yep, which is why, as soon as I get out of here, I’ll find the mole you have successfully used to follow whatever we’re doing.”
“I wouldn’t worry about that one,” Burly said. “I can’t use him now, so I might as well put him away.”
“Put him away?” she cried out in shock. “You’ll just kill somebody?”
“Is that what I said?” Burly asked, deflecting.
“Yes, more or less,” she declared, staring at him.
He shrugged. “Well then, yes, more or less, that’s what I’ll do. I do have to maintain a certain level of secrecy, you know?”
She didn’t like hearing that at all.