Page 49 of Black Sheep

His lips curl. “From the way you speak, anyone would think you were on their side. Don’t forget they bombed us first.”

The inhumanity of that statement staggers me for a moment. “I haven’t forgotten. But I’m on the side of not blowing people up for money or power.”

The first sign that I’m getting to him is the hand that fists on his desk. “Life isn’t all pansies and Kool-Aid. I thought I taught you better than that. Clearly my lesson didn’t do enough.”

A tremble rolls up from my feet. The breath locks in my lungs as images of bloody baseball bats, knuckle dusters, tire irons, and other instruments of mayhem flare across my senses. I count to ten to stop from lunging across the desk and adding to my own body count. “You think it’s okay to teach your child a life lesson by forcing him to take a human life?”

“If he wants to succeed in this world, yes! What kind of world do you think you live in, boy? Take a look around you. The whole fucking world is eating itself.”

“And so your solution is to help things along by blackmailing a general so you can bag millions along the way?”

His face twists in a mask of contempt. “Why the hell not? If McCarthy and I hadn’t taken the opportunity, someone else would have. Whatever else he was, Courtland was a patriot, and he was not afraid of a little sacrifice in order to stick it to the bastards who bombed this country.”

“And what about the other sacrifices that had nothing to do with the war? What about the girl he killed in McCarthy’s brothel?”

He doesn’t seem surprised that I have all this information at my fingertips. He merely shrugs. “Collateral damage that facilitated a smoother relationship.”

A red haze rises before my eyes. “She was someone’s daughter!”

“She was a whore,” he clarifies, as if that justifies everything. “The only thing that mattered was that Courtland was a top-level army bureaucrat who happened to be in the right position to gear us up for long-term success. He handed me…us the deal of a lifetime. You think I should’ve walked away because one whore snorted the wrong shit up her nose? My ma didn’t birth me to be a wimp! She taught me that survival was everything. She beat it into me as many times as was necessary for me to learn that lesson. But you, a son of my ribs, want to be coddled for the rest of your life after one unfortunate incident?”

“So survival is everything, even survival against an enemy that doesn’t exist, isn’t that right? You used to see shadows everywhere. Clearly that hasn’t changed. Tell me, is it your paranoia that has you now making up a mother who doesn’t exist? You grew up on the streets of Belfast after you were tossed out of the orphanage for beating up another child, remember? Presumably a child who was helping the world eat itself?”

“Enough with this nonsense! I need the Taranahar issue to go away. You’re going to help me.”

I could ask him how he imagines that would happen in a million years. But that isn’t how this game will play out. I don’t smile. I don’t posture. I stare at him a minute before I ask. “How?”

The fact that I don’t immediately tell him to go to hell stuns him for a moment. He regroups quickly although his gaze remains wary. “People get excited when the term ‘war criminal’ is tossed around. I need you to work with my lawyers on getting the excitement to die down, and preferably get the indictment thrown out.”

“How?” I ask again.

“You have a Bronze Star Medal and a Distinguished Service Medal, plus a personal commendation from the president and useful contacts in the military. I need you to be the public face of my case when the time comes. I’ll take care of the smaller behind-the-scenes matters. I’ll even forgive this nonsense with the Armenians and Albanians, as long as you put a stop to that too.”

Bile rises up my throat and floods my mouth. I swallow and force myself to speak. “What smaller matters?”

He rises and strolls to the bar, the confidence that I’m right under his thumb where he wants me easing his tension. “Nothing you need to concern yourself about.” He reaches for the bottle of Irish whiskey and pours out two glasses.

I force myself to take the one he offers me. I raise it to my nose and sniff the less-than-premium brand he drinks these days before I twirl the glass. My interest in the drink is enough to satisfy him. He turns away, downs his shot, and returns to the bar to refill his glass.

“You do this for me, and you have my word the video will be destroyed,” he says as he sits back down.

His word. Cheaper than the drink in my hand. I pretend to think it over.

A full minute passes before he leans forward, my silence taken for acquiescence. “There’s a place for you back in the family, boy. Do this for me, and it’s yours.”

I nod.

He sits back in his chair. Smug.

“War criminal investigations can drag on for years, what with the red tape of international jurisdiction and all that,” I venture. “They cost millions too, as I’m sure you found out with the first investigation.”

He shrugs. “As long as I’m not sitting in some black hole of a maximum security prison, it can take forever for all I care.”

“It’s going to put a strain on my time. On my business.”

“So?”

“So, I’m going to need…more.”

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