Page 69 of Damned
Awareness tracked over Vick’s face. “Then do it. Kill me, you son of a—”
It only took one breath-stealing snap of the rope to correct Vick’s belligerent behavior. Then another, to make sure he understood Kruze wasn’t playingwhose is bigger, that he would kill him. Vick was sweating. His face was already red. He couldn’t breathe.
Kruze didn’t want him to. He was going for blue. When the man’s legs kicked out and thrashed, Kruze relaxed the rope and let him suck in as much air as he could before Kruze took up the slack and asked again, “Why are you hunting Banks?”
“It’s not me, gawddamnit. It’s Lantz. This was all his idea.”
Kruze wound one more loop over his fist. “Why?”
“Because…” Vick spat to the side, then coughed. Sputtered. Coughed again.
He was buying time. Kruze had none to waste. He jerked the rope again, tightening the noose to its limit. “I can do this all day. Can you?”
By then Vick was suffocating.
In the name of good sportsmanship, Kruze allowed a little slack.
“You win, gawddamnit, you win,” Vick wheezed.
“Waste one more minute, you’re dead.”
“Lantz wants a story. A big story.” Vick licked his lips. “Only he doesn’t give a shit about the human-interest crap Brianna Banks sent. Her going to Turkey was never about that. Shit, Lantz said that was what he wanted, but he doesn’t care about anyone but himself.”
Kruze let out a little more slack.
Vick noticed. He swallowed and kept talking. “Lantz has been at odds with one of his competitors for years. World Geo, remember them? They ran that story about those three kids in the Falkland Islands years ago?”
Kruze shook his head, keeping the rope taut. “I don’t give a shit about World Geo or the Falklands.”
“You will! This’ll be the story of the century. Lantz is going to put World Geo out of business with it. I don’t know how, but he got hold of fifteen kilos of plutonium, probably from the black market. He got it for some asshole general in Turkey.”
“Berfende.”
“Yeah. That’s the guy. He already has a nuke, just needed plutonium to arm it. I don’t know what he was going to do with the nuke before, but after he and Lantz got together, they planned to bomb Ankara, Turkey.”
“Why?”
“Because Lantz’s wife was Armenian. She died of cancer last year, and her dying wish was for Turkey to suffer as much as her grandparents did during World War Two. She wanted vengeance for them, so…” Vick worked his throat until he could swallow again. “Lantz started out intending to honor her final wish. Only that general’s a smart son of a bitch. Once Banks got away, Berfendestarted blackmailing Lantz. That’s when Lantz had his bright idea.”
Kruze rolled his shoulder to loosen the cramp tightening his neck. “Explain.”
“Berfendestill thinks he’s bombing Ankara. He thinks he’s safe.”
Kruze shrugged. “I’m only going to ask you one more—”
“J-j-just listen, will ya? Tomorrow night, right before Turkish election results go public, Lantz is going to betray Berfende. That’s why he needs Berfendeand Banks back in Berfende’s camp by then. But the dumb bitch—”
Kruze snapped the leash and cut off Vick’s air until the man turned red. Kruze didn’t fuckin’ care. No one disrespected Bree, least of all some lowlife merc. He waited until Vick’s lips were blue before he gave a shit and let the bastard catch a breath.
Vick sucked in mighty gasps of air before he could talk. He was a dead man, and he knew it. At last, he muttered, “Sorry, but you’ve got to believe me. Lantzisinsane. Thereisa nuclear bomb, there will be a big story and it’ll make him famous. Only it will be the story of how Lantz came to Turkey’s rescue by releasing insider information on the bombing before it happens. In that release, he’ll incriminate Banks and Berfende. He’ll claim they were working together, that they were lovers.”
“That’ll never fly,” Kruze growled.
“Yes, it will. Lantz is gonna blame Banks. He’ll say it was Stockholm Syndrome, that she fell for Berfendeafter he captured her. Honest, he’s got the photos she sent, and he already has the Pentagon on speed-dial. He’s talked to them, and he’s timed everything perfectly. The Pentagon will act immediately because the evidence he’s got against Banks is airtight. It’s damned good. I’ve seen it. He’s got photos of her standing a dozen yards away from the nuke, for chrissakes!”
“Where’d he get them?” There was no way Bree would’ve done such a thing.
“From that Mehmet guy. He took a shit ton of pictures when they interviewed that Kurdish girl. Banks sent them to me along with her story. She didn’t know it, but the tractor trailer with that nuke was in some of those shots.”
