The Spy I Loved by Dusty Miller Page B

Aubrey’s
old cronies were on the outs. Their replacements were responsible
for some kind of a budget, no matter how much of it was secret and
off the books. Someone had started asking questions at Langley and
from there it spread outwards. He was a big liability. He had been
created by them, and he had made them rich, helped them accomplish
their goals in a dozen shit-ass little countries. That’s gratitude
for you.
    He loved
the work.
    Aubrey
had his own agenda, fighting the enemies of America. He had sucked
them in ever deeper, and now they would destroy him to cover their
own asses. The truth was that he had gotten a little too big for
his own britches, a little too pushy, a little too rich now come to
think of it…
    And now
he was near enough to going broke that he had, feigning reluctance
all the way, accepted an allowance from the Mahdi.
    Stuck in
this godforsaken country as he was, he needed something to
sell.
    The fact
that he was destabilizing the West kept him in good graces with his
protector. His protector also had him under heavy, full-time
surveillance. This much was a given. While he treated all of the
household staff members with the utmost civility, even liked one or
two of them, the fact was that they owed their loyalty to someone
else.
    Someone
who would kill them and all of their family members if they screwed
up in the slightest. Their bodies would hang in the marketplace for
all to see.
    The bulk
of his U.S., U.K. and other suppliers had dried up, just as
abruptly as they had clammed up, when sufficient legal pressure was
applied or threatened behind closed doors. The Mahdi was also
becoming more difficult to appease. If Aubrey couldn’t come up with
a handful of light assault choppers, and if their ancillary
chain-guns and TOW wire-guided missiles didn’t materialize soon,
Aubrey might be lucky to get out of the country at all. To say
there was a lot riding on EMERALD was an understatement. He had
other irons in the fire, but none of them looked as promising or
carried the sort of weight EMERALD did.
    “ Speck. My man. What’s shakin’?” Aubrey thought he was cool
when he was merely insufferable sometimes.
    “ Things may be heating up in regards to the Dominion stocks.”
This was how they always referred to EMERALD. “The future looks
very bright.”
    “ And?”
    “ I’ve reassigned a couple of our people to another
division.”
    “ Ah.” Aubrey thought it through. “So what
happened?”
    “ A hotshot trader, some new young guy. Made them look
silly.”
    “ Hmn.” Aubrey puffed an indifferent cigar and watched the fan
blades lazily circling overhead, feet up on the end of his desk and
a wrinkle or two of irritation ruffling his high, patrician brow.
“And might I hazard a guess as to who this new young guy
is?”
    “ It’s Kimball.”
    Aubrey
thought long and hard. Kimball. They said he was good. They also
said he was washed-up. They’d put him out to pasture. The thing was
to trust your people on the ground and not try to micromanage from
the top.
    “ Well, we can’t have that now, can we?”
    “ Ah, no.” Speck chuckled.
    If Speck
could deliver, he stood to make a handsome commission. As for the
people on the ground, how they handled their assignments was their
business and he had always allowed them a certain amount of leeway.
Speck was a businessman, a consultant of sorts. He looked up to
Aubrey Herschel, the man who had raised him from the muck and the
mire, taught him to abhor blood and violence for its own sake, for
this would ultimately be unprofitable. That’s not to say it might
not be useful from time to time, for surely it was.
    It was
very useful. Mister Herschel would get what he asked for if Speck
had any say in the matter. However, it was better not to bother the
boss with too many details.
    Aubrey
had to be kept in the loop, as he was financing all of
this.
    How
everything was actually supposed to be accomplished, seemed below
his notice at times. What