Chapter 9: Chapter eight

Present day

 

Reaper sat in the debriefing room and noted the sidelong looks the other operatives shot him. He wore his full costume, liking the effect it had on people, and sat like the spectre of grim death at one end of the table while people filed in and shuffled reports around.

The meeting began in earnest when Kessington Smythe arrived, and if the looks people had shot Reaper were scared, the looks they gave Kessington were downright terrified.

Reaper didn’t like that. He could cut through the whole room if he wanted to and none of them could stop him. Kessington was old and flabby, and while no one would be foolish enough to dismiss him as weak, it still irked Reaper that they were more afraid of Kessington than of him. The idea of showing them all just how much they should fear him filled his mind and he could feel the beginnings of a sneer start on his face. But he kept the expression off his face. Even covered by a mask, it was better not to risk it. There was no telling what Kessington would notice.

“Report,” Kessington said as he settled into his chair and indicated a man that Reaper didn’t know but who was wearing the all-black uniform and perpetual scowl of the career wetwork operative. The old man was sounding older by the month these days, and Reaper could hear the promise of his future in the slight wheeze of his voice.

The man spoke, his tone attempting professionalism but underlaid with fear. “We infiltrated Doctor Clark’s lab last night—”

Kessington snorted. “Infiltrated? It’s a university, not a terrorist training camp.”

“Ah,” the man said. “Quite right sir. We broke into Doctor Clark’s lab last night, retrieved the research and delivered it to Danvers. The only complication was that one of her assistants was there late, so we had to eliminate­—”

Kessington scowled. “You stumbled onto some grad student and had to kill him? Sloppy work Parsons.”

The man, Parsons, paled under Kessington’s gaze and continued on in a shaky voice. “Ah, yes. It was unavoidable you see. But, there weren’t any other witnesses and we disposed of the body. We set up a local addict to take the fall for his death, and doctored the security footage to erase any trace of our being there.”

Kessington grunted, still clearly not impressed with Parsons’ amateurish work. “Danvers, is the research sufficient?”

Danvers, a slip of a man with glasses and oily hair, practically squeaked when addressed. “Ah, well, it will be. It looks like they haven’t gotten the cerebellum implant working just yet, but they were close. Everything else can be recreated in a matter of weeks, and I’m confident we can have a testable prototype for the implant by year’s end.”

Kessington narrowed his eyes, clearly not pleased with that timeline. Interesting. Kessington was never one to accept incompetence, but he was rarely impatient. Reaper didn’t know exactly what he was planning, but from the man’s annoyance, he could guess at a timeframe.

“How long before Clark and her team have a working prototype?”

“Hard to say,” Danvers hedged. “It looks as if her micro-engineer may have been the one Parsons’ team had to eliminate and—”

“You son of a bitch!” Parsons said. “How dare you blame me? It’s not my fault he was there. I did the only thing I could have under the circumstances. We weren’t set up for abduction and leaving him behind as a witness could have compromised the whole operation.”

“Why?” Kessington asked.

“What?” Parsons asked. “Well, if he had gone to the authorities then they would have started—”

Kessington gave a tiny twitch of annoyance and held up his hand for silence. “Not why would leaving a witness compromise the investigation. Why weren’t you set up for abduction if it came to that?”

“Ah,” Parsons said. Everyone did their best to put some distance between them and the man who had earned Kessington’s ire.

Kessington gestured at Parsons with two fingers. It was a small thing, and in another man could have been taken to be just fidgeting. But Kessington Smythe was no other man, and he didn’t do anything without a purpose.

That was Reaper’s cue. He leapt onto the table, took three long strides, and then drew a sword and put it through Parson’s heart in one fluid motion.

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The others barely had time to react before it was over. Many of them, Parsons included, had been trained by various military and intelligence agencies, but that just meant they had the presence of mind to flinch.

In another workplace, the sudden skewering of one of the employees would have caused a panic. People would have run screaming from the room. But Kessington tolerated none of that from his people, and nobody so much as got up from their seat, though more than one looked as though they were struggling not to be sick.

Reaper cleaned his sword on Parsons’ clothes and returned to his seat, happy for the distraction for what was otherwise a rather dull meeting.

Kessington motioned to some guards and they cleared away the body. “Danvers, what would you need to get the cerebellum implant working within a month?”

“More personnel would help,” Danvers said. “But realistically, to have it up and running that quickly, we would need Clark herself.”

Kessington nodded. “Very well.  Petrov, take a team and bring Doctor Clark in.”

“Yes sir,” Petrov, a burly man with a soft voice, said.

“I could do it,” Reaper suggested, sneering at Petrov from inside his mask. “That way there wouldn’t be any more screwups.”

“No,” Kessington said. “Your upcoming mission is too important to risk having you recognized.”

Reaper suppressed a snarl. His mission was wholly beneath his abilities and had led to him being all but benched for the past year. He longed to show Kessington exactly what he thought of being side-lined. Preferably alone, in a secluded location, and with pair of pliers. But it wasn’t the time for that. So, he simply nodded, the picture of obedience, and said nothing more on the subject.

A cleaner came by to mop up blood and dispose of Parsons’ chair. Thankfully, Parsons hadn’t soiled himself on death. Last time Reaper had executed an incompetent employee, he had to put up with the lingering smell of shit for the remainder of the meeting. Kessington never was one to let a little something like a shit-stained corpse get in the way of business.

“Tanaka,” Kessington said, turning his attention to a serious woman wearing business attire and a frown. “Where are we on the satellite project?”

“Proceeding as expected sir,” she said in Japanese. Most employees were expected to conduct themselves in English during interdepartmental meetings, but Tanaka was important enough to earn a little special treatment. It probably didn’t hurt that Kessington spoke Japanese like he was born to it and didn’t mind his other employees not knowing what they didn’t need to.

“Good,” he said, switching to Japanese. Then, in English, he said, “Reaper, I’d like to speak with you. Everyone else, you’re dismissed.”

The others filed out of the room, relieved that the meeting was a short one and shooting furtive glances at the spot where Parsons had sat. Reaper sat where he was, not moving, until it was just him and Kessington.

“Lance Bryson is dead,” Kessington said when the others were gone.

Reaper absorbed this information. “How?”

“Someone broke into his home, bypassed his security, and shot him in the head.”

Reaper absorbed this information. Bryson’s security was tight, especially for a civilian. Getting past it wouldn’t have been easy. At least, not for a normal person.

“I’ve got someone looking into it,” Kessington said, “but I want you to be ready to move. Whoever this is, we can’t have them interfering in the operation.”

Reaper nodded. This was an assignment more befitting of his station. It was certainly better than sitting on his hands. Plus, he had a quiet hope as to who the killer might be and, if he was right, he was itching for a rematch.

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