Code Name: Camelot (Noah Wolf #1)(16)
Hogan smiled. “No, but you’re closer than I would’ve thought you could get. That’s some incredible deductive reasoning. I’ve seen reports about you and your ability to extrapolate facts from minor details, but I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it myself.” She reached up and slipped both of her thumbs under what appeared to be her hairline, and lifted the gray wig to let Noah see the blonde hair underneath. “As you can see, you’re very close to being right. I’m not who I claim to be, but this disguise makes it possible for me to move about in circles that I couldn’t normally get into. Now, shall we continue this conversation?”
“Sure, we can continue,” Noah said. “At least up until the point where I find out what the catch is.”
Hogan smiled and inclined her head, a tacit admission that there was indeed a catch. “And if it’s something you can live with?”
“Then I suppose we’ll keep on talking,” he said. “What’s the chance we can just cut to the chase and you tell me what it is right now?”
The woman across the table from him laughed, and he realized that she wasn’t nearly as old as she appeared to be. “A very good chance, actually,” she said. “I’ll just come right out and say it. You’re one of the most capable and efficient killers that the Army has ever seen. You lack any semblance of human emotion, and appear to be completely without conscience or morals, other than those you impose upon yourself. That makes you an absolutely ideal candidate for an opening in my organization. If you accept the job, then I make all of these troubles go away, set you up with a different identity, and train you to defend your country in ways you never dreamed of before. Your duties would be to act in the best interests of the United States, including the elimination of specific human targets when necessary.”
“I’d be an assassin? Is that what you’re saying?”
“That would be one of your job descriptions,” she said with a grin. “You’ve seen all the superspy movies, the ones that make it seem like American agents are somehow beyond the normal human?”
Noah chuckled. “Yeah,” he said, “but I could never suspend disbelief long enough to convince myself that Tom Cruise could be one of them. Are you trying to say that such agents actually exist?”
The grin got wider. “I’m trying to say that they will as soon as you agree to sign on.” She leaned forward. “Sergeant Foster, there’s no doubt in my mind that you were telling the truth in your court-martial, about what really happened out there. Now, you can sit here and await your execution, or you can accept my proposition and become even more important to the peace and security of this nation than you ever were as a soldier.”
“And all I’ve gotta do is kill the people you tell me to kill, right? Well, let me ask a fairly serious question. Who decides who those targets might be?”
She smiled. “I do,” she said, “but not arbitrarily. Other agencies submit a request for elimination, naming a target that they feel should be removed. Along with that request must be a complete and detailed file outlining the reasons behind the request. I was appointed by the president as an autonomous director of the organization I run, which is called E & E, and before you ask, that is short for Elimination and Eradication. I review the file, and if I can honestly tell myself that I agree that this person should be removed, then I will approve it and send the elimination order down to one of the teams that I run.”
Noah tilted his head to the left. “Teams?”
She nodded. “Yes,” she said. “I currently have seven agents, men and women who, for various reasons, came onto my radar as having the potential to be beneficial to my mission, just like you. Each of those agents has a support team, consisting of a transportation specialist, an intelligence specialist, and a capable thug, for when a little extra muscle is needed. If you come on board, you will have such a team, yourself. You’ll be trained in a number of skills and disciplines, and when you go into the field, your team will answer to you and only you. You, in turn, will answer only to me.”
Noah looked into her eyes for several seconds, and concluded that she was being completely honest with him. “Well, so far, the only problem I got with this whole plan is the idea that you get to decide who lives and who dies. Who decided that you are the one who gets to play God?”
“Our commander-in-chief,” she said. “Up until I got this assignment, I was an intelligence analyst with another of those groups that you mentioned earlier. The president was intrigued by the fact that I would occasionally suggest that assassination might be an appropriate measure to take, and a few years ago he called me in for a private conversation. He told me that he had convinced the Joint Chiefs of Staff that it was time to create an organization along these lines, and that he had a candidate for its management, namely me. He offered me the job, and assured me that I would be completely autonomous and could never be ordered to sanction an assassination, so I took it.”
“Just out of curiosity, do you have any trouble sleeping at night?” Noah asked.
“Not a bit,” she said. “You’ll find, if you accept my offer, that I never sanction an assassination lightly. I have to be absolutely certain that it’s justified and warranted, or I’ll disapprove the request. My decision is always final, and there’s nobody above me to complain to. I can guarantee you, if you come aboard, you will never wonder whether your target deserves what you do to him. That’s because I will make sure you know exactly why I have sanctioned that death, including giving you access to all of the information that led me to decide it needed to be done.”