Free Unmanned (9780385351263) by Dan Fesperman

officially send you here and didn’t officially give you any marching orders? I know about your court-martial. Was this part of your plea agreement, maybe? Some sort of undercover arrangement?”
    It was an odd but appealing theory, which made Cole wonder what other forces might be in play. It also offered an easy way out.
    “Something like that.”
    “And this superior of yours, who’s he reporting to?”
    “I don’t know.”
    Bickell smiled.
    “Well, if my people knew you might be coming, that tells me your sugar daddy is compromised, no matter how high up the chain of command.So act accordingly. And wherever you go next, it better not be Creech. Once you’ve started something like this there’s no reset button, no reboot. It’s shop till you drop, understand?”
    “Then where should I go next?”
    “I’ve got a few ideas. But first, a little housekeeping.”

CHAPTER EIGHT
    BICKELL ERASED THE RECORDING and told Cole what to do next. Cole left the house through the front door and waited on the porch until Bickell called out from inside. “Okay. Silent five count, then let ’er rip.”
    Cole counted slowly to five, then knocked. Twice, like before.
    “Keep your shirt on,” Bickell said again. “I’m coming.”
    This time Cole refused the invitation to step inside. He tried to sound natural as he repeated the lines Bickell had fed him.
    “No offense, but I’d be more comfortable doing this outside. We can walk while we talk.”
    Bickell hemmed and hawed, playing the spider to the fly. But Cole didn’t give in, so Bickell finally came out onto the porch. Having concluded their performance for the recorder, they headed toward the lakeshore, where even on a chilly winter day distant motorboats were plowing the main channel, throwing plumes like snowmobiles. Once they were a safe distance from the house, Bickell got down to business.
    “Let me ask you something. What makes you so sure this is all about the Agency?”
    “It was Castle’s op.”
    “He might have ordered up the bird, but there are plenty of people with wish lists in that part of the world. Privateers and fly-by-nighters. Sheep-dipped Special Forces platoons, green badgers with their own outfits, you name it. Down on the ground it’s a regular fucking carnival.”
    “Whoa, whoa. Sheep-dipped?”
    “Active military, but with a special security clearance so they can work directly for the Agency, or maybe for some green badger with his head up his ass.”
    “And a green badger is …?”
    “Cleared by the Agency, but not an Agency employee. A green badge gets you into the building at Langley. A blue badge means you work there.”
    “Are you talking about contractors? Like Blackwater, or IntelPro?” Cole watched for a reaction, but Bickell was poker-faced.
    “This is even murkier and more incestuous. Maybe it’s an ex-employee doing a contract job. And maybe he’s working with a contractor, or maybe he isn’t. Either way, green badgers can do shit that blue badgers can’t. If they’re caught on the wrong side of the border, well, hell, they’re not government employees, are they?”
    “Plausible deniability.”
    “They can also operate domestically. Right here at home. Places that are no-go for the Agency are always open season for them. Same with the contractors—the Blackwaters and IntelPros—except they operate out in the next orbit where things are even loopier. Not just different rules of engagement,
no
rules of engagement. The Wild West, Fort Apache, take your pick. The new frontier of covert warfare.”
    “With the drones?”
    “With everything. Firefights by proxy. Security checks on the home front. In some ops, half the guts get farmed out to some hireling, or to a bunch of converted nut jobs with M-16s. It’s a damn good business to be in, that’s for sure. When the Agency got rid of me, who do you think my first visitor was, one day after I got here?”
    Cole shook his head.
    “An international security