JК
The Third Option :: Flynn Vince
Страница: 65 из 267They answered to nobody but themselves now and were veryselective about the jobs they took – most of them legitimate. Their company, SEAL Demolition and Salvage Corporation, did much of its work abroad. Between contracts, they helped train law enforcement divers from the various counties and cities that bordered the Chesapeake Bay.
Scott Coleman wasn't sure which category this job would eventually fall into. The only thing illegal about it so far was that their fee had been wired into a bank in the Caribbean, where it would avoid detection by the IRS, or anyone else who might be of a mind to track the full activities of the SEAL Demolition and Salvage Corporation.
The old man was dying. That was plain enough to see. Coleman was a little surprised at how this had affected him. He hadn't known Thomas Stansfield for long, but his admiration for him was genuine. In Coleman's line of work, it was hard not to put the old spymaster on a bit of a pedestal. Stansfield had been one of the original covert operators. During World War II, his services were sought after by Wild Bill Donovan and the OSS. As one of the famed Jedburgh team leaders, Stansfield had been dropped into Nazi-occupied Norway during the war to help organize resistance. He had been battle-tested in the field for many years before taking a job behind a desk, a rare thing in Washington. The CIA, and thus America, was about to be dealt a serious blow by the loss of the wise old man.
Coleman's recent business relationship with the head of the CIA was more than a little strange. Several years earlier, Coleman had taken certain political matters into his own hands. He had spent a good portion of his life trotting around the globe, eliminating people who were deemed a threat to the national security of the United States. On one of those missions, he had lost half of his team, only to learn later that the mission had been compromised by a senator with an affinity for booze and women. Coleman left the Navy in disgust when his commanders refused to tell him the name of the man who had compromised the mission. A short while later, he learned from his friend Congressman Michael O'Rourke who the guilty party was. The event changed Coleman's life. He began asking the question: Who is a bigger threat to my country, a terrorist ten thousand miles away or the corrupt self-serving politician down the street? Coleman became involved in an intricate plot to correct the course of the government in Washington. Before the affair was over, a half dozen politicians had been assassinated, and their plan to restore some honor to politics had been hijacked by a cabal of Washington insiders.
Scott Coleman wasn't sure which category this job would eventually fall into. The only thing illegal about it so far was that their fee had been wired into a bank in the Caribbean, where it would avoid detection by the IRS, or anyone else who might be of a mind to track the full activities of the SEAL Demolition and Salvage Corporation.
The old man was dying. That was plain enough to see. Coleman was a little surprised at how this had affected him. He hadn't known Thomas Stansfield for long, but his admiration for him was genuine. In Coleman's line of work, it was hard not to put the old spymaster on a bit of a pedestal. Stansfield had been one of the original covert operators. During World War II, his services were sought after by Wild Bill Donovan and the OSS. As one of the famed Jedburgh team leaders, Stansfield had been dropped into Nazi-occupied Norway during the war to help organize resistance. He had been battle-tested in the field for many years before taking a job behind a desk, a rare thing in Washington. The CIA, and thus America, was about to be dealt a serious blow by the loss of the wise old man.
Coleman's recent business relationship with the head of the CIA was more than a little strange. Several years earlier, Coleman had taken certain political matters into his own hands. He had spent a good portion of his life trotting around the globe, eliminating people who were deemed a threat to the national security of the United States. On one of those missions, he had lost half of his team, only to learn later that the mission had been compromised by a senator with an affinity for booze and women. Coleman left the Navy in disgust when his commanders refused to tell him the name of the man who had compromised the mission. A short while later, he learned from his friend Congressman Michael O'Rourke who the guilty party was. The event changed Coleman's life. He began asking the question: Who is a bigger threat to my country, a terrorist ten thousand miles away or the corrupt self-serving politician down the street? Coleman became involved in an intricate plot to correct the course of the government in Washington. Before the affair was over, a half dozen politicians had been assassinated, and their plan to restore some honor to politics had been hijacked by a cabal of Washington insiders.