The Fixer

[JamesSavik]

The Fixer

"Do you really think he did it?"

"Yeah but I can't prove it."

"Why?"

"When you try to pull up Gorman's file, you know what you get?"

"I haven't tried."

"I did. It says he was assigned to SoCom from 2004-2010. All his jacket says is that he went to Ranger school as a 2nd Lt, was assigned to SoCom and processed out as a Captain in 2010. That spells special operator and that's exactly the kind of skill set we are looking at."

"Yeah but why Gorman? There's loads of guys in the same boat: ex Navy SEALs, ex-Rangers, ex-Delta... the whole alphabet soup."

Hammond looked around the office and said, "Charlie, shut the door."

Charlie nodded, stood up, walked over and closed the door. He sat back down and said, "You were saying?"

"I've got a source inside Homeland. He moved there after a long stint at SoCom. Gorman was a very special kind of operator the spooks call a fixer."

"You're shitting me."

"Not at all. He was something of a super-star. SoCom used him for a string of deniable assassinations- the number my source said was in the forties."

"How did that work?"

"Usually when there's a hit, everybody knows it. Sniper, silenced pistol- God and everybody knows what it was. Gorman was a very different animal. His targets have heart attacks, car accidents or, if they are a bomb maker, they solder the wrong wire."

"Oh shit."

"Now does it make sense?"

"So a year after Gorman musters out of the Army in 2011, the Good Reverend Patterson has a heart attack and wakes up dead. Huge scandal, money is missing. The Feds find millions in offshore accounts."

"Now, think it through."

"2012 Congressman Matt Harper of Milwaukee slips on the ice and breaks his neck. Whilst cleaning up, the Counter-Intel guys discover he was passing secrets to the Chinese for payola."

"Later in 2012 a member of the sitting Mexican government runs into a bridge abutment at a hundred and thirty. After his death it's discovered that he ran the Mexican Drug Cartel and his death touched off a civil war for control of the Cartel. When the smoke cleared, they were down to a third of their original size and scores of really bad guys nobody could touch were deader than Elvis."

"Want to guess another one?"

"2013- that asshole from Homeland Security that was fronting for the Islamic Brotherhood and getting visas for Hezbollah operatives."

"Died of a bee sting allergy."

"Holy shit, that was... brilliant."

"The question is what do we do about it?"

Hammond made a face and shook his head. "Let's think it through. The States, the Feds and a whole alphabet soup of agencies have looked at the crime scenes, the forensics the whole nine yards and there isn't a scrap of evidence. All of the death certificates are to natural causes of one sort or another."

"All we've got is a pattern of really bad guys, some that not many people even knew was dirty, dropping dead of apparently natural causes and evidence of their wrong-doing is found post-mortem."

"So the question remains: what do we do about it?"

"Absolutely nothing. Chalk it up to karma. If it is Gorman, he's taking out the f-ing trash. If he makes a mistake, we bust him. Otherwise, I can think of a lot of assholes out there that really should drop dead."

[ChrisR]

I think you need to consider putting in your resume at the Successors to Tom Clancy Institute. This is nothing short of brilliant!

[Cole Parker]

That would made a hell of a Prologue.

Just saying. . .

C

[larkin]

Very good dialog but it sounds governmental rhetoric designed to get more funding..

[Lugnutz]

Same conclusion I would've had.

[Nick Deverill]

I'll add to the prologue camp, the story reads to me like an introduction to a tale. One I'd like to read too.

[dude]

Very good dialog but it sounds governmental rhetoric designed to get more funding..

What ????