Total pages in book: 117
Estimated words: 114492 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 572(@200wpm)___ 458(@250wpm)___ 382(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 114492 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 572(@200wpm)___ 458(@250wpm)___ 382(@300wpm)
I close my eyes. She kisses me gently.
“Holy Give Me Some Credit, Batman,” she whispers, continuing to kiss me.
I return her kiss. My dick is hardening. But, shit, there’s no time. My brother’s waiting. I pull away.
She puts her finger under my chin and kisses my lips gently. “Holy YOLO, Batman.”
I smile at her. What man could resist her? I tried my mighty best, I really did, but even I couldn’t pull it off. “Okay,” I say. “A promise is a promise. The minute Jonas and Sarah leave, I’ll hand it over. I give you my solemn word as a Faraday.”
Forty
Josh
The five of us have gone over Jonas and Sarah’s talking points for the big meeting in Washington tomorrow, twice, and Henn has walked us through the logistics of how our very own “Oksana Belenko” is gonna get The Club’s approximately five hundred fifty-four million bucks transferred out of the bad guys’ twelve bank accounts. During the whole conversation, every one of us has looked on anxiously, but none more than Kat—which is understandable, considering she’s the one who’s gonna have to waltz into each and every bank and commit large-scale bank fraud.
I wish I could do the job for her, I really do. In fact, I’ve pushed Henn to come up with some way to transfer the money that doesn’t rely on Kat, but he keeps telling me there’s no other way: the accounts are all in Oksana’s name and the majority of them require in-person transfers for amounts over a million bucks. Henn and I went around and around, but there’s no alternative. We can’t do it without Kat.
“Don’t worry, Kitty Kat,” Henn says. “I promise. It’s gonna go like clockwork. I’ve rigged it so the banks will think you’re Oksana, no questions asked, and I’ve also figured out a way to block the bad guys’ access to the Internet on their devices during the whole time we’re in the banks, just in case they try to check their accounts while we’re in the middle of things.”
Kat bites her lip. “Thanks, Henny.”
“We’ll both be right by your side,” I say, taking her hand in mine. She leans into my shoulder and I kiss the top of her head. “I’ll be right there with you, PG,” I whisper. “Every step of the way.”
“Okay, so are you three good?” Jonas asks.
“Yeah, we’re good,” I say. “Are you two good?”
Jonas and Sarah look at each other. “Do you have any questions, baby?” Jonas asks.
Sarah shakes her head. “No, no questions. But I do have a comment: holy crappola—I’m shitting a brick.”
Jonas laughs and kisses her forehead. “No need for brick-shitting. Your report is gonna do all our talking for us.”
Sarah takes a deep breath. “God help me if I wind up on some government watch-list after all this.”
“Don’t worry. They wouldn’t be meeting us in the first place if they didn’t take your report seriously.”
Sarah nods and exhales.
Jonas looks at me. “Josh, can I talk to you for just a second?”
“Sure, bro.”
“Do you mind, baby? I just gotta talk to Josh for a quick second, and then we’ll head out.”
“No worries. I’ll chat with Kitty Kat.”
Jonas and I get up and Sarah and Kat instantly launch into a rapid-fire conversation behind our backs.
“You two want me to join you or... ?” Henn asks us.
Jonas looks at me for my input.
I nod.
“Yeah,” Jonas says. “Thanks, Henn. We could definitely use your brain.”
The three of us move to a sitting area on the other side of the suite, far enough away that the girls won’t overhear us.
Jonas looks nervously across the room. “There’s not a lot of time, so lemme cut to the chase. I want Max and the Ukrainian Travolta dead.” He clenches his jaw.
Henn doesn’t seem the slightest bit surprised. “Shouldn’t be hard to persuade the feds to do it for you. The feds are gonna want them dead, too.”
“How do you figure?”
“Well, dude. Come on. The Secretary of Defense is one of The Club’s biggest clients? Not good. They’ll do whatever the fuck you ask them to do to keep that quiet and make sure this deal goes off without a hitch. Offing a couple Ukrainian separatists is a small price to bury that particular bit of information.”
“‘Ukrainian separatists’ isn’t really sexy enough,” I say. “I don’t think the average person watching the news understands all that.”
“True,” Henn says. “Good point.”
“I think we need something easily digestible for the masses—something the media will pick up on and run with—something the feds can feed to them that they won’t even question.”
We’re all silent for a beat.
“Terrorists?” I say.
“Yes,” Henn says. “The media can spin that ’til the end of fucking time. They’ll eat that shit up.”
“Yeah, but Ukrainian terrorists? Americans don’t even know where Ukraine is,” I say.
“That’s true.” Henn says.
“Russian terrorists?” Jonas says.