Thirteen's POV
"Well?" I question when Jackson remains quiet. He holds up a finger, keeping me from interrupting him as he knocked back his drink.
"Patience is key." He says as he signals the bartender for another drink.
"My patience is running thin." Sam speaks up from his seat at the bar. Jackson turns and glares at him but suddenly thinks better of it when he sees Sam's deadly look.
"Right, well." Jackson clears his throat. "The guys you encountered are mercenaries."
"Tell me something I don't know."
Jackson shoots Sam a glare at his interruption. Sam doesn't even bat and eye at him and just continues with his challenging stare.
"The mercenaries," Jackson shoots another glare at Sam. "Can be hired by anyone provided you have the money to hire them. They don't care which side of the law they're operating on. They could hired as security guards for a bank or soldiers to overthrow a government. They're extremely dangerous and don't care what they're doing so long as they're getting paid."
"Do you know who's in charge of these mercenaries?" I ask him and he shakes his head.
"I've been trying to find that out myself with no luck. Some people say it's a girl, some people say it's a guy. I've heard names, but none of them have gotten me anywhere. All false leads."
"I don't suppose you'd tell me if you ever come across the right name?"
Jackson smiled into his drink. "I might...for a price."
"You're unbelievable." I mutter and his smile widens. "What do you want now?"
"Well, since my regular price is much too high for you, I guess I could settle for a favor of my choosing."
"And this favor would be?"
Jackson slides closer to me. "Anything I want."
"Tempting." I mutter sarcastically. "I'd rather just pay your regular price."
Jackson scoffs. "You don't have that kind of money."
Lily turn her back to hide her smile, Sam's lips twitch, and I can hear Devin, Chase, and Zack laughing through the earpiece. I keep my face blank and avoid showing any emotion, but I'm smiling internally.
"Oh yeah? Try me."
Jackson rolls his eyes and takes a pen from his pocket and a napkin from the bar counter. He scribbles something on the napkin and passes it over to me with a smug smile on his face. My face is unreadable as I glance at the napkin.
"So? Ready to give me my favor?" Jackson questions smugly. I pass the napkin to Sam and he smiles slightly.
Lily snatches the napkin from him and begins to cackle loudly. "Oh man, this is chump change to you." She tells me and I let a smile spread across my face and Jackson just looks confused.
"That," I wave my hand at the napkin still in Lily's hand. "is completely doable. Just give me your account numbers."
"I'm sorry, did you read the number I wrote?" Jackson questions, disbelief written across his face.
"I did." I tell me. "And quite frankly I was excepting a higher number."
"There's no possible way you have that kind of money."
"We're really not here to talk about how much money I do or don't have. So please, continue on with what you've found."
"That's pretty much it." Jackson says. "I haven't been able to find out more than that and I have a vested interest. I've hired my own guy to do some snooping for me."
"Let me know what that turns up." I tell him. "How do you even know about these people? I called Zero before coming here and he'd never even heard of them before."
Jackson shoots me a deadpanned look. "The chances of your dearly loved chief not knowing about these mercenaries is slim to none."
I shrug. He's not wrong. Unfortunately, I didn't have time to press the issue with Zero when I called him before coming here. Plus, I figure I could always send Devin deal with him anyway.
"I know about these people because I was hired to do a job for a friend of mine, and he hired them as security. Which worked out well for him, but since I may or may not have conned several of the guys out of something or other they keep coming after me."
I shake my head. "That sounds about right." Jackson shoots me a look. I ignore it. "Do you know anything about the leader?"
Jackson pauses as he seems to consider this. Finally he nods. "I might." He says simply. "I do know that whoever's in charge of the mercenaries now, is not the original guy who created them."
"And who created them?"
He gives me a look and then smiles knowingly. "Why don't you ask your chief that question? Seeing as how they were created as a new type of agent."
"What?"
Jackson smiles wider. "Didn't know your chief was trying to replace all of you? How sad. Kessler came up with the brilliant idea to train a separate branch of agents in an entirely new way. As far as I know however, the program was shut down after one of the agents saw fit to use this advanced training for purposes other than the agency's benefit. Unfortunately, that agent took the knowledge of all that training with him when he fled from the agency and created the mercenaries you're dealing with now."
"And what happened to that agent? Lily asks.
"He's been dead for a few years now. Not entirely sure when he was killed. Your chief ordered a strike against him in the hopes that the problem would then solve itself. Cutting off the head of the snake so to speak. But that's not what happened. They just grew stronger, larger, and more stealthy. Someone new took over and they continued on. They aren't a threat to anyone, unless they've been hired against you. It's my understanding that Garrett hired them to take out you guys. If he hadn't it's completely likely you'd have gone on with your lives never running into them."
"Do you know the name of the agent who created them in the first place?" Lily questions.
Jackson stares off at the wall, deep in thought. Finally he shakes his head. "No, I don't. I use to, but I don't remember it anymore."
"You done any snooping on them?"
"No. I don't have a death wish."
"You wouldn't happen to have any other names we could check out, would you?" I ask and Jackson goes still, but not in a good way.
He shakes his head. "I don't want you getting involved." He says.
"I'm involved either way. So you either work with me, or you work against me."
"I'm not giving you the name."
"Why not?"
"Because if this guy is tied into these mercenaries, I want to check it out myself."
"I thought you said you didn't have a death wish?"
"Oh he definitely has a death wish." Lily interjects. Her eyes locked on her phone screen. She turns it around to show me.
"Holy crap." I mutter as I take the phone from her and stare at the news article in shock. "Are you insane?" I ask Jackson.
"I asked you to get me the file on Lawrence Carver." He states. "What did you think I was going to do with it?"
"I was hoping you weren't stupid enough to go through with it." I scan the date printed on the article. "This happened yesterday?"
Lily plucks the phone out of my hand and scrolls through the article. She reads the title of the article aloud. More for Chase, Zack, and Devin's benefit than ours.
"Lawrence Carver cheated out 1.2 billion dollars."
I'm sorry," Devin pipes in. "Are we talking about the Lawrence Carver? As in the biggest crime lord in the world right now?"
"Yep. That'd be the one." I mutter.
"Oh man." Lily mumbles. "What did you do? According to this you not only cheated him out of the money, but you conned him into giving you several other priceless jewels and paintings. Not to mention you now have the FBI looking into him for about a million different crimes, and-"
Lily cuts herself off before reading further. She gasps. "What did you do? That poor girl."
At this Jackson lets out a snort. "Poor girl my ass. That spoiled little blonde bimbo had it coming big time, you have no idea. There was only so much of her I could take. I was going to leave her alone completely...plans change. She deserved to be knocked off that pedestal everyone keeps her up on."
"Knocked off the pedestal? You didn't just knock her off the pedestal. You took a wrecking ball to it and threw the remaining pieces back at her!"
Jackson smiles widely, clearly very proud of whatever it was he did. "She had it coming." He repeats. Lily openly gapes at him.
"She's a very well respected model-"
"Not anymore."
"and you absolutely destroyed her good name." She shoves me her phone with a second article pulled up on the screen. It's labeled, Crystal Carver Scandal and there are some very less than flattering pictures on the screen as well as a very lengthy document. Most of the pictures though, have been censored out.
I skim through the article quickly while Lily and Jackson have now taken to arguing.
"Who taught you to treat a girl like that?"
"Oh please, that little princess is a wolf in sheep's clothing. You should have seen how she treats other people, all I did was show the world the kind of person she is."
"That's not at all what you did. You tricked her and shamed her in the worst ways possible!"
"Oh there are worse ways than that, believe me. I could have done a lot worse."
"You made her out to look like a prostitute!"
"Hey, all I did was tell her I'd meet her in the hotel room and then I might have stolen her clothes...and possible got a very well known gang boss to go into the hotel room on the assumption that there was a prostitute waiting for him in there...and the room may or may not have been wired for sound and video that may or may not have been linked up to a couple news vans...and I may have messed with the lights a little beforehand so that she wouldn't notice the difference between me and him at first glance. I also may have doctored up some other photos after the fact but that's besides the point."
Lily let's out a frustrated scream and looks like she wants to strangle Jackson.
"Just look at the bright side." Jackson says.
"What bright side?"
"That gang boss disappeared a couple hours after the videos and pictures were released. How much you want to bet he's dead?"
"How is that a bright side?!"
"I got rid of a very well know gang boss for world by putting him in an oh so compromising position. Plus, I ended up with a lot of money out of this."
Lily looks desperately like she wants to shoot him. Her hand twitches at her side and her gaze occasionally goes to her purse. Jackson doesn't notice.
"Also, I did also get to see all of the 'hottest' girl's assets. So that was a bonus. She may be a complete bitch but man she's got a killer body."
Lily let's out a strangled sound. Jackson gives her a raised eyebrow.
"You are an animal." Lily grounds out between clenched teeth.
Jackson flashes her a smile.
"Tell me something I don't know."