Read Online Born with Secrets: A Political Thriller by Bowen Greenwood - Free Book Online
Authors: Bowen Greenwood
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That
meant the company could afford to pay its people well. He worked his way up,
eventually becoming the lead security guard, reporting directly to the director
of security. His boss actually had a fairly similar personality to Luther, so
they got along.
That all came crashing down, though, when Congress
voted not to allow the NSA to buy the latest gizmo that company manufactured.
And it wasn’t just the vote not to buy it. There was a big scandal about its
performance. That scandal brought the company down.
Luther Cobalt was out of a job.
And the Congressman who led the charge to abandon
that product and that company? The Congressman who used that scandal to
catapult his career forward?
Mike Vincent.
Luther grew more and more bitter as he read the
fawning newspaper stories about how Vincent defended the taxpayers from corrupt
purchasing and contracting. Usually, he was reading them on his way to the
Classified Ads to look for work. But his time at Electron Guidewire ended up
serving him well.
Many of their clients worked for government agencies
like the CIA, the NSA, the FBI, or others in the alphabet soup. They were all in
the national security business somehow or another.
One of those people recognized Luther as a fairly
tough guy who didn’t ask questions.
He began to occasionally hire Luther for black,
secret, completely deniable work. The jobs were rarely pretty or legal, but
sometimes in the murky world of protecting the homeland, they needed doing. And
when they did, Luther got them done.
Eventually, Luther acquired a reputation as a person
who would and could apply violence successfully. He was a lethally effective fighter,
although he managed to keep the “lethal” part of it out of any official record.
That brought him to the attention of other people who had need of his skills.
He began to take money from drug dealers and others in organized crime to keep
himself afloat between government jobs. Luther began to drift in and out of the
criminal underworld.
It didn’t take long before he ran afoul of the law,
but his connections there won him a deal: Go back to work for the drug dealer
he’d been working for but this time wear a wire.
The Feds liked his results. The criminals never knew
how little he could be trusted. Luther Cobalt lived in the murky gray world
between the darker elements of America’s national security establishment and
people who got rich by breaking the law.
The combination proved to be a lucrative one. Spies
oftentimes needed a bridge to organized crime. When Intelligence agencies
wanted a “private contractor” who could do very dirty jobs and give them
plausible deniability, Luther Cobalt took the job.
Sometimes, they would hire him for jobs that
required two people, or even more. He gained experience at hiring muscle.
Eventually, he built a solid living for himself as a
dark operator firmly riding the fence between law enforcement and crime. But
his connections to the Federal intelligence agencies presented an opportunity.
His brother Doyle was a university researcher
plugging away in the field of genetics. But when his research began to hint at
the existence of a “gene for criminal behavior,” Luther was in a position to
connect him with people who could use that kind of thing.
Doyle got a steady stream of grant funding.
Luther got increased prestige and status within the
inner circles of the government agencies that liked Doyle’s work.
Everyone was happy.
Until one day Luther was reading his hometown paper
and discovered that their U.S. Senator was resigning. The leading candidate to
take his place was none other than the very man who had once cost Luther his
job: Mike Vincent.
Luther Cobalt couldn’t pass up the chance. Why sit
by and let that jerk get promoted when he happened to know a successful
academic who could be every bit as good a Senator?
And of course, with Doyle in the U.S. Senate, he
could make a few choice adjustments to his deal with the
meant the company could afford to pay its people well. He worked his way up,
eventually becoming the lead security guard, reporting directly to the director
of security. His boss actually had a fairly similar personality to Luther, so
they got along.
That all came crashing down, though, when Congress
voted not to allow the NSA to buy the latest gizmo that company manufactured.
And it wasn’t just the vote not to buy it. There was a big scandal about its
performance. That scandal brought the company down.
Luther Cobalt was out of a job.
And the Congressman who led the charge to abandon
that product and that company? The Congressman who used that scandal to
catapult his career forward?
Mike Vincent.
Luther grew more and more bitter as he read the
fawning newspaper stories about how Vincent defended the taxpayers from corrupt
purchasing and contracting. Usually, he was reading them on his way to the
Classified Ads to look for work. But his time at Electron Guidewire ended up
serving him well.
Many of their clients worked for government agencies
like the CIA, the NSA, the FBI, or others in the alphabet soup. They were all in
the national security business somehow or another.
One of those people recognized Luther as a fairly
tough guy who didn’t ask questions.
He began to occasionally hire Luther for black,
secret, completely deniable work. The jobs were rarely pretty or legal, but
sometimes in the murky world of protecting the homeland, they needed doing. And
when they did, Luther got them done.
Eventually, Luther acquired a reputation as a person
who would and could apply violence successfully. He was a lethally effective fighter,
although he managed to keep the “lethal” part of it out of any official record.
That brought him to the attention of other people who had need of his skills.
He began to take money from drug dealers and others in organized crime to keep
himself afloat between government jobs. Luther began to drift in and out of the
criminal underworld.
It didn’t take long before he ran afoul of the law,
but his connections there won him a deal: Go back to work for the drug dealer
he’d been working for but this time wear a wire.
The Feds liked his results. The criminals never knew
how little he could be trusted. Luther Cobalt lived in the murky gray world
between the darker elements of America’s national security establishment and
people who got rich by breaking the law.
The combination proved to be a lucrative one. Spies
oftentimes needed a bridge to organized crime. When Intelligence agencies
wanted a “private contractor” who could do very dirty jobs and give them
plausible deniability, Luther Cobalt took the job.
Sometimes, they would hire him for jobs that
required two people, or even more. He gained experience at hiring muscle.
Eventually, he built a solid living for himself as a
dark operator firmly riding the fence between law enforcement and crime. But
his connections to the Federal intelligence agencies presented an opportunity.
His brother Doyle was a university researcher
plugging away in the field of genetics. But when his research began to hint at
the existence of a “gene for criminal behavior,” Luther was in a position to
connect him with people who could use that kind of thing.
Doyle got a steady stream of grant funding.
Luther got increased prestige and status within the
inner circles of the government agencies that liked Doyle’s work.
Everyone was happy.
Until one day Luther was reading his hometown paper
and discovered that their U.S. Senator was resigning. The leading candidate to
take his place was none other than the very man who had once cost Luther his
job: Mike Vincent.
Luther Cobalt couldn’t pass up the chance. Why sit
by and let that jerk get promoted when he happened to know a successful
academic who could be every bit as good a Senator?
And of course, with Doyle in the U.S. Senate, he
could make a few choice adjustments to his deal with the
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