The Contract

20: Contractual Obligations

Twenty: Contractual Obligations

The Ballroom of Caldera Cay was a magnificent space, a hundred feet long and fifty wide with the ceiling a dizzying forty feet above the intricate inlaid mahogany and ebony floor, the stucco relief work picked out in gold leaf and the three chandeliers. A large rosewood table was placed in the centre of the ballroom with a magnificent Norman chair-almost a throne-placed at the head of the table. The lights were all on, despite the fact that it was in the middle of the day, though the day was grey and cool and the room was ringed by ASS. At the head of the table, the powerful shape of the President stood, his familiar shape with the dark skin, jet hair in dreadlocks and the charcoal grey suit, the scarlet sash of Presidency slung over his left shoulder where the arm ended just beyond the shoulder. The man's face was marked with scars from the same terrorist attack that had cost the man his arm when he was younger, his dark eyes cold and his beard small and braided.

Behind him, the Vice-President was a more compact though powerful shape, his hazel eyes frighteningly intelligent and dark hair cropped short, his manicured beard neat. He was in a perfect black suit with a deep grey shirt. Beside him was the Security Minister, a tall women with green eyes and bright red hair, pulled off her broad and determined face into a high ponytail. Dressed in cream, she cut a stunning figure And behind her was the Foreign Minister, a tall powerful man with shaven head, deep hazel eyes and a stripe of beard on his large chin. Dressed in the same black as the Vice-President, his brother. the man cracked his fists as the group approached.

Spitelout bowed his head and the President beckoned him closer with his remaining right hand.

"Thank you for coming, Director Jorgensen," the man said, his deep gruff voice familiar from his telecasts.

"President Bludvist, the honour is mine," Spitelout said in a respectful voice. "BHS is always at your disposal. Though I was astonished that you wanted to speak with this...man..." Drago Bludvist's heavy black brows dipped as he looked over his hooked nose at the tall, lean shape of the hitman.

"Why should you be surprised?" Bludvist asked. "He achieved what you could not. He possessed the ruthlessness to complete the mission and assassinate the terrorist Dagur Oswaldson. He is a credit to Berk." His voice had risen and the way he said 'Berk' made Hiccup's skin crawl.

"But this man is a criminal, a man who kills for money!" Spitelout protested. "He's a disgrace. He is wanted for multiple murders and should spend the rest of his life in jail."

"I think you miss the point, Director," Vice-President Viggo Grimborn explained in his smooth, measured voice. "In this case, the end very much justified the means. Where an individual deviates so violently from societal norms and is so resistant to all legal and reasonable attempts to bring him to justice, sometime extreme measures can be justified."

"And...are you saying this was acceptable?" Spitelout asked gruffly. "That we should use state-sponsored assassins to deal with problems that the legal services can't deal with?"

Astrid stiffened, her eyes flicking sideways and inspecting the tall, auburn-haired shape. She knew about Hiccup's previous life as a Special Ops sniper, assigned to deal with people that the government deemed too dangerous to be allowed to live. And while she realised much of his work would be in combat situations with the army, providing cover for his colleagues, the knowledge that he had been used to assassinate Oswald Oswaldson, a man who was definitely a traitor and who had committed terrible crimes against people in the Berserker territories...but who had been an opponent of Bludvist in the Presidential elections was chilling, not reassuring. Suddenly the Vice-President's words had a very strong resonance and she found her stomach feeling incredibly unsettled at the implications. Was this what these men believed-that problems, difficult situations should be dealt with by just killing the man? By disposing of anything that they found a threat?