The Betrayal Chapter 20 snippett

If there was anything that made Haven worse then the smugglers, Richard Kosloski mused, it was the damned weather. Not being one to complain openly, he managed to slog his way through it, knowing why he was there. How much would it surprise the smugglers he dealt with, he thought, that he was an agent with Fleet Intelligence. However, they would never know about it, because to do so would sign his own death warrant and Kosloski found he enjoyed living too much for that.

Chuckling at the insanity of it all, he realized that Fleet thought they were his masters, which showed how little they understood about the realities of the outlaw worlds. He had thrown his loyalty out the window years ago when he realized how lucrative smuggling was compared to what he was legitimately paid. While there was more money to be made on the wrong side of the law, he kept doing his duties for Intelligence. Where most dirty agents screwed up, he reflected, they let their duties slip where he did not. No, he didn’t collect the level of information he could have collected, but he got enough to keep Intelligence thinking he was honest.

While the balancing act between the smugglers and Fleet kept him busier then a three-legged dog chasing a rabbit, he wouldn’t have had it any other way. As long as the money was pouring into his account, he thought, then he could leave it all behind in a couple of years and disappear into a quiet retirement. That is if the message he received today didn’t get him killed first.

A few months ago, while on a smuggling mission, he had witnessed something that had disturbed him. Catching a fleeting image on his sensors, he saw a alien ship of immense power pop in and out of h-space near his craft. Following orders, he had put that information into his next transmission, which had been three months ago. Now, Fleet was sending a female agent to Haven to interview him over his report.

So now he was going to get a visit from ‘The Banshee,’ he reflected with a sour snort.
Stepping into his favorite club, he couldn’t help but feel like the whole world was crashing down on him. Never one to not know who he was dealing with, he had taken the time to access her personnel files. Someone as famous as she was, he mused, could cause him trouble if he wasn’t careful.

The club he entered doubled as both a bar and a strip show. While the music played at a decent level, a blonde danced around the pole, stripping her clothes as she went. Having the damned woman arrived now wasn’t what he needed, he reminded himself. With several big deals on the horizon, the very fact that she was here could be enough to torpedo the entire damn thing!

While having her here is gonna cause me some inconvenience, he thought as he motioned for a drink. It might not be that bad. Most smugglers aren’t smart enough to watch the holovid news!

Taking his usual spot against the back wall, he scanned the room for anything that looked out of the ordinary. Like a woman would be in here on her own free will, he thought as he looked at the woman with blonde hair across the room. While she might be looking non-chalet now, he seriously doubted that she was here to make a deal. No, he thought, it was probably someone from Intelligence waiting for his friend.

Which means maybe there is some money to be made in this after all, he told himself.

Awaiting his visitor, Kosloski busied himself in such a way as to not tip of his shadow. While he would keep one eye on her, he also had a deal to broker. The flow of money into his bank account was, by far, more important than the incoming agent was. All she could bring him was trouble, he thought, while the man he was meeting would make his account grow larger, and allow him to remove the man at the same time.