John Crane is an agent for a billionaire.
That is a very unique category for employer in this compendium. There are several operatives, or groups of operatives, who work for an organization headed by a mega-rich man, or men, but to say a fellow worked for a wealthy man straight out is uncommon. No corporation. No cool (or not so cool) acronym. Just a man.
That man is Josh Sulenski, an Internet billionaire who made a scad load of money by creating a very fancy algorithm that rich people and huge corporations used to predict likely changes in the stock market a handful of seconds before they happened. All very upper atmosphere sort of stuff. But it did leave this 26 years old man extremely well off and he started buying companies that he could either shore up and then sell for even more money or keep in his orbit and make more money.
Along the way this Sulenski decided there were times when he saw something that needed fixing, something that a trained resourceful operative backed by Sulenski's money and his companies might be able to help. And that is where Crane comes in.
Crane had been, after likely an amount of time in the military, selected to be part of a highly select government department known as the Hurricane Group. This covert operation was so hidden, its budget and administrative personnel were attached to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. After an extended period of training, Crane had just completed his second mission when apparent political squabbling saw the dissolution of the group. Highly skilled and fairly experienced Crane was out of work.
He could have taken a desk job. He could have shopped his talents and impressive resume to other agencies always on the lookout for talent like his. He could have searched the Internet for the many positions like that in the private sector.
He went to Key West to chill out.
Which is where Sulenski found him and offered him a position handling little jobs here and there that might require a bit more of a personal touch. "Crane reminded himself that Josh came from a different world. He'd hired a former government field agent with the idealistic notion that he and Crane would protect the innocent and save the world. But even as he sent Crane out to do battle, Josh seemed surprised that they were up against enemies who would fight back, and fight dirty."
Crane would quickly find that he liked the money he made, liked the work he was asked to do, liked the good feeling he got from helping people, and actually liked his boss.
Good Lines:
- "The fact that Crane reluctantly agreed with [his boss, Josh] didn't make it any less annoying that Josh kept coming up with risky missions and leaving Crane to execute them."
- As Crane insists on driving, and more importantly not letting his billionaire boss drive, a Lamborghini Aventador Superveloce while they were in the Canadian Rockies, Crane explains, "This thing was built from the ground up to kill rich people."