Diablo
Page 32
‘Good grief!’ said Pearman. ‘This will take more than just me to deal with! I’ll have to form a team!’
‘Knock yourself out!’ said Swann.
Pearman shut the passenger door and walked around to the driver’s side. She climbed in and closed the door. Then she buzzed the window down and said with a wink, ‘Stay out of trouble!’ as she started the engine.
‘Promise I won’t!’ replied Swann, grinning back at her. ‘I’ve still got your card!’
‘Well maybe you should ring the number on it sometime!’ Then she put the car in gear and took off down the road, back to D.C.
Swann stood for a while, watching her go until he could see her no more.
Epilogue
Cricket had made his way north to the crossroads where he hitched a ride at a lonely Chevron gas station, the only shelter for miles. The lift was a lucky break. The driver of the big rig took him back west through Dolan Springs, and then north again to Las Vegas where he let him out.
The money Swann had given Cricket was enough to get him through the next month or more until he could find an honest income, maybe out of town where it would be cheaper to live. So he decided to go settle for a spell in a small one-horse town called Caliente where no one, least of all the Feds, would ever find him. It would be a good, safe place to get back into the hacking business.
Sylvanus Spencer Simms was very satisfied with the results of the Reaper mission against Diablo. The “cleaners” had done their thing again and removed all trace of human remains from the property out in the Arizona desert. They had been given very specific directions, details and orders. ‘In and out. No traces left. Six targets, one of whom might still be alive. Name of Lucas. To be taken into custody and delivered anonymously to the nearest hospital.’ Lucas was leaning up against an old tin shed looking like he’d just been to Hell and back when the cleaners arrived. He had been shivering and dehydrated, filthy and covered in blood and flies.
But now he was chained to a hospital bed with a drip in his arm, like his colleague had been earlier, and also spilling his guts to the Feds who were trying in vain to put all the pieces together. It was going nowhere. No one knew who “the huge guy in black” was. They’d asked Lucas what this mystery guy had been driving. ‘Some big-ass all-terrain thing . . . could be a Ford. Black. Is all I know!’ Not much of a lead. They’d go looking for black utility vehicles with a big guy inside. Big deal.
Simms was surprised that there was nothing worth a dime left at Diablo’s demolished ranch. No documents, no dirty money. Nothing. The place seemed to have been cleaned out of any trace of Diablo himself. The only potentially useful items recovered were computer gear belonging to someone who went by the online alias “MORDOR”, a well-known hacker whose true identity was still a mystery and whose whereabouts as yet unknown, although there were promising leads pointing to a small, one-horse town north of Vegas called Caliente, according to the cyber security guys. No unaccounted-for dead body had been found, which meant “Mordor” was still out there. But all trace of Diablo had gone.
‘Was the floor safe already empty when you got there?’ Simms had asked Swann over the secure phone.
‘No idea!’ replied Swann.
‘There must have been something worth taking, surely!’ insisted Simms. ‘I don’t believe you.’
‘Well there was a cute polar bear skin there. That could be worth something. Not too many of those around Arizona!’
‘You’re a real pain in the ass, Swann! Do you know that?’
‘Good to know!’
And then the line went dead.
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About the Author
Welcome to the world of “Nick Swann”. He has been a large part of my life, living in my mind for many years as the character I would one day write about. My family and friends all know of him and who he is supposed to be. We would sometimes indulge in amusing banter, fantasies as to what “Nick Swann” was doing right now. Who is he hunting? Who is in his crosshairs today? Is he following us? Did he just walk into that café there, or through that red door to meet the man he intends to kill tomorrow, like the ancient Persian parable of the Appointment in Samarra?
When someone was uncertain about what to do in a situation, I would occasionally ask, with tongue in cheek, “What would Nick Swann do?” In many ways, “Nick Swann” is a reflection of myself; someone with an elemental sense of justice and a straight forward view of the world and how it should be. As stated in the front of this book, some of the background events described are in fact accurate accounts of real-life incidents. For example, the incident with the man in the Taurus who blasted his horn at Swann for taking a couple of seconds too long to accelerate after the traffic lights had changed to green, is an accurate account. The same is true of the incident with the truck driver who deliberately swerved too close to Swann, hoping to knock him off his motorcycle; Swann subsequently followed him all the way home and did indeed convince him that “it was a dumb idea!”. Other incidents related in this book are also real-life events, suitably sanitized.
All the small desert towns mentioned exist, as do all the streets and roads, as well as the Baptist Church mentioned in Kingman. I hope the good folk in the church don’t mind my using their place of worship as a drop-off zone for stolen loot.
I have however taken some liberties with the internal functioning of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Justice purely for literary effect. The role of “Sally” the secretary is a blend of roles and no such person exists. However, the Joint Regional Intelligence Center, JRIC, does exist and operates out of that building in Sawtelle, L.A. The “Reaper” program mentioned throughout is a fictitious entity under that name, but is based squarely on historical fact.
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If you enjoyed reading this book and would like to see more of Nick Swann and his swashbuckling escapades, delivering his unique brand of justice to thugs, villains and scoundrels, please leave a favorable review. Thank you very much.
James Kent