Jack Del Rio: Complete Trilogy: Reservations, Betrayals, Endgames

by Richard Paolinelli

  Two go-bags, with clothes, cash, passports, official IDs and – more importantly – weapons were packed in the trunk. He had a similar set up in his truck and even saddlebags in the corral if he’d needed to leave on horseback. That foresight would serve him well now.

  He got back into the battered Mustang and headed for the airport. There was a plane waiting there and he knew just what he would use it for.

  * * * * *

  Archer eventually gave up on finding the jammer.

  “It could be anywhere,” he decided. “Let’s get going.”

  “Where?” Sanders asked.

  “We’re going to take Jack’s truck and head after him. Maybe we’ll get a signal out there along the way, but I’m not just sitting here and waiting.”

  By the time they pulled up to the ambush site, still unable to get a call through, they arrived at the same time two NNPD patrol cars and a fire truck were arriving at the hellish scene.

  “Oh my god,” Sanders whispered, seeing the carnage and not seeing Del Rio’s Mustang anywhere. There was no need to ask for an explanation.

  “Dammit, we were all too late,” Archer said as he stopped the truck. He pulled out his FBI badge as he got out of the truck and approached the officers. The fireman quickly went to work trying to put out the remaining fires.

  He walked around the perimeter, staying out of the way of the firemen, and checked the four bodies of the attackers scattered around the scene. They’d clearly been struck by a vehicle moving at great speed. Two of the men were pale, both with red hair. Archer had no doubt these would be the two Irishmen reportedly hanging around the Reservation. The other two were Middle-Eastern, confirmation of Callum’s report that the New IRA and ISIS had joined in an unholy alliance of terror that had reached America.

  He strode over to the closest NNPD car to borrow the radio. He needed to call this in and someone needed to contact the airport and try to stop Del Rio. Even as Archer keyed the mic he felt certain it was probably too late.

  * * * * *

  Del Rio parked the Mustang next to the jet Callum had arranged for the flight to Canada, grabbed the two bags from the trunk – pausing only long enough to withdraw the ID he was going to need – and quickly boarded the plane, pulling the ramp closed behind him.

  Tossing the bags on a nearby seat in the passenger cabin, he leaned into the cockpit and basically stole the plane.

  “Good morning, gentlemen,” he greeted the pilots with the best British accent he could affect, flashing the ID of MI-6 agent Sir John Rivers. “We have a slight change of plans. Callum’s party is heading for another destination and we’re going to be the decoy plane. Take off and head east instead.”

  “What’s our destination, Sir John?” the command pilot asked after carefully examining the ID.

  “Nassau,” Del Rio replied. “The less chatter on your radio the better, so limit communications with air traffic control as much as possible. After we get to Nassau, I get off and you return to London under the same conditions, no matter what you are told. When you get to London, you’ll be debriefed and you can give a full report then. Understood?”

  “Yes, Sir John,” both pilots responded.

  “Good, then let’s get this bird up and get to Nassau.”

  By the time the call came in to Kayenta Airport’s tower to stop the takeoff, they were already well southeast of Albuquerque. Thanks to the way Callum had set the flight up, frantic calls to the plane to return to Kayenta went out to a call number that had never existed. The call number for the plane Del Rio was on only got ordinary calls from ATC as it worked its way to the Bahamas.

  * * * * *

  Karpov was almost out of his plane before it rolled to a complete stop, the old man was still spry for his age, at the Montpellier Airport in southern France. The car he had ordered quickly pulled up beside the plane and the driver quickly hopped out to open the door just as Karpov reached the bottom of the ramp.

  “Number 15,”Karpov instructed as he slipped into the back seat. “Impasse du Parc in Saint-Aunes. As quickly as possible.”

  The driver nodded smartly, closed the door and reclaimed his place behind the wheel of the car. He broke every speed limit posted between the airport and the destination but he definitely got Karpov there quickly.

  The old man charged up the walk of the classic French cottage and rapped smartly on the door until it finally opened.

  “Vlade,” Mary Del Rio exclaimed in surprise. “What on Earth are you doing here?”

  “Collecting you, dear lady,” Karpov explained. “Grab whatever you can get quickly, we must hurry.”

  “But, why?”

  “Your grandson’s location has been discovered,” Karpov explained as he stepped inside to hurry her along. “And certain, very well-informed groups are after him. I fear they may eventually discover your existence as well. We need to get you on the move and protected.”

  “We need to help, Jack,” she protested, opening up a closet and withdrawing two black bags. She had packed them against a time like this the day she moved into the cottage three years before.

  “And we will,” Karpov promised, opening the door to lead her out to the car. “But first we get you secure then we will do whatever we can for him. Come, I have a plane waiting for us. I will fill you in once we are in the air.”

  TWELVE

  “So you are telling me,” President Arthur rumbled. “That after five days we have no leads whatsoever on who pulled off this terrorist act in Arizona, how they found out where those people were in the first place, nor do we know the current whereabouts of Jack Del Rio?”

  “That about sums up the current situation, sir,” Archer reported, standing in front of the President’s desk in the Oval Office. The only other person in the room, Director Doyle, winced a little in sympathy. It wasn’t the FBI agent’s fault, but unfortunately for him the messenger was the only person available to be verbally shot.

  “To be fair, Mr. President,” Doyle interjected, coming to Archer’s rescue. “The people at the heart of this are…were…highly-trained professionals. Castleton certainly knew how to cover the tracks of his betrayal so that all we know is he received a lot of money in exchange for selling out his people.

  “Callum was determined to drop completely off the grid once he left Del Rio’s home in Arizona,” Doyle continued. “He set up the switch for the flight so perfectly so that any attempt to contact the plane would go unanswered since the pilots would not respond. Del Rio must have known about it and used it to disappear after the attack. He had almost a full day’s head start to disappear from Nassau by the time the plane landed back in London and the pilots reported in.”

  “We’ve confirmed the identities of all the dead?”

  “The ten in the cars?” Archer answered. “Yes, sir. As far as the four terrorists Del Rio killed when he arrived on the scene? Still no ID yet, but we’re pretty certain which organizations they were allied with. The Brits are running all four of them down.”

  “Do we have any idea where Del Rio is heading?” Arthur asked.

  “Specifically and how he’s going to get there?” Archer answered. “No, sir, we do not. But there’s no doubt he’ll be going after the groups involved in the ambush. He’ll want to know who paid Castleton, that is the person behind this and that is the one person Jack will very much want to get his hands on.”

  “What are our friends across the pond doing about these…people?”

  “They’ve arrested some already on smaller charges, trying to sweat something out of them. But so far, they’ve got nothing. This was a very tightly run op by persons unknown who know what they are doing.”

  “And what do they plan on doing about Del Rio if he shows up as expected?”

  “If they’re smart,” Doyle said quietly. “They’ll get the hell out of his way. That man damn near shot the hell out of D.C. when they tried to kill him and wound up killing his fiancée instead. I can’t begin to imagine what he’s going to do t
o get to the people who killed his little girl.”

  “And here I sit wondering if I should send someone after him,” Arthur remarked quietly. “Or send him as much help as he needs. We’re all thinking this might be connected to the same people that tried to kill me four years ago, aren’t we?”

  “It seems likely,” Archer agreed.

  “Damn,” Arthur swore. “Archer, stay in touch with your connections in England, try to see if there’s a way to head Del Rio off. This reporter in Arizona he is close to…”

  “Hannah Sanders, sir. She’s staying at Jack’s place in case he comes back.”

  “Keep contact with her as well in case he does and have her urge him to come in before this gets out of hand.”

  “I will do that, sir. But in all honesty, Jack’s not coming back until he’s run every one of them down and buried them.”

  * * * * *

  Kahlil Al-Mufti was the head of a very small ISIS-connected cell in London and he was a very worried man. He’d heard nothing from his two men in Arizona since they’d reported getting the green light for the ambush. Five days of silence had not been the plan. Then the sudden arrest of three others by the British police had sent Al-Mufti and the remaining three cell members fleeing London for a safe house in Reading.

  “Where is Malik?” he demanded, walking into the main room of the house and coming up one short in his head count.

  “We are running low on food,” Zayd answered. “He went to get a few more days’ worth. He thought it best to go alone and not attract unwanted attention.”

  “Good thinking,” Kahlil said. “I would very much like to know what has gone wrong in America.”

  “Perhaps nothing,” Hamid pointed out. “They could just be being very cautious in returning.”

  “Perhaps,” Kahlil replied. “But we’ve heard no news of an attack in Arizona and I do not like the sudden capture of our brothers in London at all.”

  The conversation was interrupted by the sound of the back door opening and closing, followed by the sound of bags being dropped gently on the kitchen table.

  “Malik,” Kahlil exclaimed as he turned toward the kitchen. “What have you brought us?”

  Malik slowly stepped into the room, an odd look upon his face, and said nothing in reply.

  “Malik? What is wrong?”

  The man suddenly tumbled forward and fell lifelessly to the floor, a very large blade protruding from his back. Behind him was a man with long, dirty-blonde hair with a matching bushy mustache and clearly a Westerner.

  None of the other three men moved a muscle, partly owing to shock but mostly owing to the very large gun in the stranger’s hand.

  “You’re Kahlil al-Mufti?” the man asked, looking right at Kahlil.

  “I am.”

  “Then these other two are of no use to me.”

  Before the words could even register, the man quickly fired two rounds each into the other men. Even with the silencer the sound of the shots seemed loud, but Kahlil doubted anyone outside of the house heard a thing.

  “And you will kill me next?”

  “No,” the stranger replied. “You will tell me who sent you to kill my friends in Arizona.”

  “So they failed then? Why should I tell you anything?”

  “Because you can tell me now or I can make you die slowly and very painfully until you do. “

  With that the stranger shot Kahlil in the knee, driving him screaming to the carpeted floor. Before he could react, the stranger quickly searched Kahlil and relieved him of the only weapon he had on his person, a knife. Kahlil was then expertly bound in short order.

  “I will bleed out before I talk,” Kahlil said defiantly, looking at the blood streaming out of his knee.

  “I doubt it,” the stranger replied, leaving the room only to return with Kahlil’s knife in hand, the blade glowing red. Before Kahlil realized what was coming, the blade was laid on top of the wound. Kahlil screamed, then passed out. The stranger returned the knife to the kitchen and returned with a large pitcher of cold water which he poured on Kahlil’s head, rousing the man back to consciousness.

  “Who are you?” Kahlil gasped out.

  “Tell me who paid you to hunt down Laura Cassidy and her daughter,” the man responded. “And I will tell you who I am and why I’ve come for you.”

  “I couldn’t even if I wanted to, you fool,” Kahlil said. “I never met the person. I just got money and information and passed it on.”

  “To the New IRA?”

  “Yes. We decided we both had common cause.”

  “At least until your new friends were of no further use, then you’d turn on them as well, right?”

  “Of course.”

  “I see. Then we have nothing further to discuss,” the stranger said, standing up.

  “Who are you? You told me you’d tell me.”

  “My name is Jack Del Rio and there’s only one question left between us, Kahlil.”

  “And that is?” Kahlil said, trying to put on a brave front as he understood his death was now imminent.

  “Will you die from this before the flames reach you,” Del Rio answered as he fired one last shot, right into Kahlil’s liver. Tied up and unable to move, Kahlil could only watch as black blood leaked out of the new wound. Del Rio left the room once again, spreading lighter fluid about in his wake, pausing only long enough to stuff a gag in the bound man’s mouth.

  Then, the image of seeing Jackie burning in the back of the SUV and calling out to him flashed in his mind, and he doused the bound man’s legs lightly with the flammable liquid. Seeing the intent behind the pattern, Kahlil’s eyes flared wide and he tried to scream something at his executioner past the gag.

  But Del Rio wasn’t listening. He opened the door, stepped outside and looked right at Kahlil as he pulled an old silver cigarette lighter out of his pocket, lit it and tossed it into the room. Without another word to Kahlil, Del Rio closed the door as the room erupted into flames, the fire quickly followed the path of fluid he’d sprayed throughout and even as Del Rio got into his car and drove away, the house was engulfed.

  By the time the fire brigade arrived it was far too late to save anything and Del Rio had already ditched the car and the entirety of his disguise. The only person to witness him leaving the scene had focused, as intended, on the very loud shirt he’d worn and the blonde hair and completely botched the description of the car Del Rio had departed in.

  The police would never find the man or the car they were looking for. By the time they had been able to determine who the four bodies were in the burned out house – thanks to Kahlil’s car being parked in the unattached garage – and that all four were suspected terrorists wanted by MI-6, Del Rio was already on a train for Holyhead to catch a ferry to Dublin.

  He was in yet another disguise, traveling under a different name with a British passport, as an older man with gray hair, wearing very dark glasses and carrying a cane typically carried by the blind.

  He was passed by several LEOs, passed through several security checkpoints and never once did anyone suspect his real identity. He had been travelling this way since leaving Nassau. Once he arrived at his latest destination, he would discard the ID and the disguise and take on a new one.

  He had caught a ride on a boat to Miami, boarded a flight to London and walked through customs without a hitch. Once in London, he used his knowledge of MI-6’s computer system to access all the information they had on the two groups he was hunting. He chose the ISIS group because of their smaller size. With two members of the cell dead back in Arizona, and three already jailed, Del Rio went after the remaining four, locking in on Malik and following him to the safe house.

  In all honesty, he doubted any of them knew much about who had orchestrated the ambush. But he needed to be sure and Kahlil had quickly confirmed it. With the ISIS group dispatched – he would see to the other three soon enough and he doubted MI-6 would release them anytime soon after Del Rio’s work this day – it was
time to deal with the much larger New IRA group. MI-6 estimated their number to be between one hundred and one hundred and fifty. Dispatching them wasn’t his biggest concern.

  Finding the one person who could lead him to whoever was behind all of this before he killed that person was the challenge.

  * * * * *

  With the deaths of Callum and Castleton, Laurence Hunter-Bailey had been tasked to take over the anti-terror unit of MI-6. Once the identities of the bodies in Reading had been determined Hunter-Bailey led his team to the scene to investigate.

  “It’s arson,” the fire marshal reported when Hunter-Bailey arrived. “Little doubt of that judging by how quickly it spread and the burn patterns. The odd thing is that the bodies weren’t burned that much. Whoever did this wanted us to know who they were and how they died.”

  “Three of them were shot twice each,” the coroner added, stepping into the conversation. “The fourth has one hell of a knife protruding from of his back. Now, two of the three shot took a round each in the head and the heart and died instantly.

  “The third man died slow and painful,” the coroner continued. “He took a round in the knee, was bound up and gagged at some point, then shot in the liver. I’m not sure which got him first, that shot or inhaling the smoke.”

  “I see,” Hunter-Bailey said. “Thank you gentlemen.”

  Hunter-Bailey turned away, his new second walking beside him.

  “What do you think, Boss?” the woman asked.

  “I think we just discovered where Jack Del Rio is, or at least was recently, and what exactly he has in mind.”

  “How did he get in the country without us spotting him?”

  “You read his file,” Hunter-Bailey said. “Same as I did. He spent his entire professional life figuring out how to stop something like this by figuring out how to do it first. And he’s highly motivated to complete his mission.”

  “You don’t think we can stop him, do you?” she asked, incredulous.

  “No, I don’t,” he admitted. “To be honest, I wonder if we should even be trying to stop him. But that is our job and we will do everything we can to stop him. Tom Callum would expect nothing less of us than that.”