Where Death Meets the Devil

by L. J. Hayward

  And it was God’s honest truth. He hadn’t passed any intel back to the Office. They couldn’t risk anything more than a location ping. All the information Jack had gathered was in the implant. Even if something happened to him, the implant had enough independent battery life to store the data until his body could be retrieved. A comforting thought for his handler only.

  The Man merely looked at him. Then he straightened his cuffs under his coat sleeves. “Someone sold out Yakim Nikonov to the Russian FSB. Two years and two million dollars is not a loss I can just write off because you’re willing to suck my dick.”

  Jack sat back, unable to keep the stunned look off his face.

  Yakim Nikonov was—had been—a brigadier in the Krylov bratva, looking to branch out on his own. Mr. Valadian had targeted Nikonov as a potential ally and had spent the past two years courting him. Negotiations had been slow and expensive.

  Jaidev Reed, however, wasn’t supposed to know about Nikonov, and now he needed to cover that lapse. Morphing the shock into grudging acceptance, he said, “Not that I was gagging for the chance, but if that’s what it takes to convince you I didn’t sell anyone out . . .”

  He had the grim satisfaction of seeing Mr. Valadian gape at him. Pretty Boy arched a dark eyebrow over the pane of his sunglasses.

  “This is getting nowhere,” The Man said firmly. “You played a damn fine game this past year. I never once suspected you.” With a wave of his hand, he indicated Pretty Boy. “I’ll leave you in the capable hands of my associate. He’ll persuade you to tell him everything you know, I’m sure. Did I introduce him before? No? So sorry. Mr. Jaidev Reed, it’s my pleasure to introduce you to Mr. Ethan Blade. I’m sure you’ve heard the name. Goodbye, Mr. Reed.”

  Jack didn’t even note the final dismissal or watch Mr. Valadian leave. He was focused wholly on the figure in the corner.

  Not Pretty Boy. Nothing so innocent.

  Right from the start of this bloody op, Jack had feared it would go tits up. There hadn’t been enough planning, nowhere near enough background information gathered on Valadian. They’d dropped Jack into this too fast and underprepared. He’d landed on his feet, though, and done the best he could, the best anyone could have done, given the lack of resources and intelligence on the subject. All that to the side, nothing could have prepared him for this.

  Ethan Blade. Jack fought the urge to panic.

  The somewhat ironically named John Smith List, updated by every intelligence agency around the world, catalogued all known assassins. The superstars of the paid-killer ranks held the top four or five positions, the wannabes filling out the lowest ones. It was, however, the mid-listers Jack feared the most. Those who calmly and methodically picked up tickets on targets, killed, and got paid. No flash, no glory. Ruthless and precise.

  Ethan Blade, the seventh-ranked assassin in the world, didn’t move or say anything. Just stood there and regarded Jack through the opaque veil of his sunglasses. A riddle wrapped in a mystery behind dark shades.

  Whatever happened now, be it a miraculous escape or certain death, Jack’s cover was shredded. He dropped the Jaidev Reed persona, squared his shoulders, and looked right back at those black lenses.

  “Ethan Blade, huh? I guess there weren’t too many professions you could go into with a name like that. International assassin or circus performer, really, they’re your only options.”

  Blade didn’t respond.

  Jack dredged up one of Blade’s most notorious jobs. “Those Marines in Colombia, found dead by poison inside their LAV. They never did discover how it was delivered. The men hadn’t eaten together. There was no trace of gas, no injection marks. Come on, tell me how you did it. One professional to another.”

  Nothing.

  “Okay, we’ll come back to that one. How about the team of Afghani special ops forces walking into the Dashti Margo and never being seen again. They were tracked right into a salt flat, where their footprints just stopped. Midstride, then gone. I’d love to know how that one was pulled off.”

  “It wasn’t me.”

  The reply was so unexpected it took Jack several seconds to process it, and even then all he could manage was, “What?”

  “The Dashti Margo. It wasn’t me.” The corners of Blade’s mouth turned up in a chilling little sardonic smile. “If you ever find out how it was done, let me know. One professional to another.”

  Before Jack’s shock-dulled brain could catch up, Blade retrieved the jammer from his pocket, cracked open the case, and fiddled inside for a moment. He closed it and tossed it at Jack. It landed in his lap.

  “When I say ‘now,’ hit the button.”

  “What?” Jack stared dumbly from the grey box to the man and back again. “What’s going on?”

  Blade reached under his coat and drew his handguns. They were Desert Eagles, visually impressive, but as a combat weapon, Jack had always thought them a bit too cumbersome. One had a laser sight attached under the barrel, and the small red dot danced across Jack’s chest for a moment. Thankfully, it moved off him when Blade strode past him, coming to lean against the wall, head tilted towards the door, listening.

  “Yell.”

  Straining his neck to look over his shoulder, Jack gaped at him. “What?” It was starting to sound like the only word he knew.

  “Yell, as if I were torturing you.”

  “No,” Jack snapped, tired and cold and too confused to care. “I’m not going to yell until you tell me—”

  The laser-sighted pistol aimed at his head. Jack blinked as the red dot skittered over his face, following him unerringly as he tried to dodge.

  “Yell.”

  So Jack yelled. He screamed and yelled, adding a few whimpers for good measure. Whatever Blade was waiting for happened a minute or so into the show. Waving for Jack to keep it up, he tucked one gun under his arm, took off his sunglasses, and folded them into an inner pocket of his suit jacket. Blinking rapidly, he grabbed the gun again and squared off against the door.

  “Now,” he said calmly and kicked open the door.

  Startled, Jack coughed on a pretend scream and jerked his head around, trying to see what was going on. Blade was through the doorway the moment it opened. The Desert Eagles boomed, aimed in opposite directions, followed by the dull thuds of bodies hitting the ground. Two more shots and a cry of pain. Whatever else might have resulted from it was drowned out by the sudden whine of the chopper firing up.

  Cutting through the drone of the chopper engine were the sharp retorts of return gunfire. The assassin dove to the ground and rolled out of sight, the Eagles answering in their deep, deadly voices. The door shut behind him, closing Jack off from the sudden combat.

  Holy shit. More than Jimmy and Robbo out there, then. However many there were, they couldn’t have all come in the chopper, which meant they’d been here all along.

  Jack wished him luck against the unquantified enemy. The Ethan Blade legend suggested he would actually win. Which was a positive for Jack. Not a great one but better than the current situation. With Mr. Valadian’s troops out of the equation, Jack would only have to deal with one man—Blade.

  It even sounded as if it was working, the frequency of exchanges lessening, the screams of dying men coming further apart. Still, the jumbled cacophony was enough to start memories of nightmare combat flashing on the edges of Jack’s perception.

  Before Jack was lost to the memories, the door slammed open and a calm and affable British voice called, “I said ‘now,’ Jack, if you please.”

  Oh. Yeah. The jammer.

  Spreading his thighs as much as he could, he let the box slide down between them, jiggling his legs so it landed on its side. Jack squeezed them together, depressing the button.

  Outside, the night exploded.

  McIntosh stalked into the situation room. She spared a quick glance for the staff at the banks of monitors, then arrowed in on Jack. “Explain this now, Mr. Reardon.”

  Jack straightened from leaning over Techn
ician Alderton’s chair. “Flick it to the big screen,” he told her, then turned to McIntosh. “The man who came asking for me.”

  One eyebrow cocked, McIntosh looked at the picture now spread across the big screen on the wall before them.

  The foyer of the building was open and airy with glistening marble floor, tasteful abstract sculptures, and leather seats that were incredibly uncomfortable to discourage lingering. The long, curving reception desk was manned by four operatives. Stock-standard security personnel guarded the entrance to the elevators and the foot of the grand, sweeping staircase that didn’t actually lead anywhere, but looked impressive.

  Currently, the reception staff were barricaded behind their desk, bulletproof shields raised, assault rifles and handguns at the ready. The security personnel had been joined by a tactical squad taking positions behind all the convenient sculptures and suddenly not-so-superfluous staircase. The front glass wall of the foyer had darkened until it was opaque, the space now flooded by emergency lighting. What it showed seemed very unimpressive.

  A single man knelt in the middle of the floor, dressed in a tailored suit, hands behind his head. Silent and obedient, he appeared to be the most unthreatening person in the world. With his arms up, his jacket gaped open, showing no signs of concealed weapons.

  “Unless he’s carrying the world’s smallest knife, he’s clear,” McIntosh muttered. “What about the name he gave? Paul St. Clair.”

  “We have two hundred and seventy-five hits on that name, estimated age, and ethnicity, but haven’t expanded the search outside of domestic databases yet,” a tech answered, fingers flying over his keyboard. “We’re eliminating them at a rate of five point two per minute, ma’am. We should have it narrowed down to three or four candidates in thirty minutes.”

  “Forget the search,” Jack said. “The man doesn’t exist in any database we can access.”

  McIntosh turned on him. “You obviously know who he is.” Implicit in her words was that anything other than full disclosure would be viewed as highly suspect.

  Jack studied the still figure on the screen. Nearly a year since he’d last seen him and even through the camera, he looked unchanged. Lean, strong, full of coiled potential. Lack of visible weapons didn’t mean the man was unarmed. It just made him more dangerous. That old sensation of dread and excitement returned.

  As if sensing him, the man in the foyer lifted his head and looked directly at the camera. A shock of dark hair fell back from his forehead. He wore sunglasses. Below the dark shades, his mouth was quirked up in a small smile.

  “Mr. Reardon.” McIntosh’s tone hovered just above a snarl. “Explain.”

  “He’s crazy,” Jack said, completely honest. “He was working for Valadian when I encountered him.”

  “Just tell me who he is.” McIntosh’s glacial words broke Jack’s shock like a dunk in ice water.

  “He’s Ethan Blade.”

  The announcement was met with silence, and then Alderton tapped furiously at her keyboard for a moment. She began reading from the file she’d pulled up. “Ethan Blade. Active assassin, working mostly in Eastern Europe, Africa, and South America. Preferred method of execution is a firearm; one instance of poison noted. Currently number seven on the JSL. Length of activity . . . sixteen years.” As she finished, she looked at Jack with a mildly sceptical expression. “Are you sure it’s him? The man in the foyer doesn’t look that old.”

  How to answer that safely? “Well, he was working for Valadian, and Valadian always had the finest of everything. And I saw him in action.” For good measure, he added, “If he isn’t Blade, he does a very good impression.”

  McIntosh turned to Jack. “The unnamed benefactor in your report.”

  When he’d come in after four weeks dark, Jack had stuck to the truth as much as possible. Less likely to trip himself up that way. He’d reported the events at the torture shack as they’d actually happened, just left out the name of Valadian’s “associate,” saying his benefactor—a disgruntled Valadian stooge—had disappeared into the night after the explosion.

  “Yes,” Jack agreed.

  “Everyone, get out.”

  For the second time that day—that hour—Jack found himself in private conference with Director McIntosh.

  Damn Ethan for putting him in this position.

  For a long moment, McIntosh ignored Jack and watched the unmoving assassin in the foyer of a building hiding one of the world’s most well-kept secrets.

  “You knew who he was when you wrote the report.”

  Heart skipping beats, Jack said, “I did.”

  It was too late for more dissembling. By showing up here, Ethan had effectively blown all of Jack’s reports of that time to smithereens.

  “Did you tell him about this building?”

  “Jesus! Of course not. Valadian left him in the torture shack with me. For reasons of his own, Blade decided not to kill me and helped me escape. The man took out a small army of Valadian’s troops to do so. When we parted ways, I said I wouldn’t reveal his part in it, but if I ever saw him again, I’d bring him in.” All true, as far as it went.

  Now that reason was creeping back in, Jack couldn’t believe it was happening. Not like this. He stared at the image of Ethan. Why now? Why like this? Ethan could have easily found Jack at home, at the gym, or anywhere other than here, somewhere they wouldn’t have to deal with this shit. And yet it was classic Ethan Blade. So perfectly insane Jack wanted to laugh. Relief and anger swirled in a heady mix, making him a bit reckless.

  He gestured grandly at the image of a captured, contrite Ethan Blade. “There you go, Director McIntosh. One less assassin in the world and another feather in your cap.”

  McIntosh cut Jack a look full of Arctic chill, then turned to the screen. “How did he find you then?”

  “Who the hell knows? The man poisoned a unit of US Marines in an armoured transport without leaving a hint as to how. Pretty sure finding an Office branch wouldn’t be beyond him.”

  “You sound almost as if you admire him.” McIntosh’s words hinted at Jack’s unfortunate admission of coming to like Valadian.

  “Not admire, as such,” Jack hedged. “More . . . cautious about underestimating him.”

  Jack was torn. There could be a couple of reasons why Ethan was here, only one of which was worth more than Jack’s life. In the months since parting in the desert, Jack had decided Ethan’s theory hadn’t panned out. There had been, after all, no fallout—and the fallout would have been unmissable. After so long, it couldn’t still be viable, surely.

  “Jack,” McIntosh said softly.

  Setting aside one potential trap, Jack focused on avoiding the other one. “Ma’am?”

  “Promise me, promise me, he isn’t here because you turned.”

  “God’s truth, ma’am. I haven’t turned. Would I have told anyone who he is if I had?”

  “Honestly, Jack, I don’t know.” With a frustrated sigh, McIntosh tapped Alderton’s screen, drawing the image closer to Ethan’s face. “All right. What’s our move?”

  Given a bit of breathing room at last, Jack took a moment to seal away his mixed feelings about Ethan’s appearance, putting them in the filing cabinet with all the other problems.

  “Make sure he’s not carrying,” he said. “Get him into a secure room. Find out why he’s here.”

  A full minute passed as they watched the unmoving assassin on the screen.

  “He’s here for you, Jack,” McIntosh said. “You have the task of securing him.”

  Jack kept his expression schooled into something vague. Not an hour ago, McIntosh had said she didn’t trust him fully. Now she was sending him into a very sensitive situation. On one hand, he could see why she might do it. Ethan was here for Jack, or at least, because of Jack. Who knew what results they’d get sending anyone else out there. Deaths? Possibly. A fight? More likely. Unnecessary roughness? Definitely. But if his director had recorded her doubts anywhere, this was skating too close to br
eaking policy for Jack’s comfort. McIntosh was usually a stickler for the rules.

  Except for when she’d broken land-speed records getting the Valadian job up and running and Jack inserted undercover, sidestepping several Office standard operating procedures to do so. Could her reason for throwing Jack into the op too quickly back then be the reason why she wanted him to deal with Ethan now?

  Christ! As if wondering why Ethan had picked now to show up wasn’t enough, he also had to think that maybe McIntosh had some hidden agenda as well.

  “Jack? Are you up to it?”

  If he didn’t want to play McIntosh’s game, he should say no. If he wanted Ethan brought in without blood being spilled, he had to say yes. His path split once again. It all came down to loyalty. He chose a path.

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said. “I’ll do it.”

  The shockwave rocked through the ground under the torture shack. The rusted bolts holding the chair in place cracked, and it and Jack toppled over. He hit the cement on his left side. Pain snapped through him from the knife wound, blanking out the roar of the explosion for a moment. When he could make out nuances beyond the dull pound of blood through his ears, Jack heard the rising whine of a chopper straining against gravity. The pitch of the engines was wrong, too high, overly stressed, as if something had been damaged. Then the sound evened out and, with a burst of deep, thrumming noise, the chopper shot away.

  So, the aircraft wasn’t what had exploded.

  In the wake of the vanishing chopper, Jack could make out the relatively quiet hiss and cackle of fire. Something out there was burning. A sudden flurry of gunshots signified some survivors.

  Jack struggled against the plastic ties, hoping his new position had changed something. The metal of the chair creaked, and the armrest under his right arm shifted. Teeth gritted, Jack worked his arm back and forth and up and down, feeling the frame of the chair move. Feeling, also, a rather excruciating pain rip up his arm. Tears stung his eyes and he blinked them away. The plastic armrest cracked as he kept working. Sucking in a deep breath, he held it and twisted his arm savagely. The old plastic snapped all the way through and fell away from the metal frame.