Set to Kill: A Sean AP Ryan Novel (Convention Killings Book 2)

by Declan Finn

  Kovach blinked. “Son of a bitch.”

  Sean nodded. “Exactly. Because when defending against charges of slander and libel, truth is a defense. If they had sued you, you would have been able to kill them in discovery, and they would have ended up going to jail.”

  Kovach shook his head. “No. It couldn't be. It was insane. I wrote it that way because it tied everything together, but also because it was too freaking insane to be real.”

  “No. Yama Marshman was behind the 911 calls that led to the attempted SWATting incidents on each and every one of the Puppies. And ROT was behind Marshman. He was nuts. He could be guided.” He looked at Terry Smith-Smythe-Smits. “What did Moshevsky tell him? That going after the Puppies would eventually lead to hurting Cryomancer?”

  Terry's eyes narrowed. “Prove it, prick.”

  Sean smiled, as though he already had her confession. “It's why Kendall Adler couldn't be fired. She knew about the plot, and she could make as many dumb remarks as she liked without being fired.

  “But ROT's sales were going down due to a boycott. And Adler needed to go, otherwise both of you,” he said to the Smith-Smythe-Smits, “would be fired as the company went under.”

  “It was her or you. You chose her.” He glanced at Patty Smith-Smythe-Smits. “And guess who's holding the bag for it?” He smiled at Terry and Patty, still on the floor. “You see, there's also another problem. Now that you had Adler wrapped up and in the ground, it was time to snip the last loose end.” He looked at the call log again, and made a show of surprise. “Oh look, an outgoing call to the late Mister Marshman. Hmm, gee, I wonder if that was to coordinate his attack on Cryomancer.” He looked to Patty. “An attack that you used as a trap for Marshman. Though I noticed you waited until Cryomancer had won before shooting him. Hoping that he would go out doing one last bit of service for you, Patty?”

  Patty Smith-Smythe-Smits used the chair to pull himself to his feet, and Sean kicked his knee from behind, then swept in, grabbing the gun from the backpack. It was big and bulky, a forty-five with a laser under the barrel, a telescopic sight on top of it, with an extended magazine and a sound suppressor.

  “Wow, you are such a cliché liberal,” Sean muttered. “You don't even know how guns work, do you?”

  Castelo leaned over and looked at the gun. “Actually, the work isn't bad. All the bells and whistles are brain dead, of course, but to put a scope on a handgun? That takes work. You have to drill into it and everything. It's not like handguns come with a mount.”

  Sean nodded, taking a closer look at the weapon. “True. Though he could have gone to any gunsmith with a list of specs and enough cash; said gunsmith would have laughed and taken the money.” He thought a moment. “Though, come to think of it, I think I've heard rumors about a senator running guns out in California. Maybe I should check out who Patty has made contributions to.”

  Terry Smith-Smythe-Smits stood. “I'm leaving. You can't hold me. Or my husband. If you hold us, you'll be arrested for kidnapping. You're not the police.”

  Sean smiled. “You should have checked the membership agreement when you signed up for WyvernCon. Security are authorized to hold any and all suspects until the police arrive.” He held up the gun. “This makes it murder.” He held up the phone. “This makes it conspiracy to commit murder. And the SWATting brings in a dozen other felony charges.”

  Sean took a slow step towards Terry. “Do you know why I knew it was your husband? Because you were too strong—I knew that just from how often you worked with your hands. Moshevsky was too strong—he could strangle Adler without having to beat her half unconscious first. But your husband? Now he was just too easy to spot as the weakling he is. And the shots were all over the place. He needed a platform just to keep the gun steady, even with a laser sight and a telescopic sight.

  “Even without that? I would have known that at least one of you three had done it. There was no reason for Teapot or Daalman here to have bothered. Any one of those puppies behind me? They would have done it with the right weapon, or at the right range, or they would have successfully hit the target the first time. Face it. It's all over but the screaming.”

  Chapter 25: The Screaming

  Terry's eyes narrowed. She slowly rose to her feet, her right hand in her pocket.

  Sean's replying smile was tight, without teeth. The smile reached his eyes—they even crinkled with amusement.

  Terry studied those bright blue eyes a moment, then hesitated. Her hand stayed in her pocket, and she looked up and down Sean's body. His costume was functional, with real armor. Nothing she had on her could harm him, unless she went for his eyes.

  So Terry whirled, and grabbed S. Typhoon Teapot by the hair, jerking her to her feet. Terry's right hand came out, and held a knife to Teapot's throat. The knife was a small blade, not even three inches long. The handle didn't even look like a handle, but the upper part of a ballpoint pen. It was long enough.

  “See?” Terry crowed. “You're not smarter than me.” She held the pen knife to Teapot's skin, and drew along the throat a little, just enough to draw blood.

  Sean gave a small shake of his head, only a centimeter side to side, but Terry was focused enough to notice. And Sean was too focused to do more than that.

  “You know just how badly this is going to end for you, Terry?” Sean asked. “Do you understand just how poorly your chances are of walking out of this room are?”

  Terry ground her teeth together. “I don't care.”

  Sean looked at Terry, looked at her hostage, shrugged, and stepped back several paces, leaning against the wall of windows. He put the gun and the cell phone on the window sill and crossed his arms. “Okay. Fine. Great. Get out of here.”

  Terry blinked. “What?”

  Typhoon screamed, “What!”

  He shrugged. “There's no reason for me to chase after you, Terry. There's no need. Let's say for the sake of argument that you get away. You make it out of the room, with Typhoon here, and you flee. I had Stormtroopers lock down your room the minute after you left. Yours, and Moshevsky's. You can leave this room, you can leave this hotel, this convention, leave Atlanta and leave Georgia … But where are you going to flee to? Where could you possibly go?

  “Don't you get it? You're done. Everyone in this room has witnessed what you've done. Kidnapping, assault with a deadly weapon, I can probably even come up with some other rules and laws that you've violated here. I've even wired this room to broadcast on WyvernCon TV. The entire convention is watching you threaten this woman's life.

  “Think about it, you've killed your own employee. You conspired to have all of these authors,” he waved to the Puppies behind him, “killed by SWAT teams. You have nowhere to run to, nowhere to hide. So do me a favor, and decide if you want to surrender now, or if you want to run, and spend the rest of your days on the run from the cops. I don't think I care.”

  “Dunedain Ryan,” Galadren objected.

  Sean looked to the Elf, and saw that he had his bow already nocked with an arrow and drawn. Sean waved him off. “No reason for it. She's not even worth the arrow.”

  Galadren furrowed his brow. “But … I can clean the arrow after I shoot her in the head.”

  Sean rolled his eyes. “No need. Let her go.”

  Terry's eyes narrowed, and she tensed. Sean felt that something had changed.

  “You're right, Ryan,” Terry told him. “You're right. Everyone in this room knows what I've done. Everyone here would turn against me in a heartbeat.” She looked at the gun on the sill. “Give that to me?”

  Sean's eyebrows shot up. “You're not serious. You can't believe that I would give you the gun. Or that you could take us all out even if you had it.”

  Terry grinned. It was manic, and feral, and Sean wondered if she was completely there. “I can try, you bloodthirsty, mindless barbarian. You got lucky once. But I'm smarter than you. I'm better than you. I'm better than all of you. You and your Puppies. You're all so beneath me, I know you,
Ryan. Your pet terrorist.” She jerked her head towards Boyle. She looked to Galadren. “Your psychotic, murderous maniac. And you think that I'd lose to you?”

  “You've already lost, you nutjob,” Gary Castelo roared. He pushed himself to his feet, hand still on the tetsubo like a walking stick. “You're done. Don't you get that? Your job, your husband, your publishing company? At best, it'll be taken away. At worst, it's destroyed. What don't you understand? I always knew you dirtbags were stupid, and that you thought you were superior because we were 'subhuman,' but come on, you're passed that and you've gone on to delusional.”

  Terry's eyes lit up. “Maybe I have. But are you willing to risk her life on it?” She pulled on Teapot's hair again, exposing her throat. Teapot just stood there, frozen in terror.

  Sean looked at the room, and felt everyone tense. The Puppy side of the room looked like it was about to leap from their seats and rush her. Daalman and Martinez cowered on their side of the room.

  At which point, Sean sighed, pushed off of the wall, swept up the murder weapon, and stomped towards Terry Smith-Smythe-Smits. Before she could open her mouth to instruct him on how to hand it over, he thrust it into Terry's line of sight, almost hitting Teapot with the flat of the weapon.

  As soon as her line of sight was obscured by the gun, Sean's other hand came up, concealed by Teapot's body, and grabbed the hand with the knife. His fingers dug in to the meaty part of the hand just below the thumb. The point of his own thumb dug into the back of her hand, and he pulled down, hard, twisting the blade away from Teapot's neck.

  As though they were coordinated, Gary Castelo and Athena moved as one. Castelo bent forward, grabbed Teapot's arm with his left hand and yanked her away from the deranged publisher. Athena leaped forward and grabbed Terry by the shoulders, yanking her straight down to the floor. Then followed Terry to the ground, burying her knee in the psycho's chest.

  Sean took a deep breath, then let out a slow sigh of relief. “Well, that was a lot easier than I thought it would be.”

  Castelo looked at him like he was as crazy as the publisher on the floor. “What are you talking about? You think a hostage situation is a good way to end a case? What were you expecting?”

  “I believe he was expecting me,” came a deep, dramatic voice from the doors on the SMURF side of the room, not that Athena was no longer guarding them.

  Sean looked up, and saw the one he had been expecting: the mercenary that had been giving him such a hard time this entire convention. The one who shot him, blew up one of his hotel rooms, and tried to blow up the convention hall. With one with the deep black hair, widow's peak, and arched eyebrows that made him look like a low-key devil in a Hollywood production.

  Sean glanced to his right, and saw that there were bigger problems. The mercenary had not come alone. On the other side of the room, in the door nearest the Puppies, Brian was already held at gunpoint—the muzzle of the weapon was jammed underneath his chin. The gunman wore a costume of powered armor from a popular first-person shooter video game.

  That gunman wasn't so much the problem as the other dozen-plus men in the doorway behind him.

  Several more gunman appeared at the doorway behind the troublesome merc, and they were similarly dressed.

  “Pardon me if I find myself using slightly dramatic measures in order to make my point,” the mercenary continued, “but I'm afraid that my patience is at an end.”

  Sean arched a brow. “May I presume that you're the one who sicced a collection of Russian mafia and gang bangers on me this morning at the parade?”

  He nodded. “Yes. I would have called upon these professionals here with me now, but alas, I thought it would have been a waste to use them.”

  Sean nodded a few times, thinking to himself what was going to happen next. He gestured to the gunman in the doorways. “And them? I'd gotten the impression you worked alone.”

  “I do,” the mercenary agreed. “But this job has required extra muscle. I had considered doing many things to you, Mister Ryan, including blowing up the skywalk while you were in it—but you rarely used them, and it would have been a waste of time to monitor them. And after sniping you the first time, I cannot imagine a time in which you would have fallen for it once more. These men came to me after you and your elf removed one of their numbers. Do you remember a Bradford Scalzi?”

  Sean raised an eyebrow. “You mean the one with the rifle before the conference started? That one?”

  He waved to the gunmen around him. “These are his compatriots.”

  “Indeed,” Sean drawled.

  He counted seven men behind the mercenary, and estimated about thirteen at the other door. It was about thirty feet from the mercenary and his people.

  “Why haven't you shot me already?”

  “I would, but these fine gentlemen would prefer limited collateral damage. They didn't approve of the carnage this morning, and would rather there be as little as possible. If you would please tell your compatriots and these fine people to leave, they can all depart happy and healthy. And without you.”

  Sean considered his chances. If the mercenaries all went for body shots, as most sane people would, he could conceivably make it to the door with the fewer gunmen. After that, he had the sword, and they had the guns. Technically, his armor could take a pounding, but he didn't want to imagine how much his life was going to suck with seven automatic weapons drilling into him. Assuming he lived that long.

  “Your people can exit the other way,” the lead mercenary told him. “As can your guests. Leave the unconscious ones, they can wake up TO the carnage.”

  Sean looked to Athena, her knee still in Terry Smith-Smythe-Smits' chest. She looked to Sean, and he gave her a slight nod. She slowly rose off of Terry's chest. When the murderer tried to rise with her, Athena stomped down on her head, keeping her down.

  “Hope you don't mind,” she muttered.

  “Not at all.”

  Athena backed away slowly, walking backwards towards the other set of doors. Brian was escorted out as well.

  They both looked to Sean, and he shrugged. “I've gotten out of worse than this. I'll see you soon.”

  The leader of the gunmen to Sean's right, away from that annoying mercenary, had been the one to hold the gun on Brian. “You two” he pointed, “keep an eye on his people.”

  Guns were held on them as they were pressured to walk away.

  “Boyle, you're up next,” Sean told the former IRA shooter, not looking away from the others. He glanced briefly at Galadren. The Elf assassin still held his arrow nocked and ready to kill one of the gunmen. “You realize that it's not going to help, right, Galadren?”

  “Yes,” the Elf answered. “but these men of the East might be less likely to betray their bargain if they know that the first to try it will die before their victim touches the ground.”

  The mercenaries in costume exchanged a look. “Where did you get this guy from?” one of them—the one who held Brian at gunpoint—asked.

  “Mirkwood,” Galadren said, with all the blunt honesty of a straight man in a Marx Brothers' film. “I would oft shoot men like you for the sport of it. Pardon, I said men, I meant orcs like you.”

  Terrence Boyle stopped at the door just by the gunman, laughed, looked at Sean, and said, “Well, lad, at least he's picking up on sarcasm.”

  The masked leader shoved Boyle out the door, and he kept going.

  “Now the civilians,” Sean told them.

  Gary Castelo shrugged the mountains he called shoulders and rose first. “Everybody, be upstanding.”

  Jesse James packed up his laptop and stood next to Castelo, then took his wife by the hand and they moved together, heading for the exit right behind him.

  “So,” Sean asked the maskless adversary, “who's behind all of this? Who wants me dead?”

  The man shrugged. “Damned if I know. I don't ask, I just get paid.”

  Colonel Bradley frowned at the entire situation, and looked like he meant to draw
down on the lot of them. But Omar Gunderson nudged him, and the Colonel went grudgingly along. Tom Knighton and Matthew Kovach were the last ones up.

  “Ever see the movie Zorro?” Kovach asked in an outside voice.

  Knighton started. “With Banderas? Of course.”

  “Nah.” Kovach told him. “Tyrone Power. Basil Rathbone. The end of the movie has the evil yet incompetent governor gather all of the dons together at his mansion in order to show off the capture of Zorro.”

  Knighton paused as he walked. The tight path between the gunmen had made the exit line as slow as a line at Disneyworld. “Okay. And?”

  “Do you know what the problem is from that perspective?”

  Knighton, too, another step forward. He was finally about to pass the first gunman.

  “All of the dons were armed,” Kovach said. He looked back at Sean Ryan and smiled at him. His eyes had that same dark, feral twinkle they had as he had chased Yama Marshman in the Godzilla costume. “NOW!” he bellowed.

  Castelo flipped his walking stick in his hand, grabbing the tetsubo like a baseball bat over his shoulder, and twisted his body around like he was felling a tree. The arc of the swing clipped the gunman to his right upside the head, crashed into the first gunman watching Sean's people walk away, and caused the first to have his head smash into the other. The tail end of the arc smashed into the gunman at Castelo's left.

  Jesse James and his wife Barbara moved as one. Jesse went right as Barbara went left. Jesse checked the gunman's submachinegun with his arm, then slammed his computer into the gunman's face. He reached back into his kilt, and came up with a handgun, then poured fire into his target's face. Barbara suddenly had daggers in both hands, driving it into her victim, both his throat and his trigger hand, cutting muscles and breaking bones. He could die, but without death throes pulling the trigger.