Death List

by Don Pendleton

  The flimsy nature of the evidence had prevented the government from taking action before now. Recently, however, a famed group of nameless hackers had posted an online video claiming they had somehow breached security at the Federal Reserve. In the process, they claimed, they had uncovered personal account details of various famous figures, including an impressive list of celebrities, millionaires and other prominent world figures. Stillwater’s name was among those listed as affected by the data breach.

  It wasn’t hard to see why the Corinos wanted him dead. Data could be damning, but what would really clinch the man’s guilt—and implicate others, such as the Corinos—would be Stillwater testifying in court. The government would cut a deal with him to corroborate what the data told them. On the stand, he would become as powerful a danger to the syndicate as he’d allegedly been in hiding and throwing their money. They couldn’t allow that, so they’d slated him for death. Since word of the internet leak had dropped, Stillwater had been holed up in his bank’s offices in Philly, living in his office and seeing no one. The Farm’s intel said he had some hired muscle to back him up, but nothing serious. They were the same bodyguards he had employed before trouble flared up.

  Stillwater liked to drink, and he liked to go to bars. Evidently in years past he’d written some checks with his mouth that the rest of him couldn’t cash, so he’d gotten in the habit of keeping bodyguards around to protect him. Bolan had met the type before. He could handle any personal protection specialists Stillwater might have. He probably wouldn’t even have to hurt anybody to get Stillwater clear. Most professionals in that line of work were pretty reasonable.

  Nothing to do now but walk in and ruin Franklin Stillwater’s day.

  The bank building was one of the nicest Bolan had ever been in. The floors were marble and the ceiling was high. All of the fixtures and furnishings were ornate enough to satisfy any wealthy industrialist or national leader. Such were the clients of this bank, according to the Farm’s dossier.

  A number of offices and consultation areas were located in the main lobby. He picked a desk that looked more prominent than others and approached it. The man behind the desk was impeccably dressed and finely coiffured. The Windsor knot of his tie was perfect. He looked up at Bolan and flashed a smile through blindingly white teeth.

  “May I help you, sir?”

  Among the belongings Grimaldi had ferried to Bolan, now that the Harmon cover was no longer necessary, were the Justice Department credentials he sometimes carried. Bolan also wore his customized Beretta 93-R, suppressor attached, in a leather shoulder holster rig under his jacket. His familiar .44 Magnum Desert Eagle was in a Kydex holster at his hip, also covered by the jacket. His canvas war bag, which bore loaded magazines for both weapons, grenades and other goodies, had been slung over his shoulder. It was the credentials, though, that he needed most right now.

  “Agent Matthew Cooper, Justice Department,” Bolan said. “I need to speak to Franklin Stillwater immediately. This is a matter of both national security and his personal safety. Please get him on the phone right now.”

  “Oh, no, sir,” the man behind the desk said. “This is far too important. I had better buzz you up right away. If you’ll give me just a moment, please?”

  Bolan nodded. The man pressed a couple of buttons on his phone and spoke softly into the receiver. Discreet as well as helpful. The man hung up and frowned.

  “Problem?”

  “No, sir,” the man replied, cranking up the wattage on his smile once more. “It’s just that...well, Mr. Stillwater is in an important meeting, so they’ve asked that you knock and announce yourself when you go up. They don’t want to risk an outsider hearing any privileged information. You understand.”

  “Yeah. That makes sense.”

  “The sixteenth-floor conference room, sir. Just take the marble staircase up to the second floor. The elevators are on your left, and the conference room is at the end of the hall. You can’t miss it.”

  “Thanks.”

  Bolan made his way up the marble staircase. He found the conference room and knocked on the door. “Agent Matthew Cooper,” he said, announcing himself as he’d been asked. “Justice Department. I have business with Franklin Stillwater.” He tried the door handle. It was unlocked, so he opened it.

  The smell hit him immediately. He knew that smell. It was the smell of congealed blood.

  It was the smell of death.

  Immediately, Bolan drew his Desert Eagle, thumbing the hammer back. He let the triangular snout of the weapon guide him as he walked farther into the conference room. The door slid shut behind him with a click.

  The conference room was empty, the long table that dominated it completely free of clutter or other objects. The wall of the conference room was all glass. It afforded a commanding view of the street below the bank, where people bustled and cars moved this way and that. Everything looked very small from sixteen floors up. The face of the building was a maze of outcroppings that distorted the view of the street. The building had been designed in the Art Deco style, complete with gargoyles and other items jutting from the façade.

  A door at the other end of the conference room was ajar. Bolan moved up to it carefully, mindful not to silhouette himself in the gap of the opening. When he was in position, he threw the door open the rest of the way and dived into the room, rolling on one shoulder and coming up with the Desert Eagle at the ready.

  The smell had been coming from here. It was an anteroom of some sort, perhaps connected to Stillwater’s offices through another, closed door opposite Bolan’s position. A small bar, a sink and a compact refrigerator had been built into the wall. Leather couches forming an L-shape were positioned against two of the walls. Crystal ashtrays on mahogany end tables bore the stubs of cigars and cigarettes.

  Blood pooled on the floor beside three men. They were dead.

  From the matching suits two of them wore, not to mention their thick physiques, Bolan had the pair pegged as Stillwater’s bodyguards. They had been shot, and none too precisely. Each man had absorbed at least a dozen rounds in the chest and face. Full-auto blasts at close range, from the look of the damage.

  The third man was Stillwater himself. His face still bore an expression of shock and horror that Bolan had seen too many times on too many corpses. His throat had been cut from ear to ear. He still clutched a smartphone in one hand.

  Bolan had arrived too late to stop the hit. Either Harmon had intervened, or the Corinos had made other arrangements—

  The phone in Stillwater’s hand began to ring. Bolan was about to ignore it, to spin on his heel and leave the building, when he noticed the Caller ID on the screen. Someone had changed the ID for the number calling Stillwater’s phone to read, “Stillwater’s killer.”

  Bolan peeled the phone from the corpse’s grasp and pressed the speaker button. The phone itself was smeared with blood, which had leaked down the length of Stillwater’s arm.

  “I’m listening,” Bolan growled.

  “Mr....?”

  “Cooper.”

  “Mr. Cooper. Mr. Harmon would like us to extend his best wishes, and to assure you that he is happy to take back the reins of his identity. He’d like to point out that it’s nothing personal, but that, well, you’re going to have to die for interfering in his business. He hopes you understand.”

  “I do. So what now?”

  “Well, the easiest thing for you to do would be to put a bullet in your head,” said the voice on the phone. “We’ve got armed men on every floor.”

  “We?”

  “We’re...consultants. Mr. Harmon and our company have enjoyed a long and profitable relationship.”

  “You’re mercenaries, in other words. I’m told your company got shown the exit from Iraq because they played a little too fast and loose with the rules of engagement.”

>   “You are well informed, Cooper,” the voice said. It was harder now, not quite as calm. “Plenty of people who aren’t willing to do what it takes to win an engagement get squeamish around those who are.”

  “So how many mercenaries are between me and the front door? You’ve obviously set up this little trap for my benefit.”

  “Right again,” the voice acknowledged. “That was Mr. Harmon’s specific request. He wanted you to understand just how annoyed he was that you presumed to take his place. He specifically asked that your death not only come after we had informed you of his involvement, but that the physical means through which we ended your life be...‘memorable.’ I believe that was his exact word.”

  “So how many?”

  The voice chuckled. “It’s not going to be that easy. But between you and the lobby are enough armed men to take out a small army. I’m not going to lie to you, Cooper. My men have orders to take you out by kneecapping you or otherwise disabling you. The idea is to take some juicy video of you being...well, tortured to death.”

  “Memorable.”

  “That’s it in a nutshell,” the voice said. “So, like I said. You could save yourself a lot of time, and my men a lot of cleanup, by shooting yourself in the head now.”

  “This is a business district in a major American city,” Bolan said. “You can’t stage a war here without bringing the cops down on you. Not to mention a lot of witnesses in the form of emergency services personnel.”

  “Oh, yeah? Mr. Harmon says you took out quite a few members of the Toretto family while you were pretending to be him. You get a lot of cops showing up to those locations before you got gone?”

  “Touché.” So, Harmon knew everything, or close to it. That went a long way to explaining how Bolan now found himself in his current predicament. The Corinos must have lied about giving Bolan the only copy of the target list. They had to have shared it with Harmon so the assassin could pick up the job. And his first order of business was to take out the one man standing in his way. That was Bolan. Harmon had known to expect him to make a move on Stillwater per the Corinos’ death list. He’d constructed the perfect trap using that information.

  “So what’s it going to be, tough guy?” the voice asked.

  “Tell me your name,” Bolan said. “Any name. Something I can use to call you when we meet. Assuming you’re one of the men out there.”

  “Call me Walker. I’m six foot two, bald, wearing mirrored sunglasses. I’ll be the man standing over you when you die. And you will die badly, Cooper.”

  “I guess we’ll see about that.” Bolan thumbed the phone, disconnecting the call.

  He took out his secure satellite phone and punched in a number set in memory.

  “G-Force,” Jack Grimaldi answered, using his Stony Man code name.

  “Jack, we’ve got trouble. I’ve walked into a trap. What I presume is a heavily armed contingent of mercenaries is arrayed on every floor of the bank building between the ground and my position on the sixteenth floor. At least, that’s what I’ve been told.”

  “Who told you that, Sarge?”

  “The guy in charge of the mercenaries. Says his name is Walker, although that’s likely an alias. He confirmed that the force is here thanks to Harmon. That means Harmon and the Corinos have been in contact since he broke custody.”

  “In other words, we’re screwed,” Grimaldi stated.

  “Yeah. That’s about the size of it. Stillwater is dead. So are his bodyguards. Get on the horn with the Farm and let them know. I need you and the truck in position in front of the main entrance to the bank. Double park, ram somebody out of the way, do whatever you’ve got to do. I need you. How fast can you be there?”

  “I’m already on my way,” Grimaldi replied. “Give me sixty seconds.”

  “Don’t be late,” Bolan cautioned.

  “Never, Sarge.” The Stony Man pilot closed the connection. Bolan put his phone away.

  He left the bloody anteroom and went back out into the conference room. The glass wall was heavily insulated; it wouldn’t be shattered by a thrown chair. Financial institutions were generally more sensitive than most to the dangers of easily accessible windows on high floors; it wouldn’t do for someone who’d just lost a fortune to a bad investment to be able to make his last exit easily from way up here. Blunt impact wouldn’t even dent that window.

  The opposite building was a blank, windowless face made of concrete. There would be no danger from errant projectiles, even Magnum bullets, penetrating that. Bolan leveled the Desert Eagle and swept his arm from left to right, punching multiple holes in the glass. The sudden gust of wind tore through the conference room, raising the fine hairs on the back of his neck.

  He holstered the Desert Eagle and made sure his smartphone and war bag were secure. Then he kicked out the damaged, splintered, spider-webbed pane, which smashed against several of the gargoyle outcroppings below.

  No need to overthink, Bolan decided.

  He jumped out the window.

  11

  Mack Bolan hit the first of the gargoyles and felt the air pushed from his lungs. He nearly carved himself up on the remnants of the glass pane still lodged there. Rolling, he leaped to the next gargoyle, then to an outcropping that ran horizontally across the Art Deco façade.

  Fifteen more floors to go, he thought.

  It took longer than he wanted it to, and it felt slower than it was, but he managed to make his way down the front of the building. Grimaldi’s truck was at the curb, the engine running, when Bolan’s combat boots hit the sidewalk. Scattered glass debris crunched under the Executioner’s feet as he ran for the truck.

  “Hurry, Sarge!” Grimaldi shouted. “They’re coming through the lobby!”

  “Federal agent!” Bolan shouted to the nearby pedestrians. “Clear this sidewalk!”

  People scattered. Bolan didn’t waste time looking back toward the bank. Grimaldi had the passenger door of the armored SUV open and Bolan dived inside. He got the door shut just as the first rounds began to hit the truck.

  “Go, go, go!” Bolan ordered. Grimaldi nodded and laid on the gas. The big SUV had a beefed-up power plant, a much more powerful engine than came standard on even the top-of-the-line Suburban. The beast growled as Grimaldi pushed them into traffic, weaving in and out of the other vehicles.

  “We need to get as far from population as we can, Jack,” Bolan said. “We can’t engage them while we’ve got so many civilians around.”

  “I’ve got just the thing, Sarge. Did some looking through the map while I was waiting.” He put the accelerator to the floor.

  Bolan checked the side mirror. Several fast-moving SUVs, silver Land Rovers, were coming up behind them.

  “What is it about these merc outfits and matching vehicles?” Grimaldi grumbled.

  “Faster, Jack. We need room to fight. Room away from innocents.”

  “You got it, Sarge. We’ll take the bridge then the highway.”

  They couldn’t run in a straight line forever. “I’ve got an idea.” Bolan hit the speed-dial on his phone. Barbara Price answered.

  “Striker?”

  “Barb, no time,” he said. “Somewhere in Philadelphia, I need something big. Something vacant. A warehouse maybe. Something where there will be no people. Track our GPS and route coordinates to Jack.”

  “One moment, Striker.”

  “Striker, Bear here,” said Aaron Kurtzman, now on the line. “We’ve found you something. Sending the route to your truck now. It’s a massive industrial property, almost 78,000 square feet of vacant trailer-loading space complete with loading docks and a big lot surrounding it. Take 95 North, parallel to the river.”

  “Got it,” Grimaldi said. Impossibly, the SUV picked up a little more speed. Already, the engine sounded like it wanted to tear itself off
the truck’s chassis. They continued on, the Land Rovers closing the distance despite Grimaldi’s best efforts to lose them.

  “We can’t let them get close enough to start taking shots at us,” Bolan said. “Not while we’re still on a public highway.”

  “Understood, Sarge,” Grimaldi replied, nodding again. “Don’t worry. We’re almost—” He stopped, focusing all his attention on driving. Bolan held on as the truck took the highway exit at tire-burning speed, practically putting the Suburban into the air on one side.

  They gained ground after that maneuver, but the Land Rovers were still closing in on them. Grimaldi took them through a series of white-knuckle maneuvers as the neighborhoods thinned out, growing more and more industrial. Finally, he drove along a side street then bounced over a set of railroad tracks. At last the massive gate of a barbed-wire-topped fence loomed before them.

  “Go, Jack,” Bolan instructed.

  Grimaldi nodded and punched through the fence. Almost immediately, they jounced over a speed bump that ripped off their rear exhaust. Low-tire-pressure warnings lighted on the dash of the Suburban.

  “Not good,” Grimaldi muttered.

  “The ramp! There!” Bolan said, pointing.

  The Stony Man pilot pushed the SUV up the loading ramp leading to the vacant warehouse. The overhead door was closed.

  “This is going to hurt,” Grimaldi had time to say.

  It did. The SUV tore through the lowered barrier and smashed through the other side. Bolan saw warning lights join the low-tire-pressure blinkers on the dash.

  “Nose out, toward the entrance,” Bolan told him. Grimaldi complied without comment. The truck was smoking, shaking and clanking like a chainsaw falling down a flight of corrugated tin stairs, but it was still running, and that would have to be good enough.