The Warriors Series Boxset I

by Ty Patterson

  A tall man with close-cropped hair and green eyes approached Zeb. He was dressed in an anonymous dark suit and a dark tie and but for his bearing, he wouldn’t attract a second glance. His shoes gleamed as brightly as the smile on his face as he extended his arms and hugged Zeb close.

  ‘Brat.’ Brother.

  Grigor held him back and the two men studied each other in silence. Grigor was in his late fifties, a few years older than Broker, but it was only his hair and the wrinkles that gave his age away. More gray, more creases. But I’m sure he’ll die before he leaves the game.

  Grigor was Clare’s counterpart in Russia. He ran a clandestine agency and was accountable only to one person in the country.

  Grigor and Zeb had come across each other in Iraq several years back and despite the conflicting interests, had struck a warm friendship. That bond had grown stronger when Zeb had rescued him from underneath the remains of his vehicle blown apart by an IED. Zeb had never asked him his mission in Iraq and he knew the Russian valued that.

  Ties between the Russian bear and the U.S. were not the most cordial, but Zeb and Grigor had maintained their backdoor relationship. They often sought and received help from the other on missions that didn’t conflict.

  ‘This man you seek - he’s known to us.’ Andropov had a troubled look on his face.

  He was probably Grigor’s assassin who went freelance.

  Andropov’s next words confirmed Zeb’s suspicion. ‘We trained him, he became one of our best ubiytsa, and then when the world fell apart, he left, like so many of the others.’

  Went freelance when the Soviet state broke up.

  ‘So what’s the problem, friend? I’m sure you have kept tabs on all those who worked with you. That’s the way you do business, don’t you?’ He smiled. ‘You probably know where this guy is right now.’

  An incredulous look passed Grigor’s face. ‘Problem? If it got out that I’m giving up these guys, they’ll come after me.’

  ‘And you’d love that wouldn’t you?’

  Andropov’s loud laughter brought one of his men running. He faded when Grigor waved him back.

  ‘Tovarich, let me tell you, it’s no good sitting behind a desk all day. Files, papers, phones. That’s all I do, brat. Look at you. Now that’s the way to live or die.’

  His eyes softened and his hand grasped Zeb’s forearm hard. He knew Zeb’s past.

  After a second’s silence, he sighed and shook his head. ‘I can’t help you my friend. Not even for you.’

  His eyes sharpened when he saw Zeb open his backpack and push forward a photograph.

  ‘Not even for this, moy drook?’ My friend.

  Andropov’s face became edges and angles as all warmth disappeared from it. The man staring back at him looked of Mediterranean origin, and was smoking a cigarette as the invisible camera caught him outside an airport.

  ‘Berlin.’ Zeb told him softly. ‘Four months back.’

  Grigor’s shoulder slumped a fraction in disappointment.

  Zeb smiled with his eyes. ‘I know where he is right now. This very second.’

  ‘You’re sure?’ Andropov whispered and got his answer from Zeb’s impassive face.

  The smoker, a Chechen assassin, had bombed a theatre in the Tverskoy District two years back and had claimed responsibility on an internet board. He’d stayed invisible till he came across one of Zeb’s informants in Berlin. Werner had taken over from that point and had tracked him every second.

  The assassin had left twenty people dead that night in Moscow. Among the bodies were Andropov’s wife and eighteen-year-old daughter.

  One month later.

  The assassin studied his cottage for a long time before approaching it cautiously. He was holed up in a remote mountain village in the Southern Alps of Italy, its isolation the perfect hideout for him.

  He’d flown out of the U.S. after his last meeting with Bossman and had travelled to South America and then to Europe.

  On each leg he’d used a different identity and when he finally reached the Italian village, it was in the guise of an eccentric author who needed the space to write.

  The village was his most secure hideout, one he had cultivated over the years.

  The villagers, just over a hundred of them, accepted him for one of their own and minded their business. It helped that he spent generously in the village whenever he stayed, and donated to the church.

  The villagers also acted as his first tripwire. Any news of strangers got to him and none of them mentioned the assassin to strangers.

  Once a day, the assassin fired a generator which powered a battery pack for his laptop and modem. Through that window to the wider world, he knew that Bossman had been arrested. He doubted Carter or the NYPD could reach him, but it never hurt to check his back trail. That’s how he’d stayed alive.

  The cottage was all by itself with thick undergrowth leading to it on all sides for two hundred yards. The undergrowth led to a barely visible track at the front, while at the rear it merged into forest and mountain. Motion sensors were buried in the undergrowth forming the assassin’s second perimeter.

  The assassin pushed open the door, stood inside and absorbed the stillness.

  Nothing pinged his radar. The room had an old couch, a fireplace and opened into a kitchen at one end. A hallway led to a bathroom and a bedroom. A scratched wooden table served multiple purposes, dining, weapons cleaning, work desk. Function not luxury was what the assassin was after.

  The assassin shook his coat and hung it on a peg behind the door and went to the kitchen and drank from a jug of cold water. It came from a stream half a mile away.

  Tea, hot and black. Then fire up the internet and check with the cutout.

  A gas stove was one luxury he’d afforded himself. Every couple of months a villager came to his cottage and replenished the cylinder. He filled water in a blackened pan, placed it on the stove.

  He searched around for the match box and just as he lit one the voice spoke.

  ‘You really thought you’d get away?’

  His body froze while his mind raced.

  He discarded the how, it wasn’t important. The where was.

  Behind him, to his left and behind.

  Good position.

  It would need him to turn around, lose a fraction of a second to aim, while the voice had all the time to pump a few into him.

  He dropped the match as it burned his fingers. He eyed the small kitchen counter and the adjoining sink.

  ‘It’s no longer there. Good piece though.’ The voice said conversationally.

  The assassin had weapons cached throughout the cottage. One of those was a Kimber taped beneath the counter.

  ‘None of your pieces are where you left them. I liked the blade concealed inside the poker.’

  The assassin drew his right arm closer to his body, a fraction of an inch at a fraction of a second.

  ‘How did you find me?’ he asked. Anything to buy time.

  ‘A lot many eyes were peeled for you. You annoyed quite a few people. But I guess that comes with the territory.’

  ‘Which one of those led to me?’

  With that he moved.

  He dived to his left in a blur, twisting around as his body braced for impact. His shoulder holstered gun filled his right hand automatically without conscious thought.

  Left and behind me.

  The gun came up smoothly, his finger pressed and narrow bursts of death flew at the voice’s location.

  To its left and then to its right, then a move so smooth it was liquid, an empty magazine clattered a new one rammed in.

  All at the same time as his eyes captured what it saw before him and sent signals to his brain to decode.

  No one. Too late.

  The gun tumbled out of his hand and a second later a roar filled the room and shock spread through his body as his right elbow shattered.

  He’d been here before, had trained for it till training had become habit and habit h
ad become muscle memory. The brain didn’t need to actively intervene.

  His left hand snaked down and reached for the spare gun on his ankle.

  It flopped silently as a second roar filled the room and his left shoulder jerked and crimsoned.

  A shadow moved and became solid and became Zeb Carter. A Glock in his right hand dangled almost carelessly.

  Darkness surrounded Zeb, a darkness that only the assassin could recognize.

  A killing darkness that sucked light and life out.

  ‘Your first mistake was dealing with Bossman. He’s an unstable character. I can understand though. You’re an assassin. Assassins go where the jobs are.’

  ‘But you should’ve researched Broker. You should’ve known I existed. Then you should’ve killed me.’

  The Glock lifted and the light went out.

  Two weeks later, Zeb stood alone in the graveyard over an unmarked grave on which grass shoots had sprung. He’d paid, anonymously for Sandoval to be buried in the Brooklyn church he’d served in.

  No one else visited the grave, no other soul even knew it existed.

  He stood there as sun warmed the leaves and a squirrel braved his presence and approached him. It twitched his nose at him and then scampered away as a shadow fell across the grave.

  ‘You knew him?’

  Zeb turned to regard the approaching man, the Pastor.

  ‘No one did.’

  ‘Someone always does, my son. That’s why you and I are here.’

  Zeb looked at his kind face and kept silent.

  The Pastor’s keen eyes studied the man in front of him. ‘No one walks alone, my son.’

  Zeb nodded at him and walked away to his car.

  He’s right, Papa. Mom and I are always with you. The eyes were full of mischief.

  But you know, it’s time you lived.

  Zeb lowered his window and let cool air bathe him.

  You’re right, baby. Maybe I will.

  Author’s Message

  Thank you for taking time to read The Warrior’s Debt. If you enjoyed it, please consider telling your friends and posting a short review, here.

  Sign up to Ty Patterson’s mailing list, http://eepurl.com/09nyf, and get The Reluctant Warrior, free. You will also get special offers advertised exclusively through the mailing list.

  Coming soon

  Flay

  Warriors Series, Book 5

  BY

  Ty Patterson

  Sample Chapter from Flay

  Chapter 1

  The assassin moved only in the night when it was cool, dry and most importantly, when roving eyes would be less watchful.

  He carried twenty pounds of gear on his back, weapons, water, rations, camo tent, comms equipment, blood packs and more weapons. The comms equipment was redundant since he wasn’t communicating with anyone. The twenty pounds didn’t feel like much. He’d carried more for far longer.

  He covered thirty miles a night, and when dawn broke, he set up his camo tent which was less a tent and more a blanket. It spread on the desert, blended with the surrounding and elevated to less than two feet from the ground. From above, it looked like undulating desert. From nearby, it looked like desert.

  From really up close, it didn’t matter. By then either the curious or the assassin would be dead.

  Each night he cleaned his weapon, made sure that sand and dust didn’t clog it and wrapped it in protective cover before staying put for the day.

  The kill spot was a hundred and twenty miles away, which meant he would have to walk four nights.

  Not a problem for him.

  On the second day he heard vehicles in the distance and presently a figure came over the horizon and headed straight at him. The vehicle was blurry in the heat and gradually resolved into an old army discard. But it moved and bristled with men, and that was more a cause for concern.

  He cast his eyes away and looked to the left of the approaching vehicle. No point letting them feel the weight of his gaze.

  Twenty miles became ten.

  He removed the cover on his weapon, and placed the stock against his cheek.

  Figures jumped in the reticule.

  Bearded men, wrapped in black or white dishdashahs, assault rifles cradled in their arms, patterned kuffiyehs covering their heads and faces.

  Three in the front. Four in the rear.

  Eight miles the range finder told him.

  Take the driver out, then the rest in the front. Those in the back will scramble out, drop them one by one.

  Seven aimed shots maybe in ten seconds.

  Not a problem.

  He’d done it.

  But if the vehicle came closer, within five miles, then the odds shifted in the vehicle’s favor.

  Then he’d probably be able to get four or five shots before seeking fire found him.

  The vehicle veered when it was six miles away. Through his scope he could see the men arguing as they gesticulated furiously at the driver.

  It grew smaller and then disappeared and sand covered its tracks.

  The assassin put away his gun and went to his somnolent state.

  Heart beat was low and steady.

  Good.

  It wasn’t as if he was a stranger to such situations.

  The assassin reached the kill spot early on the fourth day after making better time the previous night. He scouted for the best shooting position and when he’d found it, he set up his camo tent and hunkered down.

  He wouldn’t be moving from the spot for twenty four hours.

  Dawn came, the sun rose, the desert became orange, then gold, and then a harsh burning brown. Something flashed in a distant wadi, it resolved into plastic trash.

  The heat made everything wavy and blurred, but the assassin was comfortable under his hide. The tent was layered to keep out the heat in the day and keep in the warmth in the night. The tent belonged to an American soldier who didn’t need it anymore. Occasional sips of water from his can kept him hydrated.

  A flash of light alerted him first of movement. It came from the same wadi and was fifteen miles away. The gun settled in the assassin’s hand like a comfortable blanket.

  The Jeep drove slowly, cautiously. It had to. It carried a high profile person.

  Ten miles away and the assassin could see two men in the front and a third in the back. He waited for the scope to pick their faces and when it did, no flare of excitement passed through him, his heart beat steadily.

  The hawk like eyes in the rear matched those he was seeking. The neatly trimmed beard covered a strong chin. Everything about the man radiated authority. Even the two in the front leaned backward as if drawn by the magnetic pull of the person behind them.

  Inhale. Exhale. Wait for Jeep to approach the spot he’d marked in his mind.

  Inhale.

  Exhale.

  Bottom of respiratory cycle where time paused.

  His finger curled over the trigger.

  The Jeep started a slight turn away from him to navigate over a rocky outcrop.

  The rear door framed the hawk face.

  Inhale.

  Exhale.

  Pause.

  Pull.

  The bullet flew at eight hundred and fifty meters a second and just as the Jeep completed its turn, the man in the rear disintegrated.

  The assassin fired again.

  Driver dead.

  Another pull.

  Passenger dead.

  Three dead.

  The assassin put down his Barrett M82A1 and drew out his second weapon.

  A grenade launcher.

  In less than a minute, the Jeep was burning metal and fifteen minutes later, the assassin was moving fast, away from the kill zone.

  With three trigger pulls in two seconds and the grenade, the assassin known as the Butcher of the Middle East had sent shock waves through the Middle Eastern terrorist network.

  Two months later.

  Twelve year old Liz McCallum clutched her sister, Zoe’s hand
tightly and scanned the addresses on Columbus Avenue as she hurried the two along.

  She had to get back to Gramma in exactly ninety minutes and if her eight year old sister didn’t stop staring at the enormous mirrored glass building, she wouldn’t be able to get back in time.

  Stealing time had been a problem.

  Once her classes finished, Liz walked from her middle school in upper Manhattan, a few blocks to Zoe’s elementary school, picked up her sister and the two walked back home to Gramma, on East 112th Street. She did this every school day.

  For today, she’d fabricated a hockey match after school and had arranged for Zoe to stay back in play school and thus had created the window of opportunity.

  She had hit upon the idea when she’d watched TV one night and had seen the name of the person she wanted to meet.

  Gramma allowed just one hour on the computer every day and Liz used that to research the man. She’d asked Ally to ask her dad if he knew the man. Ally’s dad was a cop in the NYPD and the way Ally went on, he knew absolutely everyone in the world.

  Ally reported solemnly the next day that her dad was very close to the man.

  As if, Liz snorted inwardly but she didn’t say anything. Ally, her bestie, was prone to exaggeration. That was a new word Liz had learned in school. Exaggeration.

  She tugged on Zoe’s hand impatiently. ‘Come on Peaches. If we’re late, Gramma will be furious.’ Peaches was her name for Zoe. It was just hers; no one was allowed to call her sister that. Peaches, because Zoe looked like one with her rosy dimpled cheeks, smiling eyes and blonde hair that always fell over her face.

  She marched inside the building and approached the security desk. She stated who she wanted to meet. The two men behind the desk looked at her, and then at Peaches.

  ‘Are you sure you have the right address, ma’am?’

  ‘Yeah.’ She corrected herself. ‘Yes.’ She had read somewhere that using formal words made people take the speaker seriously.

  One of the men picked up the phone and had a brief conversation. He looked at them and Liz thought he was describing them to the voice on the other end.

  ‘Sure, ma’am.’ He kept the phone and gestured at Liz to follow him.

  He led them to a bank of elevators, punched a button and smiled broadly when Peaches dimpled at him. Liz was proud of her idea of bringing Peaches along. Her little sister could melt the most hardened hearts.