Reason For Vengeance (Dark Vengeance Book 1)
Page 44
“Tell me what you want or be done with it,” he demanded.
“Who told you to kill Thomas Doherty?” Valerie asked coldly.
“Who?” It was the wrong question. The rage broke free. Before she could consciously think Valerie’s pistol was in her hand and she shot Bjorn in his right knee cap. The girls standing silently behind flinched visibly. Bjorn screamed in pain.
“AAAAhhhhhhh,” he screamed. “You bitch! I’ll fucking have your head for this. You don’t know who you’re fucking with. Forget your husband and children. I’ll come after your mother, your father, your brothers and sisters. I’ll come after their wives and husband and their children. I’ll..”
Valerie clamped her left hand over his mouth, just as she did to Aamir. This time she let him know her strength. Not enough to cause him permanent harm. His eyes widened as he felt those fingers digging into him.
“You’re not going to do any of that,” Now her voice had the freeze of deep space. “Sandy Shores and Thomas Doherty. Tell me or you lose the second one.” She placed pistol barrel right up against his left knee.
She let go of his head. “Fuck you!” he spat in her face and then screamed when she pulled the trigger a second time. It took longer for him to stop and he didn’t waste any time threatening her. He glowered through hate filled eyes.
“Fine. You’re a strong bastard, but you asked me to spare your daughter. What about her? Does she need her knee caps?” Valerie stepped up to the young woman and held the pistol centimetres away.
Under the helmet Noomi couldn’t hear, see or smell anything that was happening. She and her father had been kidnapped before being muted by the helmet. She was frightened, with no idea what was going on. She could only feel Valerie’s foot touch hers and started crying and screaming.
With the helmet stopping the rest of the room from hearing Noomi, all her father could see was her silent face, screaming for help.
“Don’t. I told you she has nothing to do with this,” he begged.
“Then tell me.” Valerie said, her voice still cold and emotionless, in a room practically vibrating with it. She was an island of calm in a stormy sea. “Do you remember Thomas Doherty?”
“Yes, lightning blast you, I remember him and his bloody family. They’re all dead including his wife!”
“No. I slaughtered your assassins and walked away. Now I’m here. Who gave you the orders?”
“I can’t tell you! If I say anything they’re going to kill me and my family anyway. You might as well get it over with and I can spare the rest of them!”
Spinning, Valerie was on him in an instant. The pistol jammed hard into his crotch. Only his body’s adrenaline and fear for his daughter, kept him functioning this long through two destroyed knee caps. Now the blood was draining away from his face and she could see he was close to passing out.
“We’re not finished.” Valerie pulled a hypo from her pocket and jammed it into his arm. He jerked up as fresh adrenaline, laced with a few extras, brought him back into it.
Blinking and shaking his head, Bjorn looked at her and then at the gun in his crotch.
“What is it going to be?” Valerie asked him. “Do I keep blowing bits off you and then start on your daughter or are you going to tell me?” He hesitated so she grabbed his wrist and shot a single round through the top of his hand.
“Arrrrggghhhh. Stop, please stop. I don’t know,” he sobbed. “It was all done as a blind investor. I reported to a law firm and took my cut before sending it to them.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“It’s true. Doherty. Doherty knew. There were missing files we could never account for. He had something even Aamir didn’t have.”
“What?”
“Transactions. Account records. Something that would lead back to the investor. That’s all I know.”
“What law firm?” Valerie asked as she sensed he was telling the truth.
“Granath and Dietze.” Bjorn was a broken man now and Valerie straightened up.
Looking down at him, she saw a man who did whatever he could to get ahead of his rivals. She couldn’t find not a gramme of sympathy inside for him. Consciously she let the rage loose from its cage and fired a three round burst between his legs. His scream was far higher pitched this time. While he ripped his throat raw in his pain, Valerie took off Noomi’s helmet.
The woman looked around, and saw her bloody, broken, screaming father.
“Daddy!!”she wailed. Valerie back handed him viciously around the face to stop his howling. He reverted to gasping sobs.
“What have you done to him? Stop!” Noomi cried.
“Be quiet and listen.” Valerie said and pointed her gun at Bjorn’s daughter. Noomi stopped and Valerie turned the gun to rest on Bjorn’s forehead.
“For the murder of a six year old girl, for the murder of a four year old boy and for the murder of their father, a kind and loving man.” Valerie said with no emotion at all. “You die.”
“Noooooo!” Noomi cried as her father’s brains blew out the back of his head. His lifeless body slumped down in the chair. Only his restraints held him up.
Grabbing the woman by the face, Valerie leaned in close to her.
“Listen to me carefully. I have a message for Legion Grand Admiral Antonio Cestari. Tell him Eleanor Doherty did this and you tell him I’m coming for everyone else involved. Do you understand me?”
The woman nodded hesitantly, her eyes unable to leave Valerie’s face.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
A full glass of whisky sat in front of her, an almost full open bottle next to it. Just behind them on her desk sat the holo cube. For the first time it displayed her family. Valerie had been sitting and staring at the three items for hours.
She didn’t quite know what to feel. For so long it was simple. Grief and rage. One or the other would be at the fore and drown everything else out. It was different now. She felt like she was a child learning to walk as she tried to sort through it all.
Elation? Yes, there was some of that. Another one of the people responsible was dead. Satisfaction? That as well. Bjorn died in pain and his daughter got to know why. Closure? No, not that. There were still more behind Bjorn. More people responsible. Peace? Never.
The fourth item on her desk drew her eye. A datapad sat there and currently displayed a report from Hanna. Granath & Dietze were a law firm based only on Olympus. Their client base was highly secret, but rumoured to include only the oldest and most powerful of the Families.
Picking up the glass of whisky, Valerie walked into her shower unit and poured it down the sink. She was just in the process of resealing the bottle, when there was a knock at the door.
“Come in,” Valerie said and Hanna walked in.
“I was half expecting to see that empty,” Hanna said looking at the bottle.
Valerie smiled slightly in response. “Only half?”
The girl shrugged and dropped into one of the chairs across from the desk.
“Something woke up inside you yesterday. Before Bjorn.”
Sitting down herself, Valerie leaned back as she thought about that. “Yes, it did,” she paused, not sure of what to say next and decided to stick with the mission. “Was Noomi dropped off OK?”
Hanna nodded. “Safe and sound in Pompeii. I imagine the Police are going to wonder how and why she ended up on the other side of the planet.”
“As long as it keeps them away from our door and she delivers my message, they can keep on wondering.”
“With all this heat we’ve stirred up, someone is going to link the dark haired, cold eyed killer to Sneaker’s Chief Enforcer. I’ve made sure there are no images of you, but there must be hundreds of eye witness accounts. Are you sure leaving her alive was the best play after she saw you and you told her your name?” Hanna asked seriously.
Shrugging, Valerie shook her head. “She knows a name and the number of people who can link that to Valerie Carter are very few. Cestari is one of those
and I want him to know. As for Blaze PD? There are millions of dark haired women and thousands of them work as Enforcers. You’re right though, I do need to lay low.” Not comfortable sitting still Valerie stood up and walked over to the open armoury safe.
Gently, she picked up one of the children’s drawings. It was Daphne’s. Valerie stood their looking at it for a long time and Hanna sat quietly waiting. The girl seemed to be able to read Valerie’s moods very well. It was the first time she noticed it and Valerie thought back. It had been there in the very beginning, when Hanna somehow knew Valerie was not going to harm her, despite what she just witnessed being done to Tern.
“I’m not going to stop, Hanna,” Valerie said with a sigh. “I’m not going to stop until they all pay or I’m dead.”
“I know,” Hanna said quietly.
“And I can’t continue it here. I need to go to Olympus, into the jaws of the lion.”
“Huh.” Hanna grunted with a chuckle. “More like a Stone Dragon in the midst of a herd of Tofu.”
Turning Valerie couldn’t help the smile that came to her. The predators smile.
“True.”
“I’m in,” Hanna said seriously.
Valerie thought about that for a moment before answering.
“Good.”
EPILOGUE
The low sun shone through the windows of Antonio Cestari’s office behind him. They automatically adjusted to keep the glare to a manageable level. It was getting close to the end of Friday’s working day and all of his meetings, along with most of his paperwork, were complete. He was working through the last of it when he was interrupted by a call from his assistant.
“Yes, Alastair?” he answered. An image of Captain Aguilar’s head appearing over Antonio’s desk.
“Admiral, I have a call from Secretary of Interior Soetemeyer. Do you want to take it?” Not that long ago, the question would have been perfectly valid. He would have Alastair give some excuse on his behalf.
It was strange how much difference two short years made. “Yes, Alastair. Please put her through.”
The image of the Captain was replaced by Soetemeyer’s much sterner features. “Hello, Madam Secretary. I trust you are well. What can I do for you?”
“Admiral, I have come across some disturbing news.” It was not usual for her to get to the point of her conversations without any preamble. “She’s alive.”
Antonio prided himself of always being in the loop. With his closer working relationship with the Secretary of the Interior since Furioso, that had increased. Now he wasn’t and didn’t know to whom Soetemeyer was referring.
“You have me at a loss, Petra. Who’s alive?”
“Valerie Carter.” Those words sent a chill up his spine. The political ramifications of her turning up with the truth of what happened would be devastating. She had been well known and liked throughout the Legion. Her ‘death’ on Furioso was keenly felt. Behind all of this and many more problems that would cause him professionally, there was something creeping up the back of his spine, something far more personal.
“What is your source? Have you managed to confirm it?” Antonio asked.
“No, it’s not confirmed.” Soetemeyer replied brusquely. “A senior manager for Orobello was kidnapped on Blaze a couple of months ago. His daughter was taken with him and then turned up the next day half a planet away. Her father never reappeared. The Police have blamed the disappearance on her and claim she murdered him for the inheritance.
“A grandson of mine is acquainted with the family. He told me an interesting story at lunch today. The girl, Noomi Pomykala, claims they were kidnapped and her father, Bjorn Pomykala was brutally tortured and executed. The killer, a dark haired woman, claimed Bjorn killed two children and a man, before shooting her father in the head. The killer then gave Noomi a message. It was for you, Antonio. The killer claims she was Eleanor Doherty and she is coming for everyone responsible.”
“Where is this Noomi Pomykala now?” he demanded. The creeping up his spine increased.
“She is still on Blaze as far as I have been able to determine. I would suggest we send someone to retrieve her. Would one of your ships be available?”
“That won’t be a problem,” he thought for a moment. “I’ll send a squad of Devils on board to do the actual retrieval. When precisely did this happen?”
“Sixty four days ago.”
Antonio felt the blood drain from his face. “Carter could already be here.”
Soetemeyer only nodded.
About the Author
Adrian D Roberts was raised in Essex, England until relocating to Northamptonshire in his thirties. When growing up, he dreamt of being a Police Officer and managed to realise that dream straight from School. Dreams don’t always work out. After two years as a Constable, he joined a Paper Merchant and begun to sell paper for a living. With fifteen years in sales and buying under his belt, he decided to accept voluntary redundancy to work on his new dream of writing.
With a daughter he dotes on, he is a keen cyclist and reluctant runner. An avid reader of just about everything, but majoring in Science Fiction and Fantasy, his other hobbies include Karate, indoor climbing and arguing alternative points of view.
Any and all comments are welcome, so please e-mail the author:
Adriandroberts00@gmail.com
Follow him at his Blog, facebook or Twitter to see how the latest book is coming along:
http://adriandroberts0.blogspot.co.uk/
https://www.facebook.com/people/Adrian-D-Roberts/100005207715657
https://twitter.com/AdrianDRoberts0
To the Reader
This is my first book and I hope that you enjoyed it. The story came to me in about October 2013. I really wanted to get it out to see what people thought of it. Valerie certainly became much more than I originally envisioned and that was nothing compared to how Hanna turned out.
They’ll be both be returning in the second book - Crusade for Vengeance.
In the meantime, I would be very grateful if you would leave a review and let others know what you think.
Regards Adrian.
Table of Contents
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
CHAPTER FORTY
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
EPILOGUE
About the Author
ter: grayscale(100%); " class="sharethis-inline-share-buttons">share