Death Club

by Ty Patterson

  ‘Turn around and get to Madison Avenue. Voronoff’s on the move. A couple of agents spotted him. He’s heading north.’

  ‘What’s north?’

  ‘I will ask him, when I meet him,’ she replied acidly.

  Bear peered at his mirrors and swung in the path of a rushing cab. He stuck his finger out when it honked in protest. He cut through a red light, narrowly missing a truck. He punched his horn and sped.

  ‘I’ve got you now on my screen. You’re on West 57th. If you head straight through, and then get onto Madison Avenue, you’ll be behind him by a car length or so, going by your speed and his.’

  ‘What about cops? The FBI agents?’ Zeb asked.

  ‘They’re following. Burke would like to see where he goes, before taking action.’

  Bear maintained his speed, clipping a couple of cars, yelling out at them to call his insurance, and continued driving.

  ‘You are enjoying this, aren’t you?’ Zeb observed his friend for a second.

  ‘Of course,’ Bear fist-pumped a massive arm. ‘When do I ever get to race in New York?’

  7th Avenue went past, and then 6th. Bear followed the wake of an ambulance after 5th and cut a tight turn on Madison Avenue.

  ‘Three cars behind him. He’s driving a grey sedan. A Mercedes.’ Meghan read out the plate number.

  Three car lengths felt like a mile when traffic surged and hemmed them in.

  ‘Chloe? You got a drone?’

  ‘Yep, right here with me,’ she told Zeb.

  ‘Fly it. It can fly when we’re in motion, can’t it?’

  ‘It can do a lot of things when we’re moving. Flying is one of them.’

  She turned the craft on, lowered her window, and launched it in the air. She toggled controls and its feed appeared on the dash.

  ‘Check if it’s Voronoff.’

  The drone was faster than urban traffic and far quicker than the vehicles on Madison Avenue. It didn’t have lights to impede it nor did it have furious drivers trying to cut past it. It flew on Chloe’s commands who guided it over a cab, a truck, a sedan, and got it on top of Voronoff’s vehicle.

  She nudged it to the side and raised it higher, well above the Russian’s sight line, and trained its cameras lower. A quick toggle to zoom in and get the driver’s picture.

  ‘It’s him. Voronoff.’

  ‘How close can you get?’ Zeb looked over the traffic which showed no signs of giving way despite Bear sounding his horn.

  Bear didn’t want to be too aggressive in his driving in case Voronoff suspected he was being followed. ‘Looks like this is as close as we can get. Will keep following him. Maybe the traffic will open up.’

  He waited for Zeb to respond and when his friend tapped a finger on the screen, he did a double-take when he saw what his friend was indicating. ‘Again?’

  ‘That’s the only way. Chloe, you got–’

  ‘I got it.’

  Bear wheeled to the side, behind a biker who was just getting off. Zeb flung the door open and got off before Bear had come to a halt. Three steps to the biker who turned on hearing Zeb hail him.

  ‘Sorry, friend,’ Zeb shoved him away, leapt onto the still running bike. Gunned it along the sidewalk, scraping a cab with his knee. Then he was free of constraining vehicles.

  He leaned low, making himself as small as possible. The Mercedes sedan now visible. Unfortunately he was visible to Voronoff too. Maybe his running to the bike had alerted the Russian. Maybe it had been Bear’s honking. The Mercedes accelerated, straddling lanes, as it went faster and put more vehicles between it and Zeb.

  Zeb raced through the rapidly closing channel behind the Mercedes and checked his mirror when a horn sounded.

  ‘We’re at your three,’ Bear, who somehow had narrowed the gap and had drawn level. ‘Match our speed.’

  Zeb eased on the throttle.

  ‘Incoming.’

  He snapped his head to the right, spotted the dark shape flying through the air, over the roof of a car, and caught it reflexively.

  It was a helmet; similar to one fighter pilots flew. He drew it on with one hand, controlling his bike’s wobble with his other, and strapped it tight.

  The helmet’s inside dark screen lit up instantaneously, displaying the drone’s feed. What the drone saw, Zeb now saw on the left side of the screen. Straight ahead was the visor which was transparent, enabling him to navigate.

  ‘It works?’ Chloe’s voice came loud and clear through the inbuilt speakers.

  ‘It does.’ He twisted the throttle and left Bear behind. Past slower moving vehicles, almost brushing them. 79th Street fell behind, but the Mercedes was far ahead, going by the drone’s feed.

  ‘He’s near 85th, just crossing it. You’ll have to hurry,’ Chloe urged him on.

  Zeb heeded her. One hand jammed the horn. Another controlled the bike. Faster than any bike in New York should have gone. He heard Chloe speak to someone, asking them to clear a route for Zeb. Maybe to the cops. He tuned her out, his attention on the road and the narrowing gap with Voronoff.

  The Russian got stuck at a light on 87th, and that gave Zeb an advantage. Zeb crossed lights illegally. Narrowly escaping being run over. No time to look behind. Only ahead. Because he now knew where Voronoff was heading and the Russian had to be stopped at all costs.

  ‘Chloe?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘He’s going to the Russian Consulate. Get the cops to stop him.’

  More throttle. More speed. 88th Street slid past.

  ‘They can’t get to him quick enough. They are far behind.’

  Now what will you do?

  ‘Don’t do anything stupid, Zeb. We are right behind you.’ Bear read his mind.

  A flick at the mirror. The SUV was behind, looming close.

  In front of him was a fast moving pickup truck, its bed empty. Not as fast as his bike, but close enough. The Mercedes was ahead of the truck. 90th Street was coming up.

  Once past it, the Mercedes would be home, free, since the Russian Consulate was just off 92nd Street and there was no way Zeb could overtake the truck and still stop Voronoff.

  Lightning quick calculations done almost unconsciously. Angles and speeds being measured. Thought became action. Action resulted in his bike revving. Closing down on the truck. A heave on the handle. A delicate manuever that a stuntman had made him practice a lifetime ago. The bike went flying over the truck.

  Coming down fast on the bed. Crashing into the rear of the cab. The impact throwing Zeb forward, over the cab, into the air.

  Over the Mercedes. His body loosening, guiding itself to the side of Voronoff’s car. Bear’s Glock sliding into his hand. Right arm extended. The Glock’s barrel becoming another finger.

  Falling fast. drawing level with the Mercedes’s roof. Just a few seconds to impact with hard concrete.

  Make them count.

  I’ll die.

  So what?

  Banishing further thought as the window came into view. Then Voronoff’s head. Whirling around to stare at him in amazement. The astonishment turning to alarm. To fright, when he recognized what the round, dark, hole was.

  The Russian braked. Hard.

  Too late.

  Zeb took the shot.

  Chapter 31

  Afterwards

  Zeb didn’t die. Bear’s timely action saved him.

  Bear had rammed into the pickup truck and had driven off the road. He had accelerated in the open road, Chloe calling out Zeb’s fall, and had reduced his speed to approximately match Zeb’s forward movement. He couldn’t do anything about his friend’s downward acceleration, but matching the forward speed could reduce the force of impact.

  Zeb had landed on his hood, his leg splintering the windshield. He had bounced once, and would have fallen off; Chloe had jumped out to grab him and, with Bear’s help, had hauled him inside the SUV.

  Zeb had a dislocated shoulder. A concussion. A sprained ankle. Two broken ribs. Numerous scrapes and bruis
es.

  But he was alive.

  It took three months for him to recover, time during which the twins, Broker, and Burke cracked open the rest of the case.

  Voronoff also hadn’t died. Zeb’s round had gone through his chest, narrowly missing his heart or lungs. He survived to admit his involvement and everything that he knew; the North Korean general approaching him with the flasks, his using the Crescents to transport the weapons. The Shamoun brothers, jihadists, who had been groomed by the HoF, the Hand of Fire, a Middle Eastern terrorist group.

  Zeb and the Agency knew the group well. Zeb had killed a few of their key leaders.

  The Shamouns had never come to the notice of any of the law enforcement authorities; they lived ordinary lives, in a small town in New Jersey, but when the HoF called, they answered.

  The flasks contained a deadly strain of an airborne virus that could have killed a quarter of the stadium. Victims died slowly and horribly, the kind of spectacle that the HoF and the Shamouns wanted.

  The entire plan had been the general’s. He had wanted to strike a blow on the one country North Korea saw as its foremost enemy, the USA. At the same time, he wanted no fingerprints on the mission. He had reached out to the HoF through several intermediaries, had asked them if they would be interested in delivering a spectacular blow to The Great Satan. The HoF had salivated at the prospect. They loved the idea of a chemical weapon, but they were a severely diminished organization.

  What if you got weapons in-country? The HoF became animated. That made it easy. All that remained, then, was to find martyrs and a date and a location. The HoF had been aware of the Shamouns for a while and had been saving them for a special occasion. Location and date fell into place when Karim Shamoun suggested the game in the MetLife Stadium.

  There remained the problem of getting the flasks to the HoF. Voronoff was an obvious choice. He had dealt with both the general as well as the HoF. A senior commander of the HoF, had been to some of the Death Club Fight Nights. That commander took ownership of the mission.

  Then, it came down to execution.

  General Hyun-Joo emptied his glass of rice wine and went to the window of his apartment in Pyongyang. The city was grey, devoid of color. In a park, was a giant statue of the Supreme Leader, visible to the general. He brooded for a long time. He had come close, so close.

  He had followed the news reports from America. Not a lot had been revealed to the public. It looked like some female FBI agent had busted the mission. He watched her interviews a few times, on TV. He got access to that channel because of who he was; very few of the vast population of North Korea even had a TV.

  The FBI agent hadn’t revealed much; a terrorist attack had been foiled and investigations had been ongoing. Three months after the incident, not much more had been revealed. The general knew details would never be revealed.

  He wasn’t worried about his safety. He was secure in Pyongyang and he knew his role as the master planner would never be known. Even if it became known, who was foolhardy enough to come after him?

  General Hyun-Joo didn’t know that his name had been scrawled on a white board in an office on Columbus Avenue in New York. He didn’t know that his time was running out.

  Vasquez didn’t leave his Sinaloa mountain hide-out for three months after the mission had turned into a disaster. His role had been to only provide transport for the flasks, but he knew the Americans well. They wouldn’t forget. They were patient, they would bide their time, and then they would strike.

  His Crescents gang was in disarray. After Pico had been busted, which he came to know of very late, the Sinaloa cartel and the other gangs had taken over large parts of his operation. Many of his people had either been killed or had defected to other gangs. The Reaction Special Forces had destroyed many other branches of the Crescents.

  Vasquez had a few trustworthy men with him in his mountain abode, surrounding him at all times. There he stayed, occasionally enjoying the company of a prostitute, waiting for the heat to die down. That chollo’s women, his wife and daughter, were still with Vasquez.

  He was tempted to hand them to his men, but they might come useful as hostages. And hence Vasquez let them live, unharmed.

  He burped and slapped the prostitute’s bottom. She giggled and burrowed into his neck and let her hands wander.

  A good dinner, a warm wench, his men outside his room, what more did a gang leader want? Vasquez dozed, hanging in that state between wakefulness and deep sleep. His peace was disturbed when his bedroom door crashed open and four masked men rushed in.

  They grabbed him from the bed and dragged him outside before he could shout or get to the gun beneath his pillow. His men lay scattered outside, dead. He screamed for help. None of the masked men stopped him.

  One of them shoved him in a chair and Vasquez noted they made no attempt to bind him. For the first time in his life, he felt fear.

  One of the men came closer and removed his mask. Vasquez started. The man was a gringo. His fear deepened.

  The man sat on his haunches, silent, looking as if he could read Vasquez’s mind. The gang leader stirred uneasily and wondered if he could make a break. His eyes darted to the men behind. They were armed. Relaxed. The way only supremely confident men, were. No, there was no escape. His eyes came back to the gringo who broke his silence.

  ‘Where are Maria and Juana?’

  Werner had simulated various approaches to Vasquez after taking into account several factors. The topography of the mountains, the remoteness of the location, the size of the Crescents, their weaponry, the informer network they had. All those went into Werner’s model and out came a plan.

  Zeb, Bwana, Roger, and Bear executed that plan. They trekked for three weeks through thick jungles, with their gear on their backs. They avoided all roads and didn’t go to any village or city. They closed down smaller gangs wherever they met them and when they got to Vasquez’s hideout, a palace-like mansion in a small village, they waited and watched. And when the time was right, they attacked. Exactly as Werner had suggested.

  Three days later they were in Mexico City, witnessing the tearful reunion between Miguel and his family. They were in Lope Cordova’s office, who had made it a point not to ask them where they had been and how Maria and Juana had come with them.

  All Cordova knew was that one day Miguel came to his office and behind him were the four Americans. ‘Keep him safe,’ Zeb had told Cordova before disappearing. He had reappeared days later, with the wife and daughter in tow and the major knew enough not to ask any questions.

  ‘He’ll be safe?’ Zeb asked Cordova as they watched the family.

  ‘Yes, senor. I think he has had enough of your country. As it happens, there is an opening in my office. I need someone who I can trust. It’s a clerical position, but I think Miguel will do a great job. And he will be surrounded by my people. They will be safe. It will be a new life for them.’

  Bwana fingered the locket around his neck as Zeb drove them to the airport. Maria had given it to him, with a kiss on his cheek. ‘Whatever we say, won’t be enough. That will keep you safe. It will ward off evil.’

  ‘Bwana, you’re not tearing up, are you?’ Roger joked.

  ‘Me? What do you take me for?’ Bwana summoned a growl but couldn’t help looking back one last time.

  There was one more job that Zeb attended to. Privalov.

  Voronoff had revealed his hideouts, but the former Spetsnaz operative wasn’t at any of them. It was in Portland that Zeb found him, after Werner had confirmed that one John Blonheim, staying in a downtown hotel, was indeed Privalov.

  Privalov had fought hard. He had waged a frantic battle in his hotel room, coming at Zeb with everything that he had. Guns, and when Zeb disarmed him, a knife. When that too went skittering away, bare-handed, using every trick and move he knew.

  Zeb didn’t kill him in Portland. He drove the wounded Russian in the night, and when a new day dawned, had made Privalov walk for five hours. To the sam
e spot where it had all started. Where he had found Mike Klattenbach.

  As the sun moved higher, with lazy clouds moving in the sky, he watched Privalov die.

  He left the body there as carrion, for the desert’s wildlife to feast on. Maybe some person would come across the body and call Garav. Maybe by then, the body would have decomposed and decayed. It didn’t matter.

  Privalov had killed many men. But in Klattenbach, he had killed a good man, a man who had tried to do the best he could, with what he had. A man who wasn’t afraid to die for his family. A man in the same mold as Zeb Carter.

  Privalov died knowing Carter had killed him for taking the life of Mike Klattenbach.

  Cherie Klattenbach received the call at school, during one of her breaks.

  ‘Ma’am, you are Cherie Klattenbach?’ the voice was official-sounding and wasn’t one she had heard before.

  ‘Yes, who’s this?’

  ‘I’m Kevin Garber, ma’am. I am aide to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Walter Cassidy. When will you be home tomorrow, ma’am?’

  Cherie ran a hand over her face, not comprehending. ‘What do you want, Mr, Garber? What’s this about?’ Joint Chiefs of Staff? What was that? What did they want with her?

  ‘Ma’am, I am not at liberty to say anymore, right now. What time will you be at home, tomorrow?’

  Cherie could stall, buy time, or could shut him down. She wasn’t that kind of a person. If there was a problem she faced it head on. No ducking. No postponing.

  ‘After school. Five pm. I’ll be at home.’

  She gave no further thought to it, but when she lay in her bath that evening, it suddenly occurred to her that it might be connected to her dead husband. Mike. Did he do anything wrong?

  She woke the next day, made breakfast for herself and her daughter, the usual routine. No change to it. When her daughter came down, she asked Morgan to return home early that evening.