Hellfire- The Series, Volumes 1-3

by Leigh Barker

“I have the shot.”

  Ethan squeezed the trigger. “Take it.”

  “You need—” Lupus said, and the top of his head disappeared in a cloud of blood.

  Ethan lowered his weapon to his side, and Sam stepped forward and picked up the detonator. It had fired. “Boss,” he said quietly.

  “Yeah, I see it,” Ethan said and stepped forward, took the trigger, and examined it. “Ah.”

  Sam frowned and leaned forward for a closer look and smiled. “Jesus, it’s a dummy.”

  Ethan turned and walked to the van. “Just a theatrical prop to keep us busy.” He leaned in through the rear doors and swore a muffled curse.

  “Shit!” Sam said, looking at the control joystick hanging off the console with its wires cut.

  “Fix it,” Ethan said, reaching for his satellite phone.

  Sam turned the joystick over and shook his head. “Even if I had the tools, it’s gonna take me at least ten minutes to splice that lot.”

  “Do it anyway,” Ethan said, pressing the call button. He put the phone to his ear. “Leroy, what’s your position?”

  Leroy’s voice came back over the phone, straining against the noise of the helicopter.

  “Copy that,” Ethan said. “Quick as you can.” He ended the call and saw Sam’s urgent look. “Refuelled and on route. Seven minutes.”

  “Might as well be seven days,” Sam said, returning to his hopeless task.

  Ethan punched another number and waited a moment. “The drone is loose,” he said in a steady calm voice. “Pick it up, and put it into the river.” He clamped his jaw at the response. “You just do your best. And, son…” he waited a moment, “if you know any good prayers, say them now.” He put the phone beside the useless console.

  Sam glanced at him with an expression that said all that there was to say. He returned to stripping the wires with his pocketknife. And Ethan looked at his watch.

  Time up.

  The barge passed under Millennium Bridge and headed downriver towards Tower Bridge and the big television event.

  Valentin sat against the side of the launch, held the Javelin command and launch unit tight on his left shoulder, and squinted though the sight to locate the barge approaching slowly, with the politicians milking the watching crowds for every wave and shout. He placed the square cursor over the cabin surrounded by bomb-proof three-inch composite plastic, put his finger on the lock-on button, and stopped. In anti-tank mode, the missile would clear the launch, then climb almost vertically before powering straight down into the top of the cabin, where there was no need for protection against anything more than rocks dropped off the bridges. But he was early, too early for the world’s press to catch the moment everything changed, but that madman Lupus was about to release a deadly virus above the city. He lowered the Javelin’s launch unit and looked up at the ice-blue sky. Even launching early, he wouldn’t make it. Nobody would make it.

  To restore his beloved Russia was more important than life, but not more important than all these lives. The silent killer would spread itself on the wind, infecting everyone it touched, and they in turn would carry it out of the city and out of the country. The death toll would be unimaginable.

  He set the viewer to four times magnification and switched the missile to direct mode intended for helicopter intercept. With one last look at the barge, he put the launcher back on his shoulder and swept the sky to the northwest. The day-sight thermal imaging unit picked up the tiny UAV almost immediately. Call it luck, or call it God’s intervention. Sometimes, he thought, a horror is too great for Him to look the other way.

  He positioned the square over the tiny dot in the distant sky and locked the missile on. Then he fired. The missile soft-launched from the unit to produce minimum shoulder recoil and rose fifty metres into the air before the rocket propellant fired, streaking the missile up towards the drone locked into its tracker.

  Valentin put down the launcher and stepped off the boat onto the jetty without looking back. One day Soviet Russia would live again, but not rising from the ashes of Armageddon.

  Ethan leaned forward and watched Sam struggling to reconnect the wires, but knew it was already too late, even without looking at the countdown nearing zero. Both men stepped back from the van as the Javelin detonated high above the city.

  “Shit!” Sam said. “Is that what it looks like?”

  Ethan couldn’t help grinning like a loon. “It sure as hell is!” He slapped Sam on the shoulder. “Strike one ten-thousand-dollar model airplane!”

  Harry was also being slapped on the shoulder, by Shaun. “Holy Mother of God, that was an amazing shot!”

  Harry lowered the rifle and stood up slowly. “Much as I’d like to join in with you,” he said, shielding his eyes against the bright winter sun, “I can’t take credit for it. That was a surface-to-air missile.”

  “Christ, I didn’t know we had air support,” Shaun said.

  “No, neither did I,” Harry said and wondered why Sir Richard had kept that crucial fact from him. Probably more need-to-know bullshit.

  57

  Harry woke up, lay against his pillow, and thought about the previous day, which now seemed more and more like a crazy dream.

  As he and Shaun had exited the high rise, Sir Richard’s people had appeared as if by magic, bundled them into a non-descript little car with blacked-out windows, and whisked them away from the scene so that the event could be properly stage-managed.

  He rolled out of bed and massaged his leg, which was finally giving up trying to drive him nuts. Dressed, but unshaven, he went in search of breakfast and found it on the table next to Frank, who looked at him over the top of the ever-present newspaper. He raised it so he could see the front page declaring that a new era of international security cooperation had thwarted an assassination attempt on the most important people in the world. Rah, Rah, go Good Guys.

  “See you got the credit,” Frank said, with a sniff. “International cooperation, my arse. They’ll be shafting each other for the credit before the bodies are cold.”

  “They can have it,” Harry said, buttering a piece of lightly burnt toast, that being all that was left. “Give me the quiet life.”

  “Yeah, right, for a week, then you’ll be itching to shoot somebody.”

  Harry leaned over and tilted the newspaper. “Ah,” he said quietly.

  Frank turned the paper and read the story. “So what? Some twit launched a firework early.” He shrugged. “Probably just a bit overeager.”

  “Yeah,” Harry said, “overeager.” He smiled to himself. That was a hell of a firework display, but hey, say it often enough and folks will believe anything.

  “So,” Frank said, “you planning to go back to creeping about and playing with big guns?”

  Harry chuckled. “Bad men doing bad things must be brought to justice.”

  Frank stared at him in mock shock. “You know you’re not dressed properly?”

  Harry looked down at the faded blue jeans and carefully coordinated brown shirt.

  “Your underpants aren’t over your trousers,” Frank said, returning to his newspaper.

  Harvey came out of his room, immaculate in his pinstripe, looked at the empty plates, and picked up the phone, throwing a questioning look at Harry, who nodded and put down the burnt toast un-munched.

  “Sir Richard tells me he’s made you an offer,” Harvey said.

  “Really?” Harry said, surprised. “I thought it was supposed to be a big secret?”

  “Richard and I go back a long way, so he thought he’d run it by me first.”

  “Like I was still a snotty-nosed kid?”

  “Well, from where we stand,” Harvey said with a smile, “you’re not much more than that.”

  “So,” Frank said, suddenly interested, “what’s this big offer, then?”

  “National security prevents me from disclosing the details of—”

  “Bollocks,” Frank said and fixed Harry with a look.

  “Oh,
okay then,” Harry said. “Apparently, there’s a need for someone with my particular skills to… what did he call it?”

  “Work off the books,” Harvey added.

  “Right,” Harry said. “Work off the books.”

  “What the hell does that mean, then?” Frank said, picking up Harry’s burnt toast and completing its demise.

  “It means,” Harry said, “Sir Richard needs somebody to do his dirty work and not go bleating to the media when things get ugly.”

  “Strikes me,” Frank said, “things start ugly and just get uglier.”

  “Now I can’t argue with that,” Harvey said, “but that being the nature of politics.”

  “So,” Frank said, “you going to take up his offer and be a gun-for-hire?”

  “Nah,” Harry said. “Sooner or later we’ll fall out, when he asks me to do something shitty.”

  “And that,” Harvey added, “is the nature of that business.”

  “So, what you gonna do?” Frank asked, folding his newspaper and putting it between his leg and the arm of the chair for safekeeping. “Because you can’t just sit on your arse all day around here.”

  Harvey stared at him in disbelief.

  “I’m thinking of starting a private detective agency,” Harry said.

  “Yeah, right,” Frank said. “What the hell do you know about detecting? You’ll be out of business in a week.”

  “Thanks for that vote of confidence. But I’m going to have a partner, Irish guy I met recently.”

  They waited.

  “Seems he’s had it with the cop job.” Harry smiled. “Too much politics. And he’s suddenly got a kid, and probably a girlfriend.” He smiled. “Cute too, apparently.”

  The doorbell rang, and Frank went to let Serge wheel in the breakfast trolley.

  “Bonjour,” Serge said.

  “Oh, cut it out, George,” Harvey said, “your secret’s out.”

  Serge glanced at Frank, who just shrugged.

  “Don’t worry, son, it’s between us,” Harvey said, taking his breakfast off the trolley, as Serge seemed to have lost the use of his hands. “Provided you don’t supply this old reprobate with any more single malt on my tab, that is.”

  “Not necessary,” Frank said. “Your mother has graciously asked me to return to the family home.”

  Harvey didn’t do cheering, but if he was ever going to, it would have been right then.

  Shaun would soon feel like cheering, but didn’t know it yet. He stood at the bottom of Danny’s bed and listened to the steady beep of the monitors. This was his fault. If he hadn’t been so dead set on killing Patrick, his friend wouldn’t be lying here in a coma.

  “You get better, Danny, you hear me?” he said quietly, as if afraid he might wake him. “Yeah, course you do. I’ll be back every day, man. Until you’re back on your feet, but don’t forget I’m a busy man, so don’t let’s make it too many days, right?” He turned and started to leave.

  “Wouldn’t want to mess up your schedule,” Danny said, his voice weak and dry.

  Shaun spun on his heel and almost hugged his friend, but the mechanics of doing so defeated him. “Danny! Thank God!”

  “Hey,” Danny said, forcing a painful smile. “Don’t I get any credit?”

  “Nah. I always knew you were too bloody-minded to die off.”

  “Thanks, I think. Now, do you think you could give me some water?”

  Shaun glanced over his shoulder as he considered calling a nurse and asking if it was okay, decided the hell with it, took the plastic bottle from the over-bed table, and put the tube into Danny’s mouth for him to suck lukewarm water into his parched throat.

  “That’s better,” Danny said, his voice slightly less painful.

  “If you say so.”

  Danny raised his head an inch off the pillows and looked him up and down slowly, checking out his new suit and the striped yellow tie. “You going to a funeral?”

  “Nah. Well, not anymore,” Shaun said with a grin. “It’s the new me.”

  “Jesus! What happened? You get married?”

  Shaun smiled. “Nah. I made someone a promise.”

  Danny frowned. “Hell of a promise, but hey, I’m not knocking it.”

  “You ready for a trip to the pub, then?” Shaun said, changing the subject.

  “Give me an hour to get ready,” Danny said, grimacing at the pain as he moved a little. “Or maybe two.”

  “Okay, but first I think I’ll go get one of those cute nurses.”

  “Hey,” Danny said, and Shaun turned round. “Patrick?”

  Shaun shook his head. “No. And you know what? I don’t give a shit about him.”

  But he did give a shit about Baxter, the bastard who’d almost got their heads blown off in Tower Bridge. He’d sat by Danny’s bed through the night, listening to the machines beep and working out the details of his revenge. One of Baxter’s paymasters was going to get busted and would sorta find out it was Baxter who set him up. He’d had plenty of time to work through possible candidates and had finally settled on Tariq Abbas, the drug baron who’d walked away laughing when Shaun’s two-year operation was blown by an insider tip-off. The man was an animal, a one-man morgue filler who’d hung one of his lieutenants from a bridge and butchered him like a side of beef as a warning to anyone who was dumb enough to need warning.

  “What are you smiling about?” Danny asked.

  “I was just thinking about Debbie.” Shaun looked back from the door at his friend. “And a cute woodentop, who maybe isn’t out of my league after all.”

  He stepped out of the ward, and the image of Patrick standing over his dead father snapped into his mind like a video freeze-frame. Could he really just let it go and walk away. He gritted his teeth. Yes, of course he could, and would. And that was a lie.

  58

  Jimmy Detroit was also thinking about Patrick O’Conner as he walked along the hotel corridor, looking for the maid’s trolley left outside an open bedroom door. As always, he’d done his homework and knew about Patrick’s place overlooking Cobh harbour in Ireland. He wasn’t looking forward to that trip, it was always raining in Ireland, but that would be the end of it, no more countries like this shit-hole, with its cops who don’t carry guns, and the stupid people and their obsession with tea. Hawaii was the next stop, with sun, surf, and good old Americans. Yeah, that and good ol’ apple pie.

  He glanced into the room, saw the maid busy straightening the bed, and took the key card from her trolley, slipping it into his pocket as he went to find the elevator. The room he wanted was only two flights up, but who uses stairs in a hotel?

  He slid the key card through the lock and pushed the door open with his foot, his hands being used to hold the MAC-10 under the raincoat draped over his shoulders.

  Valentin Tal had his back to him, leaning over the bed packing his small case, and heard a noise or felt the change in air pressure. Either way, he turned slowly, already knowing what he would find.

  “Ah,” he said in a steady voice. “You are the cleaner?”

  Detroit nodded, but kept the gun steady as he pushed the door closed with the heel of his shoe. He walked slowly into the middle of the room. “If it makes you feel any better, I would have come for you even if you hadn’t screwed up.”

  Valentin sighed heavily. “Of course, I should have realised.” He shook his head at his stupidity. “Loose ends?”

  “Not for me to know,” Detroit said. “Too far down the food chain.” Truth be told, he wasn’t even in the food chain, just hired help. “Ironic, though, come to think of it.”

  Valentin raised his eyebrows. “How?” He saw the puzzled look. “How is it ironic?”

  “Ah, didn’t realise I’d said that out loud. But I was thinking it’s ironic that this is my last job, and it’s for the people who used to be the real bogey men.” He shrugged. “Ironic, eh?”

  A fleeting smile crossed Valentin’s face. “Yes, I suppose it is… ironic.” He pointed slowly at h
is case. “Do you mind if I write a note for my daughter? I can show you a photo, it is in my case.”

  “Sure,” Detroit said, shrugging his shoulders. “Family is all a man really leaves behind.”

  Valentin turned back to the case and rummaged with his left hand, while his right found the gun he always had close by. In a fluid move that belied his age, he turned and fired twice.

  But Detroit had moved two paces to his left, because people always did something desperate like that. And it always ended the same way.

  The Hellfire Legacy

  The Call

  Ethan felt the hairs on the back of his neck bristle and knew at once what it meant. He’d felt that warning many times before, first an uneasy sensation, then the increase in awareness to one side and suddenly heightened hearing. The marines call it the warrior sense, but whatever they call it, he never ignored it. He was walking past a furniture store that sold garish sofas to people with no taste, and he stopped to check the street in the window reflection. It was quiet, but at two a.m. it was going to be, in Chicago, in December with temperatures at minus 6, but feeling more like minus 60 in the moaning icy wind.

  The warrior sense got worse, and then he saw the black BMW 5 with the smoked windows across the street. It was moving, but no more than walking speed, which was unlikely for a pimp-mobile like that. He walked on, turned as if to cross the street, and confirmed that the BMW was tracking him. He stepped back from the curb and walked on, checking the street for somewhere defensible. About twenty feet ahead was an alley, and he increased his pace a little. Ten feet from the entrance he heard the BMW screech as the driver put his foot down hard. He ran. The BMW wagged its ass, and the driver tried to keep it steady at maximum acceleration. Three more paces. He was going to make it.

  Then he saw the kids. Two of them, boys. On skateboards. Right in front of the alley. What the hell were they doing out at this time of night? A stupid question at that precise moment.

  He turned, dropped to one knee, and pulled his Sig. The BMW was right on him. An Uzi appeared in the rear window. Ethan put three rounds through the windscreen, right where the driver should be. Problem was, this was an import and the driver was in the right-hand seat. Maybe that was the whole point.