Fatal Prescription

by Don Pendleton

  As he handed the folder to Bolan, the Executioner’s cell phone chimed. He looked at it and saw that it was Grimaldi calling.

  “What’s up?” Bolan asked while accepting the file from Kurtzman.

  “Not much,” Grimaldi said. “Despite our boy’s text to Karen to meet here at the Orleans Hotel at 1400, he hasn’t showed up yet.”

  “Maybe he’s playing it safe,” Bolan suggested. He opened the folder and began studying the blow-ups of the faces of the three men. “Or maybe he saw you and Agent Jefferson together and got spooked.”

  “Ha, ha,” Grimaldi said. “The day I can’t do a covert surveillance on a neophyte greenhorn like him is the day I’ll cash in my chips.”

  “Where’s Karen?”

  “She’s waiting for him in the bar, just like he texted her to do, and I’m stuck in a dark corner nursing a beer. I guess we’ll give it a little longer, but I’ve got a feeling he isn’t gonna show. And you know when I get a feeling, you can usually take it to the bank.”

  “What’s Karen’s take on the situation?”

  “She’s been trying to text him since we got here. So far, nothing. I can check again with her if you want.”

  As Bolan looked at the blowup of the black man’s face. A big piece of the puzzle clicked into place.

  “Stay on it until I get there,” Bolan said. “We’ve got a new angle to pursue. I’ll call you when I get to the hotel.”

  “Sounds good,” Grimaldi said. “I can’t wait to blow this pop stand.”

  Bolan terminated the call and handed the picture of the black man to Aaron.

  “Have you got a name for this guy?” he asked.

  Kurtzman grinned. “I’ve got everything but his blood type and shoe size. Shadrock Quarry. The shorter man is Dr. Arnold Debussey.”

  The Orleans Hotel bar

  Townson, Maryland

  THE TALON WAITED by the elevators, studying the latest text message to come over Perkins’s smartphone from Karen Jefferson: On my way.

  I’m sure you are, the Talon thought. But you have no idea to where.

  Figuring out the code to unlock Perkins’s cell phone had been simple. The Talon had merely studied the grid of numbers that appeared on screen and ascertained which ones had smudges: 2, 4, 7 and 9. Two even, two odd. It simply became a matter of trying different four-digit combinations, starting with the most logical first, and varying it.

  Most people, being creatures of habit, would go even, odd, even odd, in a diagonal rotation. Once the phone was unlocked, he pressed Menu to go to the address book and found the phone number for Karen Jefferson. It was obviously a government cell phone, judging by the area code and number. The Talon had then checked the message section and found several texts from Jefferson urging Perkins to meet her and mentioning that he was in grave danger. Checking his replies, the Talon saw that Perkins had told her to meet him in the bar of the Orleans Hotel at 2:00 p.m., which explained his nervous looks. Thankfully, the timing had worked out.

  The Talon wanted to thank him for making the task of getting to Jefferson so much easier, but that would have to wait. After he’d been Tasered in the room, Perkins had been tied up and safely tucked into a large laundry basket and whisked down the freight elevator. The Talon had instructed Quarry to stow the reporter in the van and be ready for pickup number two: Jefferson, once she’d been snared.

  The elevator bell chimed, indicating an arriving car. The Talon pretended to be heading from the ice machine and walked by the opening doors. Jefferson stepped out and glanced around. Their eyes met and the Talon smiled.

  Jefferson smiled, too, but didn’t look at ease. She was talking into her cell phone. The Talon fell into step behind her, eavesdropping on the conversation.

  “I had trouble getting through to you in the elevator,” she was saying into the phone. “I left you a message before when you didn’t pick up.” She paused, listening, all the while heading toward the room.

  “Yes, 927,” she said again. “What? No, I’m not going to wait for you. He texted for me to come alone. You can wait down there or up here by the elevators if you want, but I’m going in by myself.”

  Jefferson pressed the button to terminate the call and continued her determined march down the hall.

  So she wasn’t alone, the Talon thought. And her partner must not be too happy about her initiative. Maybe a male partner?

  The Talon stooped and set the empty ice bucket on the floor, then, rising, quickened his pace to stay a few feet behind Jefferson.

  The agent glanced over her shoulder, but the Talon’s head was down and he was digging in his purse. He withdrew the room key in his left hand and kept his right on the handle of the Taser just inside his big handbag...plenty of room.

  Jefferson stopped at room 927, totally focused on the door in front of her, softly rapping her knuckles on the hard, wood surface.

  The Talon covered the last remaining bit of distance with three steps, withdrawing the Taser as he moved. He’d previously removed the cartridge to use the drive-stun feature, just as he’d used on Perkins. Up close and personal was no problem, and it eliminated the worry of any telltale confetti markers.

  Jefferson was readying to knock again when the Talon pressed the prongs against her back and squeezed the trigger. The arc made a snapping sound and Jefferson stiffened, falling forward against the door. Keeping the trigger depressed and continuing the electronic current, the Talon deftly inserted the key card into the slot. The green light appeared and he pressed the handle down. As the door opened, he half carried Jefferson’s limp body into the room. Two of Quarry’s men, dressed in maintenance worker’s uniforms, stood by the bed with the partially filled laundry basket. The man holding the sheet grinned.

  “Her partner’s on the way up,” the Talon said.

  He wasted no time in securing the government agent’s wrists with handcuffs and using a heavy-duty wire-tie for her ankles. The Talon grabbed the precut piece of duct tape dangling on the closet shelf next to the door and affixed the tape over Jefferson’s mouth. She was coming to now, and the Talon hit her again with the Taser. Jefferson stiffened, making it easy to dump her into the laundry basket.

  Opening the door wide to accommodate the cart and his two confederates, the Talon reached into his purse and felt the butt of the small .380 Walther PPK. A good gun for close-range assassinations. “Go now. Hurry.”

  The two men quickly pushed the cart out of the room and hurried toward the freight elevator. The Talon let the door to room 927 gently close and strolled down the hall, pausing to pick up the discarded ice bucket on the way.

  He pressed the down arrow and waited. Moments later the bell chimed and the doors opened, admitting a tall, slim man in black casual pants and a gray sports jacket. The bulge of the coat over his right hip indicated a holstered pistol. He glanced at the room numbers legend and strode down the hall toward rooms 910-940.

  The Talon stepped onto the elevator and pressed the button for the lobby. As the doors closed, he opened his purse and took out the black glasses that he’d taken off Perkins. They were nonprescription and had what appeared to be a tiny circular lens, attempting to masquerade as a decoration. From the thickness of the side frames, they obviously housed some kind of candid recording device, which most likely would be of great interest to Stevenson. It would no doubt merit a nice bonus to augment a pending retirement.

  The elevator slowed to a stop and opened. The Talon stepped out, walking with a bit of flirtatious grace as he proceeded toward the parking garage area. He could hardly wait to get out of these damn Louboutin stilettos. They were killing his feet.

  * * *

  GRIMALDI LOOKED LIKE a man who’d been gut-punched.

  “Tell me again how it went down,” Bolan said.

  They were standing just outside the entrance of the Orleans Ho
tel, far enough back so they could see any vehicles leaving the parking area. So far, nothing had exited.

  “She must’ve gotten a text or something from him,” Grimaldi said, “when I was talking to you on the phone. I had to take a quick leak, and when I got back to the bar, she was gone.” He held up the phone and pointed to it. “I saw then that she’d tried to call me and left the message that Perkins had texted her to meet up in room 927. I started up there and tried to call her to tell her to wait for me, but I couldn’t get through. When she finally answered, she was already on the ninth floor heading for the room.

  “By the time the damn elevator, which took its sweet-ass time, got me up to nine, there was no sign of her. I went to 927 and listened at the door, then knocked.” He paused and frowned. “Nothing. I knocked again, harder this time. Still nothing.” He shrugged. “It took me a couple of kicks, but I got in, and the damn room was empty. I called hotel security and flashed my DoJ creds. Told them we had to search every room on the floor. When they balked, I told them it was either that or I’d start taking down doors myself. They threatened to call the cops, and that’s when you arrived.”

  Grimaldi looked down and shook his head. “Damn it, it’s all my fault. I should’ve stayed closer.”

  Bolan weighed the possibilities as he listened. Chances were good that they’d already removed Jefferson from the premises.

  He dialed Kurtzman and asked him if he’d had any luck getting a location on Jefferson’s cell.

  “Sorry, big guy,” Kurtzman said. “Nada. No signal at all. Most likely the phone’s been stripped, the battery taken out and discarded.”

  “How about Perkins’s phone?”

  “Same thing. Last recorded pings showed a transmission from towers near the Orleans Hotel about three minutes prior to the last one from Jefferson’s phone.”

  That meant Perkins had most likely also been taken.

  Grimaldi smacked his fist into his palm and muttered more curses, blaming himself for everything.

  Bolan considered the options. If both of them had been abducted from the hotel, after an elaborate ruse, there was a good chance that the abductor’s goal had included extracting information rather than immediate elimination. The prospects of that scenario weren’t pleasant, but it did offer them something else: time. Now it was a matter of finding out where they’d been taken.

  “Those hotel security guys sure weren’t helpful,” Grimaldi said. “I feel like going back in there and kicking some ass, just on general principles.”

  “We don’t have time for that,” Bolan said. “We’ve got to find out where they were taken.”

  “Any ideas how to do that?”

  Bolan saw the strain and guilt etched into his partner’s face. He tapped Grimaldi on the shoulder and motioned toward the black Escalade parked in a no parking zone with a sign in the windshield saying Official Government Business. It was time to pry open a few more doors.

  Bolan got in behind the wheel and pointed to the manila folder on the passenger seat.

  “That guy in the first photo look familiar?” he asked Grimaldi.

  Grimaldi settled in the passenger seat and opened the folder. After a few moments he shook his head. “Not really. Who is he?”

  “His name’s Shadrock Quarry. Ex-Army Ranger. Worked for a time for a PMO in Iraq and Afghanistan until he was hired as a personal security consultant for Stevenson Enterprises.”

  “As in William J. Stevenson?”

  “One and the same,” Bolan said. “Who also happens to own a lot of real estate in the area, including the Orleans Hotel.”

  “Damn,” Grimaldi said. “The whole thing was a setup.”

  “I was watching the hospital surveillance videos that Bear procured. When I saw Quarry’s face, I was sure he was the shooter on the hillside on St. Francis. And I’m also reasonably certain I caught a glimpse of him driving away from the Pittsfield Building parking garage just before our shoot-out. He had a blonde with him.”

  “You know, there was a blonde chick on nine when I was getting off the elevators, but I didn’t get a good look at her.”

  Bolan considered that bit of information.

  Obviously his partner had just missed Jefferson’s abduction. His gaze moved to the parking garage area adjacent to the hotel. They’d been watching the exit for the better part of fifteen minutes and had seen no vehicle leave suitable for holding two kidnapped victims. Bolan started the Escalade and shifted into gear.

  “Let’s go pay a visit to Mr. Stevenson,” he said. “He’s got a huge facility in Virginia, not too far from here.”

  “You think he’s got Karen there?”

  “That’s unknown,” Bolan said. “But we’ve seen no one leave here that looked suspicious. I doubt he’d keep her here for very long, and from what Bear pulled up on the internet, his facility looks like a small fortress.”

  “So it would make sense to take her and the reporter there. I wonder what the hell this is all about.”

  “Someone, most likely Stevenson, has been trying to eliminate people with information about the Keller Virus and Alocore. The Chevalier Institute did research for them, Oakley and his lawyer obviously knew quite a bit, and the former owner, Roy Bellamy, was taken out, as well.” Bolan pulled into traffic and headed for the Beltway.

  “We’ve got all the pieces of the puzzle except two things,” Grimaldi said. “Why he’s doing all this and what he’s got planned.”

  “And the clock’s ticking,” Bolan added.

  11

  Stevenson Dynamics

  Fairfax County, Virginia

  Stevenson pressed the button that opened the hidden closet in his private quarters and ran his finger over the row of gray suit jackets. Finding the one he wanted, with the special tailoring that allowed for the extra room under his left arm to accommodate his shoulder holster, he removed it from the tapered, wooden hanger and laid it on the chair next to the bed.

  He then stepped over to the wall safe inside the closet and pressed a code into the keypad. The numbers flashed red and the door popped open.

  Stevenson considered the array of available pistols in front of him and decided on a 9 mm Glock 17. The high-capacity magazine made the grip overly thick, but his long fingers wrapped around it with accustomed ease. After inserting a fully loaded magazine, he chambered a round and then dropped the magazine and replaced the bullet that was in the chamber. While he didn’t anticipate using the full complement of twenty rounds—hell, if you couldn’t hit your damn target with the first ten, what good would ten extra shots do?—having that extra edge was like hedging one’s bets. And lately he seemed to be stuck in an unlucky cycle of needing those hedges. Hopefully that would all be cleared up once the interrogations of that reporter and the Jefferson woman got under way. It might be interesting to watch Quarry work on the woman. She wasn’t bad-looking.

  Scenes of the torture session in his mind were interrupted by a quick knock, and Rodney Nelson insinuating himself into the bedroom.

  Stevenson shot him a sharp look, meant to display his disapproval at the intrusion, and picked up the specially designed shoulder rig.

  Nelson’s eyebrows raised. “Expecting trouble, boss?”

  “No, just making sure I’m ready for it,” Stevenson said. “You tell Debussey to report to my office?”

  “He’ll be there shortly.”

  “Good. We may have to move things up. Where do we stand with the other problem?”

  Nelson flashed another weak grin before he spoke. “Quarry’s got each of them set up. Wants to know who you want him to work on first.”

  Stevenson considered that as he slipped his long arms through the loops of the shoulder holster. Would it make sense to do the woman first? She would probably break quicker, but then again, she was a government agent and had to be handl
ed with circumspection. The reporter had been lucky up to this point, but certainly wasn’t a tough guy. Nor did he need to be handled with kid gloves. He could simply vanish without a trace and not much would be said about it. Jefferson’s demise was going to entail a bit more artistry. Perhaps a tragic car accident in which her body was burned practically beyond recognition? Or a drowning where she was found floating in the river?

  “Do the reporter first,” Stevenson said. “I may want to watch him do the woman.”

  Nelson nodded. He was about to say something when his cell phone rang. He looked at the screen, then answered it.

  “Yeah?” His expression remained calm. “What? Where are they? Okay, hold on.” He covered the phone and stared at Stevenson. “We got a couple of federal agents at the main gate wanting to talk to you.”

  “Federal agents? FBI?”

  Nelson shook his head. “Department of Justice.”

  That confused Stevenson more than it alarmed him. He said nothing until after he had picked up his suit jacket and slipped it on. “They say what they wanted?”

  Nelson shook his head. “Just that they needed to see you. Immediately.” His lips tugged into a tight line.

  Stevenson shrugged. The best way to handle an unexpected crisis was head-on.

  “Well, in that case,” he said, “we’d better not keep the idiots waiting.”

  * * *

  “MAN,” GRIMALDI SAID as the two guards raised the solid barrier and a metal grate rose from the ground to swallow the metallic teeth that formed a tire-piercing strip on the ground. The guard waved them through. “I see what you mean about this place. Those two guards were packing a lot of firepower. Crashing this gate would be hard on the tires, too.”

  Bolan drove under the upraised metal arm. “Keep your eyes open. I’m sure we’ll be paying them a return visit.”

  They drove toward a large, white, four-story building. The entire property was surrounded by a twelve-foot-high cyclone fence topped with three strands of barbed wire. Cameras were strategically mounted on posts, which no doubt also contained motion detectors. Except for a thin ribbon of well-manicured grass adjacent to the fence line, there was no other shrubbery in sight.