Storm Front: A Derrick Storm Thriller

by Richard Castle

  “Believe me, I’ll be doing that now, too.”

  “You take care, Sister Rose. We’ll talk soon.”

  He ended the call just as Xi Bang slid up to him and planted an enthusiastic kiss on his lips. She was still dressed in the same outfit, much to the delight of several of the business travelers who had joined her on the 6 A.M. shuttle.

  “I have a little present for you,” she said.

  “I thought this was my present,” Storm said, eyeing the outfit.

  “No, it gets better,” she said, producing a plastic bag from behind her back and ceremoniously presenting it to him. It was festooned with the logo of a novelty shop Storm knew to inhabit Reagan National Airport.

  Storm opened the bag. Inside were a pair of SuperSpy EspioTalk Wristwatch Communicators from Cloak and Dagger Enterprises. “Trade Secret Messages Like Real Spies!” read the package. “Variable Frequency Dial Allows Multi-Channel Communication! Effective Range 3,000 Feet!”

  “I just thought that in the spirit of international cooperation, we ought to get on the same frequency,” she said. “This way, we can always be in touch.”

  Storm tore open the packaging and strapped the watch on his left wrist. He admired it for a moment and said, “It’s the best toy I’ve ever gotten.”

  CHAPTER 25

  NEW YORK, New York

  The elevator at Marlowe Tower rocketed its occupants sky-ward, moving them quickly toward Prime Resource Investment Group’s six-thousand-square-foot playground on the eighty-seventh floor.

  “I mean, did no one seriously think about that? P-R-I-G. Their company name spells ‘prig,’ ” Xi Bang was saying.

  “I’m not even a native English speaker and I noticed it.”

  “Maybe it’s intentional,” Storm suggested.

  “Intentionally what, though? Intentionally elitist?”

  “You’re not going to launch into a rant about capitalism now, are you?” Storm asked.

  And, no, she wasn’t. Not after the brief stop she and Storm had made on their way to Whitely Cracker’s office. Storm was one of those special customers that Barneys allowed to have private shopping hours, and they had taken full advantage of it. They tore through the store like impulsive children, chattering on their EspioTalk Wristwatch Communicators. Xi Bang had come away with a cutout black dress by Balenciaga, a simple yet stunning piece that had allowed her to gleefully throw her schoolgirl outfit in the trash. She paired it with a Delvaux purse that was just the right size for the sleek 9mm Taurus PT709 that had come from Storm’s Mustang.

  Storm went with an Andrea Campagna chalk-stripe suit that would allow him to blend with the locals. Fortunately, it was cut broadly enough to cover both his thick chest and the shoulder holster for one of his favorite guns, a Smith & Wesson Model 629 Stealth Hunter, a modernized, slightly more surreptitious version of Dirty Harry’s gun that, just like the revolver made famous by Clint Eastwood, used .44 Magnum cartridges.

  Their tack with Cracker, which they had discussed while making the remainder of their trip in, was quite straightforward: bluff their way into his office and then confront him. If they got a confession, great. If not, they would just take him into custody, either voluntarily or by force. They’d worry about the legality of it all later.

  Once off the elevator, they entered through the opaque glass doors of Prime Resource Investment Group and came face-to-face with an officious receptionist. She knew full well these two well-dressed strangers did not have an appointment. Storm wasn’t worried. Thanks to Clara Strike, he knew just the right thing to say.

  “Hello,” Storm said, then immediately affected an imperious air and a Middle Eastern accent. “I am Mustafa Mattar and this is my assistant, Fatima al-Fayez. We are emissaries from His Royal Highness, Crown Prince Hashem, and we demand to have an audience with this so-called Whitely Cracker at once or we will be forced to withdraw all of the money from our account.”

  That neither Storm nor Xi Bang looked remotely Arab was not, at least immediately, top on the list of the secretary’s concerns. That approximately three-quarters of a billion dollars of her boss’s fund was threatening to walk out the door earned more of her attention.

  “Yes, yes, of course, Mr. Mattar. Mr. Cracker is…”

  “Why am I still waiting?” Storm asked, chin held high. “The prince has dispatched me here with a royal order. It is Jordanian custom and law that any emissary of the prince must be treated as if he is the prince himself. Do I make myself clear?”

  “Yes, but Mr. Cracker stepped out for just a minute. If you could please have a se—”

  “I will not have a seat. And I will not wait. I demand to know where he is this very moment.”

  “I’m sorry, but if you will have a seat I can call him. He just ran to the deli across the street. I can call him and he’ll be back here…”

  “The deli across the street?” Storm said. “Very well. Miss al-Fayez? We will now depart.”

  Storm barged back through the glass doors, with Xi Bang close on his heels.

  “Nice job there, Mustafa,” Xi Bang said, as soon as it closed. “To the deli?”

  “To the deli,” Storm confirmed.

  They rode back down in silence, holding hands as they did so. It wasn’t exactly in keeping with two professional members of a prince’s envoy, but Storm was fairly confident he wouldn’t need that cover again. They reached the street level, pushed through Marlowe Tower’s polished brass revolving doors, and were making their way across the street to a deli that had, appropriately, been named “DELI.”

  Then Storm spied two men sitting in the window.

  They were having an intense conversation. One had ash-blond hair and a silver-spoon air about him. The other had an eye patch and a badly scarred face.

  Storm’s grip on Xi Bang’s hand turned vise-like.

  “What is it?” she said.

  “It’s Cracker,” he replied. “And he’s sitting with Gregor Volkov.”

  Storm let go of Xi Bang. His hand reached for the Dirty Harry Smith & Wesson.

  “Wait,” Xi Bang said, grabbing his arm. “Don’t just charge in like an idiot. Let’s come up with a plan first.”

  “No,” he said, shaking off her grasp. “I’ve had Volkov slip away from me too many times.”

  And the part Storm didn’t need to say was It won’t happen again. This time, Volkov wasn’t merely going to escape with burns. This time, there would be no second or third or fourth act. This time, Storm was going to keep putting bullets in Volkov’s head until the man was down and would never again rise.

  In some ways, the whole scene was surreal to Storm. He had chased Volkov across the continents and throughout the years, and now here he was, right in front of him, sitting in a street-side deli, like any common New Yorker, hiding in plain sight. The people ordering their bagels and grabbing their coffees on the way to the office had no idea that of the two men sitting in their midst, one was an international terrorist and the other was plotting a financial catastrophe that would make the Great Recession look like a little tiny cub of a bear market.

  Storm raised his gun and took aim.

  “Derrick, for God’s sake, wait…,” Xi Bang yelled after him.

  But Storm was already striding across the street with the gun drawn, heedless of the traffic. His eyes and gun barrel were trained on Volkov. The moment he was sure he had a clear shot, he was going to take it. The .44 Magnum cartridge had the power to punch a bullet through the window and still have plenty enough oomph to finish the job.

  A propane truck swerved out of Storm’s way, laying on its horn.

  Gregor Volkov loved this part. Just loved it.

  Whitely Cracker, king of the pig American capitalists, had called him in—no, ordered him in—like he was some kind of domestic servant, thinking that Volkov would gratefully and happily accept his six-million-dollar payment in exchange for the six MonEx codes.

  Because, after all, who was Gregor Volkov to Whitely Cracker? Just some m
outh-breathing muscle-head who was not civilized enough to attend the same operas; some two-bit thug who Cracker didn’t even want in his office, thus necessitating their meeting in a deli; some dumb Russian who would nibble on scraps even as Cracker feasted from the table above him.

  Little did he know.

  Little could he guess.

  So Volkov was laying it out for him. Everything had changed. Volkov was now the master, and Cracker the servant. They would do with the MonEx codes what Volkov wanted—when and how Volkov said it would be done.

  Volkov was enjoying himself so much, he even explained the why of it all. He had been in touch with several powerful Russian oligarchs, who had eagerly agreed to use a part of their windfall from the fulfillment of Click Theory to fund General Volkov’s coup against the den of thieves currently ruling over Moscow, crooks whose rampant corruption sapped Mother Russia of her strength. Forget the losses of the Cold War, the absurdity of the Soviet Union, and the joke that was the government that had ruled ever since. At the expense of all the other world economies, Russia would rise again, without her weakling dependents, without the crooks, and with Volkov as its militarily backed dictator.

  And, yes, Cracker would play his part. It wasn’t just because of the Ruger that Volkov had hidden beneath a napkin under the table as they spoke. It was because Volkov would charge a much higher price for disobedience, one he would extract not from Cracker—at least not at first—but from his family. His lovely wife. His beautiful boy. His perfect girl.

  Volkov was just getting to this part when the hairs on the back of his neck suddenly stood up. He hadn’t stayed alive in this world as long as he had without developing certain instincts, and one of them was a near 360-degree awareness of his surroundings.

  And so he noticed things. He noticed movement. He noticed strange shapes. He noticed when a horn was blown, and that it was not just the tap-tap kind of horn a motorist sounded when he wanted to gain someone’s attention; it was the angry, heavy horn of a driver who wanted to send a scolding message.

  All of these things had come together on the edge of Volkov’s consciousness, jolted him out of his conversation with Cracker, and caused him to look out at the street, where he saw Storm charging.

  The Russian paused for exactly half a second, calmly weighing his options. Then he removed the Ruger from under the napkin and fired two perfectly aimed shots.

  But not at Storm.

  At the propane truck.

  The resulting explosion sent a fireball mushrooming up through the canyon of skyscrapers that surrounded the lower Manhattan street. The force of the blast at first depressed the truck, then raised it in the air for a split second before sending it hurtling on its side into the storefronts across the street. At least thirty cars were lifted off their tires and scattered about like children’s toys, some on their sides, some on their roofs. A motorcycle got high enough to come to rest on top of the stoplights behind it.

  Bodies were likewise strewn about. Storm, Xi Bang, and dozens of other pedestrians were thrown flat or into buildings. Drivers of cars were crushed inside their vehicles. Miraculously, the truck driver was blown clear of the cab and wound up with non-fatal injuries. Others were not so lucky.

  The percussiveness of the blast had shattered every window on the block from the tenth story down, sending down a rain of glass shards that forced Storm to keep his head low.

  By the time he was able to look up, Volkov and Cracker were gone. Xi Bang was already scrambling up as Storm got to his feet. He had a quick decision to make: go after Volkov or go after Cracker. He couldn’t chase both.

  Cracker was a man with roots only in New York, a man with no training in how to disappear and no real place to hide. Volkov, on the other hand, was a phantom with a long history of being able to dance between raindrops without ever getting wet. Really, it was no decision: Storm had to chase the phantom.

  “Cover the front,” Storm shouted over the cacophony of car alarms. “I’m going around back to get Volkov.”

  “Storm, wait,” Xi Bang shouted. But she might as well have been telling rain not to fall.

  Storm dashed into the alley to the left side of the deli, his revolver still firmly in his right hand. The explosion had given him at least one advantage: Anyone or anything that might have been in his way had been blown clear. He made a right around the corner of the building. The back door was still open, swinging on its hinge as if someone had barreled through it at high speed.

  The alley was L-shaped, and a dead end. There was no sign of Volkov. There were also no other doors on the street level of the alley. Where could he…

  Then Storm looked up, just as Volkov scrambled to the top of the fire escape of a five-story brick building. Storm squeezed off a shot, but Volkov had already disappeared over the edge.

  Storm instantly assessed the situation. Beyond the brick building, there was a skyscraper the lower levels of which were an open-sided parking garage. Volkov might be bold enough—or desperate enough—to make the leap across the alley separating the two structures and clamber through one of the openings. It would be his only way out.

  If Storm tried to run out of the alley and around, he’d be too late. If only he could alert Xi Bang that Volkov would be coming out of the parking garage, she could intercept him.

  Then Storm looked down at the small chunk of plastic strapped to his left arm. He felt slightly ridiculous doing it, but he pressed the talk button on his EspioTalk Wristwatch Communicator.

  “He’s hit the roof of the building just south of the deli,” Storm said as he raced toward the fire escape. “He’s going to jump to the parking garage on the building next door. Can you…?”

  “I’m on it,” Xi Bang’s voice crackled.

  “I’ll be adding pressure from behind,” Storm said, leaping up and grabbing the bottom of the fire escape.

  He pulled himself up onto the ancient iron structure, then galloped up the steps three at a time, hoping that he might have a shot when he reached the roof. He reached the top just in time to see Volkov slithering over one of the concrete half walls of the parking deck.

  Storm didn’t take the time to measure the alley to see if he could handle the jump. He just stuffed the gun back in its holster and hurtled himself forward. The roof was perhaps twenty-five yards wide, enough to allow Storm to reach full speed—or at least as fast as he could go in what his father would deride as “faggy Italian shoes.” At the edge of the building he leaped.

  The gap was wider than he thought. And for one sickening moment, he thought he might not have enough momentum to carry him to the other side.

  He made it by an arm’s length, slamming into the concrete hard enough to knock the wind out of him. Ignoring the pain, he rolled over the wall and hunched down long enough to pull his gun back out. He stood and aimed it at the nearest human target. But it wasn’t Volkov. It was a distraught-looking middle-aged man.

  “Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!” he yelled, holding his hands in the air.

  “Where did he go?” Storm demanded.

  “I don’t know. He stole my car!” the man said.

  “What do you drive?”

  “A Toyota Camry.”

  “Color?”

  “It’s silver. Are you with the…”

  But Storm was already running past him. He pressed the talk button on his toy wristwatch. “Silver Toyota Camry, coming out any second now.”

  “I’ll be there,” he heard in return.

  Several stories below, Storm could hear the shrieking of tires as Volkov took the tight turns of the parking garage at high speed. Storm sprinted toward the stairs in the center of the garage. Volkov was now motor-propelled, but he would have to wind his way down. At least Storm could go straight down.

  As he reached the second-to-last story, he heard shots ring out. They sounded like they were coming from a 9mm. He could only hope they were finding their mark. Screams now joined with the bleeping of car alarms to create a soundtrack fit f
or a disaster movie.

  Storm reached the first floor and ran toward the street. When he got there, Xi Bang was approaching the left rear of the Camry slowly, in a low crouch, still clutching her gun, her shoes crunching on a layer of broken glass. The street was strewn with the detritus of the explosion. Several fires had been ignited and the wailing of approaching fire trucks bounced off the concrete canyons. The acrid smell of smoke filled the air. Wounded pedestrians moaned, cowering in whatever shelter they could find.

  Xi Bang ignored it all. Her entire focus was on the Camry, stopped dead in the middle of the street. It had stalled out at an odd angle. Its left front tire had been shredded. It had three bullet holes in its side and its windows had been shot out.

  Storm brought his gun up, ready to pull the trigger if he saw any sign of movement coming from the inert car. He circled around so he was advancing on the left front of the car.

  “Did you hit him?” Storm called, closing in quickly.

  “I think so,” Xi Bang said. “I don’t know how I could have missed.”

  “This is Volkov we’re talking about. It’s like trying to shoot a shadow.”

  They reached the car simultaneously. It was empty. There was no sign of blood. The passenger side door was open.

  “Where the hell did he go?” Xi Bang demanded.

  “How should I know? I was in the garage.”

  On the other side of the car, they got their answer. A subway grate had been moved aside.

  “He’s gone underground,” Storm said, spying the Wall Street subway stop three blocks away. “This is the two-three line. If he tries to go east, he’d have to go under the entire East River before he got to another stop. He’ll go north, toward midtown.”

  Storm holstered his gun. He pointed toward the subway stop in the distance and said, “That means he’ll try to resurface there. You come from above. I’ll come from below. We’ll squeeze him till he pops.”

  The shaft that led into the ground had a ladder on its side, and Storm clambered down into the darkness as fast as he could without losing his grip. The subway was not as deep under Wall Street as it was in some parts of the system. But it was far enough down that a fall would likely be deadly.