Hostile Intent

by Michael Walsh

  He put the whirlybird down right on target, in the middle of the yard, which had been cleared in advance. God, it felt good to be flying one of these babies again.

  He had two passengers: Hope and Rory Gardner. But he was thinking about Jade. She always wanted a helicopter ride. “When you’re all better, honey,” he thought to himself. Then the two of them would go up and spread Diane’s ashes over the Pacific.

  There—there was the woman he’d been told look for. It had to be her. But who was that with her? A girl.

  “Oh, my God!” screamed Hope. “Oh, my God. EMMA!”

  The rotors were whirring for a fast take-off. The woman on the ground couldn’t hear her.

  “It’s her! It’s Emma.” Hope threw her arms around Danny’s neck and hugged him. “You found her! You—”

  A bullet smashed into the side of the Hawk.

  Danny leaned out the side of the helicopter, motioning for them to run toward him. The girl started to run—unsteadily, groggily, but she was running.

  Rory saw his sister. “Come on, Emma!” he shouted.

  Several more bullets pierced the Black Hawk. ark, he knew how to use it.

  Still, who was he supposed to shoot at? Danny scanned the yard. No guards to be seen.

  WTF? Rory had stopped running.

  He was gesturing, gesticulating. Not at anybody in particular, but at the heavens themselves.

  “Come on!” he was shouting. “Shoot me! But let her go! She’s my sister!”

  Rory was dead. That much Danny knew. The fatal shot would come any second now…

  Nothing.

  Emma staggered into her brother’s arms.

  Nothing.

  Danny made ready to take off. The rotors whirred faster now.

  Besides, there was still that other woman on the ground. Who the hell was she? He was supposed to grab the kid and get the hell out of there as fast as possible.

  Fuck that noise.

  He didn’t want to take off. He wanted to fight. It was payback time.

  The Brügger spat suppressing fire.

  The Black Hawk started to rise.

  Come on, kids, goddammit. Come on!

  The first thing Skorzeny saw was Amanda, lying where he had left her.

  But no Emma. No Pilier.

  He was still standing there, in his private quarters, when he was hit from behind.

  Punches, raining down, like the Lord’s burning wind. Two blows, one each, to the kidneys. Something cut his legs out from underneath him. Falling, he lashed out with a kick.

  Another punch, this one more painful than the last. Skorzeny fumbled for one of his pockets. For the canister. He cracked it. A simple vial, like the vial they had given him when he was a child. In case the Russians caught him. Or the Americans. Death before dishonor. Meine Treue ist meine Ehre. My Faithfulness Is My Honor.

  He managed to roll over as the capsule cracked. Struggled to his feet, a handkerchief over his mouth. He thought he could hear Carlos laughing at him, mocking him, from his cell in Hell.

  The man fell back. His mouth, too, was covered. The cyanide had failed.

  Only one chance now—

  Rory and Emma ran for Danny’s chopper. And then the gunfire began again. Not directed at them. Directed at him. And this time, it meant business.

  Smart, very smart. Wait for them all to get on board. Then take them out.

  Too close quarters to use the Black Hawk’s armaments. This was supposed to be an in and out, only necessary force.

  There—up on the roof. A big, powerful man with a very nasty looking gun. The BrWASHINGTON, D.C.

  They met at the Willard Hotel, where Tyler kept a private suite of rooms, for moments just like this. There was a TV camera there, ready to start videotaping.

  Tyler took his place behind a desk that looked just like the desk in the Oval Office. In close-up, nobody would be able to tell he wasn’t at the White House. Tyler nodded at his small audience and began speaking.

  “ collapse of the international financial system.”

  “Which is why you’ve let him skate. That was smart. But he’ll resurface once he thinks he’s in the clear.”

  “Why?” asked Tyler. “He has enough money. He can just disappear.”

  “But he won’t. He has unfinished business. With the world, and with me. End-times craziness. An atheist’s apocalypse. This isn’t over.”

  “Permission granted,” said Tyler.

  “With one condition.”

  “Name it,” said the president.

  “That Branch 4 expands by at least one member. Someone I can trust, someone who…”

  “Someone who doesn’t have to kill you just because they know you,” supplied Seelye.

  Devlin shot him a killer look. “And only I know this person’s identity.”

  Tyler looked at Seelye, who looked at Rubin. No sense telling the truth now, either to Devlin or the president. What had once been a fiction—Branch 4—was now becoming a reality, whether they liked it or not. The monster was becoming a man.

  “Agreed,” said President Tyler.

  “Thank you, sir.”

  The meeting was over. The decision had been made. The President started to gather up some things on his desk, then turned back.

  “Who are you, really?” he asked, but the man was nowhere to be seen. Just a voice out of the shadows.

  “Call me Devlin,” he said.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  In a novel about clandestine services and prototype technology, especially involving the National Security Agency and the Central Security Service, there are necessarily those who cannot be publically thanked, but thanks to them anyway.

  Thanks also to Gary Goldstein, my editor at Kensington Books; Cristina Concepcion, my literary agent at Don Congdon Associates; Eva Lontscharitsch, my manager at Imprint Entertainment; Neda Niroumand of Vincent Cirrincione Associates; and Jeff Berg, the chairman of International Creative Management in Los Angeles, all of whom contributed invaluable suggestions to help bring Devlin out of the shadows and onto the page.

  Thanks to my screenwriter colleague, John Fasano, for his helpful suggestion of the Barrett .50-caliber rifle as one of Devlin’s weapons of choice; to Bruce Feirstein, for his friendship; to Bill Whittle, who taught me about the OODA loop; and to the gang at Yamashiro’s and FOA in Los Angeles, good fellows all.

  Thanks to my friend and fellow Eastman School of Music alum, Deborah Richards, her father, Bob, and her sister, Kate Motley, for showing me around their home town of Edwardsville, Illinois, a wonderful place in which, really, nothing ever happens.