The Executioner's Game

by Gary Hardwick

  “No I wouldn’t,” said Luther. “Not anymore.”

  Alex blinked at this change in his old student. “I see.”

  “If we take the facility tonight and recover the American information, we might be able to end this thing and stay alive,” said Hampton.

  “Agreed,” said Luther. He realized that he’d assumed Alex’s mission or had extended his own. In any event, it was not over.

  “And what about your family?” asked Alex. “The kill team will probably use them to lure you out. There’ll be a fire at the house, or someone will get shot in a drive-by or a car accident. You know the procedure.”

  Luther had not thought about this fact. They would threaten his family in order to draw him out or make him surrender. He had no choice this time. If E-1 were corrupt in this matter, he had to save his family from them. He didn’t care about the rules anymore. He was making up his own.

  “We have to ensure that doesn’t happen,” said Hampton before Luther could.

  “If we protect your family, it increases the chance that we’ll fail,” said Alex calmly.

  “Can we take the facility right away?” asked Luther, ignoring Alex’s grim prediction.

  “Yes,” said Alex. “I’ve been working on it since I got here. We’ll have to take the place quickly, so some of the guards might have to be neutralized.”

  “No,” said Luther.

  “We can’t afford to get self-righteous,” said Alex. “Getting the information is all that matters now.”

  “I don’t work for you,” said Luther.

  “If your Rule 225 exists,” said Hampton, “then we all work for the people of this country.”

  “You want to take on an E-1 kill team, protect your family, and retrieve the information—all without anyone dying?” asked Alex.

  “I didn’t say that,” said Luther. “I just don’t think our normal method of kill first should be employed anymore.”

  “Sounds nice and humane,” said Alex, “but the cleanup team will be here, and the first thing they’ll do is go after your family. How are we going to get the information and guard them at the same time?”

  “I’m surprised at you,” said Luther. “Surely you know that when an agent is faced with the impossible, he’s expected to win. And the first way to win in an impossible situation is to employ the very elements that created it.”

  “I can’t believe you remembered that,” said Alex.

  “I did, and it’s what we’re going to do,” said Luther.

  “How?” asked Alex.

  “I don’t know,” said Luther. “My TWA is a certified genius, and I’m sure he’ll come up with a way.”

  “No pressure there,” said Hampton. “Okay, I can think of several ways to approach this. We can tell your family what you do for a living and hope they believe it.”

  “They wouldn’t believe it,” said Luther. “Maybe we can just ask them to evacuate.”

  “Possibly,” said Hampton. “Do you think we can get them all together?”

  “They’re at my mother’s place today for a family meeting,” said Luther.

  “We should leave them and continue the mission,” said Alex. “If they die, so be it.”

  “I’d expect that from you, since you already tried to blow them all to hell….” Luther stopped for a moment, then smiled. “I got it,” he said.

  Kill Team

  Frank Hedgispeth watched the Green house from a street over. He sat in a dark van that was backed into a vacant lot and pointed at the house, peering through high-powered binoculars. Next to him was a sniper’s rifle.

  He hadn’t seen Luther since he’d left D.C. When they hit town to take out Hampton, they had found the safe house empty and no evidence of the double kill he’d reported. That meant that Luther and Alex Deavers were still alive. Three wolves. A career-making opportunity.

  Kilmer wasn’t about to take Hampton’s word for what he’d heard over the phone, so he’d called Frank, who was shocked at being given the green light to take out Luther, Hampton, and any captive they held.

  Luther had fallen for Alex Deavers’s bullshit, and now he would pay for it. And he’d done it in his hometown, making Rule 35 applicable. Surely Luther would know they’d go after his family to lure him into the open. Luther had never spoken much of his family, and so Frank figured that he didn’t care about them. Kilmer assured him that this was not so, and therefore they would proceed as normal. Frank had made a critical decision in this regard. He’d decided to terminate one of Luther’s family members to let him know they were serious.

  But which one? thought Frank. Not the mother. Even an E-1 agent wasn’t that low, although taking her would certainly elicit a stronger response. No, he was thinking about the father or maybe an older brother. Those were relationships that hit a man hard as well.

  Frank was the leader of this operation. He didn’t want to use the term “kill team,” but that was their mission. They were to bring Alex and Luther back to E-1 neutralized. It wouldn’t be easy. Alex was a master, and Luther, Frank had to admit, was formidable as well. This would be a great thing for him, he thought. Completing this mission would put him at the top of Kilmer’s list, and he would get rid of a rival in the process. Frank had planned to be director of E-1 in ten years. He had just lowered that number to seven.

  Sharon Bane walked up and stood next to the car. She had not talked much since arriving in Detroit. Frank knew that she didn’t share his zeal for this mission. In fact, Kilmer had told him that Sharon’s friendship with Luther made her a liability, but she knew him better than anyone else and could be of use.

  “How long until we make our move?” Sharon asked.

  “I’m thinking another hour or so,” said Frank. “I’ve decided to take the father.”

  “Okay, but we’ll still need a backup.”

  “Big brother,” said Frank calmly.

  Frank’s radio crackled, and he switched it on quickly. “Yes.”

  “Still nothing back here,” said Kam Lim over the radio. Kam was the third agent assigned to the mission, watching the back of the house. He’d been on assignment in San Francisco when he was called in. Kam was a ruthless agent, known to dislike Luther ever since the latter had injured him in a martial arts tournament.

  “We’re going to move in one hour,” said Frank. “If anyone comes your way, you know what to do.”

  “Right,” said Kam. “But if that happens, we have to take them all, right?” Kam could not hide the eagerness in his voice. Sharon shook her head in disapproval. Even Frank didn’t like it.

  “That will be on my order only,” said Frank.

  “Sure thing,” said Kam, forcing his voice back into a respectful mission tone. He obviously knew he’d gone too far. “Who’s our target acquisition?”

  “The father,” said Frank.

  Kam acknowledged the target and signed off. Frank heaved a small sigh and turned off the radio. Sharon climbed into the car and settled next to Frank.

  “I don’t know why Kilmer would send Kam Lim on this mission,” she said. “He harbors some personal animosity against the wolf since that incident in training.”

  Frank was glad to hear Sharon refer to Luther as a wolf. She had depersonalized him, and that meant she would take him out on sight.

  “I wouldn’t have,” said Frank, “but Kilmer’s the boss, and maybe things are different when you’re in charge.”

  “I can’t believe Luther did this,” said Sharon. “It’s the dumbest thing he’s ever done.”

  “I don’t get it either. All I can think of is that Alex Deavers is really good.”

  “I wonder how Deavers turned him,” Bane wondered.

  “Who knows?” said Frank. “Not our job to wonder why.”

  “So what did Kilmer mean when he said for us to neutralize the wolves and destroy all property possessed by them? That was a very unusual request.”

  “Again, I didn’t ask,” said Frank. “We got three wolves, Sharon. When th
is is over, we should talk about your future.”

  Frank felt Sharon stiffen next to him. She knew he liked her, and it was rather inappropriate to get into personal matters on assignment.

  “This mission will put us both in the limelight,” Frank continued. “And you need to think about where you want to be when the fieldwork is over. I mean, you don’t want to be punching security buttons like Adelaide, do you?”

  “I never thought about it,” said Sharon. “And for the record, I like Adelaide.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “I do,” said Sharon. “And I’ve already decided that I don’t want to become some D.C. lobbyist or an agency head. I’m going to retire noncom, take the money, and start a business—a little restaurant back home.”

  “Bullshit,” said Frank. “You like the action. You’ll be in the trenches with me.”

  “Don’t count on it,” said Sharon. “When this is all over, I want to go back to being a normal human being.”

  “I didn’t think anyone ever did that,” said Frank.

  “Then I’ll be the first.”

  “You know, Kilmer didn’t want to send you. I lobbied for you.”

  “Why didn’t he want me?”

  “Opposite reason from Kam. He thought you liked Luther too much.”

  “He’s wrong about that. I’ll pull the trigger on him, no hesitation,” said Sharon without emotion.

  The first police siren sounded distantly and did not cause any of the kill team concern. But then they heard another; then a fire truck and an ambulance siren followed. The first ones sounded from the east, then the south, and then they were coming from all around. The police, fire department, and paramedics were headed toward something very nearby. It didn’t take Frank long to see that the multitude of emergency vehicles were closing in on the area containing the Green house.

  Luther drove Alex away from the east side into downtown. Luther carried a sleek tranquilizer gun.

  “You really planning to use that thing?” asked Alex.

  “Whenever necessary,” said Luther. “If we get in and out of this place quickly, maybe I won’t have to.”

  “You sure your TWA doesn’t mind baby-sitting your family?” asked Alex.

  “He didn’t complain,” said Luther.

  Alex smiled proudly. “You wouldn’t have caught me if he hadn’t helped you, you know.”

  “I know,” said Luther.

  “We’ll have to go into the building next door first,” said Alex. “It’ll be easy because it’s uninhabited. From there we’ll access the lower level. There should be an old exit door leading to the target building. We can get in through that.”

  Luther turned on the CD player and chose a nasty rap tune by L’il John and the Ying Yang Twins. The thick bass filled the cab of the truck. He was in a new state of mission mode now. Before, he’d had a mind that swept away reason and emotion. Now he was focused, and although violence was certain, it was not desired.

  “I prefer the Stones myself,” said Alex. “But this is nice, too.”

  Luther pulled the Ford onto Randolph Street, and then they rolled into a nearby alley. Luther took out a perfect forgery of a city parking permit and placed it on the windshield.

  Around them the city chugged along, oblivious to the coming storm. Luther and Alex checked their equipment and then moved toward the access building.

  They easily broke into the first building, an abandoned edifice that sat on Randolph Street. The city was slowly rebuilding, but there were still many great old buildings that stood empty. The one that they’d just entered had once been dominated by offices that had belonged to Packard Motors.

  Next to it was the target, the Wall Building, which used to house several law firms but was now a secure storage facility for the city of Detroit. Sensitive police files and city-government documents were warehoused there. There was even a historical-documents room filled with priceless treasures, from the private papers of past mayors and governors to the territorial charter of the French colony that had founded the city.

  The normally tight security had been relaxed, thanks to Alex’s hard work. Now there were only six guards in the entire building.

  Luther and Alex moved into the dark basement. It was a large space but so pitch-black inside that they needed flashlights to illuminate the way.

  “Southeast corner,” said Alex. “That’s where the exit is.”

  The wolves headed in that direction until they heard movement behind them. Luther immediately turned with his tranq gun pulled. He saw nothing. Then he heard the sound again, a thick rustling of the trash and wood on the floor. He scanned his light downward and saw something moving in the debris. He waited, both he and Alex standing perfectly still. Then the thing on the floor came closer to them. Luther saw some old newsprint move and fired into it. The tranq gun hardly made a sound as it shot a small silver stiletto into whatever the thing was. Luther waited a moment for more movement and then approached the mass. He cleared away the paper and found a large rat underneath. It was out cold, its jagged teeth bared and its red eyes still open.

  “That’s one enemy down,” said Alex.

  “At least I know the gun works,” said Luther.

  They moved on and were soon at the southern wall, a tall gray-brick roadblock that looked as solid now as the day it was made.

  “How do we find the exit?” said Luther.

  “The old CIA exits were manual,” said Alex. “If it’s sealed, we’ll have to break through it.”

  “Let’s find a loose brick, then work our way around it. That way we won’t make a lot of noise.”

  They searched the wall and in the bottom left corner found a loose set of bricks. Thick cable ran through them, and soon they were able to discern that it was a door that could be lifted from the other side. Alex and Luther worked for an hour dislodging the bricks, until there was nothing left but the iron cable door. They easily pushed it in.

  When they got into the other building, they realized that the area was still in good shape. There were the remnants of an exit room, complete with empty weapons ports. Above them they heard footfalls and activity.

  “They keep a skeleton crew here on the weekends,” said Alex. “They only have about three or four guys, one of whom is security. Normally there would be three cops outside and two on the inside, but my terror alert has shifted them away.”

  “Good,” said Luther. “There’s a staircase. Where do we need to go once we’re inside?”

  “The papers are hidden in a wall in the northeast corner,” said Alex. “We’ll have to travel a long way. The walls are standard issue, so one of us can hold off any security threat and the other can access the wall and the information. But there’s one trick: Schrier laid a trap, and if I don’t approach the package just right and lift it from its foundation gently, I’ll destroy what I came to get.”

  “You retrieve the information,” said Luther. “I’ll handle the rest.”

  The old CIA exit chamber had a single staircase that rose to the ground-floor level. Luther and Alex ascended the staircase slowly. The plan was that Luther would rush into the main file room and hold the workers and any security at bay while Alex found the information. Luther went up first, hoping that no one gave him any trouble.

  Frank knew they had a problem when the first police cars stopped on the street. The cops in the cruisers looked alert and a little scared. They emerged with weapons drawn and talked urgently into radios.

  Maybe it was a drug takedown, Frank thought, just more urban violence that would soon pass. If that was the case, then all they would have to do was wait. Patience was one of the first things they’d learned at E-1. A good agent could wait you to death.

  But soon a fire truck and an ambulance settled in, and then more cops came, this time detectives. Helicopters were heard overhead. By the time the first FBI car arrived, Frank knew that something major was going on, and it wasn’t good for his mission.

  “What the hell
is it?” asked Sharon Bane.

  “Don’t know,” said Frank. “I was hoping that it was a drug bust, but I don’t think so.”

  “The police band is really humming,” said Sharon. “Turn it up.”

  Frank was about to when Kam called in and reported that the same activity was occurring on the streets behind the house. He would have to get out soon, or he’d be hemmed in.

  Frank cursed loudly. He told Kam to hold tight, and then he tuned in the police band and heard the report of what was going down. A terror alert had been declared in Detroit. Frank knew this but had made no connection between it and his mission.

  There was a report of a bomb in the area. A tip had come in earlier that day. Frank burned with anger as he saw a unit of the police bomb squad roll in and begin to search close to the Green house. It was a setup, he thought, a brilliant move by Luther to protect his family. The police went to every occupied house on the block and began to evacuate families.

  “That sonofabitch,” said Sharon.

  “He hasn’t won this round yet,” said Frank. “I can still get one of them on their way out.”

  “But if you shoot one of them,” said Sharon, “the rest of them will be kept in protective custody.”

  “And if I don’t, Luther wins,” said Frank. “This way he’ll at least get our message. He’ll know he has to deal or we’ll take out the rest of them. And the cops won’t know why one of them was killed. They’ll say it was a local criminal, or maybe terror-related.”

  “Maybe,” said Sharon. “But it reeks of desperation.”

  Frank called Kam in. Kam gladly got out of his position, moved back to his vehicle, and easily slipped through the tightening police net.

  He raised his sniper’s rifle and trained it on the front door to the Green house. As soon as he saw movement, he would take out the first person to come through the door.

  Luther pushed his way through the old trapdoor in the floor of the city records building. He rose up and took position while Alex came through. The space was large and filled with high rows of old files. Luther slowly moved through the stacks to his left, and Alex went in the opposite direction. Luther had heard voices and crept around behind them to get a better look. He took out his radio and pointed to it. Alex immediately took out a similar radio and moved on.