Rescue

by William W. Johnstone

  “I’ve met him.”

  There was a definite twinkle in the lawman’s eyes. “We got word that Cory rode into a town a good ways east of here with a busted jaw. Said his horse throwed him. You believe that, Morgan?”

  “Stranger things have happened, I suppose. Maybe his horse got spooked by a snake.”

  “Yeah,” the lawman said dryly. “That throw give Raven a black eye too. And several bruises that looked to the doctor like maybe someone beat the crap out of him.”

  “Cory probably deserved a good beating,” Frank said. “They tell you what direction Cory took out of town?”

  “North. Told the doc he was headin’ for Denver.”

  “Of course Cory has been known to tell a lie now and then. Or so I’ve heard tell.”

  “I reckon so. He wouldn’t be after you, would he?”

  “Might be. I’ve got a lot of men who would like to see me dead.”

  “Well . . . if he shows up here, I’ll tell him you headed south toward the border.”

  “Much obliged for that. If he shows up here.”

  “Where are you headin’, Morgan?”

  “I honestly don’t know,” Frank replied. “I’ll see which way the wind’s blowing in the morning and head that way, I reckon.”

  “Way I hear tell it, you got enough money to buy you a mansion in the city and live right nice, if you was a mind to.”

  Frank chuckled softly. “Would you want to live in the city?”

  The lawman frowned. “Hell, no!”

  “Me, neither. So . . . I reckon I’ll just live up to my nickname then. I’ll just drift.”

  For a sneak preview

  of Bill Johnstone’s next book,

  CODE NAME: QUICKSTRIKE

  now available from Pinnacle Books,

  just turn the page....

  One

  New Orleans

  As the car turned west onto Decatur Street, John Barrone caught a glimpse of the sunset and saw that the sky was the color of liquid fire. To his left the Mississippi River made a large bow of molten silver on its circuitous journey to the Gulf of Mexico. In the heart of the city, steel and concrete towers loomed dark purple against the crimson sky, their windows reflecting a grid of melon-colored light.

  The car window was down, and when they entered the Vieux Carre, going north on St. Peters, John could hear the sounds of New Orleans. Muted trumpets and wailing saxophones, played by musicians with shining black skin and dark, soulful eyes, spilled out onto the crowded sidewalks from the nightclubs. This was the haunting symphony of blues and jazz, the Crescent City’s major contribution to American culture.

  Through the open window of the car, John could also smell the distinctive night fragrances: the rich aromas of exquisite cooking, green bananas and pineapples just off the boats, as well as the delicate flower scents from the honeysuckle, jasmine, and wisteria that climbed along brick walls and overhung the elaborate grillwork balconies of the Quarter’s elegant old homes. A different perfume was given off by the French Quarter’s painted ladies, who lounged in doorways or on street corners to practice their trade, marking the night with their own sweet, sensual musk.

  The habitués of the narrow, winding streets of the French Quarter were, with the setting of the sun, just now beginning to awaken. By day they had slumbered as trucks plied the alleys and twisting thoroughfares, off-loading their cargoes of vegetables, meat, whiskey, and beer.

  There were four men in the car: John Barrone and Bob Garrett, who were both members of a privately funded and very elite organization called the Code Name Team. The other two passengers were their prisoner, Mehmet Ibrahim, and Lucien Beajeaux, the driver of the car.

  The Code Name Team to which John and Bob belonged was made up of ten people, seven men and three women. Their job was to “take care of things” that fell through the cracks. Terrorists, murderers, drug dealers, etc., who often got away with their misdeeds because of the technicalities and niceties of the law, were fair game for the men and women of the Code Name Team.

  The Code Name Team had no government connection. Indeed, since they were extralegal, they were often at cross purposes with the government. On the other hand, there were certain individuals within the government who knew what the team was actually doing, and from time to time those people would turn a blind eye to the Code Name Team’s operations. On rare occasions they would even help the Code Name Team.

  In order to get things done, the Code Name Team needed some sort of operating cover. Thus, they often functioned as a private detective agency, a personal security firm, or a bail-bonding operation . . . whatever was required to give them the operating authority they might need.

  The Team was sponsored by an international consortium of billionaires and multimillionaires. Though most were from America, other sponsors were from England, France, Germany, and Italy . . . with perhaps two or three from the Scandinavian countries.

  As a result of their ‘extralegal’ status, everyone who joined the Code Name Team did so knowing that there was only one way out, and that was in a body bag. And because they had made a lifetime commitment, their loyalty, dedication, and support of each other bound them together as closely as if they were of the same blood.

  Lucien Beajeaux was a private detective from New Orleans. Although Beajeaux was not a member of the Code Name Team, Bob Garret, who was John Barrone’s partner on this particular job, had vouched for him. Bob had worked with the former New Orleans policeman when Bob was still with the National Security Agency.

  “How long it gonna take you to get to Chicago?” Beajeaux asked, speaking in a heavy Cajun accent.

  “We’ll get into Chicago at ten A.M. tomorrow,” John said.

  “Whooee! You be on the train all night? It more better you fly,” Beajeaux suggested. “You fly, you get there in a couple of hours. That what I’m goin’ do when I go to Chicago one of these days.”

  “Ha!” Bob said. “Now just what the hell would a Creole boy like you do in Chicago?”

  “Hoo boy, ain’t no tellin’ what all I might do, I go there,” Beajeaux joked. “Maybe I show those Chicago ladies somethin’, I bet. ‘Darlin’,’ I’ll say, ‘you ain’ had no lovin’ till you been loved by a Cayjohn man from N’arleans.’ ”

  “I’ll bet those Chicago women are just waitin’ on that,” Bob offered dryly. John laughed.

  When they reached the depot, the train they were to take was already standing in the station. It was a long, sleek, Amtrak train, painted in silver, red, white, and blue. As it sat at the station, the humming of electric motors was clearly audible, and wisps of vapor drifted away from the air-conditioning vents that were individual to each car. Some passengers were already inside, and they could be seen through the windows, reading, talking, or simply sitting there with their heads back against the seat headrests, waiting for departure.

  “Park over there,” John said, pointing to a parking spot near the station platform.

  “Yes, sir, you the boss man,” Beajeaux said, pulling into the parking spot John had indicated.

  “I’m going to feel a lot better when we get Ibrahim on the train.”

  “You won’t have no trouble,” Beajeaux said. “The others think you fly to Houston.”

  “Yes, well, I hope the others took the bait when we bought those airline tickets,” Bob said. “Otherwise, we will have spent all that money for nothing.”

  “What are you worrying about the money for?” John asked. “It was Gil Bates’s money. Bates has thirty billion dollars. He could’ve bought the entire airline and not felt it.”

  “Yeah, I guess so. Still, it seems a waste.”

  “It won’t be a waste if we get Ibrahim out of here in one piece. We’ll go by train to Chicago, then fly him to Houston. It is a circuitous route, I will admit, but it’s the best way to go, because they won’t be looking for anything like that.”

  “I am not a citizen of this country,” Ibrahim said from the backseat. “You have no right to take m
e from here against my will.”

  “Hey, if it was up to me, I wouldn’t take your ass anywhere,” Bob said. “I would have dropped the hammer on you as soon as we found you.”

  “Drop the hammer?” Ibrahim asked, puzzled by the remark.

  Bob held his hand in the shape of a gun, snapped the thumb forward as if shooting it, then shouted, “Bang!”

  Ibrahim jumped, and Bob laughed. “Scared you, huh?”

  “I do not fear death,” Ibrahim said. “I am a warrior for Allah.”

  “A warrior my ass. You put a bomb on the Dynasystems’s executive jet last year. Thirty-seven people were killed, including Mr. Bates’s daughter.”

  “That happened in Sitarkistan,” Ibrahim said. “The Sitarkistani court found me not guilty. I have been cleared of that.”

  “Yes, well, you haven’t been cleared in Mr. Bates’s personal court.”

  “You are being foolish. Private citizens in America, even those as wealthy as Gil Bates, do not have a personal court.”

  “Yes, well, you can tell that to the judge,” John said. “Judge Gil Bates,” he added, laughing.

  “Anyway, you will not take me from here. My Islamic brothers will find me. They will kill you, and they will rescue me.”

  “They may find us,” John said. “But I promise you, they will not rescue you.”

  “Think we ought to check things out before we take him to the train?” Bob asked.

  “Probably wouldn’t hurt,” John replied.

  “I know my rights,” Ibrahim said. “I demand that you take me to the Sitarkistan Consulate.”

  “Funny thing, isn’t it, John, how all the assholes who are trying to destroy the U.S. start quoting the rights they think they have?”

  “Yeah,” John said. He looked at Ibrahim. “In the first place, you towel-headed bastard, you’ve got no rights as far as I’m concerned. And in the second, even if you did have any rights, I would remind you that we are not with the police, FBI, CIA, or any other governmental agency. We are private citizens. That means we aren’t bound by any of their restrictions.”

  “You . . . you aren’t really going to take me to Houston, are you? You are going to kill me before we get there.”

  “Yeah, we might,” Bob said.

  “You cannot kill me!” Ibrahim said.

  “Why should that bother you? Didn’t you just tell us that you are a warrior for Allah, that you don’t fear death?” Bob asked.

  “Beajeaux, keep an eye on him, while Bob and I check things out,” John said.

  Beajeaux pulled his pistol and pointed it at Ibrahim, then smiled. “I will do that,” he said. “More better he try to run, I think.”

  John and Bob got out of the car and looked around carefully. When they were convinced the coast was clear, they turned back toward the car.

  “Okay,” John said. He opened the car door and motioned for Ibrahim to get out. “Let’s go.”

  Ibrahim got out of the car, his egress somewhat awkward because his hands were handcuffed behind him.

  “Ibrahim, walk straight toward the train,” John ordered quietly. “Don’t look around, don’t do anything to draw attention to yourself.”

  John, Bob, and Ibrahim started across the platform toward the train. Just to the left of the platform, on a track siding, stood a single boxcar. Suddenly the door of the boxcar slid open and four men jumped down onto the bricks. All four were wearing ski masks. Three were carrying AK-47s; one was carrying a shotgun.

  “It is my brothers of the Islamic Jihad Muhahidin! Allah Akbar, I have been saved!” Ibrahim shouted.

  “Bob, look out!” John warned.

  The four armed men stood in a little semicircle and began firing, their guns blasting away as they swept the barrels back and forth.

  Ibrahim started running toward them, a wide smile on his face. Then the assailants did an amazing thing. They stopped firing at John and Bob, and turned their weapons on Ibrahim.

  “No!” Ibrahim shouted when he saw them aiming at him.

  All four opened up at once, and Ibrahim went down with wounds in his chest, neck, and head.

  There were several bystanders on the platform. Some were passengers getting ready to entrain, while others were there to see people off. When the first shot was fired, the civilians added their own screams and shouts to the bedlam as they started running in a mad dash to get out of the way. Some dived for the ground, others ran for cover. Beajeaux got out of the car and began firing across the top of it, at the four masked shooters.

  The machine guns and shotgun chattered and roared. Bullets whistled all around John, Bob, and Beajeaux. John dived for the platform, then lay on his stomach on the bricks, his gun stretched out before him. From this prone position he pulled the trigger, and the gun bucked up in his hand, kicking out an empty shell casing as it did so. He was gratified to see his target grab his chest and fall.

  Bob was hit in the thigh and the side, and he went down as well, but continued firing.

  The firing continued unabated for about thirty seconds, though to John it seemed an eternity. A bullet cut through the sleeve of his jacket, but didn’t actually hit him.

  Suddenly, a black Ford Bronco roared out onto the station platform, and the two gunners who were still on their feet rushed toward it and jumped in. The driver whipped the vehicle around in a tight circle, the tires squealing in protest against the bricks. Once back on the road, the SUV began to roar away. John stood up to get a better shot at the speeding vehicle, and in anger and frustration, emptied his pistol at the back of the speeding Bronco, though he knew he probably wasn’t hitting anyone from this distance.

  After the SUV left, John stood there for a moment, holding his pistol down by his leg, the breech open, indicating that it was empty. Scores of spent shell casings covered the brick platform, a visual indication of the number of shots exchanged during the shoot-out.

  “Bob, are you all right?” John called.

  “I was hit a couple of times,” Bob answered, his voice slightly strained, “but I don’t think it’s anything serious.”

  “How about you, Beajeaux?” John called. “Are you all right?”

  When there was no answer, John turned to look toward the New Orleans PI who had helped them.

  “Oh, damn,” he said when he saw Beajeaux. “Bob, we lost Beajeaux.”

  Beajeaux was lying across the hood of the car, his head resting in a pool of blood, his right arm dangling down, the gun hanging by its trigger guard from his index finger.

  “Those sorry bastards,” Bob said. “Beajeaux was a good man.”

  Looking back, John saw Ibrahim lying facedown and absolutely motionless in a pool of blood slowly widening beneath him on the brick platform. Two of the shooters were also down and motionless.

  “If they were here to rescue Ibrahim, they did a piss-poor job of it,” Bob said.

  “I think they did just what they wanted to do,” John said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Ibrahim most have known some things they didn’t want him talking about.”

  By now, cautiously, as if expecting another attack, the bystanders who had bolted to safety at the opening shots began to reappear. They were drawn by morbid curiosity to the little islands of death that were scattered about the station. Some stopped at the bodies of the two men John had killed. Others stood over Ibrahim, or went over to examine Beajeaux.

  “Get away from him!” John shouted angrily as he saw the morbid begin to close in on the former New Orleans policeman. “Get the hell away!”

  Frightened, the crowd backed away.

  John went over to Bob, who was sitting on the ground, leaning against a light pole. Bob was bleeding from wounds in his side and his thigh. The thigh wound was still bleeding, and he was holding his hand over the bullet hole, trying to stem the blood flow.

  “Damn, why didn’t you tell me you were hit that hard?” John asked in concern. He took off his belt and looped it around the leg above the wound. Tig
htening it, he made it into a tourniquet.

  “How about the wound in your side?” John asked.

  “It’s not that bad,” Bob answered. “I was pretty much just nicked there. Not even bleeding that much.”

  One of the onlookers wandered over to John and Bob.

  “Mister, what the hell was all this about?” he asked.

  John didn’t answer. Instead, he took out his cell phone and punched in 911.

  Even as he was dialing, though, he heard the sirens of approaching vehicles, and as the first police car pulled up onto the platform, he closed the phone. Two policeman jumped out with pistols drawn.

  “Get your hands up now!” the first policeman shouted.

  John held up his hands. “You are a little late, officers, the party is all over,” he said. “What we need now is an ambulance.”

  “One is on the way,” the other policeman said. Both policemen continued to point their pistols directly at John.

  Four more police cars arrived then, as did an ambulance. The emergency medical technicians started looking over the bodies.

  “Don’t waste your time with them, they’re all dead,” John called to them. “This is the only man who needs your attention.”

  By now there were well over a dozen policemen on the scene, and one of them, wearing captain’s bars on his epaulets, approached John cautiously. Like the other policemen, the captain had his gun drawn.

  “Who are you?” the police captain asked. “And what happened here?”

  “We were taking a prisoner back to Texas,” John said. “We were about to board the train when four men jumped down from that boxcar over there and attacked us. I think any of the witnesses here will verify that.”

  “That’s right, Officer,” one of the bystanders said. “The other fellas started shooting first.”

  “You were taking a prisoner to Texas on this train?” the policeman asked. “This train is going to Chicago.”

  “It’s a long story,” John said without going into the explanation.