The Payback Assignment (Stark and O'Brien Thriller Series)

by Austin S. Camacho

  “And just what did you hear?” Morgan sat up just a little straighter. The hairs on the back of his neck stirred. Damn it! He had looked it all over so carefully and still stepped square into a trap.

  “Well, while you’re out looking for Stone, it turns out Stone’s also looking for you, old buddy,” the ex-Marine said. “I’d like to get you two together.”

  “I see you’re in a helpful mood,” Morgan said, starting to rise. Griffith waved him down.

  “You need to stay in your chair, old pal, so as not to make anyone nervous. I know how dangerous you are, and I guess Stone does too. He’s put quite a little price on your head. Word is, he wants you dismissed. With extreme prejudice.” In the vernacular of the business they were in, Morgan and Griffith both knew that meant killed in cold blood.

  That was when Morgan felt the waiter’s gun barrel resting gently against his twelfth vertebrae. He was the one member of Griffith’s team Morgan had not made. Not that he was a particular problem. Morgan knew that he could free himself from the waiter, even kill him, but he knew he would never get away. Griffith’s men had the street too well covered. If Stone had put a price on his head, Morgan knew his old rival Griffith just might collect it.

  -19-

  All Felicity got when Morgan walked out the door was a peck on the cheek. As he closed the door, her mind was alive with conflicting thoughts. She had not really wanted him to go. She suspected he was on his way to meet some dangerous contact from his mercenary past. His confidence appeared absolute when he left, but did that have any meaning? His confidence seemed total under all circumstances, no matter how dangerous.

  Despite some difficulty concentrating, she made several phone calls and moved off to her room to get dressed. She moved through these motions almost unconsciously, her mind awhirl with recent happenings. Why had she fallen into such a trusting mode with this tall dark stranger? Sure, he had proved worthy of her trust last night when she was too tired to think straight, but why oh why had she taken him so to her heart in the first place?

  He weighed on her mind while she flipped through her closet. He was a mass of contradictions, this Morgan Stark. Even his name conjured up different images. Morgan, as in the pirate. Stark, as in raving mad. Perhaps she found him so easy to trust because he was so open, so “up front” as he Yanks liked to say. He was certainly outspoken. There seemed to be no subtle side to this one. And so proud, he was. And yet, she had no idea who he was, and knew nothing about his life. He had revealed only the barest bones of his past.

  Facing a full-length mirror, Felicity held a dress in each hand. She held one in front of herself, then the other, but was at a loss about which would be the better choice. Morgan, she reflected, seemed totally competent and never at a loss. He could be as cold as a Norwegian winter night, and then turn around and be as warm and soft as a sheepskin coat. And how could he be so intuitively intelligent, yet so socially unsophisticated? And how did she seem to have some sort of emotional connection with him, almost a psychic link? Was it some side effect of her, now their, danger sense? Was it just her romantic reaction to being rescued, protected, defended and comforted by a heroic stranger, like in those cheesy novels? Or, and this was the big question, was she falling in love with this regimented, stubborn, black, ill-mannered professional soldier? Damn!

  Because the texture appealed to her fingers more that day, Felicity chose the long sleeved, cream colored, wool dress. She pulled the garment over her head, stepped back, and turned so that she could check herself out in both her wide dresser mirror and the full-length looking glass on the other side of the bedroom. She was dressed to the limits of elegance for her luncheon downtown. The dress was just this side of too tight. The back was a drape, which hung low on her tanned back, almost to the swell of her ample hips. She had put her hair up for the occasion and applied the slightest hint of makeup. She smiled at her image. This look would take her to the world’s most stylish eateries.

  Minutes later, she pulled her 1966 Corvette Stingray coupe out of the parking garage and slid smoothly into traffic. She hated driving in New York, but she had to admit it was better than trusting her fate to any cab driver. And if she was going to drive, it was a joy to pilot this classic bit of transportation, so she pulled it out whenever she was in the city. The day’s brilliant sun would make her glossy, tuxedo black machine hard for passersby to look at, but she knew they would want to stare. Dipped in chrome and airbrushed with twelve coats of paint, the agile vehicle seemed to slip like quicksilver through traffic on the wide one-way avenue. A twist of the knob of the factory installed AM-FM radio filled her cockpit with Van Morrison’s folksy blues sound. After all these years, she still found “Domino” to be great driving music. Humming along, she pulled a pair of Dragonfly sunglasses out of the glove compartment and slid them into place. Life was good.

  But less than three blocks from home, she started to get fidgety. That odd, intuitive discomfort always had a cause. She glanced in the rear view mirror. Was someone following her? She switched to the far left lane, signaling for a turn. Yes. The little Fiat four cars back was jockeying to get behind her. She suddenly darted to the right lane and the Fiat nearly ran a Lexus onto the sidewalk getting to the right also.

  No style, she thought. A rank beginner would have spotted him. She could see two men in the car. Were they police? She knew they put a tail on her from time to time, hoping to get lucky. Then she saw the passenger side man hold up a pistol and charged back the slide.

  “Nope, you’re not the police, are you?” she said softly to herself. “Who, then? Friends of the two killers I met in my apartment on the West Coast, perhaps? Well then, no time for games now.”

  She could find out for sure why the men in the follow car wanted her later. Now she had to shake these guys in a hurry, and she knew how. A couple of years back, Felicity took an offensive driving course. Her instructors thought she was a bodyguard in training, but in fact she needed the skills of an expert evasive driver to escape police pursuit. That was also the reason she replaced the 327 turbocharged engine the factory put into her little Corvette with the 426 blown hemi under its hood now. The same reasoning led to the button on the side of her Hurst T-shifter, but she did not need that now. Her own driving ability would do the trick, along with her knowledge of New York streets, and New York drivers.

  She slowed just enough to let the Fiat gain on her. Her pursuer, predictably, pulled up next to her on her right. He rolled his window down as if to yell to her. To her surprise, the passenger leaned over the driver to point his gun at her. These guys were a lot more serious than she thought and for the first time she realized she was in real danger.

  -20-

  Morgan spread his hands on the table, hoping to reassure the man holding a gun against his neck. “This is hardly a combat situation, J.D. You got your boys killing on contract now?”

  “Stone wants to see your corpse, buddy, and that’s a fact,” Griffith said, “but I think, if your behavior is reasonable, we’ll take you to him as is and let him do the dirty deed himself, if he can.”

  Morgan found Griffith’s grin infuriating. He was too damned confident. He controlled the street, but Morgan wondered if he had covered the inside of the little cafe. He hoped not, because it was his only option. He would have to play it that way and hope something turned up. He started his ploy by grimacing and clutching his stomach in apparent pain. He rose slowly when Griffith did. The waiter/gunman began patting Morgan for weapons.

  “You going to wave your hardware and mine around out here in the open?” Morgan asked.

  “Good point, sport. Let’s move this party into the cafe.”

  Morgan groaned again, and continued to reach for his gut as they walked into the small Greek luncheonette. A counter stood on the left and half a dozen tables crowded the floor, too close together. Each table was dressed in a long white tablecloth and surrounded by four chairs. The smell of burning garlic rose out of the floorboards but no lunchtime chatt
er greeted them. To Morgan’s dismay, the place was deserted.

  “Were you expecting somebody in here to use as a distraction?” Griffith asked, locking the door behind them. “I rented the place for the afternoon. You know, for a private party.”

  Morgan could not believe how quickly the opposition had moved. Oh well. At least the gun-toting waiter had become accustomed to Morgan reaching to his waist. Morgan was no longer getting jabbed in his back each time his arm moved. But now Griffith, facing him, pulled a forty-five caliber automatic from a side rig.

  “Okay, sport,” Griffith said with a smirk, “what are you carrying?”

  “How long you known me, man? You know what I carry. I’m a creature of habit.”

  “That’ll be the death of you one day,” Griffith said. “Now, unzip that jacket. Tommy, there’s a Hi-Power under his left arm. Grab that will you?”

  The waiter reached under Morgan’s windbreaker and slid the nine-millimeter out of its holster.

  “I’m pretty sure that’s a knife on the other side,” Griffith said. Tommy nodded and pulled on Morgan’s left shoulder to partially turn him. Morgan turned just enough, and Tommy reached forward awkwardly, his left hand going across the front of Morgan’s body as it slid under his windbreaker. This was the moment.

  “What’d you do, poison me?” Morgan asked through clenched teeth. He bent farther than before, again grasping his own waist. As he did, he gripped his belt buckle in his right hand. With a short tug, it came loose from his belt.

  As the buckle came away, so did a three inch, black, razor sharp, double-edged steel blade. The belt buckle served as the square handle of a push dagger, concealed in the leather of his wide belt.

  Morgan turned half way to his left, thrusting up under his own left arm into the exposed ribs of the gunman behind him. The blade slid in high enough to find Tommy’s heart. The man did not even have time to moan before death took him.

  Morgan knew that Griffith could not really see what was happening. Morgan’s back faced him for an instant, and Morgan’s jacket cloaked the action. Griffith might be staring into his accomplice’s astonished face just long enough for Morgan to spin back toward him, very fast. Morgan snapped his right arm out in a wide arc, and it was a blur as it swung past Griffith’s outstretched arm. Griffith’s pistol dropped from nerveless fingers, and blood burst from the heel of his palm. He had time for one short grunt of pain before Morgan’s left fist, powered by all the rage an old soldier can hold, crashed into his jaw, sending him tumbling over a table.

  Morgan knew he had been lucky. First of all, Griffith and his backup man were guilty of unforgivable carelessness. The idiot behind Morgan had stretched out his left arm, leaving his heart side ribs wide open. And Griffith had been close enough so that, after the killing thrust, Morgan’s back swing had just caught Griffith’s gun hand. Morgan had continued the spin and his left cross put Griffith over the table and into dreamland for a while.

  Ignoring his aching knuckles, Morgan tucked Griffith’s larger automatic into his belt, then recovered his own. After wiping the push dagger on the dead man’s shirt, he returned it to its belt scabbard. While Griffith was dazed, Morgan performed a quick body search, netting a twenty-five caliber pocket pistol and a big folding knife.

  Tossing Griffith’s backup weapons aside, he roughly yanked the ex-Marine to his feet. When his eyes snapped open, Griffith found the cold steel muzzle of Morgan’s pistol resting on the tip of his nose. He raised his hands slowly, giving Morgan a half smile of respect. Morgan released his shirt and sat down on a table for two.

  “So you sold me out.” Morgan practically spat the words out.

  “Nothing personal,” Griffith said, trying for a light tone. “Strictly business. You’d have done the same thing.”

  Morgan let that pass. “And what was the plan, really?” Moving his pistol, he motioned Griffith into a chair. “Were you going to just kill me in here and deliver my head to Stone for a fat reward?”

  “No, man,” Griffith said, tying a cloth napkin around his hand and wrist as he talked. “I was just going to deliver you. Whole. I’m a soldier, not a hit man. I figured, if Stone wanted you taken out, he’d have to do it himself. He could take care of you face to face, if he’s got the balls.”

  “Sounds like fun,” Morgan said. “Why don’t you just take me to him. Now, I know you’ve got the front covered. So we’ll just go upstairs and across the roof. Then we can go have a little rendezvous with our mutual friend with the white hair.”

  “You know I can’t do that.” Griffith’s face dropped into a genuine hard look. Morgan’s twisted into a snarl. They stared into each other’s eyes for ten long seconds. Morgan knew that he was facing a tough, hard man, a veteran of many battles and a man who, like Morgan himself, had walked with death every day for years. A bullet in the brain would hold no terror for him. But maybe, just maybe, something else would.

  Without breaking eye contact, Morgan reached under his right arm an exaggerated slow motion and pulled his fighting knife free. Mindful of the distance, he switched his pistol to his left hand, the knife to his right. He held the flat of the blade toward Griffith. A light beam flashed off the steel, making the seated man blink.

  “Hold out your left hand,” Morgan commanded in a cold monotone. Griffith clenched his teeth and lifted his arm out straight toward his captor. One tiny bead of sweat swelled from his forehead and rolled down into his left eye. He blinked twice, his gaze brushing over the corpse lying behind Morgan. Quickly his eyes snapped back to the Morgan’s grim face.

  “You recognize this?” Morgan asked. “It’s a Randall Number One custom made fighting knife. It’s seven inches of the best steel available, high carbon 440C stainless, hand forged and hand ground, and tempered to a hardness of sixty on the Rockwell scale. I can put an inch of the tip of this blade in a vise and stand on the handle without bending or breaking it. Do you think I keep it sharp?”

  He stretched out his right hand, keeping the pistol in his left centered between Griffith’s eyes. He was impressed that the ex-Marine’s hand remained completely steady. He rested the edge of the blade against Griffith’s skin, tilted it to a sharp angle and slid the knife toward himself. The harsh scraping sound filled the otherwise silent diner. With one long slow stroke, Morgan removed all the hair from the offered arm starting two inches above the white wrist. Tiny red dots rose from the razor burn of a dry shave. While he wiped his blade clean on Griffith’s pants, Morgan again made strong eye contact.

  “Now we can go to the meeting place you had arranged with Stone,” Morgan said, “or, I can drag you upstairs and gag you and tie you up real tight. You friends out front would assume you were working me over in here. Or maybe they’d think I escaped and you followed me. Eventually they’ll knock that door open and find Tommy over there. Eventually they’d just leave. Then I could spend the next three or four hours making one inch cuts, an eighth of an inch deep everywhere on your body. Everywhere. When I got through you’d be covered with blood. Hands, feet, genitals would become useless. You’d hurt like hell. For months. But you know what? You wouldn’t die. You’d never walk or work or fuck again. But you wouldn’t die. Now. Shall we go?”

  For the next several seconds Griffith’s eyes wandered the room, as if he was considering his options. Morgan waited patiently until Griffith slowly rose from his chair.

  “I didn’t like the food here anyway,” he said.

  A door at the top of the stairs provided easy access to the roof. No one paid any attention to them trotting down the fire escape stairs. Once on the street, Morgan pocketed his gun. He put his left arm around Griffith’s waist, with the Browning in his right side pocket pointed at the Marine across the front of his body. Then he ordered his captive to hail a taxi. He did not worry about their appearance. Hacks cruising the village would think nothing of a couple of guys looking for a ride who were embracing, or even holding hands. When a cab pulled to the curb in front of them, Morgan was confident he w
ould soon meet with his betrayer.

  Apart from an unduly talkative driver, Morgan’s taxi ride was uneventful. They took the local route, up through midtown Manhattan. Griffith began to relax a little, which Morgan took as a bow to his own professionalism. The tense moments of capture had passed. Now Morgan wanted Griffith to know he was in no danger as long as he didn’t try anything stupid. So they sat in silence, watching the busy city go by.

  New York passed in an even flow of images, through clean and dirty neighborhoods. By moving at exactly thirty-two miles per hour, the streetwise driver approached each traffic light just as it turned green. He dodged around jaywalkers, cursing them in Armenian as he sprinted past. A local bus briefly barred their way, but by swerving around and past it, between the bus and a little Honda, the taxi freed itself. Morgan was thinking that the little stores and shops, so boldly ethnic, were the same in every major city in the world.

  Traffic filled in as they left Manhattan and suddenly, they were in the Bronx. Morgan had seen the results of urban guerrilla warfare up close many times. Here, in the world’s richest city, was an area that bore an unpleasant resemblance to downtown Beirut. He knew those crumbling tenements he was riding past had spawned some of the most hardened fighters civilization had to offer. The broken windows were empty eyes staring out of pockmarked stucco faces.

  The people here were black or Hispanic. They walked quickly, alert as any jungle animal, ready for an attack. When they moved around the neighborhood, they traveled in packs. They roamed these mean streets as warily as if there was a war on.

  The driver lapsed into silence as he pulled the cab over to the curb. Morgan paid him, and the two passengers, captor and captive, stepped into the littered street. The men locked eyes as the taxi pulled away.