Nobody Dies For Free

by Pro Se Press

  “I truly doubt,” Monroe said, “that Garrett Khan spent enough money to equip you with an implant like the one he has, which means I have no reason to not kill you, while you have every reason to tell me what I want to know.”

  “Fuck you,” the Italian said.

  Monroe, the Glock still in one hand, reached up with the other, tore the shower rod down in one pull, shook the curtain onto the floor, and swept down hard with the naked rod, slamming it across the Italian’s chest. The Italian cried out.

  “He’ll kill me if I tell you anything!”

  “Do you think I won’t?” Monroe said, and he brought the curtain rod down again, harder this time. “First question: what city is the bomb in?”

  “I…I don’t know…”

  The rod came down a third time, breaking skin now; red began to show through the expensive white shirt.

  “What city?”

  “I swear I don’t know!”

  “Fine,” Monroe said, scowling, “second question…and if you don’t give me something this time you’re a dead man! Where are the men who receive the transmissions and can detonate the bomb?”

  The Italian hesitated. Monroe lifted the rod again, but the man in the tub spoke before it came down.

  “London! They’re in London!”

  “Where in London? I want an address!”

  “I do not know the address…”

  Monroe stared at him, no need to wave the rod this time. The Italian broke.

  “It’s in Khan’s computer…in the next room…all his addresses are listed in a file…I know the password! But I want protection…please…he’ll have me killed…”

  “We’ll talk about that later,” Monroe spat. “Get up and open that file!”

  Monroe marched the Italian back into the other room where the two naval officers still had the thugs at gunpoint. Lafleur was signaled, sent several DGSE men up to the seventh floor to collect the goons, and Monroe, Leary, and Stuart were soon alone with the Italian, huddled around the laptop that Garrett Khan had left behind.

  The file opened and Monroe gasped. It was a goldmine of names, addresses, and contact information for Garrett Khan’s criminal operations and cover businesses in cities across the globe. There was enough dirt on that little screen to squash Khan’s empire and grind it into dust. But that was all icing, Monroe reminded himself. At that moment, what mattered most was the core of the cake, the specific place in London from where the bomb could be activated.

  “Show me the one I want!” Monroe barked at the Italian, squeezing his shoulder hard for emphasis.

  “Here,” the prisoner said, his voice quivering. “It is this one.”

  Monroe leaned in closer to the laptop, read the address silently six times, the number of readings it took him to ensure that he had it carved in the stone of his memory. He turned to Lieutenant Leary.

  “How fast can that chopper of yours get us to London?”

  “Under an hour, sir,” Leary answered.

  “Good,” Monroe said, turning to Stuart. “Lieutenant, contact the fleet and have another helicopter sent here. When it arrives, escort this prisoner and this computer back to the Lincoln. If he gives you any trouble, beat him as hard as you want, but keep him alive. And be careful with that laptop!”

  “Yes, sir,” Stuart said.

  “Let’s go, Leary,” Monroe called out as he moved for the door.

  ***

  Even a great city like London has its ugly sections. In great contrast to the expensive part of Paris where Garrett Khan had been living in luxury, Monroe and Leary found that the address obtained from the computer file was in a nasty slum. Khan, Monroe thought, was clearly trying to hide the vital organs of his empire in the unlikeliest places. Since Paris and London had been mostly wiped clean of Khan’s bigger activities, suspicion toward his doings was less in those cities. Monroe could have had more help sent to the area—the British secret service would have been happy to help as well as the CIA’s men in London—but he had chosen to take the quieter route, just he and Leary, armed and stealthy.

  The address turned out to be a storefront, a small DVD rental shop, reminiscent, Monroe thought, of Arnaud Lafleur’s record store cover in Paris. Monroe and Leary were in civilian clothes now, Kevlar underneath their casual leather jackets. Monroe’s Glock was shoulder-holstered and Leary had now switched to a smaller gun which he had adequately concealed.

  “Go in the front door and browse,” Monroe said. “Act like an American tourist. I’m going to see what the back door looks like.”

  Monroe hurried down the alley on the side of the building, reached the rear of the shop without interference. Behind the store was a back entrance with garbage cans beside it and a bucket of sand where employees stuck their cigarette butts during smoke breaks. Monroe paused outside the door for a moment, listening.

  “Morning,” Leary said inside the shop and Monroe could hear a male voice grunt an acknowledgement, followed by a “Looking for something particular?”

  “Just browsing,” Leary said.

  At that, Monroe tried the back door, found it unlocked, slipped inside. He entered a small stock and storage area, glanced around to make sure nobody else was around, decided there was probably only that single clerk working, and continued through the back area and out into the front of the store.

  He came out behind the counter, moved fast, hit the clerk hard and slammed him up against the counter. Leary, in front of the action, drew his weapon.

  “What the fuck…” the clerk cried out, now pinned down to the counter with an arm twisted behind his back by Monroe.

  “Let’s make this quick,” Monroe said, turning the man around to face him. The clerk was about thirty-five, scruffy, eyes bloodshot from either lack of sleep or a hangover. “Do you run this place?”

  “Yeah, it’s all mine, and I don’t have a lot of money on hand so take the register and piss off!”

  “I don’t want your money,” Monroe said. “I know you work for Garrett Khan and I want your computer. I need you to enter a few commands for me. Leary, find it while I keep our friend here in his proper place.”

  Leary walked behind the counter, began his search. It took less than a minute for him to come up with a laptop concealed behind a case of pornographic DVDs.

  “It’s the same model as the one we took in Paris,” Monroe observed. “It must be the Khan standard. Turn it on, Leary.”

  When the machine had booted up, Monroe forced the clerk in front of it.

  “Bring up the function connected to Khan’s implant and that bomb. Yes, we know all about it and we will not hesitate to kill you if you try to stall us or trick us in any way. Open it!”

  The clerk entered a few commands and the screen lit up with not only a display showing the vital signs of Garrett Khan, but a second window showing the status of a small glowing circle in the center of a map of Brussels, Belgium.

  “Brussels,” Monroe said. “Is that where the bomb is?”

  The clerk nodded.

  “And this green around it means it’s inactive?”

  Another nod.

  “Will it stay that way unless you alter its status? Answer honestly, because if you lie to me I’ll make you wish I’d just killed you.”

  “I have complete control over it,” the clerk said.

  “Good,” Monroe said with the tone of man praising a puppy, “that’s all I needed to know.” He used the cursor to zoom in on the Brussels image, narrowing the field to show a precise location. “Leary, write this address down.”

  Leary produced a pen and scribbled for a moment on a scrap of receipt from the countertop, then stuck the paper in his pocket.

  Monroe, seeing that Leary was finished, spun the clerk around, punched him hard in the gut, and let him drop to the floor. As he knelt there clutching his stomach, he looked up at Monroe and spat out a single word.

  “Tsunami.”

  “What?” Monroe was confused for a second, but then he heard it: a str
ange humming sound coming from under the floor of the shop. He knew what it was; he had heard such a sound once before and almost died for not recognizing it.

  “Leary, run!” Monroe called out, grabbing the laptop, leaving the fallen clerk.

  They both took the front door, made it almost to the street when the little shop exploded in a ball of fire and brick.

  Voice-activated detonator was Richard Monroe’s last conscious thought before the heat and the pain slammed into him.

  Chapter 16: Dinner for One

  “Genevieve?” Monroe mumbled as he slipped out of dreamland and back into reality. His eyes opened and she was gone. He saw the ceiling lights first and then the glow was blocked out by a face leaning over him. It was a gray-haired man, shoulders coming into view next with khaki fabric and general’s stars on the collar. Mr. Nine stared down.

  “Sorry to disappoint you, but I’m not her. Can you sit up?”

  Monroe moaned and pushed himself into a seated position, propped up with a pillow at his back. He looked straight ahead. A former naval man, he knew immediately where he was: shipboard infirmary. He concentrated for a moment on his nerves and decided everything was where it should be despite the aches and bruised flesh at too many points to count. Then he remembered everything in one vivid flash.

  “Belgium!” he cried out. “The bomb…it’s in Brussels! You have to…”

  “Relax, Monroe,” Mr. Nine interrupted, “the bomb’s been found. It’s in our possession. Brussels is safe thanks to what we found on that computer you had under you after that store exploded. That’s the good news.”

  “I suppose that means the bad is coming next,” Monroe said.

  Mr. Nine did not hesitate or try to be gentle. “Lieutenant Leary is dead. He shielded you from the blast and took most of the damage.”

  “Shit,” Monroe said. “He was a good kid.”

  “That’s not the worst of it,” Mr. Nine continued. “Garrett Khan has escaped.”

  Monroe sat up straight now, forgetting all about the supporting pillow. “What do you mean he escaped? How the hell does anybody escape from a United States aircraft carrier?”

  Mr. Nine sat down on the edge of the bed. “The chief medical officer on one of the other ships, a destroyer, was a doctor named Lieutenant Commander Charles Swift. He contacted the CMO of the Lincoln and asked if he could come aboard and take a look at Khan’s implant, claimed he might have some ideas about how to remove it safely. Apparently, Khan’s reach even extended into the US military. Swift came aboard, injected the guard at Khan’s cell with a tranquilizer, and snuck Khan out of that part of the ship as if he’d memorized the layout of the whole damn carrier. He somehow got him up on the flight deck, probably in a stolen uniform, and the two of them stowed away on the chopper we sent to get you and Leary’s body after the explosion in London. We think Swift and Khan snuck off in England and ran away.”

  “Damn it!” Monroe shouted, pounding his fist on the mattress. “How long ago…”

  “You were unconscious for almost a full day, Monroe,” Mr. Nine said. “Of course the British and French are watching all airports, train stations, and ports, but with Khan’s worldwide resources we can’t be sure we’ll find him anytime soon.”

  “What about the Middle East insurgency you needed info about?” Monroe asked.

  “That’s not so much of a problem now,” Mr. Nine answered. “Between the two computers you recovered, we’ve got some serious dirt on that business, so everything wasn’t in vain. Now get some rest. You were badly battered by that explosion, maybe concussed too, so just take it easy.”

  ***

  Richard Monroe remained aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln for the next week, slowly recovering from his injuries. He was given free rein to roam the ship mostly as he pleased with only a few areas off limits. He ate with the officers, enjoyed the recreational facilities, and spent a considerable amount of time with Mr. Nine as they monitored the world’s law enforcement agencies systematically dismantling Garrett Khan’s criminal holdings due to the information contained in the two laptop computers. Across the globe, the CIA, FBI, MI6, DGSE, Interpol, and Mossad shut down Khan’s operations on several continents, recovered fortunes worth of illicit cash and merchandise, confiscated massive amounts of narcotics, and made hundreds of arrests, but no sign was found of either Khan or his accomplice, Charles Swift.

  ***

  Monroe returned to Boston to find his apartment as he had left it. He unpacked, sat down, and reflected on his time in Paris and London and aboard the Abraham Lincoln. Mixed feelings came to mind; on one hand, he had saved lives and helped bring about the now almost total collapse of the Garrett Khan criminal empire. But on the other, Khan still lived and might now be even harder to find than before. Monroe still wanted Khan dead, not only for the sake of Genevieve, but because he knew that a man of Khan’s character would eventually rise like a dark parody of a phoenix and take an active part in the world’s criminal community again. But Khan had vanished in the wind like a handful of scattered ashes and no agency in the world had any solid leads about his current location. Monroe told himself to wait, have patience, resume life and hope for a new assignment to keep him occupied. Khan’s time would come, but sitting around thinking of ways to force it would do nobody any good.

  ***

  On Monroe’s third afternoon back in Boston, Winter Willows called.

  “Richard, are you all right?”

  “I’m fine. It’s good to hear from you. When did you get back?”

  “I didn’t stay long in Paris. It wasn’t the same alone. I flew back a day after you left and got settled in here again. Fixed my hair, too—I hated being a brunette.”

  “What are you doing now that you’re back here? Will you keep working with Cyril Benson?”

  “What else can I do? Why? Is there something I should know? I know you’ve more or less crushed everything Garrett Khan was doing, so will you be coming after Benson next?”

  “You know I told Benson I wouldn’t interfere with his business personally, not that I can speak for what any agency does. But no, I won’t touch him. Still, you’re smart, Winter—very smart. You could succeed at anything else, anything legal. I wish you’d find a new line of work.”

  “And you could easily succeed at something safer, but you’ll keep risking your life for your patriotism, won’t you?”

  “That’s different, and you know it!”

  “Richard, I didn’t call you to have an argument. I know we’re on opposite sides again, but I thought maybe we could have dinner. I was hoping you’d cook for me again…and I swear I won’t try to kill you this time. We can discuss my future over two bowls of pasta if you want to keep pushing the issue. What do you say?”

  “You’re lucky I’m bored, Winter. How’s eight o’clock sound?”

  “I’ll be there. Bye.”

  ***

  Monroe cooked and he welcomed the distraction. He tossed greens together into salad, prepared pasta, chose wine. As he worked, he composed his speech. He intended to talk Winter Willows out of her criminal ways and into some sort of life that resembled decency, normality. He even considered, assuming his argument proved successful, asking Mr. Nine about getting Winter into Witness Protection, giving her a new identity, a new start somewhere far from Boston where nobody knew her. She had helped him and he did not want to see her continue down a path that would inevitably lead to arrest, incarceration, or death.

  By seven thirty, dinner was ready. He hung up his apron, put out utensils, and went to change and shave. He came out of the bathroom at ten to eight and sat down to wait, suddenly realizing just how much he looked forward to Winter’s arrival. It had dawned on him that he had not really spoken, in person, with another human being since coming back from the Atlantic fleet, not counting the cashier when he had gone to buy the components of dinner that afternoon.

  Eight came and went, then eight thirty. No Winter. Monroe did not think she would stand him up. He cal
led her, got her voicemail, and put the phone down to wait longer. Nine arrived, then nine forty-five. Monroe was getting worried.

  He got up, his hunger taking a back seat to his concern, grabbed his jacket, holstered the Glock, and took the elevator down to the parking garage. Within minutes, Monroe’s Lexus was on the streets of Boston. Monroe did not need to look up Winter’s address. Memorizing locations and routes was second nature to him after years of practice. He would be at her apartment in fifteen minutes, he estimated as he weaved through the evening traffic.

  ***

  An unlocked door on an apartment in any major city is always a bad sign. Monroe knew something was terribly wrong when he arrived, turned the knob, and Winter’s door opened. He drew his gun, slipped into the dark apartment, stopped just inside the doorway and listened. He heard nothing.

  When certain he was alone, he felt along the wall for a switch, flicked it up and the lights came on. The well-furnished living room was unoccupied except for Monroe and he could see that something had happened, something violent. He went further in, looking around, taking in every detail as it struck his eyes.

  The coffee table was at a slightly odd angle in relation to the couch as if pushed out of place. The pillows that presumably belonged to the couch were on the floor. He saw the half-open door that led to the kitchen and the thin, smeared red line halfway up. He went closer, confirmed by sight that it was blood, enough to know that someone had been hurt, slightly cut or scratched. But not enough, he was relieved to see, to be proof of a serious injury. Behind the door, in the kitchen, a glass had shattered where it had been dropped to the floor.

  Monroe turned around, back into the living room, then right into the bathroom. Nothing unusual there; the shower was wet as if used in the past hour. That left only the bedroom. He entered that last portion of Winter’s apartment, knowing he would most likely find one of two things: either she was dead or she had been taken.