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. Who was shooting at them?
“Get down!” shouted Danny.
“Come on, Emma!” shouted Rory again. This time, she might have heard the sound of her brother’s voice. She looked up. She stumbled and fell.
A bullet pinged off the main rotor. A sniper, for sure. But where was he?
“Emma!”
Rory jumped from the chopper and sprinted across the yard.
“Rory!” screamed Hope. Danny grabbed her before she too could jump. Then he reached for a weapon—
— a Brügger & Thomet TP-9 machine pistol. One of the ghetto gang-bangers’ machine pistols of choice. But unlike those clowns spray-painting the side of a Burger King in Baldwin Park, 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 Brügger & Thomet was not accurate at this distance. He had to get closer.
Danny turned to Hope—“Grab ’em and duck!” he shouted.
She reached…reached…
Emma first, tumbling into the spinning chopper. Rory still on the ground.
A round punched through the interior. Time for evasive action. Danny got the Hawk into the air.
“Rory!” screamed Hope. “You can’t leave him—”
Another round. This one just missed Hope as she leaned out.
Only one chance. Straight up, as fast as possible.
Hope grabbed Rory.
The next shot missed.
Hope and the kids were thrown to the floor of the helicopter by the G-forces.
Danny threw the bird into a controlled spiral. It would take an ace, a Tom Powers, to hit them now.
Hope threw up. Emma passed out. Rory whooped.
“Hang on!” shouted Danny, throttling back.
Suddenly, the Hawk dropped thirty feet. Danny pulled it out of its dive and rammed it forward.
The sniper was trying to reload. The Black Hawk was closing fast.
The sniper brought the barrel up. Danny was looking right down it.
Shit! He wasn’t going to make it.
Skorzeny slid across the floor. The rapidly dissipating gas cloud was between him. His hands fumbled for the release lever, just by the foot of the bed. This was going to hurt, and hurt bad, but at least he had a chance to survive.
He grasped the catch—
Something grabbed at his feet. He lost a shoe.
Skorzeny had to see. He turned. No doubt about it. It was him. The demon child he had sought so long, the one whose parents he had killed, the one whose presence he had sensed all these years, the one who, he knew, would someday try to take his revenge. The one man who posed him real danger. Seelye’s revenge.
“I am the Angel of Death,” said Devlin.
The slide opened. The old cistern, which he’d had retrofitted as an emergency escape hatch, yawned. He might break an arm, but the drop wouldn’t kill him. It was his only way out.
Half his body dove over the side. But the man’s iron grip still held him. “You’re ruined,” he said.
Skorzeny slid a little farther into the well.
“The EMP device has been neutralized. The Clara Vallis has been boarded. There’s not a country on earth that will harbor you now, you son of a bitch.”
Skorzeny wriggled, willing himself away from this monster — a monster he had in part created.
Danny yanked the Hawk to the left just in time. A bullet nicked the canopy and ricocheted off. If he was lucky, Danny would have just enough time to right the helicopter and get off a shot.
He jerked it back to the right. He could see the sniper now. He reached for the machine pistol.
Not enough time. Not enough time. Then—
The rifle dropped from the man’s hands. Wounded, the sniper screamed.
Another shot hit him. But he wouldn’t go down.
There — the other shooter. The woman.
Time to finish this.
Danny flew the Black Hawk up his ass.
The TP-9 spoke at nearly point blank range.
The sniper fell, bouncing off the roof and plunging to the courtyard below.
M. Pilier’s last thought, as he died, was that he finally was rid of Emanuel Skorzeny.
Skorzeny balanced on the precipice.
“Was all this just about money?” said the man, clutching him, clawing him, pulling him back. But the pain from the knife wound was too great. He was losing him.
“When everything else is gone,” gasped Skorzeny, kicking out one last time, and catching Devlin in his wounde
d shoulder, “what else is there?”
As Devlin winced in pain, Skorzeny broke free.
He plunged into the well, and vanished from sight.
Devlin watched the Black Hawk as it soared into the sky. Out the window he could see a broken body. The guards were already dragging it away.
He looked around the room. The richest man in the world, taking refuge in a cell.
In the end, what else was there?
Her voice, from the doorway. “Are you all right?”
He nodded. He was numb.
She rushed to him. “You’re bleeding.” She ripped away his shirt. He could feel himself fading. “Hold on, Frank,” she said.
“My name’s not Frank.” He managed to force a painful smile. “Who are you?”
“I’m your guardian angel,” she said.
AFTERMATH
Soon you will have forgotten the world, and soon the world will have forgotten you.
— MARCUS AURELIUS, Meditations, Book VII
Chapter Fifty-seven
WASHINGTON, 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.
“My fellow Americans: the tragic events of the past week were organized and set into motion by a plot that reached from California to Washington and across the seas. The late Senator Hartley, at my personal request, bravely drew the plotters out of the shadows. We were able to prevent a major terrorist attack on the homeland, something that would have made September 11 look like a walk in the park. But he paid for it with his life. And we will honor his sacrifice.”
“That’s good,” whispered Secretary Rubin to General Seelye. “Very good.”
“Decades ago,” continued Tyler, “your government used to deny the very existence of the National Security Agency, or at least refuse to confirm its existence. The old joke was that the letters NSA stood for No Such Agency. Today, we proudly admit that the National Security Agency and its sister agency, the Central Security Service, are among our country’s most stalwart defenders in the wars we fight.
“But I can assure you on my honor as president of the United States that there is no other agency, rogue or otherwise. I am sorry if I gave you the impression there was, but for reasons of state, I had to. This is the reality of the shadow war we fight. A war of exaggeration and disinformation. A war in which it’s hard to tell friends from enemies, victories from defeats. But we try.
“And so, as we mourn the dead in Edwardsville and Los Angeles and London, let us keep them always in our thoughts and prayers. And let us resolve to fight this war in the best traditions of America, with as much openness and transparency as we can, but always with the best interests of our nation and our world in our hearts. Thank you, and may God bless America.”
The camera shut down. The sound went off. Tyler looked away from his Teleprompter and at the people in the room. “Well?” he said.
“Excellent, Mr. President,” said Rubin.
“Well done, sir,” said Seelye.
“What about you?” said the president, turning to the third man in the room with him, lurking in near-invisibility by the door. “What do you think?”
“I think my job’s not over,” the shadow warrior said. “I think Branch 4 is still in business. I ended the siege, and I got Milverton. By rights, I ought to be able to retire.”
The president peered into the darkness, the video lights still in his eyes. “That’s true. That was our agreement.”
The man stepped forward, not enough to be fully visible, but enough for Tyler to make out a shape, a form. “But the job isn’t finished. Skorzeny is still out there. And so, with your permission, sir, I’d like to finish the job.”
“He’s still a very powerful man. We can’t risk a total 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.
Finally, as always, thanks to my family: Kate, Alexandra and Clare Walsh, without whose love and support none of this would be possible.
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Hostile Intent d-1 Page 34