Show No Mercy

by Brian Drake

  “No time,” Dane said.

  Stone pulled over.

  “Wait here,” Dane said. He started to get out.

  “You’ll need me,” Nina said. She joined Dane on the sidewalk. They entered the flower shop.

  “Don’t like my pals?” Dane said.

  “She’ll feel better with a woman around.”

  The clerk behind the counter smiled.

  “Help you, sir?”

  The place was wall-to-wall flowers, an explosion of colors and scents.

  Dane said, “Crash Dive.”

  The clerk said, “We’ve been expecting you,” as he pressed a button under the counter. No buzzer sounded but a door labeled Private popped open on a hydraulic hinge.

  “Up the stairs and down the hall,” the clerk said.

  “Does she know about her father?” Dane said.

  “Yes.”

  “Any word on his condition?”

  “None,” the clerk said, with a slight shake of his head. “No trouble here, either.”

  “Okay.”

  Dane pushed the door open. Nina drew her Smith & Wesson M&P Shield and held it close to her leg.

  A light bulb hung from the ceiling and lit the narrow hallway. A set of stairs led to a hallway, and at the end was a door with a pool of light spilling from underneath.

  Nina stopped against the wall as Dane continued. He knocked on the door.

  A bald man in a dark suit answered. He held a gun very loosely, examined Dane. “Who’s the woman?” he said.

  “She’s with me.”

  “Put away the piece, chrome dome,” Nina said.

  The bald man complied and let Dane into the room. He held the door for Nina.

  A young woman rushed at them from a corner couch.

  “What happened to my father?”

  She was shorter than she looked in the picture; her dark hair had blonde highlights. Her eyes burned with concern.

  “He was alive when we left,” Dane said. “I don’t know anything more. Neither did the guy downstairs.”

  “Nobody knows nothing!” Hana Kader said.

  “Anything,” Nina said.

  “Who are you two anyway?”

  Dane looked at Hana. Her small lips were pressed tightly together, her eyes locked on Nina, breathing steadily. Ready for a fight.

  “Hana, look at me.”

  The girl snapped her attention to Dane. “What?” She couldn’t have been more than 25 but seemed mad enough to wrestle a tiger. Her brown eyes stood out the most to him. He had to keep this young woman alive.

  Steady. Stay focused.

  “Your father said you have information about Graypoole.”

  “Yeah, so?”

  “I need those files.”

  “They aren’t here.”

  “Will you take us to them?”

  “They’re at my Swiss bank.”

  Dane said, “Then you’re coming with us.”

  “What about the people who shot my father?”

  Dane checked his watch. “Should be here any time.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “I’m surprised they didn’t get here first, considering one of your father’s men betrayed him.”

  She put a hand to her mouth.

  “We have to go,” Dane said. “Right now.”

  Hana Kader no longer argued.

  Dane wanted to be back in the air without delay.

  “No way,” Stone said as he drove. “My pilots need rest, Steve.”

  “We don’t have time to wait.”

  “Can you fly that plane yourself?”

  Dane thought a moment. “Okay. We hole up tonight and take off in the morning. Todd, shepherd’s pie on me.”

  “Awesome,” McConn said.

  They checked into a hotel near Heathrow, two separate rooms. Nina and Hana occupied one. Nina figured some girl time might settle Hana’s nerves.

  Dane escorted the women to their room, placing their bags on the floor with a grunt of relief. It felt like they had packed the State of Texas.

  “Don’t stay up too late,” Nina said. Dane departed for his room, located further down the dark-walled hallway. Carved wooden arches were set above each door, the number of the room dead-center in each arch.

  Dane found McConn and Stone around the table shuffling cards and counting poker chips.

  “Where’d you get the kit?” Dane said.

  “Gift shop.”

  There were two king beds. And three of them. A folded cot sat against the dresser. Thin mattress, metal frame. The paint on the wheels was chipped, faded. It didn’t look uncomfortable, but it also didn’t look very inviting.

  “Are we playing for who gets the beds?” Dane turned up the cuffs of his shirt, but only a little. The puckered flesh of his left arm remained covered.

  “Exactly,” Stone said. He set aside a stack of blues and started counting reds.

  Dane fished his cell out of his coat. “One second.” He dialed Lukavina and caught the CIA man at home.

  “We found the daughter and no trouble,” Dane reported. “Her father’s files are in a bank in Zurich. But if one of Kader’s men told Graypoole where he was hiding, you can bet they know what we know and they aren’t far behind.”

  “When do you leave for Zurich?”

  “Tomorrow morning. I’ll call you again when we get there.”

  Dane ended the call.

  He approached the table. “I have no intention of sleeping on that cot, boys.”

  “Dealer’s choice,” McConn said with a final shuffle of the deck.

  The cot really wasn’t bad, Dane later decided.

  23

  The Walker daughters arrived in the evening, each in their own car and from what Levasseur could discern based on how each one was greeted at the door, it was a grand reunion and they weren’t going to let a cancelled trip ruin their togetherness.

  He smiled a little.

  The sun went down and the lights went on; a Dominos delivery man arrived with two pizzas. Levasseur guessed nobody wanted to cook.

  The Frenchman continued watching the house on the monitors and before midnight the CID agents changed shifts. Two new arrivals replaced the men in the van, and a lone agent took the place of the one in the house.

  Levasseur left the monitors to join Gaetano and Cotrone in the kitchen. The two sat at the table oiling their weapons. Levasseur had already prepared his pistol; it hung below his left arm. Cotrone had the only submachine gun, a Heckler & Koch MP-7. He had the parts disassembled and spread neatly on a layer of newspaper, keeping used oil patches in a tidy pile.

  Gaetano, for the life of him, could not do anything, it seemed, without leaving a mess. Patches and parts were all over his half of the table as he scrubbed the barrel of his CZ nine-millimeter.

  The success of their strike depended on taking out the CID agents first. If they failed, the whole mission would be a waste.

  Cotrone would take out the men in the van. The MP-7’s 4.6x30mm cartridge was small like a handgun round but packed the potency of a rifle. The round was more than able to pierce the van’s metal and continue through any living bodies inside.

  Levasseur and Gaetano had the house. Levasseur hoped Gaetano was a much more disciplined fighter than he was at pretty much any other activity.

  Two a.m. Street lamps burned brightly. Scattered porch lights illuminated homes. Every now and then a motion-sensor light blared briefly before snapping off. A cool wind blew but Cotrone felt nothing but a flush of heat throughout his entire body.

  The MP-7 was slung under his right arm, partially concealed by a coat dangling past his waist.

  He approached the van. Sweat beaded on his forehead and trickled behind his left ear. He was breathing too fast for somebody out for a walk and what the hell was he doing out this late anyway?

  Nobody sat in front of the van. Duh. They’d be in back watching the Walkers on equipment similar to what they had inside the house.

  Twenty yards
. No alarm so far.

  Levasseur and Gaetano would not cross the street until the van was secured, and Cotrone’s throat suddenly dried up. He wasn’t usually an assassin. He’d only ever killed three people, two in self-defense and this kind of attack was foreign to him. He was the surveillance guy. The getaway driver. Once the CID agents in the van were dead, his next task was to keep the car running for when the other two completed their part of the assignment.

  The original plan had only called for him to drive.

  He liked the original plan better. But then Graypoole had to change the plan.

  Steps away now. Something inside the van shifted and banged against the wall.

  Now! Cotrone whipped up the HK, his thumb clicking off the safety as his index finger slipped over the trigger. A silencer slightly extended the length of the weapon.

  The MP-7 rocked against his shoulder and the loud and rapid thumping of the silenced shots sounded like heavy books dropping flat on a desk. Cotrone emptied the magazine into the side of the van, hearing screams as the slugs found their marks. The sub gun clicked empty. Cotrone changed mags and went to the rear, blasted the locks with a short burst and flung open one of the back doors. Both CID men were down in a puddle of blood mixed with broken pieces of electronic equipment. The puddle became a pool as Cotrone stood there.

  Cotrone sprinted back to the house, lungs burning, nearly hyperventilating. As he approached the house, he saw Levasseur and Gaetano run across the street to the Walker house.

  Levasseur and Gaetano crossed the driveway to the side of the house where Walker kept his garbage cans. The cans sat in front of a gate near the water meter. He couldn’t have made it easier, Levasseur thought, as he and Gaetano stepped onto the meter, then onto the cans and then braced a hand atop the gate to swing over. They landed hard, bending knees to absorb the impact. A motion light flashed on. Good news and bad news. Bad because the CID man inside knew where they were. Good because the light lit the side passage and Walker was organized enough to have properly lined his yard gear against the fence. No debris impeded their progress.

  They ran to the back yard, guns up, hearing shouts of alarm inside.

  The killers rounded the back patio. Gaetano scooped up a metal chair with his free hand and flung it through the glass patio doors. The crash of glass seemed to shake the ground. His stock went up a little in Levasseur’s book.

  Gaetano went in first, Levaaseur ducking to avoid the pointy edges still in the door frame.

  Pistol fire cracked and Levasseur felt a bullet hiss past his head.

  “What was that?” Penny Walker said, sitting up in bed.

  “Get the girls and lock yourselves in this room,” Walker said as he rolled off the bed and collected a shotgun from the closet.

  “Honey?”

  “Don’t forget the revolver in the dresser,” he said, and went out of the room.

  He found the CID man, a sergeant named Finnegan, in the hallway. His daughters rushed down toward him, nightgowns flapping, talking hurriedly, gasping when they saw the shotgun and Walker pushed them toward the master bedroom.

  “I can’t raise the van,” the sergeant said.

  “Follow me,” Walker said, taking the lead and keeping low with the shotgun in both hands, a standard police Remington 870. Loaded with double-o buckshot, a blast could bring down any two-legged threat.

  24

  Even with the darkness in the hall, Walker moved with ease. His leg didn’t bother him.

  They rounded the corner to the kitchen as the patio door shattered inward. The metal chair landed on the tile with a loud clang.

  “Down, General!”

  Walker hit the floor, the shotgun tucked tight into his shoulder. Finnegan fired twice as two figures entered, both rounds missing. Walker fired. The muzzle blast lit the room for a split second and the buckshot connected with the lead intruder, tearing into his flesh with a wet slap. The intruder dropped and slid across the floor, banging against the metal chair.

  Finnegan hopped over the general as Walker pumped the 870’s action. The second intruder dodged left, deeper into the kitchen. Walker jumped up. A string of shots cracked and Walker collided with Finnegan’s body as the sergeant fell.

  Walker fell over, too, Finnegan landing on top of him, the dead man’s weight pinning Walker’s left side. He fired a blast for effect, heard glass and cabinetry shatter, and rolled away with a grunt. He bumped a table leg. As he pumped another shell, the second intruder fired twice. Walker screamed as the slugs struck. One in the shoulder, the other near his neck. Walker tasted blood on his lip.

  He stifled another cry and lay still, pulse pounding in his head. The beam of a flashlight shined around him and blinked out. No use firing where the light was. Walker heard the intruder’s shuffling footsteps as he changed positions.

  Walker rolled onto his damaged left arm, grunting as he dragged himself across the tile. At least he slid easily. He reached the carpet of the adjoining dining room but then the doorway splintered as a shot cracked. Footsteps pounded. Walker raised the 870 with one hand. He fired. The strobe effect of the muzzle blast revealed the intruder rushing toward him but also revealed a miss. And Walker couldn’t move his other arm to cycle the action. He let out a yell of defiance and pain.

  The kitchen light snapped on. Walker recoiled from the sudden brightness, but not before he saw Penny with the revolver standing and aiming like he’d taught her, a classic isosceles stance. Legs spread, gun in both hands with the arms making a triangle. It might not be “special forces approved” but the general knew it served a functional purpose.

  The intruder was caught in the open, a gun behind him and Walker straight ahead. Walker locked eyes with the man, who raised his pistol and then the magnum in Penny’s hand thundered once, twice, a third time.

  The last thing Walker heard before he passed out was his wife, screaming.

  There’s always one thing you can’t count on, Levasseur decided. In this case, two. Walker knew how to fight, hence their original ambush plan. His wife knew some things, too. They should have checked her out more thoroughly than they had, but now it was too late. He raised his gun to put Walker down. If wifey hesitated a little, he could get her too.

  But then the hammer struck. A hard blow against his right side. The bullet burned through his torso. He started to fall by the time the second round struck and Levasseur landed on hands and knees. He was finished. And then the third bullet smacked into his body and all feeling evaporated and the lights went out.

  Dane, McConn and Stone loaded their gear into the jet’s cargo hold in the rear of the plane. They stayed hunched under the plane, the rear wings and engines above. When Stone pushed the cargo door closed and turned the latch, Dane straightened, only to bash his head on the fuselage. He cursed.

  “Planes weren’t built for tall guys, Steve,” Stone said.

  Dane stifled further retort with a grimace, his right hand pressed hard on top of his head.

  Nina and Hana, already aboard with a bottle of vodka between them and half-full glasses, were snickering at their own joke as the men boarded. They had started early, Dane noticed when he collected both from their hotel room, but at least the mood was a little lighter. Hana’s father made it through the night, and the doctors said his prognosis looked good. When she heard the news, relief washed over Hana’s face like a wave. Dane didn’t begrudge her needing a few drinks after the ordeal.

  Stone stepped into the cockpit to confer with the pilot. Dane and McConn found seats and strapped in.

  “You two getting along?” Dane said.

  “Fabulously,” Nina said. “We have a lot in common. She went to boarding school, and I didn’t.”

  The two women laughed.

  Dane shook his head. “Gonna be a long flight.”

  “Oh, have a drink, honey.” Nina snatched the bottle. “But get your own, these vitamins are for us girls.”

  Hana said nothing but regarded Dane with glassy eyes.


  Stone joined them and found his seat. “Weather clear all the way to Zurich,” he said.

  The engines spooled up, their rumble muted, but Dane let out a satisfied sigh. They were on their way once again.

  Presently the jet soared to 25,000 feet and leveled off.

  Dane took off his seatbelt and reclined his seat.

  “I don’t see anybody following us,” Dane reported from the back seat. He leaned against the backrest, knees on the seat. Stone drove. They’d rented a larger Mercedes SUV after clearing customs at Zurich Airport.

  Nina, also watching, agreed. “Either they’re being careful, or we got here before they did.”

  “I’m surprised you can see straight.”

  “I only drank half the bottle, dear.”

  Dane finally sat forward, buckled up and Nina did likewise. They occupied the third rear seat in the SUV. McConn sat in the middle, alone; Stone and Hana sat up front.

  “Where to, Hana?” Dane said.

  “Barclays,” she said. “Beethovenstrasse 19.”

  “Isn’t that our bank?” Nina said.

  “Yes. They know us there, Hana, we won’t have any trouble.”

  “What about after?” McConn said.

  “Don’t jinx it, cowboy,” Dane said.

  It was a nice drive at least, even with traffic. Zurich wasn’t one of Dane’s favorite cities, but he still enjoyed visiting. The snow-capped Alps stood in the distance, a sharp contrast to the antiseptic architecture of the city. The Alps oozed life and stirred emotion; the city felt like a museum with Do Not Touch signs every five meters.

  The Alps held a special place in Dane’s heart, but not for a reason any “normal” person might identify with. They looked serene but the territory was formidable and he’d once left two bodies somewhere in those jagged peaks. The incident happened during one of his first missions for the Agency, where he went into the mountains looking for a cache of gold coins allegedly hidden by al-Qaeda operatives. Dane wasn’t the only one looking for the gold, as a team from AQ and two fortune hunters were also after the loot. Dane beat al-Qaeda to the stash, but the fortune hunters met him there. The fire fight didn’t last long. Dane put the men down. He took out two men with automatic weapons while armed only with a pistol. He’d overcome terrible odds. He’d won. The following rush made him feel invincible. Shortly after, he almost died in the helicopter crash and never felt invincible again. Those back-to-back events showed him he needed to take advantage of all that life had to offer. Life was an adventure to be lived and ultimately meant breaking away from Agency employment and taking on the unknown challenges that never failed to show him how sweet life could be when you faced it head-on and served as a reminder he had a responsibility to be the champion others lacked. He welcomed the responsibility, at least until a bullet stopped him. Someday, somewhere, he’d be called to account.