Hellfire- The Series, Volumes 1-3

by Leigh Barker

  Vladimir looked straight at him from the screen. “And you are?”

  As if he hadn’t had the whole thing checked out.

  “Leonard Hofmann.”

  Vladimir raised an eyebrow, then nodded once. “Then, yes, we should. What is it you propose?” He asked the question directly to Hofmann, then shifted his gaze to Dicky, who was now with them.

  “We propose…” Hofmann said, then looked at Dicky. “If I may, Mr. President.”

  Dicky waved a hand and scattered the papers. He scooped them back into an untidy pile. Hofmann and Vladimir exchanged a quick look that would have boomed in a packed stadium.

  “Then,” Hofmann said quickly before the Texan could embarrass his country further, “we should tighten the ties between our two countries.”

  “We have been adversaries for a century,” Vladimir said, “and it has served us well, allowing us to build two mighty nations. The imminent threat of annihilation is a strong argument when the populace complains about work, pay, conditions and all the many woes afflicting them.”

  “Yes, sir,” Hofmann said. “But we…the United States and our great president…” He gave Dicky a moment to preen. “We believe that the world has now changed and a new player has entered the game.”

  “The Chinese.”

  “Yes, the Chinese. And they have no intention of letting us use tension to our mutual benefit.”

  “An ignorant people,” Vladimir said.

  “In some respects, yes. They have a naïve sense of political nuance, preferring to rely on their size and power to get what they want.”

  “Quite. A bully.”

  “And the best way to handle a bully?”

  Vladimir smiled. “There are subtle ways, and there is my way.” He paused for a moment. “I…how do you put it? I knock him on his ass.”

  Hofmann nodded.

  “And that’s just how I do it,” Dicky said. “Politics, business—it’s all the same. People respect a man who stands up.”

  “So how do you propose we…stand up to this new and inconvenient bully?” Vladimir said.

  “Exactly as you suggested,” Hofmann said. “We knock him on his ass.”

  There was silence for a long moment while the strands of what was being discussed coalesced.

  “I agree that a bloody nose would make this upstart nation toe the line,” Vladimir said. “The question is, how sharp the shock?”

  “You are a busy man, sir,” Hofmann said, “so I shall simply say it. We should push them until they do something stupid, ill-conceived and provocative.”

  “And then?”

  “And then we launch a simultaneous nuclear strike on Beijing.” Hofmann spoke as if commenting on the weather.

  Vladimir was silent again for a moment and then smiled. “Yes, I can see how that might give them pause for thought.”

  “And take out the whole political class in one big bang,” Dicky said, eager to get into the conversation.

  “But their military infrastructure will remain operational. What is to stop them from retaliating?”

  “Against the two biggest nuclear nations in the world?” Hofmann said. “With no political masters to tell them what to do, they will do nothing.”

  “You seem very sure of this.”

  “I am. I’ve built my organization on my ability to assess how a person or company will react. A country is no different.”

  Vladimir leaned towards the camera. “An intriguing proposition, Mr. Hofmann. I shall need time to think it through. To consider possible ramifications. I too have built my career on my ability to assess actions and reactions.”

  “I would expect nothing less, sir,” Hofmann said.

  “Yeah, you go ahead and do that,” Dicky said, still retrieving escaping papers.

  “Thank you for your permission,” Vladimir said. “You shall have my answer tomorrow.”

  “You should know, sir,” Hofmann said, “that events are already in train to begin to rattle their cage.”

  “I would’ve expected no less. It is best, as you say, to strike when the iron is hot.” He leaned back into his seat. “The prospect of closer ties between our two countries I find very attractive.” He nodded to himself. “I can see many advantages, both internationally and within our respective countries. But there will be those who object to such an alliance.”

  “With the two of us in the same corner,” Dicky said, “they’ll be no more than a dog yapping at a closed door.” Now he leaned forward to emphasize his point. “An let’s say the pooch gets brave enough to bite.” He shrugged, then slammed his hand on the desk.

  A little over the top, but Hofmann approved.

  “Quite so,” Vladimir said. “Tomorrow I shall inform you of my decision.” He moved his hand and the screen faded into silver.

  “That went well,” Dicky said, finally getting his papers into a stack.

  “May I ask what all that paper is for, Mr. President?”

  Dicky scooped up the papers and smiled a toothy smile from the fifty-inch screen. “These? These are the folks you suggested might replace those back-stabbing bastards.”

  “There seems to be a lot.”

  “Hell, you should know. Right?”

  “Are you vetting them?” Hofmann couldn’t have cared less.

  “What the hell for? Your suggestions are good enough for me.”

  “Thank you, Dicky. I’m flattered.”

  “You’re the man, right?” He started to rise then sat back down. “I don’t see your name here?”

  “You really wouldn’t want me on your team, sir. I don’t play well with others.”

  Dicky laughed. “Me neither. I guess that’s why I’m president.”

  “Yes, that may be one of the reasons, but I believe there are others, far more significant.”

  Hofmann killed the feed.

  At just about the same time Dicky received a one-word message from Vladimir confirming the plan was a go, Ethan and his team touched down at Dulles. The passengers shuffling off the plane were tired and jet-lagged, but the unit had slept pretty much the whole way, except for food. And a few drinks for Loco. Being able to go to sleep like flipping a switch was down to training, but also a survival mechanism for men and women who never knew when they’d get a decent sleep again. Except in the ground.

  Ethan led the way through immigration. Home at last. Coming home was usually an exhilarating moment returning from a hellhole someplace stinking and hot, but not this time. This time they were walking into a war zone more dangerous than any they’d ever known. And the cost of failure was not just their own lives, it was the lives of all they held dear. Failure is not an option is easy to say; making it so needs a very special breed of warrior. Ethan hoped to God that they had what it took. When all you have to lose is your own life, being a hero isn’t so hard, but right then he felt anything but heroic. For the first time in his military life, he was afraid. Afraid for the people these men loved.

  They headed straight through to departures to get to their families as fast as possible. Gunny en route to Seattle, Loco to El Paso, Smokey to Houston. And Winter heading for the dude ranch in Arizona, home to Ethan’s ex and her reliable, steady husband. There were no long farewells, just a nod and they were gone, leaving Ethan and Andie to take care of business.

  Ethan made his way to the Alamo desk without speaking. Something was buzzing in the back of his mind like an unseen mosquito. He declined the upgrade to a fifteen-seater van without comment. Some things just don’t need saying.

  He still hadn’t spoken as they drove the Cherokee out of the airport and headed for the city, but when Andie looked up suddenly from her computer bouncing on her knees and made a gasping sound, he snapped out of it.

  He glanced over. And knew. “You found it?”

  She licked her lips and nodded, unable to speak for a moment. “I think so. God, I hope so. And I hope not.”

  “Pick one.”

  “Do you know when Orpheus surfaced?” s
he said.

  Ethan let the files flick through his mind. “2000.” He glanced into the rear-view. “No, it was 2002.”

  She took a long breath and her jawbone stood out against her tanned cheek. “I can’t believe I missed it. It was right here.” She tapped the computer.

  “Don’t beat yourself up. Tell me what you have.”

  “You know the saying follow the money?”

  “Sure, I watch TV.”

  “Well, I was following the money, but the wrong money.”

  He let her have a moment to compose her thoughts, even though part of him wanted to just do one of those Spock things. A mind-meld. Yeah, a mind-meld.

  “I’ve been working through his business deals. And I have to tell you, there’s a lot of them, and they stink. One was with a Thai thug importing and exporting young girls and boys.” She shut up for a moment. “That’s not the point.”

  “No,” Ethan said, “it isn’t. The point is the real money.”

  “I never thought to look there.”

  Ethan eased his foot off the pedal so that he could think and drive.

  “Where he got the money to start Orpheus,” she said. “It came from nowhere to become one of the biggest clandestine businesses on the planet. If not the biggest. And that takes money, a lot of money. Billions and billions. And where does a man who only had a few mil get his hands on that kind of money?”

  “If I knew,” Ethan said, and shrugged. “Except I’m also missing the few mil.”

  “Currency trading.”

  Ethan sniffed. “That’s a fool’s game. Straight gambling.”

  “You’re right. It’s a fool’s game for the little man, but Orpheus made his billions almost overnight.” She tapped the computer. “It’s like insider trading on steroids.”

  “How?” Ethan said. He saw her glance at him. “How did he do it?”

  “She smiled a quick smile that lit up her face and made her look about twelve. “If I knew that, I’d be hanging up my M16 and buying a beachside in Malibu.”

  “Yeah, you’d fit right in,” Ethan said, reflecting her smile.

  “How’s that?” she said, daring him to answer.

  “Land of fruits and nuts. And you’re no fruit.”

  She frowned for a moment, but it was so far over her head she couldn’t hit it with a SAM. She let it go. “You’ve got a point though. How did he do it?” She looked out of the window without seeing the passing vehicles. “I have a suspicion.” She looked at him. “But I need to prove it before I say. It’s so bad it makes my head spin.”

  Ethan nodded and went back to watching the road. “You go ahead and prove your suspicion so we can unravel his stinking empire from the top down.”

  “So you’re going to let technology do your talking?”

  “Sure,” Ethan said, “but I’m still going to blow his head off.”

  “Copy that,” Andie said.

  “You do your thing. Pick at any thread and let’s see what it unravels.” He tried to smile at her, but couldn’t even fake it. “Before you do that, I want to find where this guy is at.”

  “On it.”

  There was no way Winter could approach the dude ranch without being seen, not without crawling through the cactus and dust. And snakes. Right, snakes. So he drove up to the main gates and waved to the cowboys sitting outside a wooden barracks, bunkhouse or whatever the fuck it was.

  He could learn to ride and shoot a six-shooter and shout yippee ki fuckin’ yay. How hard could it be?

  He glanced left as he pulled up in front of the big white house, at the horses milling around behind a couple of wooden rails. Corral. Right, he’d try to remember. Shit, he’d seen enough cowboy movies. Big horses those. And problem with horses…too many to list before he reached the front door and it opened as he raised his hand to knock.

  A woman smiled at him. Christ, he almost called her Mrs. Gill. That would’ve gone down a storm. He caught himself and tried a smile.

  It made her flinch.

  “You here for the roundup?”

  God, he hoped not.

  He looked back at the men in big hats sitting in front of the barra…the bunkhouse.

  “Yeah, the roundup.”

  That was something to do with cows. He tried to remember what, but all he could remember was dusty cowboys getting shot out of the saddle by rustlers. Probably not the same, and something to avoid if possible. He guessed falling from a horse would hurt like crazy. And being shot was not fun, he could vouch for that. Twice.

  “I’m Katlyn Lopez.”

  That surprised him. Not that her husband was Latino, that would be just moronic. No, Katlyn. He never pictured Ethan’s wife as being a Katlyn. Mary or Alice maybe. What did that say about him? He liked Latinos. Yeah, right.

  “You can call me Kate,” she said, stepping off the porch and onto the sun-hardened yard.

  “Okay, thank you, ma’am.” He saw the quick look, but most women looked at him that way sooner or later. No big deal.

  “Come on, I’ll introduce you to the boys.” She glanced back. “Curly’s out on the range with Billy Crystal.”

  “Catch up with them later,” Winter said.

  She missed a step and caught herself, shook her head and led the way across the yard.

  Winter watched the cowboys watching him approach, but none of them kicked off any alarm bells. If there was a hit man among them, he either wasn’t much or was very, very good. He’d take the first option, because he’d never met a killer he couldn’t pick out in the first two seconds.

  “You had any other visitors, ma’am?”

  “Kate.” She stopped short of the bunkhouse and the six cowboys sitting under the sloping wooden roof. “Are you expecting somebody else?”

  “No, ma’am. Just asking.”

  She put her hands on her hips and watched him for several seconds, then raised her eyebrows. “Which is it? SEALs, Rangers? Marine?”

  “Ma’am?” He leaned away a little, as if getting ready to bolt.

  “You can cut the ma’am BS. I’ve been around marines most of my life.” She nodded. “Marine, right?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Ethan send you?”

  For a heartbeat he thought about lying, but her expression killed that idea. “Yes, ma’am.”

  She looked around slowly. “And you asking if I’ve had other visitors? You expecting somebody to come and give me trouble?”

  He shrugged. “Maybe.”

  She half pointed at the men lounging in the shade. “Nobody’s going to mess with me with these boys around.” She pointed at each in turn, ticking them off. “Stretch, Hondo, Duke…” She turned to face him. “You follow my drift here?”

  He did. Men with movie names. He hoped they’d never have to showcase their dying-in-a-hail-of-bullets scene. “Nobody’s been around.” He glanced past her. “Anybody does, Shane and John Wayne will tie a tin can to his tail.”

  The men glowered at him, but stayed sitting in the shade. The tall, thin guy she’d introduced as Stretch straightened his right leg and rested his hand on his pearl-handled Colt.

  Winter nodded at him, and he relaxed. No gunfight over at the corral today. He’d had no problem picking up a weapon in Phoenix; just about everybody had a gun tucked away someplace. Now he had a Sig M17 in a 7TS holster on his belt. An army gun in an army holster. But he could’ve pulled the Sig and put a round in the cowboy and put it away while he was still clenching his ass ready to draw. Wouldn’t have proved anything. Except maybe when you kill bad guys for a living, there’s no thrill killing movie actors acting tough.

  He took a long look around at the country. Low hills on the horizon, scrub desert and cracked landscape. A man approaching even on foot would kick up enough dust to announce his arrival with time to make him breakfast.

  Nobody was going to come bother Mrs. Lopez. Not without a world of hurt waiting to say hi.

  And then Winter saw it. Nobody was coming, because nobody needed to come
. She wasn’t the target.

  Orpheus’ headquarters was in one of the new cool neighborhoods of Washington. It took Andie minutes to find it. Once she stopped dicking around looking for a clandestine organization hiding out in the sticks somewhere. Parallax Ascension Inc. Really? But what did she expect? Orpheus Secret Arms Dealer Inc? Whatever. She’d found him and now they sat in the Cherokee on H Street in the shade of a tree. A tree in the city was like a Macdonald’s on the moon, welcome but bizarre.

  She glanced at Ethan leaning forward so he could see the top floor of the modern eleven-storey building that looked just like all the other modern buildings. But this one belonged to Orpheus.

  Ethan tried to concentrate, but a nagging murmur buzzed in his head. The unseen mosquito. Something was nagging his subconscious, trying to get his attention.

  “Are you worried about their families?”

  Ethan glanced at her and clicked back into the present. The puzzled expression vanished and he took a long breath. “I should be.”

  “But you’re not?”

  The mosquito stopped buzzing and settled, and Ethan gave a little start as the realization popped into his head fully formed. “Why would Orpheus send hit squads to all of them?” It wasn’t a question that needed an answer. “Makes no sense.”

  Andie closed her laptop. “It split us up.”

  “Yes, it did, but it would’ve done that without sending four hit teams.”

  “Maybe he didn’t, you know, send four.”

  Ethan nodded once.

  “If there isn’t a real threat, then the boys are going to find out in no time and just come right on back,” Andie said. “So why bother?”

  He glanced at her.

  “So why are you looking so…like there’s insurgents in the trunk?” she said.

  “Because he’ll send one.”

  “Who?” Andie bit her lip. “Who to?”

  “If it were me,” Ethan said, “and I wanted to tear this team up, I’d take out the family of the tactician, the military thinker. Hamstring him with grief and we’re weaker. A hell of a lot weaker.”

  “But that’s you. You should get down to the ranch and your wife.”