Don Pendleton - The Libya Connection

He walked to the desk across the room and opened a drawer to reveal the leathered, small automatic... when he heard a peculiar sound from beyond the French windows to the terrace.

Jericho fisted his palm around the Walther's butt and started to yank the automatic from its holster as he looked up toward the windows.

When he did look up, the feel of that gun butt in his hand was the last physical sensation he experienced.

A figure in combat black hulked into the room from the terrace. The intruder's presence filled the penthouse like a jungle lord suddenly unleashed amid lesser beings. The man was heavy with armament. But at the moment, all he held in a one-handed grip was a long stainless steel AutoMag that was drawing a bead on the area between Leonard Jericho's eyes.

Jericho instinctively yanked the automatic from its leather, his senses short-circuiting with panic.

The .44 in the big man's fist belched fire in a strong grip.

And in his final microsecond of existence, Leonard Jericho had a crystalized curiosity. Would death be as powerful as the orgasm he had emptied into the Puerto Rican bitch last night on his private plane while Santos had done things to her with his knife?

Everything turned black with a hot splash that was no real pain at all.

They found Jericho's body minutes later, well after his executioner was gone. The skull was blown open. The top half of it was tilted at a crazy angle against the bar with brains staining the expensive carpet.

The real Leonard Jericho was dead.

From Mack Bo/an's private journal:

A part of me died tonight.

The hurt is so bad that I can barely force myself to write these words. But I must write while the emotions are hot. These words are my grief.

The real Leonard Jericho is dead. His Libya connection has been destroyed. The Strain-7 virus is on its way back to the States, and so am I. And maybe, just maybe, the score has been settled for Eve Aguilar.

But the lady is still dead.

And gone forever.

And the only damn thing that keeps me going and caring at all right now is the knowledge that Big Eve didn't stop until they stopped her. She gave it all to the good fight. Everything.

Big Eve died for our sins.

For the evolutionary process.

Goodbye, lady.

I will carry you with me wherever the good fight takes me.

You meant plenty in life.

Your memory means something now too, by God;

Live on, Evita. Wherever you are.

It does matter.

It does.