Scott Mariani - The Doomsday Prophecy

Slater munched and flipped the file open. The first thing his eyes landed on was a blown-up passport photo of a blond-haired man in his thirties. ‘Who is he?’

‘His name’s Hope. Benedict Hope. Englishman. A few days ago our agents reported he was on Corfu, Greek island. He went out there to meet up with Palmer. As you know, Palmer was there -’

‘I don’t need a history lesson,’ Slater snapped. ‘Palmer was there looking for Bradbury, and he talked to some Greek asshole. I know. But I thought it was all taken care of.’

‘We thought so too. The Karapiperis hit and the bombing were dressed up to look like a drug gang reprisal. But this guy Hope got away. We already knew that from Kaplan and Hudson, but we only just found out who he is.’

Slater brushed the photo aside and thumbed quickly through the printed sheets underneath. Military records for Palmer and Hope. He skipped through Palmer’s first, brows tightening as he scanned down the text. Hope’s record was much more extensive, and he took more time over it. By the time he’d finished reading, alarm was building up in his chest. He looked up. ‘Have you read this?’

The associate nodded.

‘Remarkable. The youngest major 22 SAS ever had. Decorations coming out of his ass. He’s either a goddamn hero or he’s a dyed-in-the-wool stone killer. Either way, he’s the kind of man who should have been on my team.’

‘We tried to dig up more about him, from after he left the army,’ the associate said. ‘There isn’t much. He operates as a “crisis response consultant”, moves around a lot, hard to pin down. He’s real careful about covering his tracks. We don’t even have a home address for him.’

‘Crisis response consultant,’ Slater echoed under his breath. ‘Kind of loose terminology. Covers a lot of ground.’

‘We think he took out Kaplan and Hudson.’

‘That would certainly figure.’ Slater shut the file. ‘What the hell’s going on here? How does a damn archaeology academic come to have two ex-SAS guys on her trail? How is a man like Hope mixed up in this?’

‘We don’t know. Maybe he was working with Bradbury.’

Slater looked up sharply. ‘Then he could know everything. He and Bradbury could be working together in this. Partners, for all we know.’

‘Possible.’

Slater glared. ‘So what you’re telling me is that this already fucked-up situation just got even more fucked up. We have a former Special Forces officer on the loose, who’s taking out our agents and may know everything that Bradbury and McClusky know. In other words, we just went from dealing with a dead-beat ambulance chaser and a frightened little girl to dealing with a trained fucking killing machine who’s at the very least the equal of any soldier ever produced by the US Army. You do realise that, don’t you?’

‘I realise that,’ the associate replied dully.

‘And have we any idea where this bastard might be?’

‘I was coming to that. He’s here.’

‘What do you mean, here?’

‘He passed through US Immigration, Atlanta, two days ago.’

Slater hung his head in frustration. ‘And you’re going to tell me the CIA can’t catch him?’

‘Our people got to the airport late. He slipped out of there.’

Slater stared hard at his associate. Shook his head in disgust.

‘We have to be cautious,’ the associate said. ‘This isn’t exactly official Agency business, Irving. And Hope isn’t exactly an ordinary guy.’

‘I pay you people a lot of money,’ Slater said. ‘He’s one man. One man. You have dozens of people on the payroll, and access to a hundred more at least. Is he really that smart, or are you really that inept?’

The associate’s temper was rising. ‘We’ve done everything you told us to do. We acquired Bradbury. Took care of Karapiperis. Brought in Herzog for the bombing. These things are not easy to do. It’s not like organising a press conference. One slip, we all go down.’

Slater snorted derisively. ‘If I’d known what a bunch of lames you people were, I’d have paid Herzog to do the whole thing.’

‘He’s a mercenary,’ the associate protested. ‘He believes in nothing.’

‘What does it matter what he believes in? The fucker could be a Satanist for all I care.’

‘That’s not what this is about.’

Slater looked at him levelly. ‘Oh, you think this is about doing God’s work? Let me tell you, this is business, first and last. Herzog gets the job done, and he doesn’t leave tracks that a blind man could follow.’

The associate was about to reply when his phone rang. He turned away from Slater and answered, talking softly. His eyebrows rose. ‘You’re sure?’ he said. ‘OK. You know what to do.’ He shut the phone and turned back to Slater with a grin of triumph.

‘Well?’

‘That was Jones. He got Hope.’

Slater smiled for the first time in the conversation. ‘That’s more like it. Good. Now bring this bastard in, and let’s get him talking.’

‘You know I can’t be there,’ the associate said. ‘I can’t be seen.’

‘No, but I sure as hell will. I want to meet this character.’

‘I’m not sure you do.’

‘Oh, I do,’ Slater insisted. ‘And then I want to finish him.’

Georgia

The flat punch of the explosion ripped through the air. The cop’s face disintegrated in a mess of red, and he was sent sprawling backwards with the impact of the heavy bullet. He flopped down into the dirt, legs kicking.

Then Jones cocked the.475 revolver a second time and shot the other cop before he had time to react. The bullet caught him in the chest, blowing his heart and lungs out through his spine. Blood spattered against the windscreen of the police cruiser. The cop crumpled into the dust without a sound.

For a moment nobody moved.

The report of the gun rolled around the open countryside. The two cops lay motionless. Jones turned his back on them.

Ben stared at Jones, and then at the other agents. One of them was grinning. Two were impassive. Then he saw the expression of horror on the woman’s face. She hadn’t been expecting that.

‘Hell of a kick these things have got,’ Jones mused, weighing the big revolver in his hand. He took off his dark glasses and fixed Ben with a wry look. ‘Looks like you’re in deep shit now, Mr Ben Hope.’

Ben stood away from the Chrysler. He pointed at the two dead cops. ‘Why did you do that?’

‘I didn’t,’ Jones said. ‘You did. We all saw you do it. It’s your gun, your prints all over it.’

‘What do you want from me?’

Jones smiled. ‘Answers. But not here.’

He walked up to Ben. The smile was gone now. He cocked the pistol again and stuck it in his face. ‘You’re under arrest, cop-killer.’

Ben looked around him at the agents. Five on the ground, at least two more behind the tinted glass of the cars. He evaluated distances, positions, body language. His eyes flicked from Jones to the muzzle of the gun and then back again. This was the second time in a few minutes that someone had pointed a pistol at him like this. He’d let the young cop do it to him, but there was no way he was going to tolerate it from this guy.

Besides, Jones had just made a big tactical error. Maybe he was too used to pointing a short, stubby Glock or SIG in people’s faces. Or maybe he was just cocky and showing off in front of the others, like some kind of movie hero. But the long barrel on the hunting revolver meant that its muzzle was just four inches from Ben’s head.

One of the first lessons he’d been taught, many years before, was never to hold a gun too close to the other guy. It was just asking for trouble. An expert military shooter would stand back and keep some distance between himself and his enemy, precluding any attempt at a disarming move. And disarming moves were something that had been instilled in Ben through endless training. They’d saved his life more times than he cared to remember.