Don Pendleton - Devil's Bargain

Muhdal wondered if they were murdering his own men, when, rounding the corner, thrust down the bisecting corridor that led to the north exit, he spotted Zeki and Balik being hustled outside by another squad of invaders manhandling the rest of his fighters for the open door, barking at them in a mix of Kurd and Russian the whole way. Whoever these hooded killers, they were professionals, he decided, wondering how they had taken down the prison so swiftly, no Turk resistance he could find anywhere. As long as they weren’t Americans—who aided and abetted the Ankara regime—he figured he could live with the indignity of a piss shower for the moment, if salvation from Dyrik was guaranteed. Still, he wouldn’t forget his shame.

Muhdal kept moving, saw several of the invaders spear bayonets through chests of downed Turks, gutting one or two like pigs, innards gushing to the floor. The vile stench was so strong now, bile wormed up his chest, hot slime rolling into his throat. And he spotted the smoke and flames leaping up through the grate in the floor of another wing, two fuel drums dumped on their sides. He picked up his pace, eager to put distance to the screams of men burning alive.

Muhdal hit the courtyard, grateful for fresh air, found the invaders ushering his men into the bellies of three Black Hawk gunships. The guard quarters had been reduced to flaming rubble, he saw, likewise the motor pool of Humvees and troop carriers, nothing but burning scrap. Forging into rotor wash, he gave the grounds and walls a quick search, spotted parachute canopies billowed out by heated wind. A look at the guard towers, he saw bodies draped over railings, the claws of four grappling hooks dug into the top edges of the wall.

Professionals, all right, he thought, aware the attack on the prison had been split down the middle between the invaders. Snipers, creeping in from the steppe, took out the guards, scaled the walls, the other half dropping square into the belly to blast and burn.

Nearing the Black Hawk, the Barking Hood on his heels urging speed, Muhdal looked to the distant northern sky. There, the sky strobed, blackness peppered to near daylight with brilliant white flashes. He knew there was a large Turk military base in that direction, thought he heard the rumbling of explosions, but the sound was muted by rotor wash.

He boarded the gunship, glanced at Balik before he was shoved to sit. He seethed, staring at the Barking Hood, another invader looking up from the green glow of a laptop monitor. White teeth flashed, a thumbs-up from the other invader, and the Barking Hood laughed.

Suddenly Muhdal felt as if he were quagmired in a nightmare, skin on fire, heart pumping with fury. Who were they? What did they want? They might have known who he was, but they didn’t know that, make no mistake, he would return the favor for dousing him in his cell.

The Barking Hood turned, stripped off the com link as the gunship lifted off. As the man tugged off the hood, Muhdal stared up at a face, purpled and cratered around the eyes and jaws from past battle souvenirs, the whole grisly picture as sharp as the edge of a razor, it could have been the skull on the ace of spades.

The big commando chuckled. “Cheer up, Moody. We’re here to help make you all rich men.”

Muhdal felt his heart lurch, jaw drop. “Americans?”

The Skull laughed. “Yeah, well, they say even the Devil can speak in all tongues.”

Speechless, anchored by fear, Muhdal wondered what horror lay in Kurd futures, staring into the Skull’s laughing eyes.

“You do believe in the Devil, don’t you, Moody? You damn well better—you’re looking at him.”

HE WAS CALLED Acheron, named for his resurrection after both the river of Greek mythology in Hades, and the demon who guarded the gates of Hell.

It was the sweetest thing, he thought, Judas bastards oblivious he was risen from the dead. Physically speaking, of course, it was impossible to breathe life into oneself, arise from ashes and dust, but the metaphor worked for him; he was alive and doing fine. Thanks to Big Brother, the old Michael Mitchell was long dead and gone, but Acheron was moving on into the night to settle that score, silence an unclean tongue.

And on national television, no less.

Acheron, he thought—he liked that, seeing himself as the living ghost of the charred bones of that skeleton body double from a forgotten covert war zone in Syria. Oh, he was back, all right, feeling good, strong, ready to grab center stage on the Josh Randall show, pull a dagger from the back of the operation of the ages.

With one final look over his shoulder, he found the Clairmont Studio lot clear of mortals, then keyed the guest door open. The kid at the gate had been easy, one shot through the forehead with the throwaway sound suppressed Walther M-6, but he had counted on the bogus Washington Post press pass to get him close enough to the booth, eliminate one problem, confiscate keys. That left two armed rental badges inside, he knew, certain his professional talent would drop a couple of overweight play babies who seemed more inclined to walk female employees to their cars after hours than patrol the premises between doughnuts and coffee. Nailing down the routine of the security detail—so much sloppiness and laziness, he stopped counting the errors of their ways thirty minutes into his first watch—his escape route was mapped out, dry run when he wasn’t surveying the studio from his high-rise apartment directly across Connecticut Avenue. This, he figured, would prove so easy it was damn near criminal.

Snicking the door closed behind, he found the hall empty, focused on the lights and the chatter of fools at the end of the corridor. Snugging the dark sunglasses tight with a forefinger, his former Company boss wouldn’t recognize him, he knew, not until he spoke the bastard’s handle. Black wig, mustache and goatee pasted on, it was a shame, he considered, that other traitors may be watching the left-wing-circle jerk tonight and never know who made the special guest appearance. Well, what was fifteen minutes of fame anyway, when there were years of glory and pleasure at the end of the golden road, beyond his return from the dead?

Marching, he unzipped the loose-fitting windbreaker, pockets weighted down with two exit goodies, twin .50-Magnum Desert Eagles, the show-stoppers. It was a bonus, he recalled, cozying up to the makeup girl at the neighborhood pub, plying her with drinks. She couldn’t have drawn the setup any better. The stage then, would be off to the right, two cameramen, ten o’clock, rentals on standby, in case an unruly guest needed the hook. It happened, he knew, or so he heard, the punk star so extreme sometimes in left-wing diatribe, even the rational of viewpoint had taken a lunge at his mustache. By God, what he wouldn’t give himself, he thought, to rip that mustache off his face, ram it down his gullet…

The coming statement would suffice.

A few paces from the studio, and he heard the loudmouth in question—LIQ—snorting at something the kid said. “With all due respect,” LIQ rebuked, “Josh, I was there. Your sources aren’t quite on the money. I’m telling you there’s a secret paramilitary infrastructure, of assassins and saboteurs working for the United States government.”

No shit, Acheron thought. And why did the talking dickheads always soften the verbal blow “with all due respect?” Politicians were the worst of flimflam artists, he thought, all their “quite frankly” and “to be quite honest with you” spelling out they lied the rest of the time. Let that be him up there, he’d tell the punk, “With all due kiss my ass, here’s the real fucking deal.”

Stow the righteous anger, he told himself. This was business.

The canister, tossed and bouncing up in the heart of the staff, led the entrance, gas spewing a cloud of noxious fumes. Their reaction was typical, expected: cries of panic flayed the air, clipboards and cue cards fell, a mad scramble of bodies ricocheted off one another. He compounded the terror, the Desert Eagle out and pealing. Two heartbeats’ worth of thunder blasting through the studio, he tagged the cameramen first, 250-grain boattails exploding through ribs, hurling them back, deadweight bowling down one of the rentals.