Don Pendleton - The Killing Rule

Veins began pulsing in Jennings’s temples. Lord William sighed impatiently. “Lunk, keep him conscious, don’t break his fingers or his jaw. We’ll be needing him typing and talking I should think.”

Jennings snarled through clenched teeth. “What do you want first?”

Bolan considered going file by file, gleaning out the relevant information, but that would take time and despite the fear in Jennings’s eyes he didn’t trust the man. There could be data deletion programs infesting the computer. However good Jennings’s defenses were, Bolan was willing to bet they were not up to the Akira Tokaido’s standard. He connected his PDA to an open port on the computer. “Download your entire hard drive.”

Jennings blinked. “Into that?”

Bolan’s PDA probably had ten times the computing capability of Jennings’s entire computer suite but he didn’t bother explaining. “Do it.”

Lunk slid Jennings’s chair around the desk, rammed him in front of the computer. “You heard the Yank.”

Jennings’s hands hovered, trembling over the keyboard. Bolan leaned in and peered into his eyes. “Forget Lunk. Do it or deal with me.”

Jennings flinched. What he suddenly saw in Bolan’s burning blue eyes was far more frightening than a beating at the big Welshman’s hands. He typed in letters and numbers, and files began to transfer into Bolan’s PDA. Jennings jumped in his seat as Lord William punched him in the shoulder in a comradely fashion. “Good lad! I knew you’d see reason.”

Grietje’s voice spoke across the intercom. “Mr. Jennings? Mr. Van der Beers has called to confirm lunch this afternoon.”

Lunk’s huge hand covered the speaker. He and Lord William both looked to Bolan, who nodded to Jennings. “Tell her you’ll be a few minutes late, but lunch is on.”

Jennings spoke as Lunk uncovered the intercom. “Lord William has brought some unexpected business to my attention. Tell Van der Beers I’ll be a little late, but we’re a green light for lunch.”

“A green light. Yes, Mr. Jennings.”

The intercom clicked off. Bolan screwed the muzzle of his PPK into Jennings’s temple. “Green light. That’s the signal for what? Intruders? Lockdown?”

Jennings stared up at Bolan with renewed purpose. “The police have been alerted. I suggest you leave while you still can.”

“Blow his brains out,” Lord William suggested.

A phone to one side of the desk rang. Bolan recognized the receiver as a satellite link. Jennings jerked and stared at the sat link in horror. “No,” Bolan said. “He’s going to answer that phone.”

“No, I’m—”

“Do it or I’ll kill you.”

Jennings stared once more into Bolan’s eyes and whatever recidivist bravery he had summoned wavered. He and Bolan both knew he was one pound away on a cocked, two-pound trigger toward death.

“I—”

The phone chimed.

“Do it,” Bolan ordered.

“But—”

“You’re out of time.” Bolan pulled the pistol away from Jennings’s temple and pointed it at the Englishman’s face.

“No!” Jennings lunged for the satellite phone.

Lunk’s paws slammed down on his shoulders. “Compose yourself.”

Jennings took a shuddering breath.

“Better.” Bolan nodded. “Put it on speakerphone.”

Jennings pressed a button on the link. A deep, British upper-class voice came across the speaker. “Clive, we need to talk.”

Bolan watched Clive’s face closely. He’d broken into a sweat.

“I agree,” Jennings replied.

“Listen,” the voice continued. “I’ve spoken with our counterparts in the East. We are in agreement. We need to step up the timetable.”

Jennings looked like he might throw up.

Lord William cocked his head. Clearly something about the voice was familiar. Jennings got that staring-into-the-middle-distance, everything-unraveling look on his face again. He opened his mouth and then closed it again.

“I say,” the voice said. “Clive, are you there?”

Bolan silently mouthed the words “keep talking” at Clive.

“I…”

Lord William suddenly beamed and leaned in toward the intercom. “Parky, you old sod! How the bloody hell are you?”

Jennings’s jaw dropped. Lunk shot Bolan a knowing grin. The voice on the other side of the secure link paused in shocked silence. “To whom am I speaking?”

“Why, Ian, it’s Bill! Bill Glen-Patrick! Haven’t seen you since I last voted in Lords! By God, when was that? Aught 2, then?”

The voice on the other end was clearly stunned. “Clive, what is going on?”

“I…” was all Jennings could manage.

Bolan subvocalized to Lunk. “Who?”

Lunk muttered under his breath, “His Lordship Ian Parkhurst, if I’m not mistaken.”

Bolan had never heard of Lord Ian, but then there were close to seven hundred members of the English peerage. “Is this bad?”

Lunk’s craggy brow furrowed. “Bad enough. Lord William is a baron. Parkhurst is an earl.”

“Listen, Parky,” Lord William continued. “Your lad Clive has cocked things up a bit. I’m doing a little spring-cleaning around the old office. I’m putting a stop to whatever he’s up to. I do hope you won’t be inconvenienced.”

“Glen-Patrick,” the voice said, “I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to leave my office.”

“Your office?”

“Yes, William. Just who do you think it was who took your wretched little box of tin soldiers away from you? Surely not that pissant Clive?”

“Well, truth be told, yes,” Lord William admitted. “Not quite cricket, Ian. Peers turning on each other like this, is it, old bean?”

“You know, I never really considered you a peer,” the voice stated. “None of us ever did. You’re just a jumped-up country squire who never knew his station. You spent more time on your sordid little escapades and in the tabloids than you ever did voting in the house.”

Bolan listened to the exchange with interest. Whoever Parkhurst was, he was an amateur. He was gloating and monologing when he should have kept his mouth shut. Bolan silently mouthed the words “keep him talking” to Lord William. The baron nodded.

“Listen, Parky. We have dead CIA agents, the IRA, whispers of mass destruction, Aegis somehow involved. I was looking into this out of duty, you know. Queen and country and all that. But you know something, Parky? Now I think it’s personal.”

“Do you know what one does with toothless, barking old dogs?” The voice went utterly cold. “One puts them down. However, I’ve come to learn that you’re not an old dog. You, William, are a cockroach. A pest that refuses to be crushed. And I’ll tell you something, William. When Clive failed to kill you in Guernsey, I had a thought you might show up at the offices.”

“Oh? And what might that thought—”

“Goodbye, William.”

The line clicked dead.

Lunk was peering out the window toward the river. “Company, Lord William, coming to kill us quiet.”

Bolan gazed out the window. Men were spilling out of a pair of Volkswagen vans. They were dressed in civilian clothing, but each one was sporting a micro-Uzi machine pistol with the long black tube of a sound suppressor screwed over the stub barrels. The gunners’ torsos had the barrel shape of men wearing body armor beneath their clothing. Bolan counted ten of them and was pretty sure there would be more coming around the back. If Lord Parkhurst was telling the truth about owning the company, the killers would probably have their own keys.

He turned on Clive. “Where are the guns?”

“Your guns?” Jennings stared up at Bolan in confusion. “Grietje has them in the safe downstairs. You know that—”

“No, Clive. Where are your guns?”