Don Pendleton - The Killing Rule

The wounds he’d received in the Falklands had forced him to retire from the British army, so he had taken his name and reputation and gone to West Africa, where he had gotten himself involved in the constant wars and revolutions. He’d come back with a personal fortune in diamonds. Throughout the 1980s Lord William had been famous for winning and losing fortunes at the baccarat tables in Monaco, reaching a respectable ranking on the Grand Prix circuit when not crashing his own personal sports cars, climbing Mount Everest and K2, sailing around the world, dating a different girl every month and even occasionally flexing his hereditary right as an English peer to cast his vote in the House of Lords. He was a nobleman, a hero, a mercenary, a professional adventurer and a dilettante. For decades he had been constant fodder for the British tabloids and earned the sobriquet “Red-Hot” Willy.

In the military community he was known most for pioneering what may have been the first VIP/executive protection mercenary outfit. In West Africa, war and violence had been and still were endemic. At the same time gold and diamonds flowed out of the area and guns and money flowed in. Glen-Patrick had seen the need not just for bodyguards for VIPs, but men who were soldiers in their own right. Developers, businessmen, African royalty and heads of state needed more than just bullet shields. Glen-Patrick had used the contacts he’d made in the army and the SAS, finding highly qualified men from around the world not just to guard VIPs, their families and business interests, but men who would act proactively. Glen-Patrick had developed a simple, three-step plan. When a threat was determined, it would be bought off. If it couldn’t be bought off, it would be intimidated. If it couldn’t be intimidated, it would be eliminated.

The work had been lucrative, but it was the international business contacts he had made that had made him a millionaire.

Lord William had slowed down upon reaching the age of sixty and retired to an estate on the Isle of Guernsey, living with three women, none of whom he was married to, and again, very occasionally, casting his vote in the House of Lords, usually on environmental issues. His mercenary group had gone from Aegis Incorporated to Aegis Global Security and was reputed to be less bloodthirsty in the new century. According to its prospectus, it was doing a thriving business in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Bolan took note of Lord William’s service record with the Life Guards and the SAS. He’d seen service in Northern Ireland with both units. What he had done there with the SAS had been redacted.

Bolan closed the file. “I see a few red flags, David.”

“Oh, I know, millionaire playboy entrepreneur moves to a tiny island in his dotage, goes quietly bloody bonkers and starts engaging in crazy politically motivated actions.” The former SAS man shook his head as the Land Rover rumbled and bumped along the narrow, muddy lane between the hedgerows. “Don’t think I haven’t thought it.”

David McCarter was the leader of Stony Man Farm’s Phoenix Force and another man whose instincts Bolan trusted. “You knew him?”

“I met him. We’re two different generations of SAS. He was ending his career when I was starting mine. But he’s peerage and he won the Victoria Cross.” McCarter glanced meaningfully at the brown gorse all around them. “That bloody well means something in these islands.”

Bolan knew by “islands” McCarter meant the entire United Kingdom.

“I called him, like you asked,” McCarter continued. “He remembered me and agreed to see us, but he didn’t sound too happy about it. I’m—There are men in the hedgerows.”

Bolan had noticed them, too. McCarter brought the Land Rover to a halt as a man stepped out into the lane in front of them.

The man was about five foot ten. White hair fell around his ears in a shag that seemed to be three weeks past due for a cut. A white mustache draped across his upper lip. He wore a tweed hacking jacket with leather patches on the elbows and a quilted leather patch on the right shoulder for shooting. His heavy wool pants were tucked into stained Wellington boots. A tweed cap was perched on his head at a rakish angle. He looked lean and fit and every inch a British squire out for a morning hunt. All he needed was a double-barrel shotgun broken open and crooked in his elbow.

Instead Lord William stood in the misting rain cradling an L-2 A-3 Sterling submachine gun.

A pair of Great Danes flanked him. One had the black-and-white markings of a Dalmatian while the other was a startling, near-hairless pink. A human argyle vest with the sleeves cut off strained at its seams to insulate the giant furless dog against the cold.

The Sterling’s muzzle was not quite pointed at the Land Rover. Lord William’s finger was not quite on the trigger. His men came out of the hedgerows; there were four of them, two on each side of the lane. They were dressed in heavy wool sweaters, and all carried double-barrel shotguns.

McCarter glanced over at Bolan. The Land Rover’s armor package was rated up to direct hits from .30-caliber weapons. He was waiting for Bolan’s signal to run over the baron and his men.

“I say, David!” Lord William jerked his head. “Why don’t you and your friend come out, stretch your legs! We’ll chat a bit!”

Bolan caught motion out of the corner of his eye. The hedgerow was six feet tall, but a barn was visible above it some fifty yards away. A pair of men were atop it now, and Bolan recognized the 84 mm profile of a Carl Gustaf recoilless antitank rifle across one of the men’s shoulder.

The seven-pound, rocket-assisted warhead would light up the Land Rover like the Fourth of July.

Lord William shrugged. “Of course I could just bloody well light you up like November Fifth!”

November Fifth was Guy Fawkes Day in England, commemorating the day in 1604 when Guy Fawkes had stockpiled thirty-six barrels of black powder in a cellar beneath the House of Lords and tried to blow up Parliament.

Bolan turned to McCarter. “Let’s go stretch our legs and chat a bit.”

“Right.”

“Slow and easy!” Lord William called. He nodded at his yeomen. “Steady on, lads.”

Bolan and McCarter stepped out of the Land Rover and moved to stand in front of it. McCarter grinned. “Hello, Bill!”

Bolan nodded. “Your lordship.”

The two dogs quivered at the sounds of their voices. Lord William spoke soothingly. “Spot…Starkers…” Bolan looked into Starkers’s colorless albino eyes and saw cold, pale murder. Only their master’s will kept the giant dogs rooted in place in the muck instead of savaging the intruders.

Lord William ignored Bolan’s and McCarter’s greetings. “Lunk, their pistols, if you please.”

The man behind them was very good. Even in the squelching mud he’d barely made any noise on his approach. Bolan and McCarter slowly opened their jackets. A huge hand reached around Bolan and drew the Beretta 93-R. The Executioner spoke quietly. “Ankle holster and right pocket.” He was relieved of his snub-nosed 9 mm Centennial revolver and his Mikov switchblade.

The Executioner slid his eyes to look at the man as he moved off to disarm McCarter. Lunk had earned his name. He was huge. Not big like a bodybuilder or an athlete, but a human built to a different scale. He was running six foot six with shoulders that were axe-handle broad, from which hung arms like an orangutan. He had the pale complexion, anvil jaw, snub nose and tightly curling brown hair that fairly screamed Welshman.

He took McCarter’s Hi-Power pistol, noting the shortened Argentine “Detective” slide and the chrome base plate of the Israeli 15-round magazine with one raised brown eyebrow.

McCarter kept his smile painted on his face. “Not the warmest welcome I’ve ever had in Guernsey, Bill.”