Don Pendleton - Doom Prophecy

Headlights flashed at the other end of the trestle. Cara tensed, her eyes narrowing with concentration.

He was coming.

Cara Duong never thought she’d ever see the man again, but to have not known Lieutenant Governor Riddley Mott, the crusading politician who took California by storm, she’d need to have had her head buried in the ground like an ostrich. Riddley Mott, Vietnam veteran, war hero, Purple Heart recipient.

Her mother’s murderer.

The living symbol of the American forces who slaughtered her father and older brother.

The man who destroyed the huts of the village of Troui, laying waste to her home, the home of her childhood friends.

The medical men who treated her upon awakening said that she was one of eight survivors from the battle of Troui. It was a complete slaughter, with the Vietnamese fighters being killed to a man, the cross fire laying waste to entire families. Tears came to Cara’s eyes, but something darker came into her life, wrapping around the base of her heart, coiling black bloodlust, a desire for vengeance that roosted in her breast like a cancer.

Now she had her chance. She was in spitting distance. Riddley Mott, the crusading politician, war hero, golden son of the California senatorial race, was no saint. With her computer skills, she’d managed to trace his bank account records, and found interesting sources of contributions, both public and private. Very few of them were a matter of record, and more than one of his contributors was listed under FBI surveillance.

But the FBI didn’t know that these corruptors had their fingers in Mott’s pocket. They knew that money was being laundered somewhere, but only Duong had been able to track the cash through the loops of offshore bank accounts until they finally found their way into the lieutenant governor’s pocket. The information would have made Duong rich enough in its own right, but the Vietnamese woman didn’t need cash. She could skim millions with a press of the button, not even breaking a sweat writing the code necessary for such a heist.

No. She wanted blood.

She imagined Mott, clutching his bloody guts, his stomach sporting one to five big fat .45-inch holes, coughing up gouts of syrupy red, eyes wide with horror and agony. The thought brought a warmth to her that dissipated the cold in her bones.

Mott walked toward her from the other side of the trestle. The headlights of his car backlit him and his shadow stretched crazily forward. Cara’s moon-shaped face glistened lightly in the reflection when Mott’s shadow didn’t block the light, but she doubted he’d remember her.

Not the way she remembered him, even with gray starting to replace the black in his hair, wrinkles deepening his craggy, handsome face.

Come get your payback, you son of a bitch, Duong thought. Through the vent pocket in her trench coat, she felt the wooden grips of her Colt .45. They were rough, the checkering clinging to her hand. She enjoyed the feel of the big handgun. Its handle was just small enough for her to get a good trigger reach, and yet the weapon was as powerful as anything on the market.

Mott stopped, twenty feet away from her.

“Good evening, Lieutenant Governor,” she said.

“Some gook,” Mott muttered. “So you’re the one threatening to tell the FBI about my friends?”

“Not just some gook, Riddley.”

“I survived four years in Vietnam taking on all comers. You’re supposed to impress me?” Mott asked.

“I’m not here to impress you, Riddley.”

“My friends call me Riddley, bitch.”

“Then, by all means, Lieutenant Governor, don’t count me among your friends, you murdering bastard.”

“Murder?” Mott asked. He was clearly surprised.

“Remember the village of Troui?” Duong asked. The muzzle of the .45 slipped out of her waistband.

Mott frowned.

“Remember a woman, a woman with a nine-year-old child, attacking you?” she asked.

“That wasn’t murder. It was self-defense. She tried to kill me first,” Mott said. He didn’t sound in the least bit guilty.

Too bad, Duong thought. Your punishment is coming.

“Listen, just turn around and go back home before you end up regretting this,” Mott suggested.

Duong pulled out the Colt, flicking off the safety in a single fluid motion. “I actually think you’re going to regret this, asshole.”

Mott looked at the gun, but his face didn’t show anything more than momentary surprise. He took a half step away from her, holding up his hands.

“Now come on. Don’t you think that’s a little too big for you?” Mott taunted.

The muzzle didn’t waver a single degree. She aimed at his stomach, anticipating the gut shots that would fold Mott like bloody laundry, making him vomit his life as his internal organs were reduced to soup by the fat .45-caliber hollowpoint rounds she loaded especially for the purpose of prolonging his agony.

“It’s too big for a rat bastard like you. But hey, you’ll die faster this way,” Duong said.

The sound of footsteps behind her reached her ears too late. Black shapes lunged out of the darkness, a blow knocking her gun hand up. The Colt erupted into the night sky, its muzzle-flash lighting the darkness. Strong fingers wrapped around her slender arms, yanking her off balance. The .45 was pulled from her grasp and thrown to Mott.

“Silly bitch,” Mott said. “You think I wouldn’t come here without some kind of backup?”

Duong thrashed, trying to pull free as Mott held the pistol loosely in his hand. The bodyguards held on to her tightly, not giving up an inch of slack. Her dark eyes stared back in defiance at her mother’s murderer.

The barrel whipped across her face, its front sight slicing into the flesh of her jaw. The metal carved a four-inch furrow in her smooth, once unlined face, throwing her head back. Her eyes crossed.

“Hold this gook down, guys,” Mott said, stuffing the pistol into his jacket pocket. “I always enjoyed having a piece of brown tail.”

Duong’s eyes blurred as her trench coat was torn open, rough hands ripping at her skirt as she kicked and struggled.

HITTING THE WATER was a shock. She felt her shoulder dislocate as she struck from seventy feet up. Her entire body had already been abused and violated. Somehow, through the whole ordeal, she’d stayed conscious, her brain rousing back to life as she was finally dragged, half naked, to the edge of the trestle that overlooked the swollen river below.

On the way down, she took a deep breath and knew that even as she tried, the impact with the water would knock it from her lungs. If she hit wrong, in a spot that wasn’t deep enough, she’d be dashed against the river floor, broken apart.

Instead, hitting the water only popped her shoulder free from its socket and left her breathless. The next few moments were a nightmare swirl of turgid waves, inky darkness and body-numbing pain, but somehow she found the strength to breach the surface of the river, gulping down fresh lungfuls of air.

She had survived the fall, even though she was being swept away from the bridge in a crazy tumble. Mott threw her over, in the hope that the fall would kill her. A bullet in her would leave too much evidence should she be washed ashore after a few days.

But she was alive, and she kicked, dragging herself with her good arm toward the shore.

She needed to make the shore, to survive.

Riddley Mott wasn’t getting away with murder tonight.

Cara Duong still lived to kill again.

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The radio crackled to life with a staccato burst of static that made the members of Special Forces Unit Knight Seven jump to attention. “Rook’s Nest to Knight Seven. Respond.”