Don Pendleton: Assault Force

Without looking up, the slightly built dark man answered back in Castilian Spanish, “It’s reserved for you.”

Harmon settled in, dumped the bag on the deck, managed to catch the bartender on the fly and ordered a beer with a whiskey chaser. Then he looked around, smiling, awed by it all. He sensed before seeing him, the man’s backup at the far end of the bar. He had no names, had never met them, but he knew the look of a killer when he saw it. He spotted a couple of his own guys in a booth to his deep four o’clock. Lighting a cigarette, Harmon rode out the silence while the bartender fetched his order. Cool was important, deceptive appearances critical in case unwanted eyes were watching.

He was staring out at the pool, eager to get on with it, when he spotted her. Man alive, he thought, unable to tear his gaze from the woman, his normally cold heart leaping like a hot coal into his throat. Scores of beauties were slinking all over, but she was a world-class looker. Hell, no, he corrected, she was in a universe all by herself. Blond, not all that busty, but with long legs, the kind that were muscular in a gymnast way, tanned and displayed in the slit of her white semiformal evening dress as she strutted toward the gold lion.

Mr. Hollywood, he glimpsed, looking on, was less than halfhearted in his glory as he scribbled out an autograph for some kid who looked set to wet himself. The woman’s face was classic sculpted angel, East European, maybe Ukranian, Harmon guessed from personal experience in that part of the world. The way she moved was all class, all woman, eyes front, boys, except for Mr. Right.

Sure enough, damn it, she wasn’t alone. They weren’t pawing each other, goo-goo eyes and such, not even holding hands, but Harmon sensed they were confident and sure in themselves, separate but together. Lovers, no question, and he hated the guy for just breathing the same air. The tall, athletic SOB on her wing was dark, maybe Italian, or just too much time in the sun. It was hard to tell with this bunch. Whoever he was, he didn’t fit the playboy bill. The clothes for one thing, black slacks, matching dress shoes, aloha shirt worn out, dark shades, standard casual maybe, only…

Harmon’s mental radar blipped louder the longer he studied the big guy. Something in the way he carried himself, an aura Harmon didn’t trust. He sensed he was in the presence of another warrior.

Moving like the fearless lion king, Harmon noted the slow athletic carriage, only instinct warned him the dark man could move as fast as a cobra lunge, if the need arose. That wasn’t any jet-setter. He tried to dismiss the troubled stirring in his gut as standard prelaunch jitters. But there was something about the man…

The drinks came, the big guy vanished and Harmon told the bartender to start him a tab.

“Did you bring it?” his companion asked.

They switched to French. Nobody paid attention to the French. Harmon downed his shot, sipped his beer. “I’ll put it on the bar when I leave,” he told the man, bobbing his head, grinning, just a couple of Frenchmen shooting small talk at the bar. “Quite the chosen. Truly an elite group.”

“I have my reasons.”

“I’m sure you do,” Harmon replied.

“And the other matter?”

Harmon blew out a funnel of smoke. “In the package. We’ll work out the finer details.”

“See how things progress?”

“Took the words right out of my mouth.”

“You understand that failure is not an option?”

“That’s the only way I know how to work.”

Harmon couldn’t help himself, feeling stronger and more confident with each second. The man’s cologne spiking his nose, the black op glanced at his comrade’s face reflected in the mirror across the bar. Clean-shaved as smooth as a newborn’s bottom, black hair closely cropped, the glasses a nice touch. Harmon turned his head, smiled at his swarthy companion and lifted his bottle. “Cheers. Here’s to the party.”

Jarrod Harmon touched glass with the man he knew had a twenty-million dollar bounty, dead or alive, on his scalp.

Father Jose Gadiz was disturbed. It seemed to take all his energy just to cross the vast expanse of gilded, marbled lobby and forge deeper into this so-called Heaven on Earth they had built for themselves. What waited was difficult. The anxious anticipation of seeing him after so many years, knowing the man’s sins—which he made no attempt to hide, much less repent—broke his heart, sickened his soul.

The priest believed whatever he said would echo through eternity. That in mind, he clung to hope. Salvation or damnation, he knew beyond any shred of doubt, was the only guarantee. Not that he ever had reason to believe otherwise. But if others knew, he thought, then shuddered as the tentacles of the living visions reached out, reality suddenly obscured when the memory boiled up, shaping into what he so feared. And had so desperately been trying to forget.

He looked at all the handsome faces. They seemed to glow from pleasure indulged, rapture in the eyes, radiant auras. How their hearts, he thought, cloaked in the illusory shadow of satisfaction, the flesh kept sated by money, kept wanting more. Behind the smiles he saw lust, greed, envy, pride and a wrath that would trample anyone who denied them what they wanted.

All the lost souls.

It struck the priest their laughter was aimed at the world, perhaps what he stood for. A few of the more curious glanced at his white collar, the severe black clothing. Some appeared to shy away, as if embarrassed or afraid their hidden selves might be found out. Everywhere he saw bold desire, preoccupation with self, what they wanted. Had he expected any different? Why did he continue to live on in hope that he could somehow reach them, save, if only a few, from perdition?

Perhaps present circumstances had rendered him too harsh and judgmental right then, but he thought not. Perhaps the train ride had simply wearied him. Nerves shot, burdened as he was by Isadora’s plight and suffering, heart crushed to agonizing pity as she urged this contact. Clearly, the way she had pleaded her case, it struck him she believed he was the last resort, the final hope.

He feared she was right.

And, just like that, it was as if he’d stepped into another dimension of time and space. Life slammed into a montage of freeze-frames. Somehow, he kept moving into the strange haze, aware he passed through white rays made ever more brilliant as they lanced through the stained-glass skylight. The living, such as they were, began lurching all about, faceless automatons. Their laughter swirled, hideous in ears that had heard the wailing of the damned, only the din now wasn’t anywhere near as infinitely terrifying. Except for the rare few children, there was no light in any of them, even their flesh appearing like so much dark jelly. The more he searched their faces, the more he dreaded the world was in such deep trouble, so many so gripped in the power of evil, he wasn’t sure if he was blessed or cursed, or strong enough to carry the message of what he’d seen.

Repent.

No human mind, he knew, could even begin to comprehend the depth and severity of the horror he had witnessed the past week. Not even he, a man of God—protected by divine guidance and assured salvation if he clung to his vows of chastity, poverty and obedience with unfailing perseverance—could fathom what he’d experienced.

The mere pale shadow of the memory nearly dropped him to his knees right then, shrieking blasphemies. He was mortified beyond terror just to think of them, as he tried but failed to focus on other words just to mute the faintest echo from his mind. There was an abominable stench of raw human waste, sulfur and flesh so putrified there was no smell—if he could even call it that—on Earth to compare it to, putrid fumes that still clung to his senses, stirring acid bile in his stomach. He’d felt the vicious clawing of utter despair that knew no depths or bounds.