David ed. - Face Off (2014) Anthology

“The sale will happen in Manaus,” Stephanie told him yesterday on the phone.

He knew the place.

“Trask is there with a video crew from the Discovery Channel, aboard a luxury riverboat. They’re touring the neighboring rain forest and preparing for a television special about his lost years in the jungle. His real purpose for being there, though, is to sell his purified sample. We have to get it from him, and you’re the closest asset there.”

“I’m retired.”

“I’ll make it worth your while.”

“How will I know if I found it?” he asked.

“It’s stored in a small metal case, in vials, about the size of a deck of cards.”

“I assume you want me to do this alone?”

“Preferably. This is highly classified. Tell Cassiopeia you’ll only be gone a few days.”

Cassiopeia did not like it, but she’d understood Stephanie’s condition. Call, if you need me, had been her last words as he left for the airport.

He hauled the guard over the cabin threshold, closed the door, and secured the dead bolt.

Time to find those vials.

Movement disturbed the silence.

He whirled and saw a form in the dim light, raising a weapon. Trask was gone. In the dining room. He’d made sure of that before his assault on the sentry.

So who was this?

He still held the gun just retrieved from the guard, which he aimed at the threat.

“I wouldn’t do that,” a gruff voice flavored with a slight Texas twang said.

He knew that voice.

“Gray friggin’ Pierce.”

PIERCE KEPT HIS PISTOL FIRMLY aimed and recognized the southern drawl. “Cotton Malone. How about that? A blast from the past.”

He took stock of the former agent in the dim light. Mid-forties. Still fit. Light-brown hair with not all that much gray. He knew Malone was retired, living in Copenhagen, owning a rare bookshop. He’d even visited him there once a couple of years ago. There were stories that Malone occasionally moonlighted for his former boss Stephanie Nelle. Malone had been one of her original twelve agents at the Magellan Billet, until he opted out early. Pierce knew the unit. Highly specialized. Worked out of the Justice Department. Reported only to the attorney general and the president.

He lowered his gun. “Just what we need, a damn lawyer.”

“About as bad as having Mr. Wizard on the job,” Malone said, lowering his gun, too.

Pierce got the connection. Sigma Force, his employer, was part of DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Sigma comprised a clandestine group of former Special Forces soldiers, retrained in scientific disciplines, who served as field operatives. Where Sigma dealt with lots of science and a little history, the Magellan Billet handled global threats that delved more into history and little science.

“Let me guess,” he said to Malone. “You know about Trask’s neurotoxin?”

“That’s what I’m here to get.”

“Seems we have an interagency failure to communicate. The coaches sent two quarterbacks onto the field.”

“Nothing new. How about I go back to Buenos Aires and you handle this?”

Pierce caught the real meaning. “Got a girl there?”

“That I do.”

An explosion rocked the boat—from the stern, heaving the hull high, tossing them both against the wall. He tangled with Malone, hitting something solid, but managed to keep hold of his gun. The blast faded and screams filled the air, echoing throughout the ship.

The riverboat listed to starboard.

“That ain’t good,” Malone said as they both regained their balance.

“You think?”

The boat continued to list, tilting farther starboard, confirming the hull was taking on water. A glance past the balcony revealed a pall of black smoke wafting skyward.

Something was on fire.

A pounding of boots sounded from beyond the cabin door. A shotgun blast tore through the dead bolt and the door crashed open. Both he and Malone swung their guns toward the smoky threshold. Two men barged inside, dressed in paramilitary uniforms, their faces obscured by black scarves. One carried a shotgun, the other an assault rifle. Pierce shot the man with the double-barrel, while Malone took down the other.

“This is interesting,” Malone muttered, as Pierce quickly checked the hallway and confirmed only the two gunmen. “Seems we’re not the only ones looking for Trask’s poison. Were you able to find it?”

He shook his head. “I only had a chance to search half the suite. But it shouldn’t take long to—”

Gun blasts popped in the distance.

Pierce cocked an ear. “That came from the dining hall.”

“Our visitors must be going after Trask,” Malone said. “He could have it on him.”

Which was a real possibility. He’d already considered that option, which was why he’d gone to great lengths to keep his search of the cabin under the radar. If the effort proved futile, he didn’t want to alert Trask and make him extra guarded.

“Finish your search here,” Malone said. “I’ll get Trask.”

He had no choice. Things were happening fast and off script. Lawyer or no lawyer, he needed the help.

“Do it.”

MALONE RACED DOWN THE CANTED passageway, a hand on the wall to keep his balance. He’d not seen Gray Pierce since that day in his bookshop a couple of years ago. He actually liked the guy. There were a lot of similarities between them. Both were former soldiers. Both recruited into intelligence services. Each seemed to have taken care of themselves physically. The big difference came with age; Pierce was at least ten years younger and that made a difference. Particularly in this business. The other contrast was that Pierce was still in the game, while Malone was merely an occasional player.

And he wasn’t foolish enough not to realize that mattered.

He skidded to a stop as he approached the stairs that led down to the riverboat’s dining hall. Take it slow from here in. Through a window he surveyed the river outside. The boat sat askew, foundering in the swift current. Past a roil of smoke he spotted a gunmetal-gray craft prowling into view. A uniformed man, whose features were obscured by a wrap of black cloth, stood at its stern, the long tube of a rocket-propelled grenade launcher resting on his shoulder.

Which was apparently how they’d scuttled the boat.

He rounded the landing and double doors appeared below. A body lay at the threshold in a pool of blood, the man dressed as a maître d’. He slowed his pace and negotiated the steps with care, approaching the door from one side, and snuck a quick peek into the room.

More bodies lay strewn among overturned tables and chairs.

At least two dozen.

A large clutch of passengers huddled to one side of the spacious room, held at gunpoint by a pair of men. Another two men stalked through bodies, searching. One held a photograph, likely looking for someone who matched Trask’s face. Amid the captives Malone spotted the good doctor. Stephanie had provided him an image by e-mail. Trask kept his back to the gunmen, hunching into his dinner jacket, a hand half covering his face, trying to be one among many.

That ruse wouldn’t last long.

Trask was strikingly handsome in a roguish way, with unruly auburn hair and sharp planes defining his face. Easy to see how he became a media darling. But those distinct looks should get him flushed out of the crowd and into the assault force’s custody in no time.

Malone couldn’t let that happen.

So he bent down and patted his palm into the maître d’s blood. Not the most hygienic thing in the world, but it had to be done. He painted his face with the bloody palm, then slipped the pistol into the waistband of his pants, at the small of his back, and tugged the edge of his shirt over it.