The Killing Man mh-12 Read online

  "Tell me, General, how secure are you here?" I looked around at the enormity of the project, knowing that this was the best of miniaturization.

  He said, "There are eighty people billeted here. That placid landscape you saw outside is one huge deathtrap of a minefield, each charge being detonated electrically from inside here, or isolated to operate independently. With the electronic sensors we use, no dogs are necessary, no patrols needed, so we look indeed like a quiet retreat in the country."

  "How about power?"

  "There's a solar collector on the roof. Storage batteries can last two weeks at full power. Of course, this is in addition to regular power supplied by underground cable. Beneath the building is a deep well with reserves for fire-fighting supplies. Our food larder can last a month and if you're a drinking man, those needs are supplied too."

  "That's a siege condition, General."

  "Yes. But these days, you never know, do you? At least this is what we're protecting." His hand indicated his vast electronic battlefield.

  Then the face of the screen that was blank lit up. The name Penta appeared, then the sketch story about the one who appeared as a will-o'-the-wisp on the world scene.

  Penta meant nothing. It was a code name assigned by the CIA. There was no physical description. Penta's activities had been linked with the Stern Gang and the Red Brigade. His terrorist actions were noted by certain dictatorship governments, and it is suspected that he often worked on their behalf. Sixteen known assassinations were attributed to him, all of them with various forms of digital butchery done to the victims.

  I said, "Digital butchery?"

  "Newspeak for finger-chopping."

  "Great."

  "Interesting note here . . . Penta is suspected of being a mole in the NATO organization. He had to have inside information to accomplish several of his kills. No proof offered, but circumstantial evidence is hard. Now look at this."

  Three CIA reports came on-screen with information compiled by Bennett Bradley. Twice he had almost cornered Penta when national police action of one foreign country stymied his move. The third time he was shot in the thigh by Penta and his quarry got away. There was a fourth item suggesting Bradley be removed from the assignment. Now I could understand his last-ditch attitude, wanting to grab Penta before his replacement got into the act.

  The words stopped appearing. Two lines of dots went across the screen, then five groups of letters, six letters to a set, appeared, the last group flashing on and off regularly. The general grunted, took a key from his pocket and walked to a safe against the wall. He spun the dial three times, opened the thick door, then used the key on a box inside.

  "What are the letters in the last group?"' he called out.

  "R T V W Y," I called back.

  He closed the box, put it back and slammed the safe shut. When he sat down again he punched a key and the screen went blank. "This Penta person is over here on one hell of a high-level assignment."

  "To kill me, General?" Damn, it was starting again, right here.

  "You worth killing?"

  "Not to anybody I know."

  "How about to somebody you don't know?"

  I sat down and my teeth were grinding together. I took a couple of breaths, relaxed and looked at the old guy. There was knowledge and patience and wisdom sitting there, and somehow he knew what I was thinking and was trying to direct my own thoughts in a logical direction.

  This was one direction that didn't allow for logic. I shook my head. "No way. You can't go through me and locate Penta. The road to that guy is through Bern and Fells. That's the connection. Those two are looking for Penta and if we can run them down, we can get inside the reasoning behind all this. There's a motive, General. It's good enough to kill and destroy for and when we have that, we have Penta."

  "I can give you Fells and Bern," he said simply. "You familiar with their history?"

  "Somewhat."

  "Wild ducks, that pair. Unstable, adventuresome . . . after they left the service, they laid down a pretty greasy trail. Three different countries hired them for covert work and they did a damn good job for them. Libya was their last employer."

  He wasn't finished and I didn't push him. "The last three jobs attributed to Penta -- political assassinations of top personnel -- were at the behest of some Arab organization inside Libya."

  "So the three were contemporaries in possibly related actions."

  "Possibly."

  "And now Penta and Fells and Bern are over here together," I said, "only now they've lost touch. Bern and Fells want to locate Penta badly. They think I have a lead and try to squeeze it out of me. Question: How did they lose track of Penta?"

  "I know a better question," General Skubal told me. "Why were they looking for him in the first place? Penta is not an organization man, Penta is a loner, a total loner absolutely dedicated to his work."

  "Let's go a step further, General," I suggested. "He is here, so his work is here. His targets never were minimal, so his target now isn't minimal, and so far he hasn't nailed his intended target." I saw the way he was looking at me and added, "Forget the crap about him going for me."

  "Who shot at you, Michael?"

  I didn't say anything.

  "Okay, you have another angle too. I suspected that."

  "I only want Penta. After what he did to Velda, he is mine. Just mine. What else he's here for won't matter. When I meet him, everything else gets wiped out along with him and it will all be over. Now tell me about Fells and Bern."

  The general poured himself another cup of coffee and popped in a few cubes of sugar. "That pair are on FBI and CIA wanted lists, and that's for starters. Unfortunately, they've been too well trained for our people to put them down. So far, nobody made any inquiries to me, or I might have steered them to a few points that might bear fruit with a stakeout."

  "They know they're wanted?"

  "No doubt," he confirmed. "But now they're here, and there's one thing they've probably forgotten about. Like any of the people in our work, they have safe houses to hole up in right in their enemies' backyard. We establish these places for them, or when necessary they can make the arrangements themselves. Fells and Bern like to do their own work. They didn't want anybody knowing where they had a safe house, including me. However, I realized that, and knowing the way their personalities were developing, I made sure I ran down the three places they had on the East Coast. They never found out and I never published the information because they were operating in Europe most of the time."

  "They came back often enough."

  "Sometimes it is better to watch the rats to see what's happening than kill them outright. They didn't make the high-priority wanted lists until fairly recently."

  "Where are the houses, General?"

  "This I don't bring up on the computers. Wait here. I want to make some phone calls."

  I sat there, made another cup of coffee for myself and finished a Danish before he got back.

  He sat down and looked at the piece of paper in his hand. "One was in Freeport, Long Island."

  "Was?"

  "It burned down a year ago. Another was in the Boston area. The city ran an expressway through the site. Forget it."

  "Damn, is this going down the tubes too?" I demanded impatiently.

  "The last one's in Brooklyn. Unfortunately, it's in an area slated for demolition. I have an operative checking on the situation now."

  "Hell, can't we just move in and . . . ?"

  "These guys aren't amateurs, Michael. They'll have everything covered. First we find out what the status is, then you can plan your move. My man is going to call back. He'll leave one word as to the situation. If he says yes, then it's a go. It's all yours, my boy. There's no help unless you ask for it and I doubt if you're going to do that."

  "You doubt correctly, General. Just tell me one thing."

  "What's that?"

  "How come you invite me right into your super-world and let me peek at all the classifi
ed goodies and give me such undivided attention when all I am is a plain old private-style investigator?"

  "Your personal profile, my boy," he said cheerfully. "I remember every word of it. Besides, one more after Penta can't hurt anything."

  "Baloney," I said.

  His cheerful smile disappeared and his face was flat. All of a sudden we were two nasties ready to go after the other nasties. "You're a damn killer, buddy," he told me. "We need people like you."

  "What are my odds, General?"

  "Against Fells and Bern? I'll give you the edge there. They have the training. You have the instinct on top of it."

  "What about Penta?"

  He pushed a button on the desk, waited until Edwina answered and said, "I'm going to take my nap. I want no calls and no visitors. Mr. Hammer will stay until he gets his message. Please see that he is taken care of." He wiped his eyes, moved his shoulders in a shrug, then peered up at me. "You die for killing me," he said softly. "A riddle. A veritable riddle."

  "All riddles get solved," I said.

  When Edwina came into the room he handed her a slip of paper. "If the caller says yes, then give this to Michael here. It's an address he'll want to look into. Let's not send him on a wild goose chase if it's not necessary."

  She looked at the paper, went to a small machine, dropped it into an opening and pushed a button. A puff of smoke came out. She smiled and said, "Security," holding out her hand to steer me to the doorway.

  "Would you like to see the house?"

  "I'd rather see the security systems."

  "That's a negative, of course."

  "Let me tell you something, kid. My imagination is enough to figure out everything they have laid down. Frankly, I hope it's the best. The only part I don't like is the lack of manpower on the perimeter. Some wise guy can always figure a way to interrupt any kind of electrical system."

  She ran her fingers down my arm and took my hand. "That's what they have me for. I'm supposed to distract them."

  We started walking toward the glass-enclosed veranda. I gave her a long, inquiring look. "That's the other thing. Just what is a doll like you doing here anyway? You're not a secretary."

  At the door she opened the panel box and flipped a switch, then closed it. "No, not primarily."

  We walked out onto the enclosed porch area and looked over the vast openness of the estate. It had a strange color of green, and I knew we were looking through one-way glass. "Don't give me the bodyguard bit. Women can be good, but the strong-arm act goes to the men."

  "True," she agreed.

  I dropped her hand, took her by the shoulders and kept her back to me. She tightened a little bit when I ran my hands over her, under her arms, down her sides, then felt each thigh down to her knees.

  When I stood up she said, "You forgot to look for a derringer between my titties."

  I did a gentle probe and said, "Satisfied?"

  "How did you know?"

  "You turned the alarm off, sugar. I'm clean, so that leaves you with some hidden metal that could trigger the gizmo."

  "Mike, you are clever. No wonder the general thinks so highly of you."

  "I'm curious, lady."

  She smiled at me. A damp, coy smile that was a ripe invitation.

  Three brass buttons held the jacket closed and my thumb flipped them loose one by one, the last one almost springing away from the pressure of her breasts. She shrugged, and her jacket fell to the floor and she put her arms around my neck, her big blue eyes full of pleasure and adventure. Inside the sheer silk blouse she flowed like honey, not needing a bra to keep her breasts high and firm.

  I touched her lightly again and she knew what I was feeling for. She made a little gesture with her head and didn't try to stop me. But there were no scars from surgical implants or reconstruction work.

  Around her waist she wore a three-inch-wide leather belt with ornate silver decorations in a flowing Mexican pattern. "That's what would set the alarm off," she told me.

  I fingered the hand-tooled buckle anyway and tugged it loose. The belt was a beautiful piece of work, every bit of the leather touched by the artisan's hand. Even the silver was embossed with intricate design work in delicate patterns.

  All but two pieces. They weren't silver. They were a dull-finish alloy and I opened the catches and took the .22-caliber shots out of the midget chambers, two little slugs that could rip far into your guts up close, enough to ring your bell for keeps.

  "Cute," I said. "You are strong-arm after all."

  "Well, I couldn't really wear a piece the size of yours, could I?"

  "Why the snakey stuff, Edwina?"

  "Regulations. We have to be armed at all times. The choice of weapons is at our discretion in situations like this."

  "And that's what I asked you to start with. What is your assignment here?"

  Her arms came from around my neck and she laced the fingers of her hand around mine. With her other hand she took the belt from me and dropped it on top of her jacket. "Would you believe me if I told you?"

  The blue eyes were yearning, trying to say something. She wet her lips gently, and I had to stare at the slickness of her mouth. Her lips parted and I could see the pinkness of her tongue. "R and R," she said.

  Rest and recreation.

  "This is a hell of a place for that."

  "I needed the rest. They made me take three months of it."

  "But why?" I insisted.

  She took her hand away, ran the zipper down on the side of her skirt and it dropped to the floor. The flimsy silken bikini bottom only enhanced what it tried to hide and when she pulled her blouse open, I saw what had happened. Her belly had been ripped by three bullets that went in the front at an angle and exited the sides through the soft flesh, and the healed pucker marks were still red and angry-looking.

  "Who did that, Edwina?"

  "It doesn't matter."

  I nailed those blue eyes with my own. I knew my teeth were showing in a nasty grin.

  "I was in the field," she said. "I wasn't careful enough."

  "Anybody drop the guy?"

  "No. He got away." She was looking at me carefully now. "Does it disgust you?"

  I shook my head. "I got a couple myself. They're medals, kid. Treat them like medals." I put my hands on her naked waist and pulled her in close to me. "You are one special woman, Edwina. The air seems to shimmer around you. I can feel your body heat and watch you pulse with whatever's going on inside that body of yours. Those scars on you aren't ugly. They tell the world all about you. Hell, on you they even look good."

  Sparkling blue. The eyes went sparkling blue and grew sleepy-lidded. I saw her mouth come close, soft and damp, and I leaned forward to meet it, and tasted the deep essence of her. For that short interval I was completely absorbed into a strange wonder, locked tightly with a naked woman on a huge windowed veranda, far away from all the wild thoughts of the past days.

  Very slowly I came back to the real day and held her away from me just to look at. "All this in a few hours," I said,

  "You told me something earlier, Mike. Now let me tell you. What you saw in me, I see in you."

  "A crazy world, kid," I said softly.

  A softly muted bell hummed behind me. Edwina turned, picked up the phone, waited a moment, then put it down again. "That was your contact."

  My breath hung in my chest.

  "He said yes."

  I just looked at her and a little sadness came into her eyes. "R and R," she told me again. "I've had the rest, but I think the recreation is going to have to wait."

  This time I hauled her into me. Not gently. She didn't need gently any more. I handled her like she needed to be handled and her mouth on mine was a firebox that moved all over me. She felt my hands on her and knew what they were saying, that there would be another time and another place because it had to happen, maybe just once, but it had to happen.

  Our mouths were bruised, but it had been a happy war, and she gave me the address I want
ed, got back into her clothes and led me to the huge front doors. She gave me my .45 back, closed the doors as I was going down the stairs, and I got in the car and headed back to New York.

  There was no way I could make a quick pass around my block to see if I was being singled out. If somebody wanted me, they would know my car, the approaches to the apartment, and stay out of sight. Two blocks away I parked in a public area under an office building, and started walking back. The stop at the newspaper kiosk on the corner was more an excuse to take a look around than buy a copy of the News, but when I picked it up, I saw one of the four-color tabloids that turned a goodnight kiss into a Roman orgy, and my face and Velda's were spread right across the front of it under the masthead: PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR TO AVENGE LOVER'S ATTACK.

  Until now Velda had just been an innocent victim when the intruder came into my office. Now she was hot copy. Her name was only mentioned in the initial reports of the event, then forgotten.

  I remembered the way that reporter had looked at me when I casually said what I'd like to do to DiCica's killer. He suddenly had a sex angle bigger than the murder itself and got into national circulation damn near overnight. One day I was going to meet that little sucker again, and we were going to have a nice talk in a quiet place.

  When the light on the corner changed, I buried myself in a group of people, stayed with them to the garage entry of my building and turned in with a car going down the ramp to park. I knew the area down here and it was easy to make sure I was clear. I took the elevator up all alone, got out with the .45 in my hand, then put it back in the holster when I saw no one in the corridor.

  10

  I was sweaty from the drive and had to change clothes, pissed off at the time I'd had to waste making sure the area was clear. I took a fast shower, got dressed and called Pat. He was still at the office and barked a hello into the phone.