Into the Crossfire (17 page)

of the West. Mold watched him, face growing even tighter.

Finally, Muhammed gave a small sigh. "A company you invest in, a very

well known corporation, has just announced one of its best quarters ever. A

double-digit increase in sales. Its stock has risen by almost fifteen percent on the

strength of the report. But it's false. The CEO is hiding almost twenty billion

dollars in losses and the FBI will arrest him in four days' time. If you short that

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stock, you can make millions. In four days."

Mold's face betrayed nothing but Muhammed knew the thoughts going

through his mind. Over the past week, several corporations had announced big

gains after almost two years of recession. Muhammed could be referring to any

one of a number of companies. Guess wrong and you lose a bundle. Guess right,

ah. Make millions in an instant. Add to your reputation as a miracle man. To

someone like Mold, it was irresistible. He and his kind were born for this kind of

challenge.

That tight slash of a mouth opened, cranked the words out. "And what

would you want in return for that name?"

Yes! It was a done deal.

"Another name," Muhammed murmured. "All we both want is a name."

Mold wasn't one to utter unnecessary words. He simply stared.

Muhammed leaned forward slightly, lowered his voice. "Some time ago, I

heard that there is a man the financial community...uses. When there are problems

you can't buy your way out of. I want the name and contact details of the man who

makes problems and people go away."

Silence. Utter silence.

They were so high no sounds could penetrate and one of the things the

woman outside was there for was to prevent noises or distractions. There was no

sound at all. Even the air-conditioning was utterly quiet.

Mold watched his eyes for a long moment, then took out a sheet of thick

stock, clicked his Cross pen and wrote. The sound of the pen moving across the

thick paper was loud in the morning silence. Mold folded the sheet once, twice,

then slid it across his desk.

Muhammed had taken his own pen and written out the name of a company

on the top of a page torn from the Wall Street Journal.

The name was that of the second-largest corporation in the US. It had just

announced record sales after the long slump. As far as Muhammed knew, the

figures were correct. Mold would sell short and lose a lot of money.

It wouldn't matter, because in four days, Mold, his company, the

corporation and all of Wall Street would be gone.

Muhammed folded the newspaper page neatly in half and slid it across the

half acre of Mold's desk, pocketing the paper Mold had written on without looking

at it.

He rose, briefcase in hand. He didn't make the mistake of offering his hand.

They stared at each other for a moment. Muhammed bowed his head soberly and

walked out, feeling Mold's eyes boring into the back of his head and hearing the

slight crinkle of the piece of paper in his pocket with the name of the man who

would solve his problem and help him bring down the world.

Georgia

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The name was Sean McInerney. He worked undercover often and had had

numerous aliases, but Sean McInerney was the name he'd been born with.

It wouldn't be the name he'd die with.

After the military, starting his new profession, Sean had thought long and

hard about his cover name. He wanted it short and snappy. One word, memorable,

like Cher or Madonna, only instead of thinking good-looking chick, you had to

think lethal.

He'd been listening to Outlaw by Whitesnake, and it came to him. Of

course.

He'd had a number of aliases in his time, but "Outlaw" worked real well in

his new profession. The name was corny, but his new employers loved it. Made

them feel sexy, made them feel tough.

Life after SpecOps was good. Real good.

He'd lucked into a little cohort of bankers, CEOs, hedge fund managers,

financiers and money managers who spent their time hunched over computer

monitors, thinking they were dangerous dudes.

Outlaw had heard all the macho phrases: Eat what you kill, Put wood

behind the arrow, Drink the Kool-aid.

Men in finance liked to think of themselves as real tough dudes, but they

were tough only because they had a wall of money behind them. When that wall

threatened to fall, they crumbled and showed their true natures--that of pale clerks,

not alpha males, as they so fondly imagined themselves.

The only attribute Outlaw recognized of himself in them was utter

ruthlessness. Touch their money and they would hire the best to fight for them and

give no quarter.

And so his post-military life began. The dishonorable discharge--thrown

out of the Army for selling arms when there were fucking warehouses full of them

rusting in the desert--stopped him from applying for a white-collar job, not that he

had ever wanted one.

No, a freak connection between an old Army buddy and his brother in

finance had set him up in his new profession.

The first job couldn't have been easier. A whistleblower, about ready to

send a hot set of documents showing malfeasance to the SEC and blow a fifteenmillion-dollar bonus out of the water. The CEO met with Outlaw in a luxury room

at the top of a business skyscraper about five blocks from where he worked. The

financier might have been a god in the world of finance but he was a fuckhead in

real life.

The financier had given a false name and made sure that he employed

euphemisms, but it was clear he wanted the whistleblower taken out. Outlaw had

showed him the Barrett 95 in its carrying case and watched as the banker's eyes

widened.

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It was bullshit, all of it.

Outlaw knew perfectly well who the banker was. Lewis Munro, CEO of the

tenth largest corporation in the US. Outlaw had his name, home address and

address of the hideaway apartment on Lexington where Munro's mistress lived.

Outlaw knew how much cocaine Munro consumed in a week and how much he

paid for it. He knew what private schools the kids were in, how much Mrs. Munro

dropped weekly at Hermes and even the amount of taxes Munro had evaded.

Even the Barrett was bullshit. A .50 cal bullet was guaranteed to rain down

police attention like nothing else. For the Barrett he used an armor-piercing bullet,

the Raufoss Mk.211, containing an incendiary, and very accurate in sniper rifles.

He'd lifted three thousand boxes of the stuff from the base warehouse.

It was a military bullet, totally wasted on a civilian target unless you had to

snipe at two grand out. Like a big, red fucking sign hung around the dead guy's

neck that this was a hit. Sometimes that was necessary. Most of the time, it wasn't.

When it went down, it was a perfect street mugging. The whistleblower

walking back home alone from a dinner date with friends, the mugger taking all

his money, credit cards and even his wedding ring and wristwatch. The police

speculated that the whistleblower had resisted and got a knife in the ribs for his

pains.

The homicide detective stood over the crumpled body in the alley and

shook his head over the mugger's luck in hitting the heart with one thrust.

It wasn't luck. Outlaw had practiced that move thousands of times in

training and hundreds of times on live bodies on mission.

Had the whistleblower been taken out by a sniper's bullet, the police would

have looked closely at his affairs and would have found material incriminating

Munro, who would have had some explaining to do, which would have made

pointless the hundred thousand dollars Munro had transferred to Outlaw's bank in

Aruba.

As it was, the police couldn't track the knife on which there were no prints

and after a fruitless two weeks, the whistleblower's file was already a cold case.

That hit had made him. He became the go-to guy for anyone in the financial

sector who had a problem that couldn't be solved by throwing money at it,

including divorcing wives where there was no prenup.

Outlaw had had more than twenty jobs in the past five years, all executed

perfectly. A study of the terrain and the subject, a quick in and out, using methods

that varied widely, and no one was the wiser. He had even put together a team of

former soldiers, good men who, after giving their all to Uncle Sam, were now up

for earning real money.

Outlaw had learned from the finance guys, too. Corner a market and charge

big. He was up to five hundred grand a pop now, plus expenses.

Outlaw had given Munro a cell phone number on a card, knowing Munro

would spread it around. Munro lived in a world of men used to winning, no matter

what. And if they didn't have the necessary set of skills to do specific jobs, they

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simply hired men who did.

The call came as he was looking out over the hundred acres he'd bought in

Georgia, less than an hour from the hub that was Hartsfield International. The land

was extensive enough to have firing ranges, a shoot house and endurance courses

for his men, while offering complete privacy. The perimeter was surrounded by

sensors sensitive enough to detect a jackrabbit, with webcams every five feet.

In essence, Outlaw had his own country.

He'd built an enormous house that offered every comfort he could possibly

want. Standing at the huge reinforced plate-glass window sipping a Jack Daniel's,

he answered his cell. It was his business cell phone, never used for anything but

clients with jobs.

Well good, he thought. Time to make me some more money.

"Are you the man known as Outlaw?" The voice was soft, not deep,

standard American.

"Yeah." He didn't ask who was calling. It didn't make any difference. The

guy would lie anyway. If necessary for the job, Outlaw could find out. Otherwise,

he didn't give a shit as long as the money landed in the bank. "What do you need?"

"Ah, a man who comes directly to the point. I like that."

"Well, since I've got myself a rep as a straight shooter, let me tell you

straight out I'm not moving until my fee is in my bank."

"I was told about your...style, Mr. Outlaw. If you check your bank account,

you will find your fee. Plus. I will send you the information on the person of

interest in ten minutes, once you've ascertained this."

Outlaw didn't need ten minutes. Inside a minute, he'd logged onto his bank

account and yes, there it was, 500K with an extra 100K thrown in for goodwill.

Outlaw knew his employers lived, breathed and died for money. Extra

money meant this was extra important.

After ten minutes, a beep from his cell phone. He had a text message.

Nicole Pearce. Translation agency, Wordsmith. Morrison Building, San

Diego, California.

Nicole Pearce received data in e-mail sent from Marseilles on June 28.

Retrieve hard disk, possible flash drive, search for backups, eliminate computer,

eliminate Nicole Pearce. Strict timeline. Job must be completed by July 2.

Okay.

Get a hard disk from a woman, snuff woman. He'd done harder things in his

life. He checked the website of this business, Wordsmith. After half an hour, he

had a handle on what it did and he'd gotten a good look at Nicole Pearce.

Christ. She was a fucking looker. One of his men, Dalton, was perpetually

horny. If Dalton had been on this op, he'd toss Dalton this Pearce babe to play with

for a while. Make him grateful.

He checked Vital Statistics and saw that she lived with one Nicholas

Pearce, her father, not her husband.

Outlaw purged his search history from his computer, stood up and

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stretched. He finished his bourbon looking out the window at his little fiefdom.

He loved this life. He loved the heft and feel of it, the money and the

power. He loved having hard skills and making soft men pay through the nose for

them.

Outlaw stood at the window, watching the planes from Hartfield climb into

the sky, one after another, like clockwork. In his own way, he was as precise a

technician as any pilot or surgeon.

He'd go down to his state-of-the-art gym and give himself a good workout,

get limber, then would have a light lunch with water. No more booze. He was now

officially on Op Time, dedicated solely to the mission, and would be until the job

was done.

He had a private plane at his disposal. He'd book it for 3 P.M., give him

time to research the person, the hit.

His eyes lingered on the lovely face on his computer screen.

Christ, a real beauty. Who was about to be sacrificed to the money men.

Sorry, honey, he thought. I don't know how you did it, but you just stepped

on the wrong toes.

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San Diego

June 29

Sam put the phone down for the bazillionth time, teeth grinding. Nicole

wasn't answering. She hadn't picked up the phone the first time he called, she

wasn't picking up the phone the thirtieth or fortieth time.

He knew that the definition of insanity was doing the same thing over and

over, expecting a different outcome each time.

Was he insane?

God only knew. He sure wasn't entirely sane. He'd been pinging off the