Hard Case VII - Red Waves (John Harding Series Book 7) (44 page)

The men at the table scrambled, trying to duck away from the line of fire while reaching for their own weapons. Two more died from rounds slicing through the window glass and pulping their heads like ripe melons. The others dove away, crab-crawling toward the door. It exploded inward on the closest escapees.

* * *

“Sopa and two others down, Cheese. They’re jetting for the door,” Nick told me.

I smashed through the door. It came off its hinges, crashing inward onto a couple of guys. I continued on, running over the door while staying low. I didn’t draw the kind of fire I usually do while being a human battering ram. Lucas, Casey, Clint, and Lynn followed me in with silenced MP5’s. They killed without hesitation or miscue. Lynn then fired a burst under the door. I pulled it away, and Clint finished off the two underneath. Sopa luckily did not have a secretarial staff or the collateral damage from our assault would have been more costly than his inner circle.

Thanks to Nick, we knew the codes to all the entry points. They had not been changed since he fixed Lino Verducci for all time. We made it to Sopa’s offices without interference, using our narrow range EMP gun to take out any video evidence of our passing through. Sopa called his people in on a Saturday, so we virtually arrived for Sopa’s transport to hell without any incident. We couldn’t take a chance with the office though. Surprise and shock were our tools. The assault ended within minutes.

I bent over Victor Sopa, taking his vitals before staunching the blood flow at his shoulder. Nick’s shot ripped the middle of his shoulder out at the top. The compression bandage I put on after stuffing the wound with the two part epoxy resin stopped the blood loss completely. As to what Sopa would be doing with the shoulder after I patched it, who cares?

“How’d Nick do,” Lucas asked after they secured the entire floor against unwanted interruption. “Did you see the guy hit and killed by the same tipped slug that wrecked Sopa’s shoulder?”

“I did. I wonder if he nailed both targets with one shot to impress us.”

“Count on it. Do you think Sopa will be okay to question here?”

“I numbed his arm but he’s still in shock from the hit. What do you think, Pappy?”

“I think we should get him cinched down for an ear wax cleanout, shoot him up with some adrenaline, and let Crue get what she can. We’re in New York. Anything we get questioned here for will go septic within an hour’s time.”

“Agreed. There is a chance he knows something more. He knew Al Sirani. That’s a beginning Crue can work with.”

“Are you guys ready with the patient yet,” Crue called over from the couch she’d picked for the interrogation. “Bring him over. If we’re staying here we have to do this quick.”

I double checked his bandage and breathing. Victor looked okay to me. I picked him up and took him over to the couch where Clint and I restrained our gangster boss. Clint took his feet and I took the center mass and head with Sopa tilted to his side. Crue gave him a quick pick me up shot. Combined with the localized pain shot I gave him for his shoulder, Victor began stirring out of the shock zone nearly immediately, complete with moans, groans, and screams.

“That damn epoxy works great, Cheese.” She grabbed Victor on his wound and shook it experimentally. Yeah, Clint and I may have laughed inappropriately. Crue treated him like an enemy who tried to kill us all, which is after all exactly what he was and what he did.

“Yep. It does the job. The resin really fills in very well. See, he didn’t even leak after your touch test.” I smacked Victor across the face until he shut up. “Listen closely, Victor. This is Dr. Cruella Deville. She normally works on special foot examinations. She’ll be doing ear exams today, yours in particular.”

“Who…who are you?” Victor scanned the dead bodies within sight of the couch. “Is…is this a hit. I’ll make you all rich. Don’t do this.”

“Yes, you will be giving us all your money. We have to make sure we get our expenses taken care of,” Lynn told him. She held her two eye droppers where Sopa could see them. “This is John Harding. We’re here because you tried to kill us all. These two eyedropper bottles are very important. This red one is hell. The black one is heaven. I’m going to drip a tiny amount of sulfuric acid solution from the hell bottle into your inner ear. It will turn you inside out with pain. Then, I’ll drip a little out of the heaven bottle to neutralize the acid. The first things out of your mouth when you can speak again better be all your overseas accounts and passwords for us to transfer your ill-gotten gains into our expense account.”

“We’re networked with a colleague of ours who will work and check the transfers,” Lynn continued while we situated the whimpering Sopa into position. “If you’re not my good little helper, I’m going to keep giving you hell on earth. Here’s a sample to get you on board.”

I pinched off Sopa’s nostrils until he opened his mouth to accept the tightly wound cloth to keep him from breaking his own jaw. Lynn expertly dripped a tiny amount of hell into Sopa’s ear. Although the acupuncture torture to the heel left no visible mark, this acid ear interrogation is without doubt one of the most terrifying devices Crue has ever invented. Victor went into convulsions of pain so intense I wondered if he would survive the couple minutes of demonstration time. Crue irrigated the acid with her heaven bottle. Many minutes passed before Sopa began to appear coherent. Before I removed his gag, I shook him by his nose.

“Don’t forget what Dr. Deville wants first out of your mouth or she’ll administer your second dose of hell. Understand, Victor?”

Violent head shakes in the affirmative allowed me to remove his gag before he made a painful error in judgement. He spewed out account numbers, passwords, and bank names so fast we had to slow him down until Jafar could record them properly over our open line. It took about twenty minutes before Jafar told us the wonderful sum Victor donated generously to us. Lynn patted Sopa’s face affectionately.

“You did very well, my little helper. Now, this is the easy part. We’re going on a cruise aboard the Starlight of the Seas.” Lynn paused. She smiled at me as recognition flooded over Sopa’s features. “Good. You know about how special the cruise is. Your pal Al Sirani knew one ship’s crew infiltrator in charge. We want to know if you know of any others aboard we need to get acquainted with right away. Think carefully.”

Lynn shook hell in front of Sopa. “Hell, my little helper… or heaven?”

“Perry…Perry Halii!”

“Very good, Victor,” Crue said. “We want another name in the top ranks. I have a feeling you know one. Unfortunately for you my gut feelings require proof positive or negative.”

“Oh my God! Please don’t drip that shit in me again! There’s only one other… I heard that prick Al Sirani mention. He was speaking to some guy named… Khan… yeah… Ali Khan. They were trying to recruit a ship’s regular crewman with gambling debts I owned named Faruk Gaston. He’s Chief Boatswain’s mate.”

“Did you get that Achmed?”

“Checking now, Crue… yes… Gaston is on Red Dragon’s crew list.”

Crue turned her attention back to Sopa. “Very helpful, Victor. It nearly pains me I have to make sure of a couple things. Cheese?”

I gripped the squealing Sopa’s nose and stuffed in his gag. Crue applied hell once more. It robbed Victor Sopa of everything of reason in his head. Pain became his entire existence as blood vessels gave out behind his eyes. Lynn gave him heaven in relief. I got him to focus on me once more.

“Do you have anything else to make us happy, Victor? Dr. Deville would rather not have to make sure of your truthfulness if she doesn’t have to.”

Victor cried while weakly shaking his head no. Huge sobs convinced my confederate, Dr. Deville, that Sopa had reached the end of his usefulness. I relieved him of all pain with a neck breaking wrench of his head. I was sick of the Sopas and for that matter all the damn gangster and mafia wannabes. It had been my intention to give Victor a hotshot to hell. I helped him into eternity with a more personal touch. The crack of his neck hushed my other companions playing games at the window, making obscene gestures at Nick who was still in place.

“Damn, Recon?” Lucas walked over, with Casey next to him. “You’re getting a little too touchy-feely, boy.”

I straightened away from Sopa who still tingled through his last death throes. “I’m gettin’ awful tired of being hunted, Pappy. I’m glad we’re hitting the port in Chabahar. I’m going to personally go get those two bastards, Ali Khan and Joram Mannan if I can. I’m sick of Isis, their enablers, and apologists. I’m sick of anything with Muslim or Islam attached to it.”

“I too am sick of this farce,” Jafar added in our ears. “Whatever faith I had in Islam was lost months ago.”

“I’m with you, Cheese,” Nick commented too. “My spotter, El Kabong is pumping his fist. I believe we have reached a cultural impasse and solved it. We’ll meet you at our rooms, guys. Great job… in spite of the Lucas and Casey disrespect of your lowly sniper.”

“Blow it out your ears, Dead Boy,” Lucas replied. “C’mon, Recon, let’s get the hell out of here. I feel the need for the brothers, Bud and Beam. We took care of this business so fast, thanks to Dead Boy, we may be able to smell the roses for a moment.”

“Amen, Pappy.”

* * *

We sat in the line of plush seats in Nick’s Penthouse Villa at the Trump Soho Hotel in New York. The vista beyond within our view stunned everyone. After the first refreshment, Jean and Sonny took Al with them to plot out their antics aboard the Starlight. Jean and Sonny already carried an adult air into everything I’d seen them do so far. Al followed them around in awe. She ruled her small kingdom in Oakland. Al recognized she trailed her two companions in maturity and it looked as if she planned to catch up to them fast.

The Unholy Trio and my Monsters all lined the chairs in comfortable silence after our ladies except Crue decided to go out on the town while we watched the kids. Quinn, Mia, and Clint Jr. were sleeping in cribs out of earshot in the expansive suite. Gus, Tommy, Lucas, Dev, Casey, and Jess would be leaving in late afternoon tomorrow overseas to complete preparations for the Sea Wolf and Valkyrie. The rest of us would fly for our debarkation point for the Starlight of the Seas. It felt nice without the Sopa albatross around our necks. Clint raised his Beam brother.

“We haven’t had a chance to toast Dead Boy yet on the death of Felix Moreau, making him arguably the number one assassin in the world.”

“Thanks, brother. It’s not a ranking I cared to have,” Nick admitted while we sipped in his honor. “Moreau stalked us, so I imagine he found out who I was.”

“The bastard did the same thing to my friend,” Clint replied. “He didn’t have a contract. He saw someone in a similar field and decided to end him. I have no doubt he would have come for me and anyone near me. You took no chances with him. If I could have found him I’d have killed him the moment he was in sight.”

“Any fallout yet, Nick,” Lucas asked.

“A little. Two organizations who employed him for kidnapping and murder contacted my on-line drop. That’s the trouble with assassin slots. Once they get shifted, the players think we all follow the same paths. I’m thinking of doing a little house cleaning. The kidnapping and murder Felix did have a contract on needs fixed in the background. I’ve warned the party involved through Paul Gilbrech. When I find out the details, I may take a hand in making a statement about including kids in death plots.”

“We’d like a piece of that action if you could use some help,” I told him.

“Count on that,” Lynn stated. “We’ve talked about exterminating some religion of peace followers working the slave trade still on the Horn of Africa. Have you noticed how the fact that the Arab slave traders are all Muslims seems to now be a well-kept secret?”

“We’ve noticed,” Gus said. “We don’t have the resources for a strike force but I’d like a crack at the slave traders.”

“I go where Payaso goes when it involves mayhem and doing right,” Nick stated.

“As do I,” John added. “Those Boko Haram butchers need wiped out along with their backers.”

“If we get wind of something in that arena we’ll give you guys a call,” I promised. “This collaboration deal is going real well. I’d like to stay in touch on all counts, joint missions, sharing info, resources, and weapons.”

“Agreed,” Nick said. “How much did these Penthouse Villas set you guys back?”

“Nothing. Victor was very generous when it came time to pay our expenses.” I paused before going on. “We have more money than we know what to do with. We’ve bought and stocked an island in case we need a hideout. We’ll count you all as residents. If you ever have to blow town, give us a call.”

“Damn, Cheese, that’s great,” Nick said. “We’ll probably have to take you up on your generous offer if things keep going like they are now. Hey… I saw your handshake video. Costigan thought you were just another pug to push around, huh?”

“Something like that. He wanted me to train him for a rematch with the Viking. I turned him down. I’m a mistrusting pug. I had a feeling I would have been unintentionally hurt in a training accident.”

“No feelings or hunches about it,” Tommy said. “That’s exactly what would have happened. Rock called me after he saw Jafar’s video. Talk about pissed – Rock wants the Cheeseburger’s head on a spit. I told him what to do. Write a contract for a title shot or eat shit. Jess, Dev, and I think Cheese could win the UFC heavyweight crown if he gets a shot. That is, of course, if we live through this Starlight caper.”