Kill on Command (14 page)

“Plus, I’m pregnant.” 

Sean pulled away and looked at her.  His brain was still not operating on all cylinders.

“Is it mine?”  Sandy’s eye’s narrowed as she delivered a quick knee to his groin.  Sean doubled over.  She bent down and grabbed his hair.

Yup.  It was his.

“Don’t you ever speak to me again like that.  Do you understand?”  She let go of his hair and he straightened up slowly and was greeted by Sandy’s icy stare.  He looked back – shocked, confused, scared. She didn’t think he would ever harm her.  If the personality tests were correct, he would give up his life before he allowed any harm to befall someone he loved.  She was hoping she fit in that category.  Her plan depended on it.  She felt guilty for hitting him.

“Got it.”

He was holding his side, trying to get his breath.  Sandy looked up at the camera in the elevator.  It captured her.  It captured Sean.  She wasn’t worried.  The files would be lost or damaged.  The police wouldn’t be after her.  It would be people much worse.  These people didn’t want the police involved.  In fact, the police would meet roadblocks every step of the way.

Just then, the door opened and the LifeFlight Eurocopter EC145 was visible on the helipad.

BOOK II

The beast in me is caged by frail and fragile bars.

- Johnny Cash

I

A bit of clarity – not too much – just a bit

Pittsburgh

Early hours – Sunday Morning

Sean stepped out of the elevator into a vestibule.  Two pilots were sitting in chairs watching a Seinfeld rerun, both leaning back in their chairs with their hands behind their heads and empty cups at their feet, which probably contained that nasty hospital swill they call coffee.

“This is one of my favorites.  Is it a Titleist?”  Sean said, stepping closer.

“Classic,” the pilot on the left agreed.

“What are you doing up here?” the other pilot asked.

“We are going for a ride in your chopper over there.”   They laughed at Sean, as they both stood up.

“Do I need to get the keys or something?”  Sean said, squinting.  Sandy had had enough talk.  She raised her gun at both of them.  They jumped to their feet, eyes wide.

“It’s yours!” the guy on the left stammered. 

Sandy pointed to the elevator, escorted them over, hit the button and ordered, “Get in.”  She leveled the gun at their heads.  She reached around and punched “G”.  The doors closed.  Neither of them wanted to mess with her.  They took a ride to the ground floor.  Sandy turned to Sean. 

“Let’s go.”  They walked out onto the helipad.  Sean looked at the helicopter.  Big.  Red and white.  “LifeFlight” stickers on the side.  All sorts of lights flashed on it.

“You are way too serious,” he said to her.

“Move,” she said, pointing towards the chopper.

“I can fly this?” he asked.  The winds had picked up.  From the rooftop, Sean could see the lights of downtown Pittsburgh.

“Yes you can.  Get in.” 

Sean slowly opened the cockpit door on the right hand side and got in.  Sandy ran to the other side, threw the two bags in the back, climbed next to Sean and they both put on the headsets.

“Are you sure? Cause, I am drawing a blank here,” he said, looking at the forty odd knobs and switches. 

“JUST FLY THE DAMN THING AND SHUT UP!” she shouted at him.  She had never actually seen him fly, but he was supposed to have the skill.  Not just a basic knowledge, but the skill of a Night Stalker pilot.  The members of the 160
th
Special Operations Regiment, or Night Stalkers, are the world’s best pilots.  Sean theoretically should be comfortable behind the controls of any chopper.  She was going to find out soon enough. Without another word, Sean flipped on the engines.  Maybe it was being yelled at?  He brought the throttle all the way open.  Sandy gripped her seat, as he gradually pulled the collective up and the helicopter began to rise.  He depressed the left pedal to control the pitch and they shot up above the hospital.  Sandy looked down.  On the ground, it appeared as if every cop in Pittsburgh was racing to the hospital.

Once in the air, Sean maneuvered the cyclic and began to move forward.  There was the normal shutter or effective translational lift when he went from hovering to moving forward.  Sandy was white knuckling the seat.  He increased the speed, heading south over the Pitt Campus.

“Just like riding a bike,” he said with a smile.  He didn’t know how he did it; he just did it, like a reflex.

“Just pay attention, please,” she pleaded.  “Head south.”

“Where are we going?”

“Ruby Memorial.”

“I know where that is,” he replied with a smile, pointing the chopper south.

II

The wheels come off

Prague

One week earlier

Number O
ne, or as he called himself, Oscar Pasco, woke up early in a seedy hotel in Prague.  It was almost 7 A.M.  He felt different.  His fever had broken.  The flu had hit him hard and he was flat on his back for two days.  He’d never been this sick.  He felt as if a fog suddenly was lifted from his mind.  He could think clearly.  He could remember all the things he had been asked to do and all the people he’d killed.  He didn’t feel badly about it.  He was certain they had committed some sin that needed to be answered for.  As he sat on the bed, he began to put the pieces together.  He reached for his Camels and a lighter.  Smoking helped him think.  He held the cigarette in his nicotine stained hands and considered his situation.  He knew people were watching him and he would find them, find out what they knew and then kill them. 

He got dressed and looked in the mirror.  He was not all that tall, but not all that short.  Average in physical appearance.  Most would describe him as sleazy.  His skin was very pale, which was a departure from his black hair and thick black eye brows.  He smelled.  He knew he did, but no longer cared.  He was a mixture of smoke and sweat. 

He didn’t bother brushing his teeth, combed his hair back and left his room.  Taking the elevator down to the hotel lobby, he walked over to the newsstand in the lobby and bought a paper.  To his surprise he now spoke Czech and read it too.  He took the paper and settled in a chair in the lobby.  He opened the paper to give the impression he was reading and scanned the room.  He noticed three men.  Their surveillance was very good, they were nearly invisible, but he spotted them.  He doubted they were as smart as he was.  He excelled at solving problems, quickly seeing patterns.  The three men were working in an easy to detect pattern, or at least a pattern that was easy for him to discern.  He identified the leader and his back up.   Based on their style, he guessed ex-military.  He would need to eliminate the back up first and extract the information he needed from the leader.  He continued looking through the paper and devised a plan.  He would use the leader as bait to kill the other two.

The man he’d pegged as the leader was over six feet tall and was dressed casually.  He was sitting across the lobby, pretending to work on a laptop. 

A former Ranger, Todd Klein was a seven-year CIA veteran.  Although not in the same shape he was in as a Ranger, he was still a man that shouldn’t be ignored.

Oscar felt his mind racing, moving faster than everything around him.  It was as if everything was moving in slow motion but him.  He rose and walked into the café off the lobby.  Passing a bus boy’s tray, he reached in and pulled out a knife.  Butter and some sort of jam were still on the dull blade.  He didn’t care.  It was all he needed.  He turned and strode into the lobby, straight over to the couch where Todd Klein was stationed.  Klein, saw him coming, quickly closed the laptop and reached into his pocket, but he was too slow.  Klein knew, in that instant, that he did not stand a chance against Oscar.  Oscar was beside him before he could draw the gun.  Oscar jammed the knife up under Klein’s ribs.  While the knife was not exceptionally sharp, it did the job.

“Here’s what we are going to do.  You’re going to get up with me and walk to the elevator.  You try one thing and I’ll send this knife into your heart,” Oscar whispered calmly, knowing full well the butter knife probably would not penetrate the shirt.  Klein did not know that, of course.

Klein nodded and got up.  They both moved to the elevator.  The back up saw what was happening, but was not quick enough to act.  Oscar and Klein made it to the elevator.

“Now, what room are you in?”  Oscar asked in the same calm voice while removing Klein’s weapon.  Klein wished he were yelling.  Oscar’s calm manner scared him to death.  The elevator immediately was filled with the pungent smelled of old tobacco and body odor.  Oscar’s hygiene was the culprit. 

“710.” 

Oscar pushed the button for the 7
th
floor.  Oscar pressed the gun in Klein’s back.  When the door opened, he pushed Klein out and checked the hallway, but saw no one.  However, he knew the other two were right behind them. 

“Open it.” 

Klein opened the door to his room and Oscar pushed him inside.  The room had a hallway, which led to the bedroom.

“Sit,” Oscar ordered, pointing at a chair.  The room was filled with surveillance equipment and two cases which no doubt held weapons.  However, this was not the time to take inventory.

“Now, I want you to tell your team that you have killed me and that you need them to double time it up here.  I am sure they are on their way up anyway, but I want them to have their guard down.”  Klein did what he was told, figuring the team was unlikely to come out of this alive.

As it turned out, he was correct.

“I need a suppressor.  Where is one?”  Klein pointed to the bag on the dresser.  Oscar removed it and affixed it to the weapon.  Oscar sat on the bed and waited for the rest of the team to enter the room.  The set up of the hotel room was perfect for Oscar.  The back up team would see Klein in the chair, but not Oscar.  He would kill them before they realized what was happening.  The hall made a fine kill-box. 

Oscar heard the door click and open.  Waiting until they were both in the room, he pivoted around from behind the wall and killed both of them.  As he turned, he saw Klein reaching for a gun.

“Now.  Now.  Please sit back down.”  Klein sat back down but remained silent.  Oscar walked over to the same bag the suppressor was in and found a set of handcuffs.

“Mister?  I am sorry I don’t know your name,” Oscar said looking at him. 

Klein was silent. 

“OK.  We can do it this way too. Please put your hands behind your back.” 

Klein did not respond.  Oscar fired a point blank shot into his knee.  Klein fell out of the chair reaching for his destroyed knee.  Oscar slapped cuffs on Klein’s left wrist, pushed him onto the rug that was rapidly becoming stained with blood.  He then cuffed Klein’s right wrist and pulled him back into the chair. 

“I think I had better tie you to this chair.  I don’t want you falling down again,” Oscar said, as he pulled the cords out of the lamps and fastened Klein to the chair.  Oscar sat down once again on the bed and looked at Klein.  Klein’s face was racked with pain, but he still had not spoken.

“You’re a tough nut.  I am guessing Marines?  Ranger?”  Oscar asked, taunting Klein.

He was met with silence.

“Just so you know, I pretty much know everything at this point.  I just need a couple more pieces of information.  I also want money.  I know some operational funds are here.  I want them.  I also want to know who set this up - not really for any sort of revenge, but to thank them.  I now have a unique skill set that I can profit from.” 

He leaned forward toward Klein’s face.

“Please don’t lie to me when I ask you a question.  I know that you know I am smart -smarter than you.  If you lie, there will be repercussions.  By the way, I consider silence lying as well during this particular session.  Let’s get that straight.  I don’t want any misunderstanding between us.”

Again silence.

“I need a knife, one without butter on it,” he laughed, pulling the original knife out of his pocket and showing it to Klein.

“I beat you with a butter knife.  I bet that makes you feel about this big,” he said, holding up his thumb and index finger.  He threw the knife on the desk.

Oscar tossed the large duffel bags on the bed, opened up the first one and to his surprise found all the tools he would need for his new business venture.  At least enough to get him started.  He also discovered a very sharp ceramic knife. He examined the blade in the light.  Sharp indeed.  He turned and looked at Klein and held the knife up. 

“This can go easy or hard.  I really don’t care. I am going to get what I want in the end.”

Klein stared straight ahead.  He knew this was a possibility.  He knew it from the first hit in Luxembourg.  He also knew that Oscar Pasco was much faster, a thousand times more ruthless and incredibly unstable.  They had played with fire and he was the first one that was going to get burned.

“Where is the money?  This should be easy.  It’s not really yours anyway.”

No answer. 

Oscar held the knife in his left hand, placed the tip of the knife in Klein’s right nostril and flicked the knife with his wrist, easily slicing through his nose.  Blood poured out of the wound.

Klein had gone through the Special Forces Survive, Evade, Resist, Escape (SERE) training at Camp MacKall.  It was a tough three-week course, but you never knew what the real thing feels like until you are strapped to a chair with part of your face sliced open by a nutcase.  The training would only help for so long before a person cracked.

“Any answers now?”

Silence.

Klein pressed his chin to his chest trying to avoid the knife. Oscar did the same with the other nostril.

“Look, I am only interested in making a few bucks here.  I am not coming after your bosses.  Not unless there is a profit to be had,” Oscar said calmly.

“Money is in a safe in the closet,” Klein said, nodding towards the wall opposite the bed.  Oscar strode over to the door and opened it.  Sure enough, inside was a small safe.

“Code?”

“4590”

Oscar entered the code and opened the safe.  A backpack was inside.  He removed it, placed it on the bed and dumped out the contents.  Bingo! $150,000 in Euros spilled onto the bed.

“This it?”  Oscar asked, looking at Klein.

“That’s it.”

“OK.  So, now tell me about who provided all of this.  I know it wasn’t you.  You’re an errand boy.”

Oscar was met with silence.

“This again?”  Oscar said picking up the knife.  He snapped his wrist and flicked off Klein’s right ear lobe - he grunted in pain.

“There’s a lot more ear to lop off.”  Oscar paused.  “You know, I think I had better gag you until you are ready to talk.”  Oscar walked into the bathroom, grabbed a white hand towel and jammed it into Todd Klein’s mouth.  Then he went to work on the former Ranger. Finally, when it appeared Klein was ready to talk, Oscar removed the gag.

“I work for the Central Intelligence Agency.”

“Well duh.  What else?  Who put this together?”

“Robert Waters.”

“Mmmmmhmmm.  And?”

“We programmed men like you to become killers,” Klein said, gasping for air.

“How do you track me?  There has got to be something on me to track my comings and goings.”

“There is a tracker in your right butt cheek, smaller than a grain of rice.  Your phone is also bugged.  We see everything you do,” he answered, trying to catch his breath.

Oscar thought for a moment.  The instant the tracker was destroyed, they would know the program had gone south.   He needed to get to a bank, move the funds, if he still could, and then remove the tracking device.  He also began to think about the people he’d killed. Their families and business associates would be unhappy - definitely people to avoid.

“Back to my money.  Can I still access the money you people have been paying me?”

“Yes.”

Oscar knew it would be frozen if he did not act quickly.

“I need the details on the people I killed.  I imagine their associates are unhappy.”

“I have the intel on only the last target.  Everything else has been destroyed,” Klein nodded towards his laptop.

“I will need the code for that as well.  And, your phone.”  Klein provided it.