The Forgotten Soldier: A Pike Logan Thriller (27 page)

53

G
uy still had his mission to take out the final two from the target deck, but couldn’t accomplish it with Nikos on the loose. The man had too many connections. Too many ways to counter him. He needed the targets from Qatar separated from any help. It was the primary reason he’d chosen Greece instead of Qatar to begin with. He’d debated and finally decided Nikos had to go. It was a complication, but a necessary one.

Guy told himself it was based purely on the mission, but the blackness sliding through him, like ropes greased in a charnel house, told him differently. That asshole had picked the fight. Chosen his fate.

Guy counted the men. Five total, including Nikos. Probably two or three hired security, with the remaining being friends or ass kissers begging for Nikos’s attention. One held the door, and they all entered. Guy gave them five minutes. From a distant memory, he saw his brother over a board game, tired and cranky, saying, “Give me the dice. I’m going on a suicide run.”

Guy started the car and headed to the small underground tunnel that would allow him to cross the broad thoroughfare, thinking of the past with his brother. Actually smelling the cans of Schlitz beer they’d pilfered from their father’s fridge on those days long ago.

Two years apart, they’d had a space of time in high school where they’d become infatuated with the game called Risk. A contest of
strategy, it involved using armies and dice to attempt to take over the world. The games themselves could last days, but only if his brother retained interest.

Guy would play his heart out to the bitter end, no matter if he was losing or not, going on until his plastic armies breathed their final breath. His brother, on the other hand, would get dispirited and quit if he felt he was on the losing end with no recovery. When he became tired of the fight, he’d simply look up and say, “Suicide run,” then put all of his plastic tokens on a single country, rolling the dice and attacking each enemy country with the full force of his men, risking all of them until he either won or was demolished.

It used to aggravate the hell out of Guy, because one out of ten times, the tactic worked, all based on the chance of the roll of the dice, like doubling a bet on every spin of a roulette wheel. No skill, no thought, no strategy. Just brute force and luck.

And now he was going to do the same.

He parked on the back side of the building, driving the car up over the curb on its two right wheels and blocking the ability for the other cars to leave. He didn’t care. Odds were, he wasn’t walking out alive anyway.

He circled the block, playing his brother’s Pandora list. Feeling the pain. Drawing energy from the anger. He walked up to the door of the Cotton Club, passing by windows that were blacked out, hiding what was inside. He tried the aluminum door handle, pulling it an inch and finding it open.

He paused for a brief moment, removing his earbuds and adjusting the long barrel of the 6P9 under his left shoulder, getting it ready in the makeshift holster he’d built. He took two deep breaths, controlling the anger and channeling the adrenaline.

This is it. Five men. Only five.

He knew that was most likely wrong, but also that he held the edge. The men inside this building understood violence, but only on
their terms. They had no idea of the pain he could bring. The skill he held.

He opened the door and went inside, letting his eyes adjust to the gloom. The interior was dank and smelled of spilled beer and mildew, the tables looking chipped and dilapidated in the harsh light of the sun before the night settled in and the vampires began to roam.

To his front was a stage, the center portion spearing out between the tables, the length interspersed with floor-to-ceiling poles. On each side was a bar, the one on the left dark and empty, the one on the right lit by small overhead bulbs. He saw a man talking to two women, the man dressed like the usual pipe-swinger—leather jacket, cropped beard, and scarred, meaty hands. The women were dressed as if they were going to a costume party, one as a flapper from the 1920s, the other like an Egyptian pharaoh’s concubine. Neither was particularly attractive.

All three were staring at him from the light he’d caused to explode by opening the door. He walked to them, feeling the weight of his pistol. The women looked hesitant. The man looked aggravated.

Guy said, “Hey, I’m here to see Nikos. Is he around?”

The man glowered and, in broken English, said, “No. Nobody here by that name.”

Guy turned to the girls and repeated the question. They became surly, with one, in much better English, saying, “Never heard of him. Maybe he’ll show when we open.”

Guy nodded, almost robotically, thinking of the size of the building. Thinking of how long it would take to clear without information.

The man said, “You go.”

Guy said, “Unfortunately, no. I saw him enter. Either call him or send me up. I’m not leaving.”

The girls laughed, the one closest to him leaning over, showing her cleavage and saying, “You going to leave. Trust me.”

The man reached beneath the bar and pulled out a fishing priest
with a head encased in a sheath of metal. Just like the one used on Guy days before. He said, “Get out now, or pay.”

In one fluid motion, Guy withdrew his pistol. He placed the long suppressor against the man’s forehead and pulled the trigger, spraying the back of the bar, the bullet a muted spit. The man dropped straight down, folding like a slinky with the wires bent.

He turned to the girls, the barrel held in the air. He said, “Do I need to repeat the question?”

In hurried speech, talking over each other and clinging together as if that would protect them, they told him where to find Nikos’s office.

He said, “Lay your phones on the bar.”

They did so and he said, “Get the fuck out of here, now.”

The ’20s flapper said, “You going to die. You can’t come in here and do this. You going to
die
.”

He smiled, a twisted, crazy thing, saying nothing. They fled, spilling the light in again. He let the door close before he moved, cloaking himself in the blessed darkness again.

Suicide run.

54

N
ikos said, “By herself? Or with an escort?” He listened, then disconnected from the call. He saw the Arab tense at his words and mentally sized him up. He recognized that Khalid wasn’t the same milquetoast as Haider. This man had steel in him, and might actually have the skill to back up the attitude. He glanced at the two men on either side of the door, giving them an unseen signal. They both withdrew pistols, keeping them between their folded hands in the front, only the barrel poking out.

Khalid said, “Is it like we thought? She’s going to a meeting?”

Nikos said, “Haider was my employer. I don’t answer to you.”

Khalid said, “I speak for Haider, and I heard the call. You answer to our money, and we have offered a significant amount for the death of the American. You still owe us for that.”

Nikos leaned back in his chair, an ostentatious bit of leather designed to showcase the man. Present him as a king on a throne responsible for the fate of anyone brought in his presence. The desk in front of him was much larger than necessary, a burnished, solid oak behemoth, and littered with small signals of intimidation. Little indicators of his ability to kill. A replica guillotine, a paperweight shaped like a skull, and a letter opener in the form of a miniature Japanese Katana. The centerpiece was two M67 fragmentation grenades, both
with a rubber band on the spoon, indicating the pin had been pulled. Showing that he lived without fear.

Nikos picked up the letter opener and played with the edge of the blade, saying, “You’ve paid me nothing. I attempted in Crete, and yes, I failed, but it cost you nothing. It cost me a great deal. A lot of cleanup. I’m not sure I want to continue with the same agreement here in Athens, especially when it involves a spy from the CIA. It’s not good for business. Besides, he’s probably still on Crete. I have men looking. “

“He’s not on Crete. You don’t believe it, and neither do I. Yes, you attempted to catch him, and how long do you think it’ll take for him to decipher who was responsible for that failure? You are now on his list, just like we are. He’s coming here, and you should be afraid.”

Nikos scoffed, saying, “He’s but one man. He can do nothing to me.”

“Then why did you place surveillance on the US Embassy? Why did you just receive a call telling you that the American’s contact was leaving by herself?”

“I keep tabs on her because of my business. Nothing more. I need to ensure she’s not causing an inadvertent problem. We both have equities. I provide her information, and she provides me leeway to operate. I aggravate her, and she could provide the same information to my government. It’s a significant risk to my business. You must understand. I scratch her back, and she scratches mine.”

Nikos saw the anger flash, Khalid leaning over the desk. “She set up my men. She set
you
up. She is the catalyst for the American interdicting our meetings. He’s here, and she’s going to meet him.
Right
.
Now
.” The last two words were punctuated with a stab of a finger into the desk.

The men at the back of the room released their hands, freeing the pistols. Nikos waved, telling them to back down. Khalid saw the
action and turned, eyeing the men. He said, “You think your security can help you? Haider lives in a world of giving, where money gets what he wants.”

He turned back to Nikos and said, “I live in the world of taking. You
will
find this American. You do, and you get the money. More than enough to live out the rest of your days with whores and wine. You don’t and you get me. If the American doesn’t find you first.”

Nikos was a bit unnerved at Khalid’s complete lack of fear of the two men at the door. But he still owned the room. He chuckled, playing down the threat. He said, “Okay, okay, Khalid. I see you are afraid of him, but I am not. Here’s the deal. You want me to commit to the woman, and it’ll double the price. The American was tied to the United States somehow, but the woman
is
CIA. I know this for a fact.”

“She is our only link to the killer. I need to interrogate her.”

“And is this from Haider?”

“Don’t worry about him. As I said, I speak for him.”

“Maybe I should call him first.”

“Maybe you should get some men moving toward the woman.”

Nikos showed anger for the first time, saying, “I can’t snatch her off of the street! This isn’t Qatar, where you can run over whoever you want if you’re a citizen. We have laws here.”

“She’s not working on CIA business. This man we’re after is rogue. She’s trying to contain it. Anything that happens to her can be blamed on him.”

“How do you know this? Where is your information coming from?”

“From the highest levels of the United States government. It’s valid. And so is our money.”

The phone rang again, and Nikos answered. He listened for a moment, then said, “No, don’t follow her inside. Get the men ready.” He hung up, saying nothing.

Thinking.

Khalid said, “Well?”

Nikos toyed with the letter opener for a moment, then said, “I want half up front. If I move on her, I want the money right now. And I won’t do anything else. The woman is my final operation. If it goes bad, I leave, taking your money with me. Nonnegotiable.”

“What’s she doing?”

“She’s acting strange. You may be right.”

Khalid smiled, and the sight was unsettling, reminding Nikos of a cat toying with a mouse long after the creature was dead. Khalid dialed his phone and spoke in Arabic for a moment. He hung up and said, “The money is transferred to the account you gave.”

Nikos nodded, realizing he was crossing a void from which there was no return. He picked up his own phone and spoke a few words. He placed the handset slowly on the desk and said, “Okay. It’s done. She will be brought to a warehouse. I’ll turn her over to you, and we are through. You find the American on your own after that.”

Khalid said, “I go with your men. And
that’s
nonnegotiable.”