Lady Death by Brian Drake (good e books to read .TXT) 📕

wasn’t a tall man. He wasn’t a thin one, either. His hard-packed 280 pounds made him look like an upright bulldog. His puffy face almost swallowed his eyes.

His cramped office sat adjacent to a conference room with an open doorway between them. Another doorway in front of him led to the hallway where a left turn took him to the warehouse, front desk to the right. The walls needed a coat of paint, and the carpet had worn out a decade ago. Stathoti’s priorities always lay elsewhere. The needed interior improvements remained on the bottom of the to-do list.

He sat at his desk filing paperwork for shipments going out over the coming days. The desk held several stacks of pink and yellow forms. He preferred to work in a quiet environment with no radio or television. Only the scratching of his pen on paper and his labored breathing filled the silence.

Buried under a small stack of forms on his right was his Dell laptop. The computer never left his side. Its hard drive contained details on his illicit affairs.

The front door squeaked open.

Stathoti stopped scribbling. He looked up. He could not see the front desk area from where he sat. He called out, “Amanda?”

No answer.

He scooted back from the desk and stood. As he stepped around his desk, a man moved through the conference room to his office. He held a suppressed pistol in his hand. Stathoti froze. His eyes widened and he opened his mouth to shout but nothing came out. The gunman lifted his pistol to arm’s length and fired twice. The slugs slammed into Stathoti’s big chest. A third shot smacked through his forehead. Stathoti fell over. His heavy body hit the ground with a thud.

The gunman slipped his gun back under his jacket.

From another pocket of his jacket the killer extracted a small thermite grenade. He pulled the pin and set the grenade on the cluttered desk.

He turned to leave but stopped short as the door swung open and a man and a woman entered. They both held pistols.

The gunman grabbed the thermite grenade from the desk and pitched it forward. It crashed on top of the conference table, exploding in a burst of blinding flame. The fire ate into the wooden table and thick smoke filled the room.

The killer moved for the hallway door. A quick step left and the doorway to the warehouse lay ahead. He ran.

Raven shoved Misty out of the conference room as the thermite grenade landed on the table.

They tumbled onto the floor near the front desk, Misty crying out as Raven landed on top of her with most of his weight on her right leg. He sprang to his feet and helped her up.

“Get him!” she said, leaning against the desk a moment.

Raven bolted after the killer. The assassin reached the doorway to the rear warehouse and Raven fired twice. Both .45 slugs smacked into the killer’s back. He pitched forward into the dark warehouse and his face hit the concrete floor with a crack.

The fire alarm kicked on, a piercing blare attacking Raven’s eardrums. He winced. Smoke filled the office. Overhead sprinklers kicked on and showered the fire with water, bringing some relief.

Misty joined him and they rushed into Stathoti’s office. “Hurry!”

Raven covered his mouth and nose with the sleeve of his coat and ran into the office. He spotted the laptop. Lingering smoke stung his eyes. Raven grabbed the computer and ran out. Misty pushed the door open ahead of her and held it while she ran. He followed. It was a long dash to the van and Misty jumped behind the wheel while Raven settled in the passenger seat.

Misty started the motor and drove away. Raven set the computer on the floor while he buckled his seatbelt.

“She’s tying up loose ends,” Misty said.

“We might find something on the computer.”

Misty turned onto the road.

“And if all we find is his everyday business stuff?”

“Then we’re shit outta luck,” Raven said.

7

“Do you ever get tired of hotel rooms?” Clark Wilson asked.

“Do you ever get tired of your office?”

“Yes.”

“Ditto.”

Wilson laughed. “I hope you have something.”

Raven sat on the edge of the bed. Misty was across the room at the desk, scouring the files on Stathoti’s laptop.

“We do and it’s not good,” Raven said.

“Tell me.”

“The weapons Ben Doyle shipped to Stathoti went out on a ship to three different places. Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York City.”

“Chicago is landlocked.”

“I have no information of how they’re transporting the weapons to any of the cities, Clark.”

“Where’s the ship?”

“Don’t know. It’s called the Sea Queen and I have the IMO number for you.”

“Shoot.”

Raven gave him the International Maritime Organization number. The seven-digit prefix would help Wilson’s crew identify the ship’s current location. Where it originated wasn’t as important as where it was.

“We’ll get on this,” Wilson said. “Anything else?”

Raven sighed. “Yes.”

“I sense more bad news.”

“We have another player on the board.”

“Anybody we know?”

“Unfortunately, yes. Dante Horn.”

“Oh, no.”

“Oh, yes.”

Dante Horn, former Green Beret, special operations expert, now persona non grata in the United States. He owned a private military company called Black River. The CIA and Pentagon had once made extensive use of his services. Then they discovered he was taking taxpayer money while working counter to US interests. The government cut him off. He’d had an ax to grind against the United States ever since.

“Where did you find the Horn connection?”

“Stathoti’s email.”

“Why is the gun shipper dealing with the mercenary commander? You’d think they’d be separate from each other.”

“Tanya made a mistake. She forwarded an email to Stathoti with a request from Horn regarding the shipment and left Horn’s email connected with hers. I didn’t need a database to tell me to whom the name Horn referred.”

“Gotcha.”

Raven said, “It’s given a clearer picture of what we’re facing with Operation Triangle.”

“What?”

“Tanya and her father are using a combination of Doyle, Stathoti, and Horn to organize the strike. They wanted us looking in the wrong direction and miss the real perpetrators who are not