The Executioner: Dark Savior by Don Pendleton

Author:Don Pendleton [Pendleton, Don]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Action & Adventure, Thrillers, Crime, Espionage, Suspense
ISBN: 9781474045704
Google: 5a-uCgAAQBAJ
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2015-10-31T11:00:00+00:00

9

U.S. Global Finance Headquarters, Manhattan

“Remind me why we keep you on the payroll,” Sheldon Page demanded. He was stone-faced, no names spoken, always a bad sign.

“Because I get things done,” Brad Kemper said, determined not to sweat before his three inquisitors.

“Correction,” Cornell Dubois said. “You got things done, past tense, on other jobs. All you’ve accomplished this time, when we need you most, is stirring up a hornet’s nest.”

“Three U.S. marshals dead,” Reginald Manson interjected, “and our witness in the wind. A lot of bullshit promises.”

“I’ve told you where he is,” Kemper replied to all of them at once. “My people have him pinned down where escape, in my view, is impossible.”

“In your view,” Page replied, keeping the tag-team effort going. “If that’s true, why is the bastard still alive?”

“He may be dead by now.” It sounded lame, but Kemper put a brave face on it, still not trembling visibly. He’d seen the guards outside, ostensibly his men, but in reality owned by the company. He wondered if he’d leave the plushly furnished meeting room alive.

“May be?” The echo came from Manson, switching up the order of attack now. “You can’t even tell us that?”

“What I’ve already told you is they’ve got a blizzard in the mountains where he’s hiding, breaking all the records for this time of year. Communications are—”

“Spare us the Weather Channel reruns.” Dubois sneered. “You’ve spent the best part of a million dollars on the hunt so far, and now you’re blaming acts of God for failure? That’s pathetic.”

Kemper felt the color rising in his cheeks, knew anger was his enemy right now, but couldn’t altogether rein it in. A million bucks was chump change to these bloated ticks, and they were blaming him because it snowed in California?

“A million or a billion,” he replied, keeping his tone in check. “You can’t buy off the weather. No one in the area has cell reception, rich or poor. Surveillance satellites see nothing but the clouds and snow downstairs. I know my men are working on it, and they may be done by now, but a report will have to wait until the weather clears or they clear out. That’s all there is to it.”

“In which case,” Page observed, “we really don’t need you at all, do we? Based on your own words, our men will call in their report sooner or later, one way or another. You appear to be superfluous, n’est-ce pas?”

Kemper despised rich people who affected foreign phrases in a futile bid to sound more cultured than they were, but this one—these three—signed his hefty paychecks, and right now, they controlled whether he lived to see another day.

So, what to do? When he was in a high-stakes poker game and holding shit, he nearly always bluffed. The only difference: today his head was in the pot.

He shrugged, trying to keep it casual, and said, “You want to take me off the board, that’s your prerogative. I reckon I could only kill one of you, maybe

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