Storm Front: A Derrick Storm Thriller (25 page)

“You are, Sister Rose. There’s got to be some way to talk the bishop out of this absurdity.”

Her voice grew hushed. “I’m afraid there’s no talking involved. May God strike me down for talking about one of His servants in this way, but I’ve seen a lot of bishops come and go in my time, and this one, he’s mean as an old donkey. Stubborn as one, too. The only thing he’ll respond to is money.”

“So you need five million dollars,” Storm said. If she had said
one million, he could have cut a check right there. But five million was more than he could afford to part with.

“I’m so sorry to bother you with this, Derrick, I just didn’t know where else to turn. I have my little network of generous souls like you who can give us enough money to keep bread in the children’s mouths. But five million dollars? I don’t have any idea where to get that kind of money. But I know you’re a man who… who knows how to make improbable things happen. And I just thought…”

“Say no more. I’ll handle it.”

“But Derrick, how will you…”

“Don’t worry about it,” Storm said as he caught a glimpse of Xi Bang coming through the security area. “I’ll take care of the money, Sister Rose. You just worry about taking care of those children, you hear?”

“God bless you, Derrick Storm. I’ll be saying a prayer for you to night, as I do every night.”

And I’m sure I’ll need it
, Storm thought. “You’re always telling me God listens to our prayers,” he said. “Maybe you should say one for yourself, too.”

“Believe me, I’ll be doing that now, too.”

“You take care, Sister Rose. We’ll talk soon.”

He ended the call just as Xi Bang slid up to him and planted an enthusiastic kiss on his lips. She was still dressed in the same outfit, much to the delight of several of the business travelers who had joined her on the 6
A.M.
shuttle.

“I have a little present for you,” she said.

“I thought this was my present,” Storm said, eyeing the outfit.

“No, it gets better,” she said, producing a plastic bag from behind her back and ceremoniously presenting it to him. It was festooned with the logo of a novelty shop Storm knew to inhabit Reagan National Airport.

Storm opened the bag. Inside were a pair of SuperSpy EspioTalk Wristwatch Communicators from Cloak and Dagger Enterprises. “Trade Secret Messages Like Real Spies!” read the package.
“Variable Frequency Dial Allows Multi-Channel Communication! Effective Range 3,000 Feet!”

“I just thought that in the spirit of international cooperation, we ought to get on the same frequency,” she said. “This way, we can always be in touch.”

Storm tore open the packaging and strapped the watch on his left wrist. He admired it for a moment and said, “It’s the best toy I’ve ever gotten.”

T
he elevator at Marlowe Tower rocketed its occupants sky-ward, moving them quickly toward Prime Resource Investment Group’s six-thousand-square-foot playground on the eighty-seventh floor.

“I mean, did no one seriously think about that? P-R-I-G. Their company name spells ‘prig,’ ” Xi Bang was saying.

“I’m not even a native English speaker and I noticed it.”

“Maybe it’s intentional,” Storm suggested.

“Intentionally what, though? Intentionally elitist?”

“You’re not going to launch into a rant about capitalism now, are you?” Storm asked.

And, no, she wasn’t. Not after the brief stop she and Storm had made on their way to Whitely Cracker’s office. Storm was one of those special customers that Barneys allowed to have private shopping hours, and they had taken full advantage of it. They tore through the store like impulsive children, chattering on their EspioTalk Wristwatch Communicators. Xi Bang had come away with a cutout black dress by Balenciaga, a simple yet stunning piece that had allowed her to gleefully throw her schoolgirl outfit in the trash. She paired it with a Delvaux purse that was just the right size for the sleek 9mm Taurus PT709 that had come from Storm’s Mustang.

Storm went with an Andrea Campagna chalk-stripe suit that would allow him to blend with the locals. Fortunately, it was cut broadly enough to cover both his thick chest and the shoulder holster for one of his favorite guns, a Smith & Wesson Model 629 Stealth Hunter, a modernized, slightly more surreptitious version of Dirty Harry’s gun that, just like the revolver made famous by Clint Eastwood, used .44 Magnum cartridges.

Their tack with Cracker, which they had discussed while making the remainder of their trip in, was quite straightforward: bluff their way into his office and then confront him. If they got a confession, great. If not, they would just take him into custody, either voluntarily or by force. They’d worry about the legality of it all later.

Once off the elevator, they entered through the opaque glass doors of Prime Resource Investment Group and came face-to-face with an officious receptionist. She knew full well these two well-dressed strangers did not have an appointment. Storm wasn’t worried. Thanks to Clara Strike, he knew just the right thing to say.

“Hello,” Storm said, then immediately affected an imperious air and a Middle Eastern accent. “I am Mustafa Mattar and this is my assistant, Fatima al-Fayez. We are emissaries from His Royal Highness, Crown Prince Hashem, and we demand to have an audience with this so-called Whitely Cracker at once or we will be forced to withdraw all of the money from our account.”

That neither Storm nor Xi Bang looked remotely Arab was not, at least immediately, top on the list of the secretary’s concerns. That approximately three-quarters of a billion dollars of her boss’s fund was threatening to walk out the door earned more of her attention.

“Yes, yes, of course, Mr. Mattar. Mr. Cracker is…”

“Why am I still waiting?” Storm asked, chin held high. “The prince has dispatched me here with a royal order. It is Jordanian custom and law that any emissary of the prince must be treated as if he is the prince himself. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes, but Mr. Cracker stepped out for just a minute. If you could please have a se—”

“I will not have a seat. And I will not wait. I demand to know where he is this very moment.”

“I’m sorry, but if you will have a seat I can call him. He just ran to the deli across the street. I can call him and he’ll be back here…”

“The deli across the street?” Storm said. “Very well. Miss al-Fayez? We will now depart.”

Storm barged back through the glass doors, with Xi Bang close on his heels.

“Nice job there, Mustafa,” Xi Bang said, as soon as it closed. “To the deli?”

“To the deli,” Storm confirmed.

They rode back down in silence, holding hands as they did so. It wasn’t exactly in keeping with two professional members of a prince’s envoy, but Storm was fairly confident he wouldn’t need that cover again. They reached the street level, pushed through Marlowe Tower’s polished brass revolving doors, and were making their way across the street to a deli that had, appropriately, been named “DELI.”

Then Storm spied two men sitting in the window.

They were having an intense conversation. One had ash-blond hair and a silver-spoon air about him. The other had an eye patch and a badly scarred face.

Storm’s grip on Xi Bang’s hand turned vise-like.

“What is it?” she said.

“It’s Cracker,” he replied. “And he’s sitting with Gregor Volkov.”

Storm let go of Xi Bang. His hand reached for the Dirty Harry Smith & Wesson.

“Wait,” Xi Bang said, grabbing his arm. “Don’t just charge in like an idiot. Let’s come up with a plan first.”

“No,” he said, shaking off her grasp. “I’ve had Volkov slip away from me too many times.”

And the part Storm didn’t need to say was
It won’t happen again
. This time, Volkov wasn’t merely going to escape with burns. This time, there would be no second or third or fourth act. This time, Storm was going to keep putting bullets in Volkov’s head until the man was down and would never again rise.

In some ways, the whole scene was surreal to Storm. He had chased Volkov across the continents and throughout the years, and now here he was, right in front of him, sitting in a street-side deli, like any common New Yorker, hiding in plain sight. The people ordering their bagels and grabbing their coffees on the way to the office had no idea that of the two men sitting in their midst, one was an international terrorist and the other was plotting a financial catastrophe that would make the Great Recession look like a little tiny cub of a bear market.

Storm raised his gun and took aim.

“Derrick, for God’s sake, wait…,” Xi Bang yelled after him.

But Storm was already striding across the street with the gun drawn, heedless of the traffic. His eyes and gun barrel were trained on Volkov. The moment he was sure he had a clear shot, he was going to take it. The .44 Magnum cartridge had the power to punch a bullet through the window and still have plenty enough oomph to finish the job.

A propane truck swerved out of Storm’s way, laying on its horn.

Gregor Volkov loved this part. Just loved it.

Whitely Cracker, king of the pig American capitalists, had called him in—no,
ordered
him in—like he was some kind of domestic servant, thinking that Volkov would gratefully and happily accept his six-million-dollar payment in exchange for the six MonEx codes.

Because, after all, who was Gregor Volkov to Whitely Cracker? Just some mouth-breathing muscle-head who was not civilized enough to attend the same operas; some two-bit thug who Cracker
didn’t even want in his office, thus necessitating their meeting in a deli; some dumb Russian who would nibble on scraps even as Cracker feasted from the table above him.

Little did he know.

Little could he guess.

So Volkov was laying it out for him. Everything had changed. Volkov was now the master, and Cracker the servant. They would do with the MonEx codes what Volkov wanted—when and how Volkov said it would be done.

Volkov was enjoying himself so much, he even explained the why of it all. He had been in touch with several powerful Russian oligarchs, who had eagerly agreed to use a part of their windfall from the fulfillment of Click Theory to fund General Volkov’s coup against the den of thieves currently ruling over Moscow, crooks whose rampant corruption sapped Mother Russia of her strength. Forget the losses of the Cold War, the absurdity of the Soviet Union, and the joke that was the government that had ruled ever since. At the expense of all the other world economies, Russia would rise again, without her weakling dependents, without the crooks, and with Volkov as its militarily backed dictator.

And, yes, Cracker would play his part. It wasn’t just because of the Ruger that Volkov had hidden beneath a napkin under the table as they spoke. It was because Volkov would charge a much higher price for disobedience, one he would extract not from Cracker—at least not at first—but from his family. His lovely wife. His beautiful boy. His perfect girl.

Volkov was just getting to this part when the hairs on the back of his neck suddenly stood up. He hadn’t stayed alive in this world as long as he had without developing certain instincts, and one of them was a near 360-degree awareness of his surroundings.

And so he noticed things. He noticed movement. He noticed strange shapes. He noticed when a horn was blown, and that it was not just the
tap-tap
kind of horn a motorist sounded when he wanted to gain someone’s attention; it was the angry, heavy horn of a driver who wanted to send a scolding message.

All of these things had come together on the edge of Volkov’s consciousness, jolted him out of his conversation with Cracker, and caused him to look out at the street, where he saw Storm charging.

The Russian paused for exactly half a second, calmly weighing his options. Then he removed the Ruger from under the napkin and fired two perfectly aimed shots.

But not at Storm.

At the propane truck.

The resulting explosion sent a fireball mushrooming up through the canyon of skyscrapers that surrounded the lower Manhattan street. The force of the blast at first depressed the truck, then raised it in the air for a split second before sending it hurtling on its side into the storefronts across the street. At least thirty cars were lifted off their tires and scattered about like children’s toys, some on their sides, some on their roofs. A motorcycle got high enough to come to rest on top of the stoplights behind it.

Bodies were likewise strewn about. Storm, Xi Bang, and dozens of other pedestrians were thrown flat or into buildings. Drivers of cars were crushed inside their vehicles. Miraculously, the truck driver was blown clear of the cab and wound up with non-fatal injuries. Others were not so lucky.

The percussiveness of the blast had shattered every window on the block from the tenth story down, sending down a rain of glass shards that forced Storm to keep his head low.

By the time he was able to look up, Volkov and Cracker were gone. Xi Bang was already scrambling up as Storm got to his feet. He had a quick decision to make: go after Volkov or go after Cracker. He couldn’t chase both.

Cracker was a man with roots only in New York, a man with no training in how to disappear and no real place to hide. Volkov, on the other hand, was a phantom with a long history of being able to dance between raindrops without ever getting wet. Really, it was no decision: Storm had to chase the phantom.

“Cover the front,” Storm shouted over the cacophony of car alarms. “I’m going around back to get Volkov.”

“Storm,
wait
,” Xi Bang shouted. But she might as well have been telling rain not to fall.

Storm dashed into the alley to the left side of the deli, his revolver still firmly in his right hand. The explosion had given him at least one advantage: Anyone or anything that might have been in his way had been blown clear. He made a right around the corner of the building. The back door was still open, swinging on its hinge as if someone had barreled through it at high speed.

The alley was L-shaped, and a dead end. There was no sign of Volkov. There were also no other doors on the street level of the alley. Where could he…