The Killing Rule

“I…”

Lord William suddenly beamed and leaned in toward the intercom. “Parky, you old sod! How the bloody hell are you?”

Jennings’s jaw dropped. Lunk shot Bolan a knowing grin. The voice on the other side of the secure link paused in shocked silence. “To whom am I speaking?”

“Why, Ian, it’s Bill! Bill Glen-Patrick! Haven’t seen you since I last voted in Lords! By God, when was that? Aught 2, then?”

The voice on the other end was clearly stunned. “Clive, what is going on?”

“I…” was all Jennings could manage.

Bolan subvocalized to Lunk. “Who?”

Lunk muttered under his breath, “His Lordship Ian Parkhurst, if I’m not mistaken.”

Bolan had never heard of Lord Ian, but then there were close to seven hundred members of the English peerage. “Is this bad?”

Lunk’s craggy brow furrowed. “Bad enough. Lord William is a baron. Parkhurst is an earl.”

“Listen, Parky,” Lord William continued. “Your lad Clive has cocked things up a bit. I’m doing a little spring-cleaning around the old office. I’m putting a stop to whatever he’s up to. I do hope you won’t be inconvenienced.”

“Glen-Patrick,” the voice said, “I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to leave my office.”

“Your office?”

“Yes, William. Just who do you think it was who took your wretched little box of tin soldiers away from you? Surely not that pissant Clive?”

“Well, truth be told, yes,” Lord William admitted. “Not quite cricket, Ian. Peers turning on each other like this, is it, old bean?”

“You know, I never really considered you a peer,” the voice stated. “None of us ever did. You’re just a jumped-up country squire who never knew his station. You spent more time on your sordid little escapades and in the tabloids than you ever did voting in the house.”

Bolan listened to the exchange with interest. Whoever Parkhurst was, he was an amateur. He was gloating and monologing when he should have kept his mouth shut. Bolan silently mouthed the words “keep him talking” to Lord William. The baron nodded.

“Listen, Parky. We have dead CIA agents, the IRA, whispers of mass destruction, Aegis somehow involved. I was looking into this out of duty, you know. Queen and country and all that. But you know something, Parky? Now I think it’s personal.”

“Do you know what one does with toothless, barking old dogs?” The voice went utterly cold. “One puts them down. However, I’ve come to learn that you’re not an old dog. You, William, are a cockroach. A pest that refuses to be crushed. And I’ll tell you something, William. When Clive failed to kill you in Guernsey, I had a thought you might show up at the offices.”

“Oh? And what might that thought—”

“Goodbye, William.”

The line clicked dead.

Lunk was peering out the window toward the river. “Company, Lord William, coming to kill us quiet.”

Bolan gazed out the window. Men were spilling out of a pair of Volkswagen vans. They were dressed in civilian clothing, but each one was sporting a micro-Uzi machine pistol with the long black tube of a sound suppressor screwed over the stub barrels. The gunners’ torsos had the barrel shape of men wearing body armor beneath their clothing. Bolan counted ten of them and was pretty sure there would be more coming around the back. If Lord Parkhurst was telling the truth about owning the company, the killers would probably have their own keys.

He turned on Clive. “Where are the guns?”

“Your guns?” Jennings stared up at Bolan in confusion. “Grietje has them in the safe downstairs. You know that—”

“No, Clive. Where are your guns?”

“Mine? You have my—”

Bolan seized Jennings by his hand-painted Italian silk necktie. “You’re a boy who likes playing with the grown men’s toys, Clive. Where’s your toy box?”

“I—”

Bolan’s eyes flicked around the room and instinctively came to rest on the hoplite shield mounted on the wall.

Lord William’s mustache lifted in a curtain of amusement. “Oh, jolly good.”

Bolan nodded. “Lunk?”

Lunk happily wrapped his fingers around the edges of the shield. His knuckles went white as he pulled. Wood splintered, cracking and breaking around the hidden lock. Lunk let out a groan of effort, and the Aegis ripped away from the wall.

The shield formed the door of a recessed gun cabinet.

Lunk picked an inch-long splinter out of his palm. “Little boys with grown men’s toys.” The Welshman grinned. “Have to remember that one.”

Clive Jennings had some toys.

“My rifle!” Lord William exploded in outrage. “My bloody fucking Falklands rifle!”

Jennings cringed.

Lord William stalked to the ruptured gun cabinet and ripped a 1980s-era British L-1 A 1 SLR rifle off the rack. He racked the action on the big black .308 self-loading rifle and peered through the SUIT optical sight. “You son of a bitch! You told me it’d been lost!”

Bolan made his choice from the cabinet. “Lunk, mind Clive.”

Lunk slammed his hands on Jennings’s shoulders as Bolan pulled out something a little more modern. Personally, he had little use for the SA 80 assault rifle. Despite its futuristic good looks and compact bullpup design, it had been plagued with problems. In both Iraq wars it had been found that it jammed at the slightest bit of dirt or fouling, various parts broke off or bent with frightening regularity and many came home held together with duct tape. The magazine release was so poorly designed that it often spontaneously ejected when shouldered by men wearing armor and web gear, and there was a persistent rumor that at desert temperatures, with prolonged firing, and with the right combination of British army-issue insect repellant and cam cream on the user’s hands, the plastic parts would melt.

The SA 80 really only had one virtue, and that was that the combination of rifle and its SUSAT 4X scope was one of the most accurate out-of-the-box assault rifles available.

Bolan inserted a loaded magazine and racked the action. He had hopes that the trouble-plagued weapon might hold together for one firefight in Amsterdam. He pointed the assault rifle between Jennings’s eyebrows as Lunk pulled a Steyr AUG light machine gun out of the cabinet and clicked in a 100-round C-Mag double drum magazine.

Bolan’s PDA cheeped as it finished swallowing the contents of Clive Jennings’s computer. “We’re out of here.”

Downstairs Grietje let out a scream.

Lunk prodded Jennings with the muzzle of his machine gun. “Let’s move.”

The Executioner took point with Lord William behind him. Lunk rumbled as he took up the rear position with the machine gun. “You heard the man, blast you. Move along already—Bloody hell!”

Bolan whirled in time to avoid 280 pounds of flying Welshman. Lord William didn’t and they collided in a tangle. The SA 80 rifle cracked three times in Bolan’s hands, but Jennings had already risen up out of his throw and lunged back into the office. Bolan flicked his selector switch to full-auto and sprayed a burst around the doorjamb before lunging in. The eastern wall of the office had slid open, and Jennings ducked in as it began to slide shut again. Wood paneling flew as Bolan fired, but he knew it was hopeless. The door hissed shut, and he could hear the heavy mechanical bolts tumbling into place.

Jennings had built a panic room into his office.