Blood Vendetta

“You didn’t have to.”

“I just wanted this coffee, that’s all.”

“Because it’s better than mine.”

“I just wanted this coffee,” Bolan said. “That’s all.”

Brognola cleared his throat. “Seriously, I could listen to you clowns do this all day. But if you’ll indulge me.”

Kurtzman scowled. “This isn’t over,” he said, jabbing at the air between them with his forefinger.

Bolan nodded and gulped some coffee from his mug.

“Sorry to call you back in, Striker. Especially on the heels of another mission. But I wanted to give you first crack at this one.”

“I’m listening.”

Brognola pulled an unlit cigar from his mouth, set it in an ashtray.

“You ever heard of the Nightingale?”

“Assuming you don’t mean Florence or the bird, I’d have to say no.”

“You’re right. I don’t mean either of them. It’s a person, maybe several persons—we’ve not been able to nail it down. But there’s someone out there who’s been ripping people off for years, stealing money from their bank accounts.”

“White-collar cyber crime? Not exactly my area.”

“Agreed,” Brognola said. “But it’s not what you think. This—well, let’s assume it’s one person for the sake of argument—this individual targets a lot of the same people you do. Mobsters, terrorists, arms smugglers, even heads of corrupt states.”

“Steals their money?”

Brognola nodded. “Right from under their noses. He, she, whatever, is very good at this, too. Best we can tell the Nightingale steals pretty much with impunity.”

“From some very deserving people,” Bolan said. “Sorry, Hal, still trying to see how this applies to me.”

“Getting there, Striker. We don’t know what this individual does with the money. Rumor has it he or she has passed some of it along to crime victims, through a series of cutouts.”

“An altruistic thief,” Bolan said.

“Altruism or a big middle finger to her victims,” Brognola said, “we’re not really sure. Maybe both. Psychologists at Langley did a work-up and believe it’s as much as anything a way to salve this person’s guilt.”

“Guilt for?”

“For stealing,” Price answered.

“From scum,” Bolan countered. “Bad people.”

Price shrugged. “Good people, bad people. If you’re raised not to steal, you’re going to feel bad about it. Doesn’t matter if you know in your heart you’re doing the right thing. You’re still going to feel guilty.”

Bolan nodded his understanding. In his War Everlasting, he’d tried to maintain a few basic rules. Don’t harm police, even crooked ones. Don’t put innocent bystanders in harm’s way, even if it means letting a target escape. These rules had helped him maintain his humanity even when surrounded by hellfire and chaos. Though he’s killed countless times, he takes no joy from it.

“I can understand that,” he said.

“Thought you could,” Price replied.

“So, again, what does this have to do with me? And Stony Man Farm, for that matter?”

“We’re not one hundred percent sure ourselves. But we think the Nightingale may be in trouble,” Price said.

“Not that I’m unsympathetic,” Bolan said, “but there are a lot of people in the world who are in trouble.”

“We, that being the United States, have been tracking this person for a couple of years,” Brognola said, “ever since we confirmed their existence really. At first, we only caught small whiffs. Our intelligence agencies would hear a drug kingpin or a terrorist bitching because a bank account came up empty. The first few times, we wrote it off. We figured they were getting ripped off the old-fashioned way, either through an inside job or by a rival. The more analysts put the pieces together, though, the clearer it became that someone was picking their pockets.” A smile played on his lips. “And that someone was getting away with it.”

“How much did they get away with?”

Brognola shrugged. “It’s hard to say. Estimates run into the tens of millions of dollars. But they’re just that, estimates. A lot of the countries where the thefts occurred, well, the record keeping is for shit. And in Switzerland and some of the Caribbean countries? Not exactly bastions of transparency.”

Bolan looked at Kurtzman and cocked an eyebrow. “Since when has that stopped you?”

“I’m working on it,” Kurtzman said. “I’m working on it.”

The Executioner turned back to Price.

“You said this person—”

“Or persons,” she said.

“—or persons, could be in trouble. What makes you think that?”

Brognola pushed a thin stack of photos across the table to Bolan. The big American picked up the pile and studied the one on top. It was a picture of a man sprawled on the floor. His face was so pale from blood loss it seemed to glow. Dead eyes stared skyward. The flesh of his torso was shredded. The soldier glanced up at Brognola.

“Bear mauling?”

“Shotgun blast, smart-ass,” Brognola said. “Very close range. Gutted the stupid bastard.”

Nodding, Bolan peeled the photo from the stack, set it facedown on the table and studied the next one. The next photo depicted a man laying in a hallway, his chest torn open. He glanced up at Brognola.

“Shotgun?”

“Bravo, Columbo. These two were found in a London residence, which based on the little evidence left behind, we think may have most recently been inhabited by Nightingale.”

“Any IDs on them?”

“Russian, both of them,” Brognola said. “The names are in the case file. Frankly, they’re inconsequential. Couple of hired hands. Interpol had listed them as suspects in a couple of murders, one in France, a second in the Netherlands. Not a couple of Boy Scouts. But they’re hardly supervillains.”

“But you don’t know who they’re working for?”

Brognola shook his head.