the girl fits in?”
Bolan glanced over at the hacker. “She may use a computer rather than a silenced submachine gun, but she’s a hired gun, nonetheless.”
“I agree.”
“Director, I find it very strange that the IRA is employing mercenaries.”
MacJory stared at Bolan strangely and then snapped her poker face back on. Bolan pretended to ignore the slip as Finch continued.
“It is indeed odd. It goes completely against their method of operation. By nature, mercenaries work for money and historically are notorious for switching sides. The terrorist wing of the IRA chooses its members for their absolute loyalty. They would never entrust any kind of sensitive operation to outsiders.”
“So someone else is in the game.”
“So it would appear.”
“Any ideas?”
“None whatsoever. The appearance of mercenaries in this situation is positively anomalous.”
“What’s their legal status, currently?”
“Well, their visas and passports are in order, and while they weren’t guests of the hotel there is currently no law in England against being beaten to a pulp in a hallway. However, we did find three automatic weapons on the premises. They are currently being held on suspicion and possible weapons charges.” Finch’s voice went slightly dry with sarcasm. “Since you took the liberty of kidnapping Miss MacJory, I suspect any evidence concerning her will be inadmissible in an English court of law.”
“Yeah, I figured.”
“So what do you intend to do with her?”
Bolan raised the BXP. “Shoot her.”
MacJory started in her seat.
Finch shouted in alarm. “You can’t—” Bolan clicked his phone shut and stepped forward. MacJory cringed as far as her restraints would let her. Bolan pressed the muzzle of the BXP between her eyebrows and pinned her head to the back of the chair like an insect.
“You’re of no more use to me.”
“No!”
The safety clicked off beneath Bolan’s thumb with grim finality.
MacJory screamed. “Please!”
“Who do you work for!” Bolan roared.
The woman shook her head, crying. “I don’t know!”
“You’ve got five seconds.”
“Please—”
Bolan knew MacJory’s type. She wasn’t a terrorist. She was a genius. Breaking code and committing crimes in cyberspace was a game to her. Even after her conviction, she still didn’t believe she had done anything wrong. He wouldn’t shoot her, but he had to make her believe he would.
Nothing had prepared her for gutter-level, get-your-hands-dirty fieldwork.
“One…”
“Please!”
“Two…”
“I don’t know who I work for!”
“You’re working for the IRA. You’re a traitor to the U.K. Three.”
“I didn’t know!”
“Four…”
“I don’t know anything about the IRA!” The woman wept uncontrollably. “I swear it!”
Bolan read her body language and pulled the gun back. MacJory started to suck in a breath of relief and gave a strangled shriek as Bolan fired a burst into the ceiling. Plaster rained down on her, and he aimed the weapon at her again. “Okay, you’re a merc. Who brokered the deal? Who pays you?”
She shuddered with her betrayal. “Aegis…”
Bolan cocked his head slightly. “Aegis Global Security?”
“Yes! I swear! I freelance for Aegis!”
That was not good news. Aegis was one of the oldest, and in the controversial world of executive VIP protection, military advisement and “solutions by other means,” Aegis Global Security was one of the most respected.
Bolan clicked his phone open. Finch picked up midring. “Jesus, bloody—”
“She’s still alive and unharmed. She freelances for Aegis. I suspect the other three are permanent men on the roster.”
Finch was flabbergasted. “Aegis Global Security?”
“That seems to be the situation.”
“Not good.”
“No, it’s not. I’m going to turn Miss MacJory loose in a couple of hours, and I’ll let you know where you can find her.”
“Listen, I need you to—”
Bolan clicked off and went back to his computer. “You get all that?”
Kurtzman nodded. “Oh, yeah.”
“Get me everything you can on Aegis.” Bolan already knew a lot about it. “Where’s David McCarter?”
“You’ve got a bit of luck there. He’s in the U.K. right now visiting family.”
Bolan nodded. “I need him.”
Guernsey, The Channel Isles
“RED-HOT WILLY.” David McCarter stared at Bolan accusingly as he drove the Land Rover over the bleak, bumpy countryside of the island. “You know the man’s a bloody legend.”
Bolan glanced off across the gray chop of the English Channel toward Normandy. “Red-Hot” Willy was indeed a legend. The man’s biography read like an adventure novel. A television series on the BBC and two lines of pulp fiction paperbacks had been loosely based on his life. Just about anyone who had ever been in the military community had heard of Colonel William Glen-Patrick. However in England, formally, he was Lord William Glen-Patrick. The Glen-Patrick line had held the title of baron in England since the Middle Ages. Like a Dickens novel, little Lord Willy had been orphaned at the age of five when his parents had crashed their Lotus Elan into the wall of a cattle enclosure. The executors of his estate had been unscrupulous and absconded with the greater part of the family fortune, and by the time Willy had reached the age of seventeen the Glen-Patrick family had been bankrupt. Unable to pay his taxes, Lord William had sold the family castle and estates and used his family name to wangle a commission in the Life Guards, the most senior regiment in the British Army. He had served with distinction in Aden and Borneo and become the British army welterweight boxing champion. In the late 1970s he had joined the SAS, being one of the few members of the English peerage to ever successfully qualify and serve in English Special Forces. During the Falkland Island
