Show No Mercy Read online

  “Shall we do some shopping?” Dane said.

  “I’d rather go back to bed.”

  Dane started to reply when an explosion rocked the mall.

  The ground seemed to rise and drop again with a violent jolt and knocked Dane and Nina off balance. Dane forced her to the ground. The Coke bottle and cigar went flying. Dane stayed on top of Nina for a moment. The ground shook again with another blast and smoke drifted skyward from the roof of the mall.

  The doors crashed open. People ran out screaming and when automatic weapons began popping. Dane rolled of Nina.

  “We should get out of here,” she said.

  “I’ll meet you back at the hotel.” Dane took out his gun.

  “Steve--”

  “Go if you want!”

  Dane charged forward, his face a mask of concentration, but he didn’t look back. He knew Nina was behind him.

  They plowed through the panicked shoppers and ran inside. The mall was two stories. Straight ahead was the upper walkway with a railing overlooking the bottom floor.

  The automatic weapons echoed through the mall, the noise mixing with screams. Bodies riddled with bullets already lined the walkway, some with loved ones wailing over them. Smoke and dust filled the air. The blast had sucked out most of the oxygen and it was hard to breathe. Victims covered with blood and dust staggered in a daze.

  Dane and Nina ran to the nearest victims, coaxing them to their feet and shoving them toward the exit with encouraging words about their loved ones. Dane grabbed a young woman by the shoulders and pulled her away from a fallen older male.

  “No! That’s my father!”

  “I’ll get him but you gotta get out of here!”

  Men with AKM automatic rifles emerged from the front of a store to the left. They raised their weapons. Dane shouted for her to get down, trying to push her in such a way as to shield her body, but she continued to struggle against him and the AKM muzzles flashed. The girl slammed into Dane’s chest as the 7.62x39 slugs smacked into her, her pleading eyes, big, brown and wide, on his, the flash of pain brief across her face as the gunmen’s slugs tore her apart. Both of them fell, Dane landing on his back with the girl’s dead body atop him. Her blood leaked onto his shirt. Nina screamed something. Dane rolled the girl of him and jumped to his feet with the Detonics .45 outstretched.

  6

  Dane’s first shot split open the head of one shooter. Blood and bone sprayed from his skull onto his partner, who snapped his head around. Before the second shooter brought around his AKM, two 9mm stingers from Nina’s S&W blasted out one eye and his two front teeth.

  Dane shot the third gunner, who died with his finger on the trigger. As he fell, the AKM swung up and hosed, bits of debris falling from the ceiling.

  Screams continued to echo.

  More shooting from the lower level. Nina ran forward and Dane rotated 360 degrees to check their back side before running after her.

  They’d be counted among the enemy when the cops arrived.

  But the ghosts of battles past urged Dane on. The pleading eyes of the dead girl forced him to continue.

  The mall stretched ahead of them at length, side halls with more shops branching off along the way. More people ran toward Dane and Nina as they advanced. They reacted in fright when they saw Dane’s gun. “We’re here to help!” he said. “Run for the exit! Police on the way, go!” He shoved them in the right direction, he and Nina weaving through the short rush. Then they sprinted headlong toward the gunners.

  The group of gunmen ran along the lower levels, blasting away. Dane braced on the rail. The .45 cracked in his hand, the gun spitting empty shells as fast as he pulled the trigger.

  Two gunners out of the dozen fell, their blood smearing the tiled floor. Another gunner, shifting his position, slipped in a puddle and landed hard on his side. Nina shot him twice. A handful of gunners broke off and ran. Dane noticed one wore a heavy backpack.

  He slapped a fresh mag into his gun.

  “Gotta get down there,” he said.

  “Escalators back the way we came.”

  Dane and Nina reversed. Along the way they holstered their pistols and helped themselves to AKMs from the first set of dead shooters.

  They reached the escalator in front of a Macy’s and ran down, the AKMs leveled ahead of them. Some of the gunmen rushed their way. None of them wore a pack. Nina reached the floor first and broke right for a sitting area, firing as she moved. The gunmen scattered for cover. Dane’s AKM hammered against his shoulder, the rounds tearing open a gunner’s chest.

  Dane advanced while Nina fired controlled bursts. Dane fired around the side of a kiosk. Gunmen scattered. More fell. Boots shuffled behind him. “Steve!” Dane whirled, swinging the butt stock of the AKM, slamming it into the face of a shooter sneaking up. As the shooter dropped, the muzzle of his weapon swung across Dane’s belly. He tackled the gunner as the muzzle flashed, the flame searing his shoulder. The burst flew wide. Dane and the gunner landed hard, Dane rising to straddle the shooter and fire two rounds point blank into his chest.

  Nina rushed over to him.

  “Try and get any stragglers out of here,” he said.

  “Where are you going?”

  “I have to find the guy with the backpack, it’s another bomb.”

  “There’s blood on your shirt!”

  “It’s not mine!”

  Nina watched her man run to the last spot he’d seen the shooter with the backpack.

  They’d been there too long already. Nina dropped the AKM and ran into the nearest shop.

  “Anybody--”

  A female cried out. Nina found three girls huddled in one corner, a male clerk under the counter. Nina gathered them to her and ushered them toward the nearest exit. She picked up a few strays along the way, trying to reassure them, but as they moved past dead and wounded along the way, she fell silent. There was no reassuring anybody in sight of the carnage.

  The lack of gunfire meant the shooters were neutralized or had fled.

  The JC Penny ahead was full of thick gray smoke. The target of the first two bombs. Dane ran to the Footlocker where he’d last seen the gunner with the backpack. Stopped short at a scrawl of red spray paint on a bare patch of wall.

  Graypoole Has Resurrected.

  No way.

  No way!

  The gunner ran out of the shoe store. No backpack anymore. Dane shot him in the face. Momentum carried the man forward some more but Dane was already running the other way. He dived and landed hard, sliding across the tiled floor to hut with a display of calendars, all torn up and tossed about. He scrambled behind cover and clamped both hands behind his neck. The explosion lifted him off the ground and slammed him down. He let out a yell, choking on smoke. He felt like he’d been punched in the gut. Gray smoke enveloped him.

  His ears ringing, the only sound the pounding of the pulse in his head, Dane pushed to his feet and fought his way on rubbery legs through the smoke. His eyes burned, he couldn’t breathe, but the graffiti flashed again through his mind.

  Graypoole Has Resurrected.

  Impossible!

  As he staggered into a shop and collapsed on the carpet, somebody screamed. Dane looked up. His vision blurred but he saw human shapes in front of him. They needed help. He shuffled to hands and knees and reached out for them. As their hands clutched his and he led them out, another thought flashed through his mind.

  What if Graypoole had?

  Dane’s vision started to clear as they neared the exit. The doors flung open and cops rushed in. Dane shouted there were still people hiding. Paramedics met him and his charges halfway out. A swarm of cop cars, fire engines and ambulances filled the street. Bystanders swarmed the area. Dane drifted away as the medics went to work.

  He found Nina sitting against a wall. She rushed into his arms.

  “We gotta scoot,” she said.

  “Too bad we didn’t bring the rental,” he said.

  “TV’s here.”
r />   “I’m more afraid of YouTube.”

  He leaned on her as they made their way through the chaos. Dane’s legs started to return to normal. They made it across the street and leaned against the corner of a building. Dane, head down, tried to catch his breath. Nina rubbed his back.

  “Steve,” she said.

  “Yeah?”

  “Across the street, by the light pole. Bald man, no eyebrows.”

  Dane raised his head. His vision was still a little funky but he spotted the man in question. Watching the carnage. To anybody else, he was another passerby. But not to Dane and Nina.

  “Hans Mueller,” he said.

  “Ready?”

  “Let’s take him.”

  7

  With Nina in the lead, they ran across the street. Mueller took off like a rabbit, pushing aside another couple. Dane and Nina dodged not only pedestrians but scattered debris, more light poles and shop sidewalk displays as Mueller knocked over anything in his path to block the way. Cracks in the sidewalk did not help Dane skidding around those obstacles to continue after his quarry. Mueller ran with his arms close to his body.

  Behind him, Nina shouted she was crossing to the other side of the street.

  Mueller leapt away from the curb, knocking over a man on a bicycle. Dane closed the gap. Mueller spun the bike around and started riding away, weaving around stopped cars. Dane slid across a hood, running between cars. Mueller pulled away, but not fast enough.

  Dane grabbed the back of Mueller’s coat, hauling him off the bicycle seat and slamming him onto the pavement. If anybody in the cars on the street were watching, Dane didn’t see them. Mueller jumped up, throwing a lazy punch and Dane blocked, slamming a fist into the German’s gut. Then Mueller wedged an elbow between them and smacked Dane in the jaw. Mueller shot his knee into Dane’s midsection, Dane grunting as the pain of the impact filled his body.

  Mueller ran, dodging bumpers, heading back toward the sidewalk. Nina yelled something as Dane clawed for his gun. He had to risk a shot. He lined up on Mueller’s back as he turned into the garage of a hotel, but a coughing fit seized him, his lungs burning. He bent over and retched.

  Dane straightened gasping as Nina ran up behind him.

  “Come on, Steve.”

  “I can get him.”

  “Steve!”

  “Let go of me, Nina!”

  “He’s gone! We have to get out of here!” she said.

  Dane looked ahead. More people were watching, cops shouting for the observers to get out of the way. The men in uniform were approaching from down the street. Nina was right.

  “Okay,” he said.

  She led him away.

  Every television at CIA headquarters was tuned to a news station showing the live feed of the Westfield Shopping Center terror attack in San Francisco. Headline: Terror by the Bay.

  In his office inside the Counter-Terror Division, Leonard Lukavina, sat behind his desk, eyes glued to the screen, not only upset about the attack but also the sensational headline at the bottom of the screen. He figured the network monkey who typed the words was probably very proud of himself.

  Lukavina let out a breath and refocused. His mind raced to organize the answers to the inevitable questions soon to come his way. The first question would be, “How did we miss this?”

  And the only answer Lukavina had at the moment was, “I don’t know.” The footage showed the exterior section of the mall, the black smoke still pouring from holes in the roof.

  Lukavina glanced at the mug of now-cold coffee on his desk while playing absently with his wedding ring. Was it too soon to call home and say he’d be a week late for dinner?

  Whoever carried out the attack had done so with exquisite planning and somehow managed to keep the communication between parties involved to a minimum. No informants had passed along any whisper of a strike, not even a thin rumor of the “I heard a guy who knows a guy who saw this guy who said he heard another guy say” variety. They’d had no warning.

  At forty-six, Lukavina had been managing the CTD for three years and the unit had a high track record of preventing catastrophes, but this was a what-have-you-done-for-me-lately position. The brass on the seventh floor would only want to know how he missed this one.

  He had been with the CIA for much longer than three years and had the marks to show for his experience. One side of his face appeared warped. The corner of one eye drooped and the lid didn’t move when he blinked and he had to cover the bad eye with a patch at night. Lukavina had been one of the agents on Steve Dane’s Blackhawk when it crashed and he was one of the last Dane pulled out of the wreckage before the chopper exploded. Lukavina took the most punishing blast of the explosion, nearly burning to death. So extensive had been the damage no amount of plastic surgery could fully erase the effects. The incident had forced his retirement from field work except on the rarest of occasions and on those occasions, he supervised from behind the scenes.

  A glass wall with a centered door divided his raised office from the bull pen beyond, where analysts and his second-in-command worked. The door swung open. Debra Sloane, his number two and the woman in charge of CTD field operations, entered. She was in her late 50s with a fleshy face with red cheeks. Her suit was rumpled compared to the precision pressing of Lukavina’s.

  “Hear from the seventh floor?” she said.

  Lukavina shook his head. “I’m dreading that call.”

  “We’re already going through the recent updates. Len, there was no chatter about this.”

  “Sleeper cell? Lone wolf?”

  “We are only guessing without hard data.”

  Lukavina cursed. Spinning wheels wasn’t going to get them anywhere.

  “Take a seat, Deb.”

  Debra found a chair near her boss’s desk. They watched the television. Cops evacuated survivors. Paramedics tended the wounded. Firemen poured water from high-pressure hoses into the fire.

  The shot changed to one of the Market Street entrance where the chaos and activity mirrored the other footage, but the wide angle showed periphery detail. The sight of one couple making their way from the scene made Lukavina sit up in his chair.

  He grabbed the TV remote and froze the picture.

  “Is that who I think it is?” Lukavina said.

  A man leaned on a woman. His head was down but she looked straight ahead. No mistaking her identity, even with the wide camera shot.

  Debra examined the screen but only shrugged. “Who do you think it is, Len?”

  “The woman is Nina Talikova. The man is Steve Dane. What are they doing there?”

  “He’s your friend. Why don’t you--”

  “I know, I know. I’ll ask him.”

  He’d have something to tell the boss on the 7th floor after all, but he had tougher questions for Dane. If he’d been there during the attack, did he have prior knowledge? It wasn’t like Dane to hold back from the authorities if he knew about a potential incident, but Dane wasn’t perfect, either. Perhaps he and Nina had tried to prevent the attack at the last minute.

  Either way, answers were forthcoming.

  The DCI finally called and asked Lukavina to come up to his office.

  Lukavina arrived within five minutes. He carried no files. Carlton Figg’s secretary showed him in without saying hello.

  Figg gestured to the chair in front of his desk. The desk sat in front of a wall displaying the CIA seal and an American flag. A wide window looking out on the crowded CIA parking lot and the green hills beyond took up one wall.

  As he eased into the chairs, Lukavina noticed a stack of glossy photos on Figg’s desk.

  Figg was much older than Lukavina, a former army general, still in possession of his hair, though it was mostly gray. Figg had been DCI since the start of the new administration two years earlier.

  “I don’t want your head, Len, just tell me what we missed.”

  “I don’t know. There’s been no indication we faced an imminent attack.”

 
; “We’re looking at two hundred casualties so far.”

  Figg handed Lukavina the pictures, but held one in reserve. Lukavina examined each photo. Police evidence shots. Shell casings marked. Bodies photographed. Some of the bodies had AKMs beside them.

  “We had a mystery shooter taking out the bad guys.”

  “I think I know who, sir. Steve Dane.”

  “Why wouldn’t he tell us if he had prior knowledge?”

  “I haven’t talked to him yet and I’d rather not speculate on an answer.”

  “Then we have this.”

  Figg handed over the last photo. It showed three words spray-painted on a wall.

  Lukavina let out a curse. “Well today,” he said, “keeps getting better.”

  “Graypoole is supposed to be dead,” Figg said.

  “Our people are supposed to discover attacks before they happen.”

  “Somebody else called the SFPD an hour after the bombing and said the same thing. ‘Graypoole has resurrected.’ Do we need a medium to find out what this means?”

  “His son.”

  “Who?”

  “Graypoole’s kid.”

  “Taking over?”

  “Best on-the-fly analysis I can offer, sir.”

  “Was he ever a suspect before?”

  “Never. They were actually estranged. Junior stayed with his mother after she divorced the father.”

  “Why did she divorce him?”

  “Didn’t agree with his guerilla campaign. Graypoole released a manifesto announcing a war on capitalism. He started by murdering the top three CEOs listed in Fortune 500. Then he moved on to the club bombing in Geneva that killed fifty people, including four Marines. Our best intelligence at the time said the family wanted nothing to do with him, so they moved as far away as they could.”

  “Did we question the wife?”

  “She gave us what she could. The son was a minor at the time. Graypoole still supported them, of course. Set up a trust-fund for the boy. Junior spent a lot of his father's money, typical playboy lifestyle. We watched him from time to time but he never showed any inclination to continuing his father’s campaign.” Lukavina offered a weak shrug. “I’m as surprised as you, sir.”