-17-

            Pearson shifted his weight from one foot to the other, eyes wandering around the brightly lighted room.  He stood nervously in the quiet boardroom, surrounded by people whose power was beyond his understanding.  The man behind him, Monk, had the bone crushing power of a giant mountain gorilla.  Pearson had killed for money, but from the stories he had heard, Monk liked to kill men just for fun.  The guy standing beside Pearson was cool and indifferent.  Yet he had the power to move men and women like pieces on a chessboard, trading what they wanted for what they were able, and willing to do.  Stone was no fighter, but he had a history of toppling governments and creating wars.

            Each of them was dangerous in his own way, but only the man behind the desk gave Pearson chills.  He was short, with thick stubby fingers and a pockmarked face, yet a pulsing aura of power surrounded him.  Here, in Pearson’s eyes, was a prime mover, a basic elemental force.  He had the ultimate power, the kind that comes from wealth and position.  He could have anyone in the room killed with a snap of his fingers.  Pearson saw nothing in his eyes but greed.  This was Adrian Seagrave, and his kind of power you just did not fool with.

            “So, tell Mister Seagrave what you told me over the phone,” Stone said.  “Explain to your benefactor just why it was that you failed him.”

            “Well, sir,” Pearson began, pausing to clear his throat.  “We were sent on a simple hit, Shaw and me, to take care of a girl thief.  Stone told me she was a loner.  We set it up real easy, waiting for her in her apartment.  Figured to make it a clean hit, look like a burglary, right?  Then, all of a sudden, there’s this big black guy comes crashing in, blasting away like a goddam war was going on.  He blew Shaw away, just like that.  I was lucky to get out alive.  This Stark character, he’s crazy.  I figured I wasn’t getting paid to deal with that kind of action.  So I thought I ought to call in for instructions.  Stone told me to get here on the double.”

            “And well he did,” Seagrave said.  “Very good.”  Despite his words of praise, Seagrave’s face remained completely neutral.  He leaned back in his desk chair, forming a tent with his fingers.  “Please step over to the bar, Mister Pearson.  Help yourself to whatever you like.”  Pearson nodded, forced a smile, and gratefully slipped over to the other side of the room.  He tried to listen in on the conversation behind him.  Seagrave seemed relaxed and seemed to have forgotten Pearson existed, his attention now focused on Stone.

            “You have a reason for bothering me with this detail?”

            “I thought you should hear it first hand, from the source,” Stone said.

            “Is this a problem?”

            “In my opinion, yes,” Stone answered.

            “Why?”

            “The woman is determined,” Stone said.  “And somehow, she has found herself some very effective assistance.”

            “So it would appear.  Who is this man?”

            “Morgan Stark.  It is a name you should remember,” Stone said, daring to lock eyes with his superior.  “He led the team on that Belize mission for you.  As you will recall, we left him in the jungle, without transportation, surrounded by a hostile army, hundreds of miles from any kind of support.”

            Seagrave’s brows knitted over his tiny eyes.  “And he survived?”

            “Let me tell you about this man Stark.”  Stone paused for emphasis, closing his eyes as if he were searched his mental files, composing words in order to say a great deal as briefly as possible.  “He’s strong, tough and fast.  Tactically sharp and experienced.  An agile, quick thinking professional soldier, with great endurance, a high level of skill and seemingly infallible instincts.”

            “You are impressed by this man.”  Seagrave pulled a cigarette from a gold case.

            “I’ve been dealing with mercenaries, professional killers and hired muscle for a long time,” Stone said.  “I can verify that Shaw and Pearson were definitely overmatched.  This man is the best survivor I’ve ever seen.  And he just might be the most dangerous man I know.”

            “Second most dangerous,” Monk said, his low, raspy voice coming from behind Stone.

            “Perhaps,” Stone said, not turning around.

            “And the girl?”  Seagrave asked, lighting his cigarette with a large standing lighter from the desk.

            “About the girl, little is known,” Stone said.  “However, I can tell you that she has amassed a sizable fortune as a jewel and art thief without ever once being arrested.  And if Stark respects her, then so do I.”

            Seagrave shrugged and blew a thick cloud of smoke at the ceiling.  “These people are both for sale.  Pay them off.”

            “I don’t think so, sir.  They will want full payment for their jobs, plus an additional settlement for the attempt on the girl’s life.  Even if you considered that price acceptable, you expose yourself to future extortion from contractors if you submit.”

            Seagrave lowered his eyes and nodded.  “Recommendation?”

            “In my opinion,” Stone said, “these people should be eliminated with all possible dispatch.  One dangerous man and one determined woman have been enough to topple empires in the past.”

            “Well put, Stone.”  Seagrave stood, and paced for a moment behind his desk with his hands locked behind his back.  On one circuit he glanced at Pearson, who smiled back and downed his drink quickly.  “Surely they’ve left the girl’s apartment by now,” he told Stone in a quiet voice.  “Based on your input they must both have secure hiding places.  How are we to find them?”

            “Based on my knowledge of them, we probably won’t, now that they’ve been alerted.  However, they’ll certainly be looking for me.  I was the contractor who hired them both.  And I’m quite sure that worm at the bar traded our location for his life.”

            “Hey, I didn’t tell them anything,” Pearson said, sliding off his bar stool.  Seagrave and Stone turned as if they had forgotten he was there.  Monk’s hand thumped down on Pearson’s shoulder, locking him in place.

            “I could alert the people on the street to look out for anyone who is looking for me,” Stone continued, ignoring Pearson’s outburst.  “Perhaps place a bounty on their heads, thereby turning every tout and petty gunsel in town into a walking death trap, a gantlet to be run on the way to me.”

            “Excellent, Stone.”  Seagrave beamed at his lieutenant.  “I’ll offer, what do you think, fifty?  All right, fifty thousand dollars to whoever takes care of this little problem for me.  Get to it right away.  Now call my secretary back in.  And finalize the details for our end of the month meeting.  And Monk...”

            “Yes sir?”  Monk grated out.

            “Take our guest downstairs and show him the way out,” Seagrave said with a smile.

            Monk prompted Pearson with a shove.  By the time they reached the door, Seagrave was back at work at his desk.  Stone was at the conference table end of the suite, using the telephone.  Monk escorted Pearson down the hall and into the elevator.

            Two stories below, the elevator stopped.  Wordlessly, Monk shoved Pearson out of the elevator car and into the room directly across the hall.  Pearson was about to ask what was going on.  When Monk entered, locking the door behind him, all doubt was eliminated.

            Pearson glanced around the room.  It was dimly lit, maybe fifteen by twenty feet.  The room had no windows, no other doors and no furniture.  The single door had no knob or lever, just a slot in the lock plate to accept an electronic pass card.  The silence implied a soundproof room, although Pearson’s footsteps echoed coldly around him in it.  The stains on the cinder block walls looked like dried blood, and the air carried the musty smell of the crypt.  A horizontal bar on the wall to the far left looked like it could be the handle to open a small chute, like the incinerator door in his first apartment.

            A most vicious terror seized his heart.  He had expected to be roughed up for his failure, maybe have a bone broken.  Now he realized he had outlived his usefulness to Stone.  Monk was not here to punish him, but to dispose of him.  And he knew it would hardly be a fight.  There was no question in his mind that this brute would certainly kill him.  But maybe with luck, he could take an eye, or an ear, or something.

            With a speed born of desperation, Pearson spun a powerful right cross into Monk’s face.  He was following it up with a claw hand blow before he realized how badly his knuckles were hurt.  Monk clamped the incoming left in his own ham-like hand inches before it reached his face.

            Shock dragged despair into Pearson’s heart.  He had expected Monk to be inhumanly strong, but who would have guessed he was so fast?

            That was Pearson’s last coherent thought. 

Monk casually twisted Pearson’s wrist until the bone splintered.  Pearson battered impotently at him with his good fist until Monk slapped him on the side of his head, sending him sprawling.  Pearson lay dazed until Monk reached down, wrapped a hand around Pearson’s right leg just below his knee and lifted him into the air.  While Pearson hung helplessly, Monk shifted his grip so he could get both hands wrapped around one thigh.  He put his thumbs together, pushing out in the same direction.

            Monk was not a sexual creature.  He used no drugs, and rarely did he drink.  He could barely read and certainly never would unless he had to.  He was not perceptive enough to enjoy most television or movies.  He did not even like music.  There was just one thing he really enjoyed.  The crack of bones breaking in a live body, that was his favorite sound.

            Pearson’s screams reverberated in the soundproof room, but they could not drown out the snap of his leg breaking.  His screams abruptly ended as the pain overwhelmed him and he passed out.

            Monk grinned at the breaking noise and shrugged when Pearson went limp.  For him, this was a pretty good one.  He had no bloody mess to clean up.  It was too bad that Pearson fainted after only one bone.  Monk would have preferred a longer experience.  But, since he stayed in one piece, disposal was easy.  Monk simply opened the incinerator hatch and stuffed Pearson down the chute head first.