LITMIR.BIZ

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drained the last drop from the bottle, then let it fall to the mattress. Head swimming, he unzipped the duffel bag at his feet and took out the .44 Magnum his dad had given him when he hired on with MWL.

      “Keep it loaded and never point it at anyone you’re not willing to watch die,” his dad had said in a steely voice Elliot had never heard before.

      Even as he slipped the barrel between his lips, he grieved a little when he thought about how upset Pop would be if he ever found out it was his gun that had fired the bullet into his son’s brain.

      Elliot closed his eyes and his finger tightened on the trigger.

      Washington, D.C.

      The tall, white-haired gentleman with chiseled features, close-cropped white beard and military bearing who stepped from the elevator of the historic Willard Hotel and turned left was familiar with the agony of war and the sorrow of its innocent victims.

      Though he no longer wore the olive drab of the U.S. Army, seventy-year-old Jonathan Dalton’s dedication to peace and freedom for all was still the abiding force in his life. To that end, a few years after resigning his commission he had begun using his skills and training to aid victims of abuse and oppression all over the world.

      One by one he had recruited others to this same cause, fellow warriors with expertise in a wide range of fields, from medicine to demolition—men he trusted with his life and his honor, men willing to lay down their lives to make the world a better place.

      For a long time there had been only five, an elite force of tough, dedicated commandos who had been sadly disillusioned after the Vietnam War. Few knew of their existence, and those who did had been sworn to secrecy as a condition of receiving their help. One of the few, a forward-thinking leader of an emerging nation in South America, had given them the name by which they were now known—the Noble Men—after they had successfully thwarted the overthrow of his government by dissidents.

      Over the years others had joined the cause, good and valiant men all. As the original five men became more deeply involved in raising families and building businesses, they’d gone on fewer missions. Still deeply involved, however, the original five conscientiously considered every plea for help, accepting more than they declined.

      Scattered across the continental U.S. now, where each had lucrative business and investment interests, they routinely communicated by secure phone lines and e-mail when security wasn’t crucial. But this mission was special.

      King Marcus Sebastiani of Montebello was both a friend and, because of a past mission in his own land, a fellow comrade-in-arms. It had been his urgent, though rushed, telephone call to Jonathan’s private line at his Texas home yesterday morning that had brought the five Noble Men together tonight.

      The room Jonathan sought was at the end of a dogleg corridor. Unlike the others he passed, its twin doors were unmarked. Officially, it was listed on the hotel’s roster as a house suite held in reserve for unexpected VIP guests. Occasionally it was even used for that purpose. Far more often, however, the three rooms beyond those doors served as a meeting place for some very hush-hush groups known only to a select few, extremely senior officials in the uppermost echelons of the intelligence community.

      Satisfied that he was unobserved, Jonathan lifted a large, suntanned hand and rapped twice. An instant later, the door opened a crack, and he found himself facing a grim-looking man holding a Glock .45 pointed directly at his belly.

      Chapter 3

      “Get your butt in here, Dalton, and stop glaring at me.”

      A captain in the U.S. Navy when he’d resigned his commission after the Vietnam War, Richard Sutter held the highest rank of the five Noble Men. In an organization as closely knit as this one, rank was a meaningless technicality, but Sutter took gleeful delight in needling his colleagues just for the fun of it. In retaliation, Jonathan and the rest of the guys ruthlessly ragged Sutter about his expanding gut.

      A few inches shorter than Jonathan’s six-foot-one, with stubble-short salt-and-pepper hair, shrewd blue eyes and an imperious way of biting off his words, Richard had been instrumental in amassing the diverse flotilla of vessels available to their operatives all over the world at virtually a moment’s notice.

      “Hell of a lousy way to welcome a man who saved your butt more than once, Sutter,” Jonathan growled as Richard tucked his pistol into the hollow of his spine before stepping back to allow him to enter.

      In his early sixties now, the ex-captain showed few physical signs of the torturous ordeal he’d suffered after being captured during one of the missions undertaken by the group. Jonathan suspected the wounds to Richard’s psyche still troubled him on occasion, but then, all of them had scars that didn’t show.

      “Just following standard operating procedure, Major,” Sutter replied with one of his rare-as-hen’s-teeth grins as they exchanged a fond handshake. “Want a beer, old man?”

      Jonathan shot him a sardonic look. “Does a hound dog hunt?”

      “Roger that,” Sutter snapped as he headed for the wet bar built into one corner of the suite’s living room.

      At the same time, Jonathan swept his surroundings with trained eyes, memorizing exits, windows and then finally the layout of the room. More important than the spiffy furnishings, however, was the total privacy the suite offered, as well as the secure communications system.

      “Fetch me another brewski while you’re at it, Cap’n,” Edward Ramsey called as he rose from one of the silver-and-blue sofas flanking a large chrome-and-glass coffee table. A solid brick of a man of medium height—and an air force major before he’d left the service—Eddie had been a top gun before that particular term had become public property. In his early sixties now, he reminded Jonathan of a feisty bulldog who still had more fight in him that most men had in their prime.

      “Good to see you, Johnny,” Eddie said as they shook hands.

      Jonathan grunted. “Heard your son’s making a name for himself in the skies over the Mediterranean. Flying the F-18 now, isn’t he?”

      “He’s getting the job done, yeah.” Despite the unassuming words, pride glinted in Ramsey’s gray eyes, the same pride Jonathan suspected showed in his own whenever someone mentioned his own son, Jack. Not that Jack would believe that, however.

      “Ah, c’mon, Eddie, we’re all friends here,” Dr. Gordon Hunter exclaimed as he, too, got to his feet in order to greet the most recent arrival. “If you can’t brag about your kids here, where else can you?” Though Gordo’s pride in his own son, Elliot, had always been obvious to all, Jonathan knew that Doc had lost a lot of sleep lately, worrying about his firstborn.

      “How’s it going, Gordo?” Jonathan asked as they shook hands.

      An inch or so under six feet, with intelligent gray-green eyes behind studious-looking glasses, Doc Hunter had served his country as a field surgeon in Vietnam. Leaner than most, Doc had a wiry strength that had surprised more than one opponent during past operations.

      “I tell you, J.D., if I was any better, I’d be perfect,” he said with that slow mischievous grin that both charmed and disarmed—the same grin Jonathan remembered seeing on Elliot in the days before the boy’s life had been blown apart.

      “Modest as always, I see, Doc,” Richard interjected as Eddie handed him a long-necked bottle of the murky Ecuadorian beer he’d discovered during a mission to that country in the late eighties.

      “What’d you do, J.D., ride one of your precious cutting horses up here from Texas?” The question came from behind, triggering an instant jolt of adrenaline. In the field, Jonathan would have already dropped and rolled, his weapon drawn and ready. Fortunately, he recognized the deep voice with its distinctive Southwestern twang and allowed himself a grin.

      “Nope, took that little bitty Gulfstream I picked up a few months back for weekend trips.”

      “Damn, and here I was thinkin’ you’d slowed down some.”

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