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  DIABLO

  A Nick Swann Thriller

  James Kent

  Copyright © 2019 by James Kent

  James Kent reserves the right to be identified as the sole author of this work.

  This book, or any portion thereof,

  may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever

  without the express written permission of the author

  except for brief quotations under ‘fair use’ norms, or in a book review.

  The author may be contacted at [email protected]

  Published by Kindle Direct Publishing.

  Amazon.com

  Printed in the United States of America

  First Printing, 2019

  Cover design by Dawné Dominique; DuskTilDawnDesigns https://www.dusktildawndesigns.com

  *

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses and the main events are the products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. However, some of the background incidents described are based accurately on actual episodes in the life of the author’s father.

  For Clare

  Contents

  Prologue

  PART I

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  PART II

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  32

  33

  34

  35

  36

  37

  38

  39

  40

  41

  42

  43

  44

  45

  46

  47

  48

  49

  50

  51

  52

  53

  54

  55

  56

  57

  58

  59

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Ideas outlive the man, who dies -

  Forgotten in the Rivers of Time;

  His tempests and torrents and dust storms of lies,

  Are swept away on the Ancient Tide

  Prologue

  Nick Swann dodged a silver bullet.

  He narrowly missed being turned into the man he was supposed to be, the kind of man his dear old Mom had carefully groomed him for. She’d set him up for the priesthood, of all things, from the moment he was born. No one knows why. Maybe it was some kind of sick joke. But, as she clutched her rosary beads like a bird of prey and stared down into his black-granite eyes, she imagined that Swann was destined to be a nice guy who wouldn’t harm a fly. She believed he was destined to preach peace from the pulpit. What the hell was she thinking?

  Swann was born with a charcoal soul. Period. Just like his old man. He’s a cynic and anything but politically correct. Suspicious of everything. He was born with a scowl and a bad attitude. When trying to put a finger on what Swann is like today, his few friends scratch their heads and say, “Well, he’s kinda nasty and doesn’t fit . . . he’s like a square wheel, or a straight banana. Who the hell want’s a straight banana?”

  Good question.

  The problem for Swann is that he has no filter and he doesn’t give a damn about it. “I’m not here to save the world pal! I’m here to bust heads!” he said once at a job interview, “I’m a ‘shoot first and ask questions never’ kind of guy”.

  Needless to say, he didn’t get the job as the Sheriff’s deputy.

  Whatever. Perhaps he dodged another bullet like the one his dear old mother had fired. Instead of wearing the white vestments of a priest or singing cloyingly sweet mantras like the choir boy she had hoped for, Swann wears Kevlar and black fatigues, tactical gloves and combat boots; or jeans and a leather jacket that conceals a shoulder holster. He's a ‘fire and forget’ missile secretly employed by the Government on contract . . . "You just set him loose on some poor bastard’s ass and let Nature take its course," they say. He whispers his unique creed of justice into the ears of his victims, up close and personal.

  * *

  Nick Swann is at home in the wilds and the wilderness, with the bugs and the mud, the rocks and the desert. It’s said that he can identify birds from the splatter shape of their white droppings, that he’s a scorpion and spider whisperer and that he can hear you think. He has what the Germans call fingerspitzengefühl . . . he knows what you’re going to do before you know yourself. Who knows if it’s true? Perhaps it’s just another legend that grew up around him. But one thing is certain: he gets restless when he’s not breaking something that needs to be broken, like some villain’s fingers perhaps, or putting an end to some gangster's career with a nine-millimeter automatic. He was born to even scores and solve dirty problems that no one else wants to be soiled by. He cleans up the detritus, the dregs and the filth of the criminal underworld, so he found his niche as a hitman. Some who know him call him a vigilante, an assassin with his own code of ethics.

  He’s a phantom. Off the books. A specter who can reach out and touch his enemy on the shoulder like the Grim Reaper. He strikes from the hot, sun-baked open country; the crack of a Lapua magnum round arriving at high velocity. Or he comes silently in the dark of night like a fiend with a cold blade. A force of Nature. The bogeyman. Once he has picked up his enemy's scent, he becomes as a ravening wolf on the hunt for their blood, utterly tenacious and completely ruthless.

  Swann flies like his enemies. Under the radar. He isn’t looking for trouble, but if trouble comes looking for him, he won’t be hard to find.

  *

  PART I

  1

  Woodland Hills, California. Present day

  Get lost!

  His phone pinged at 6:04am.

  Swann ignored it.

  Two minutes later it pinged again.

  Swann ignored it again, like he usually does when he doesn’t give a damn. Why does he leave it on then? Why not just turn it off? Swann knew the answer to that. Three minutes later again it pinged. Shit on it! he thought to himself. He looked at his watch. Who the hell rings at six am?

  Swann untangled himself from the woman he’d met the day before, at a bar where he’d been minding his own business, enjoying a fine Japanese whiskey. But, just like hers the night before, his phone demanded attention, so he extricated himself from her, from Lucy.

  Or was it “Lucinda”? Or “Lilliana”? Something like that. He had a cousin named Lillian who had issues, but it wasn’t that. Or was it? He didn’t quite catch it. Or perhaps he’d just forgotten it straight after she’d told him because he was distracted by her . . . Whatever. But he liked her. He liked her a lot. Last thing he needed right now was to be hassled by the boys downtown. He’d figure her name out later, if she was still here. He’d be sly about it, maybe see if he could get a glimpse of her ID or driver’s license. Or Green Card. It’s bad form to forget a woman’s name after you’ve just slept with her. Who does that? Losers do that.

  His phone pinged again. He couldn’t ignore it anymore. Swann reached for it. ‘Shit!’ he said to himself again as he read the messages, now four all saying the exact same thing, a four-digit code, “2868,” that meant only one thing. They had an urgent job for him; a wet job no doubt. It usually was. Either that or it ended
up wet because things didn’t always work out. Things often turned sour, to put it mildly. Especially when Simms was involved which he probably would be. Blood and guts. That’s what “wet” means in this business. Calling it “wet” is a vain attempt to polish a turd. It is what it is.

  But the messages also meant get your lazy ass out of the sack and down here now! Why it couldn’t wait was anybody’s guess. But really, he knew the answer to that too so he sent an acknowledgement that he’d seen the message. Otherwise his damned phone would keep on pinging every two or three minutes until he did.

  Swann got up, showered and shaved. He checked himself in the bathroom mirror, saw the ugly scar under his left eye that always reminded him of the fight he’d had in first grade when some kid, whose name he’d long since forgotten, threw a stapler at him. He threw on his casuals and his rugged kick-your-ass boots, tying them in the dark so as not to disturb Lucy (or was it Lucinda? or Lidia?). She stirred and went back to sleep. Swann left a short note for her on the dresser, not mentioning her by name of course because he couldn’t quite remember it, but saying he would explain later; that is if she was still here. He’d send her a text. Probably.

  His mail, comprising bills and other items, was still lying on the benchtop, but all face down beneath a chopping board with a toaster on top, as a precaution the night before, so he locked it all away in case she went snooping while he was out. He downed a strong coffee, a bit cold and made from the dregs from the night before, but pepped with a large spoonful of fresh grounds. A power boost to match his boots.

  Swann hit the road to the office at the Wilshire Federal Building in Sawtelle, L.A. where the law never sleeps. Neither does crime, he thought. Or rust. Or rising damp. It would take him half an hour to get there even at this time of the morning, taking the Ventura Freeway, even in his matte-black Ford F150 Raptor with the wide, gnarly mud tires on. Why did it still have the mud tires on it? he wondered. He’d meant to swap them out with the inner-city road ones after the last (wet) job in Arkansas two months ago. But they’ll do for now. Good to go, he thought. ‘Jeez, Swann, you need to get a grip!’ he whispered to himself as he looked in the rear-view mirror. Two months of living like a highly-paid bum turned you into one.

  Lavinia! That was it!

  Thirty-five minutes later, he pulled into the Federal underground parking lot. He parked beside one of the ubiquitous black SUVs and headed for the main internal entrance, accessed by secure elevator. He swiped his card and walked in through security before heading for Suite 1700, the FBI offices. He still looked a mess, his “burnt sand” hair unkempt, hanging about his ears. He didn’t care. No one seems to be able to put a finger on what color his hair is, so they say “well, it’s like . . . it’s like sand that’s been burned or something”, whatever the hell that means. If he’d had more time, he would have tidied it. Or not. A vain attempt at presentation. Not his forte. Not since he left the military in a shower of sparks after having been court-martialed on some trumped-up charge of striking an off-duty senior officer. A colonel no less. Colonel Millard Case. A name Swann vowed never to forget. But at the time, he didn’t know him from a bar of soap. He was just some random asshole who had been pestering some random girl at a bar in downtown Berlin. She didn’t appreciate his drunken attempts to pick her up and kept flicking him off, but he refused to get the hint and became rough and abusive. Swann being Swann, he decided to step in on the girl’s behalf and sort it out. Some things you can’t ignore, and a guy hassling a girl, getting physical with her, is one of them. Things went south very rapidly after that, that is after Swann broke two of the guy’s fingers and left him moaning on the floor with a concussion. And then he found out the guy was an Army officer on a fast career trajectory.

  After convalescing from his broken fingers and concussion, the officer in question decided he wouldn’t rest until Swann had been court-martialed and incarcerated. He won on the first point, at least as far as it going to trial, but not the second because there was enough doubt as to who was at fault and who had started the altercation. The case was tried under the auspices of the USACIDC, the United States Army Criminal Investigation Division Command at the US Marine Corps base in Quantico, Virginia. Nothing could be proved either way, so the case was dismissed and Swann allowed to go free. Meanwhile the officer risked facing charges himself of sexual misconduct, and assault of a civilian, if the girl decided to press it. He was keen then to drop all public accusations against Swann and let sleeping dogs lie. But still, Swann had “allegedly” struck a senior officer in a bar and that was something that couldn’t be allowed to slide regardless of the reason or provocation. The officer wanted him dishonorably discharged, but that wasn’t going to happen either. It was the colonel who had been pressured into hanging up his eagle insignia and finding another career path. He had become an embarrassment to the military who wanted the incident buried and forgotten. And he seemed to have a drinking problem. The officer then told Swann on the quiet that he wouldn’t rest until he had had his revenge. Swann laughed in his face, ‘Good luck with that, pal!’ he’d said, and walked away.

  But by the time of the incident, Swann had built up a solid reputation for solving difficult problems in the field – anything from dealing with enemy snipers to belligerent warlords in remote Godforsaken countries; warlords who were considered too hard to get to without employing a large army; too protected either by their harsh environments, or by armies of bodyguards. But problems like these were Swann’s proclivity, his flair. He thrived on the challenge and the danger, the grit and the dirt. He tended to get bored with anything less. In his opinion, such dangerous jobs were no different to the death-defying stunts of civilian adrenalin junkies who stare death in the face and wink back just for the hell of it, like the guys who run and jump untethered between the parapets and narrow ledges of skyscrapers, or who climb near-impossible rock faces without ropes or other safety aids. They thrive on the same adrenalin rush.

  Swann’s discharge from the military after the court-martial was a nuisance to his bosses who understood his foibles. They realized they were his strengths. People with his skillset didn’t come easy or cheap. And because it was clear he was acting honorably in defense of the female victim at least, the United States Government reluctantly decided to compromise; they decided to keep him on the pay roll by carrying out so-called “black ops” - dirty jobs that no one else wanted or who had the time and finances to devote the more traditional law enforcement agencies to doing. It was easier and cheaper to set Swann loose. His talents would have been wasted in Leavenworth prison if the officer with the concussion had gotten his way. So, it was decided that he would “disappear”. He was officially registered (and generously paid) as a “high level consultant”, the definition of which was broad enough to muddy the waters for any busybody who got too close. The only problem was that Millard Case also knew that such a deal had been concocted and that Swann was out there somewhere on the loose. And that bothered Case. Nevertheless, Swann melted into the background. He could now fly under the official radar while employing his considerable skills for the benefit of federal agencies directly and the public indirectly. And if he didn’t make it back in one piece, well then justice would have been served as far as the officer with the two broken fingers was concerned. Problem solved. But how likely was that?

  Long story short, Swann no longer needed to keep his hair neat and crisp.

  Swann passed through another security cordon, another scanner, signed in with the Duty Officer then he knocked on the outer office door of the Joint Regional Intelligence Centre, the JRIC, established in 2006 by the FBI and local law enforcement departments to share intelligence on organized crime in the State, especially in and around Los Angeles, but also further afield. It was run by the sinister Senior Agent in Charge, Sylvanus Spencer Simms. His parents must have had a sick sense of humor, thought Swann . . . the sibilance is enough to give you a headache. He had set up a highly secret, independent division called the Rea
per Group, of which Swann was an itinerant member when and if he felt like it. Which wasn’t often. But he was a “perfect fit”, Simms had said when trying to convince him to join it a few years before. The group was part of what Simms referred to as “Operation Grim Reaper”; reminiscent of the infamous Star Chamber of the history books, where enemies of the State were brought to justice outside official channels because felons with deep pockets, or political influence, could too easily corrupt corruptible lawyers. And that happened far too often, in Simms’s opinion. Only a few hand-picked subordinates were in on it, all held to the utmost secrecy. Nothing was ever written down or recorded. And yet somehow, rumors of the existence of the Reaper Group percolated out amongst the ranks of the FBI and other agencies. Simms, however, strenuously denied having any knowledge of it.

  Despite his usual reluctance to get involved with individual cases, Swann had no problem with the overall concept. He believed that someone somewhere had to get their hands soiled amid the muck and the filth of society so that innocent civilians could sleep peacefully in their beds. End of story. The simplest of philosophies. Having said that, Sylvanus Simms always had to work hard to convince Swann to take on a job; ‘He’s a monumental pain in my ass, but unfortunately indispensable,’ he often said to himself.