Kodiak Sky

CHAPTER 43

Daniel Gadanz slumped down in the big chair, silver flask full of scotch in one hand, lighted Cuban cigar in the other. He’d gotten David Dorn, he’d killed the president of the United States, and put Troy Jensen through hell in the process. He’d even gotten the added bonus of Troy dying. Gadanz had gotten his revenge, but he still wasn’t satisfied.

And this damn thing in his head was going off constantly now.

He guzzled half the flask and then took a long drag on the cigar. At any moment that skull-splitting pain would explode again, and he was beginning to suspect that none of his two hundred billion dollars could do a damn thing about it.

Last night he’d cocked a pistol and put the barrel to his head. But in those moments with the cold steel pressed to his skull, he’d come to understand how much of a coward he was. Even drunk, he couldn’t pull the trigger.

Gadanz glanced up when the curtains that were drawn across the room’s lone doorway rustled.

A moment later a hooded figure slipped into the room. He assumed he was dreaming as the figure climbed the stairs up to his throne. How could this person have gotten past his security detail?

The figure stopped a few feet in front of him and pulled back the hood. He was surprised to see that she was a pretty young woman with dark hair, which was pulled off her shoulders to the back of her head.

“Who are you?” he whispered.

“The Angel of Death,” she answered.

He stared at her for several seconds, and then dropped the flask and the cigar, lifted himself from the chair, and knelt before her. “Thank God you’re here.”

“Who ran Operation Anarchy for you?”

“What?” he asked, glancing up at her.

“Who executed Operation Anarchy? Who brought all those assassins together?”

What did it matter if he gave away the identity of that man now? If he didn’t answer, perhaps she would go away without granting him his ultimate wish, something, it turned out, he was unable to do for himself.

“Liam Sterling,” he answered.

When Gadanz was dead, Skylar slipped his severed head into the bag she’d brought with her. Now she was going after Sterling.

When Sterling was dead, Jack would have closure. She’d promised that for him, and she kept her promises.