The Executioner's Game Read Online Free PDF Page A

over it and moved to let him onto the elevator. The car went down one floor to the first basement.
    Luther got out of the car and walked to the reception area. The room looked innocent enough, like any business lobby, but if there was a security “situation,” the room would lock the one door and the back entrance to the main facility, turning it into a little prison cell.
    In the middle of the small lobby, at a dark mahogany desk, sat a sour-faced woman in her fifties. She did not look up as Luther walked up to her.
    â€œGood morning, Adelaide,” said Luther. “Nice to see you again.”
    Adelaide raised her head, and Luther could see that she was hunched over a small computer. Her pale blue eyes appeared large behind her glasses. “Back already?” she asked. “I thought we were rid of you, Green.”
    â€œI’ve been gone for two years.” Luther smiled down at her.
    â€œSeems like yesterday to me. I guess I’m getting older. Time gets shorter, and then one day it stops, because you’re dead.”
    â€œWhy are you stalling?” he asked Adelaide.
    â€œSmart boy,” she said. “We’re doing longer security checks. We had a little terrorist trouble in New York. Maybe you heard aboutit while you were over there in that country with the free dope and hookers.”
    â€œIt’s not free. It’s just legal, and I wasn’t in that country,” said Luther.
    Adelaide Gibson had been one of their best field agents in the seventies. Back then she was a stunning beauty, a brunette with long legs and an infectious smile.
    Her story was legend in E-1. Adelaide had been on assignment in Africa when the warring nations were causing a potential imbalance in the Cold War. Both the communist powers and the United States were trying to sway African nations their way, or at best keep them fighting so that their influence was nugatory.
    Adelaide’s husband, Mark, was a regular CIA agent who’d been sent to Africa a year before on a special assignment. When Adelaide got there, she found he had been corrupted by a communist-backed regime. Mark asked her to join him in taking the money and looking the other way, and she agreed, just long enough to turn him in, along with the entire group.
    Adelaide’s husband was convicted of treason and several other crimes. Mark Gibson couldn’t live with the ruin of his life, so he committed suicide in prison. Adelaide had stood by him during his ordeal, but after he died, she quietly had a nervous breakdown and then retired from field duty. Now she sat at a desk, made a decent salary, and worked the controls of the second security station at E-1.
    â€œSo there’s been whispering about you,” she said. “I hope it’s good.”
    â€œMe, too,” said Luther.
    â€œOuter doors secure. Inner online,” said Adelaide. “Three seconds.”
    The doors at the rear of the lobby opened. Luther said goodbye to Adelaide and walked through.
    Inside Security Station Two, Luther was faced with a large metal detector and guards dressed in the classic bland dark suits. Luther stood behind a glass wall made of thick, attack-proof glass and waited.
    He said hello to everyone, and he could see that Adelaide was right. They’d all obviously been talking about him. They had that look in their eyes that something was being hidden.
    Luther took out his sidearm, the Walther P99, and placed it in the gun chute. All E-1 agents chose their own sidearms. He liked the P99 because of its lightweight polymer frame and the recoil compensator that steadied it when he fired. It was much like an agent, an efficient killer.
    Luther stood in front of a small scanner and placed his hand on it. The machine scanned his hand-and fingerprints.
    â€œCome on in, Agent Green,” said one of the guards. “Welcome back, sir.”
    The security door opened, and Luther went inside. He retrieved his P99 and then