Slash and Burn (13 page)

Chapter 18

Larry Bolan could be mean in drink.

Whisky in particular brought out the animal in him.

He had anger issues when he was sober, let alone when the buzz of liquor was in his head. For that reason he had not touched a drop of alcohol in the last twelve years. Last time he’d downed a pint of JD, he and Trent had gone on a wrecking spree that saw three bars closed for renovation and six guys in hospital. One of the guys had never walked right afterwards and one lived on pureed meals for six months while his jaw went through reconstructive surgery. A cop took medical retirement – and gave up his dreams of fatherhood – when Larry flattened his testicles with a kick. It also got both Larry and Trent an eighteen-month stretch at the State Pen at Eddyville.

Drink had sent him inside. Drink had also killed his daddy. Larry did not drink again.

Until now.

Because the alcohol made him surly, he chose to drink alone. Down in the fancy restaurant he downed two fingers of Scotch in memory of his little brother. Then he drank another two, promising Trent that he’d be avenged. His next two fingers were just for the hell of it. After that he began to lose count.

Two fingers of whisky was nothing to a drinking man, but not many of them had fingers as thick as Larry Bolan’s. He looked down at his hands. He wished he’d just throttled the hell out of the Englishman, like he’d started to do. Another squeeze and his head would have popped right off. Trent would still be alive.

‘And I’d be fuckin’ sober.’

Larry placed his empty glass on the counter. He lifted the bottle of imported Aberlour Scotch whisky and saw that it was empty too. Eighty dollars a bottle – Huffman would just have to dock it from the blood money he’d promised to pay for Trent. Larry looked for another bottle from behind the bar. The bar was fancy. Polished walnut. Stain-free. Not at all like the bars where Larry and Trent hung out when they were younger. He didn’t recognise most of the brands of liquor arranged on the shelves. What the hell was wrong with stocking some good ol’ Kentucky sour mash? He stooped down, rooting under the walnut instead.

He heard the roar of an engine.

His ears were buzzing with the Aberlour.

But he recognised the sound.

The Grand Taurino.

Raising his head level with the bar top, he squinted towards the front of the restaurant. The specially coated windows made it difficult to see outside. All he could see was a wash of blazing light.

The engine roared louder.

‘You have got to be kidding me!’

The windows imploded, and the roaring Dodge followed the cascading glass, throwing aside tables and condiments and flower arrangements. The monster truck wasn’t held up by the furniture; it simply smashed it aside or ground it beneath its massive tyres. It came on.

Directly towards Larry.

Slowed by the liquor, he was caught in the awkward position of rising. Left or right, he couldn’t make a decision, and instead could only watch transfixed as the Dodge roared at him. The headlights were thrown to full beam and light also blazed from the rack on the cab. His hands came up in reflex, but his strength was no match for a monster truck. It smashed the walnut off its moorings, ramming the board backwards with decapitating tenacity. Larry went down amidst shattering glasses and bottles, experiencing a crushing weight that took away his senses faster than any amount of strong liquor could achieve.

Chapter 19

Men had died by my hand this night. I had held two men under a gun, then killed one of them when the situation degenerated out of control. I’d forcibly fought clear of a police attempt at taking me down. Shot at officers of the law. I’d kidnapped and – to all intents and purposes – tortured a sheriff. So, a little criminal damage was the least of my crimes.

Then again, the dollar value of this latest crime, plus the fact that the act could endanger life, put it firmly in the ‘first degree’ bracket, so maybe I was underplaying the fact that I’d just sent a vehicle through the front of a building. I wasn’t driving the Dodge Ram, but that wouldn’t mean a damn thing: I’d forced Sheriff Aitken into the act under duress.

Aitken hadn’t argued, but he wasn’t a willing driver. He only saw my crazy plan as a way of staying alive. I handcuffed him to the steering wheel. Then I jammed a wrench I found in the cab so that it wedged the gas pedal to the floor. Then I slipped the vehicle into drive, before clambering out the Dodge as it headed directly for the glass frontage like a blunt arrow aimed for the heart of Huffman’s empire. Aitken was under no illusion as to what would happen if he attempted to turn the vehicle away from its target.

Before the Dodge hit the restaurant front I was running, sprinting into a service alley between two buildings further along. I heard the muffled roar of the Dodge tearing up the restaurant. But I didn’t stop. I continued sprinting so that I came out on to the street at the back of le Cœur de la Ville. Without stopping I moved directly to the rear door and grabbed at the handle. Locked; but it would be.

Using the Magnum, I fired a round through the lock. Then one where the mechanism met the door frame. When I wrenched the handle this time, the door swung open, chunks of shattered metal tinkling beside my feet. Staring into a short but dark passage, I saw another door at the far end. I listened a moment. Bangs and crashes were sounding from the front of the building. I could have sworn that the floor trembled beneath my feet, but maybe that was only my body’s reaction as it was flooded with adrenalin. Freeing a hand by shoving the Magnum into my jeans, I pulled open the second door. Quick scan of the room, left, right, centre, and I saw only an empty kitchen. A muted nightlight was the sole source of illumination but it was enough. I moved into the kitchen, skirting a huge stainless-steel work surface, above which were hung all manner of pots and pans.

Aitken had described the interior well. The door at the right corner – a double swing-door set-up – let into the public dining area. I wasn’t interested in that door. The one I was looking for was in the opposite corner. Approaching it quickly, I opened the door and scanned the stairway that led up to the top floor.

There were other stairways inside the building. They were semi-public and gave access to the first-floor office space. To get to the uppermost floor, you had to traverse the offices to this end of the building and pick up this stairwell. Only this one went to the very top. Anyone fleeing the building from the uppermost floor would come down this way – particularly with the sounds of destruction emanating from the front of the building.

The truck had finally come to a halt, but not the engine, which continued screaming in anger as its forward plunge was stopped by something immovable. The crashing noise was furniture shifting as gravity fought the effects of chairs and tables being forced into unnatural positions. It made listening for anyone coming down the stairs difficult. I closed the door behind me, mounting the stairs. I kept my SIG close to my hip, barrel pointed upwards. That way there was less chance of the gun being knocked from my hand if anyone was waiting for me round any corners.

At the first landing I listened again. The noises from below were muted now. I heard the thrum of feet dashing across a floor above me. I peered up the stairwell. There was a light on at the top and I saw an amorphous shadow skitter across the wall. Someone was heading down.

A man rounded the twist in the stairs. Medium-sized man in shirt and trousers. Black shiny shoes. Short greying hair. He could have been anyone – an innocent employee of the restaurant – if not for the gun in his hand.

Seeing me, he blinked in surprise. Lines tightened at the corners of his mouth. He lifted the gun.

I fired before he did, from the hip. Because of the angle, my bullet caught him in the lower abdomen, punched out between his shoulder blades. The man’s face elongated. Then he toppled head first, rolled down the stairs and ended up sprawling at my feet.

Robert Huffman’s face was a mystery to me, but I knew that this man wasn’t the one holding Kate. On closer inspection, his clothes were off the rack, his shoes a cheap brand. He’d died protecting a man who earned more in an hour than he could hope for in a month.

Stepping past him, I scooped up his handgun, a Glock 17. For a second the thought that it was Kate’s gun had crossed my mind, but I knew otherwise. The guns were similar, but Kate’s was a Glock 19. Slightly smaller: more befitting a woman’s hand. The ammo was interchangeable with that for my own gun, but I didn’t have the time to start transferring it across. I shoved the Glock into my waistband alongside the Magnum. The big gun was almost out of bullets and the Glock was a handy replacement.

Moving upwards, I did so with more stealth. Obviously Huffman had more than the local thugs to call on. I doubted there’d be many; it wasn’t like this was the headquarters of Tony Soprano, just some minor mobster who’d seen a niche in the market. Not that it would matter. One man with a gun was enough to kill me if I made a mistake.

At the top of the stairs I paused. The door before me was shut. If anyone was on the other side, they could gun me down as I stepped through. Moving to the door, I stood to the hinged side, leaned across and pressed down the handle. The door swung away from me. No shots invaded the space where I’d be expected to be standing. I glanced around the jamb. There was an office space, tastefully decorated. A huge desk and a leather chair behind it, a lamp casting illumination over a stack of papers. Paintings on the walls. I vaguely recognised the style, but the name of the artist wouldn’t come to mind: it was extraneous to my needs. Moving into the room, I checked the corners for anyone lurking inside. No one. So I headed directly across to the door in the far corner. Windows here gave a view of the street below. All I could see was a curtain of snow. I could smell exhaust fumes from the Dodge that was still revving somewhere below me. And yes, the building was trembling under its churning wheels. My senses were supercharged now. I could make out a frantic whisper from beyond the doorway. It was a one-sided conversation, someone talking into a telephone.

Could be calling in reinforcements – or the police, which would be exactly the same thing under the circumstances.

I swept open the door and stepped into the room.

There was a single man. Unarmed, I saw, apart from the mobile phone he clutched. His clothing was of good quality, but I didn’t think he was Robert Huffman.

He was a slight man in his late fifties, his face aged and lined beyond his years. His hair was more salt than pepper and was receding. His eyes had the yellow cast of someone with a kidney malfunction. There were tiny veins in his cheeks, a patchwork of broken corpuscles, making his face look like a relief map of a river delta. He held the phone to his mouth, said, ‘He’s here.’

Then he held the phone out to me.

Holding him under the threat of my SIG, I took the phone from him and held it to my ear.

‘Huffman?’

‘You have me at a disadvantage.’ Robert Huffman’s voice barely contained a trace of his Texan roots hidden beneath mock joviality. ‘What do I call you?’

‘Your death if you’ve done anything to harm Kate.’

Huffman laughed. ‘That’s a little melodramatic. Do you practise your lines by watching old Clint Eastwood movies?’

Ignoring the taunt, I said, ‘Where is she?’

‘Where would you expect her to be?’

‘Where are you?’

‘Like I’m going to tell you?’ He chuckled again. ‘Don’t worry, she’s safe. She will stay that way if I get what I want.’

‘What do you want?’ Inside I cringed. The first tenet of counterterrorism is that you never give in to demands. That was a rule ingrained in my psyche throughout my active military career.

‘Let’s start with your name.’

‘Joe Hunter.’

It was pointless denying my identity; he would only force it from Kate.

‘Hunter?’ Huffman said. The conviviality of his tone became even stronger. ‘Now how ironic is that?’

‘Now who’s talking clichés?’ Next he’d be hitting me with the old chestnut about the hunter becoming the prey. I cut that line of conversation. ‘You said you wanted something. I want Kate back. Let’s deal.’

‘Kate’s a beautiful woman. I can see how you’d want her back. So yes, let’s deal.’

‘You want Imogen Ballard in exchange for Kate?’

‘Exactly.’

‘I don’t know where she is.’

‘Find her then. Hunt her down. Bring her to me and Kate’s yours.’

‘Where will I bring her?’

‘That’s good, Hunter. No whining about having to find her. No excuses. I like that. You sound like someone I can trust to get the job done.’

‘Where will I bring her?’ I asked again.

‘That’s yet to be determined.’

‘You’re not in Little Fork any more.’

‘In a short while I won’t even be in Kentucky. However, some of my associates will be. I’ve put a contract out on your head.’

‘Thoughtful of you.’

‘Let the presence of my men motivate you. If they kill you, well, it will be a slight hiccup in our arrangement. But, Hunter, that won’t stop me. I have Kate. She’ll bring her sister to me and I’ll have the two of them to do with as I please. If you want Kate back, I’ll stand by our agreement: the quicker you bring Imogen Ballard to me the better it is for the both of you.’