Slash and Burn (2 page)

‘My sister may be dead.’ Kate bounced the bottle of beer in her palm.

Frowning, I put down my own bottle, turning away from her. ‘Don’t see how I can help you, then. I’m sorry.’

‘But then again, she might not be.’

I turned around to look at her again, and she was staring up at me with her chin set with determination. She looked more and more like her brother – particularly when he grew pig-headed with stubbornness.

‘I need someone to find out which it is,’ she said. ‘If Imogen is dead, then I have to know. The alternative is that she’s being held against her will and needs help to get away.’

I owed Jake. It was his actions in saving us from the ambush that killed him. The only way I could repay his selflessness was to help his family now.

So much for rest and recuperation. I nodded at her.

‘I’ll get my things together. When do we start?’

‘I’ve booked flights out of Tampa tomorrow. Can you be ready for then?’

I didn’t have to look around to know that I already had everything necessary here. My SIG Sauer P228, with a half-dozen spare magazines of nine mm soft-nosed parabellums. A change of clothing. Fake air marshal documents that would get my gun past security. What more would I require?

‘Where are we going?’

‘Kentucky.’

Appalachia. I hadn’t been there before. Mountains and valleys were just my thing. It would be picturesque this late in the year. I looked at Kate. The company wouldn’t be bad either.

I asked her where she was staying and she said she’d booked a room at the Marriott. ‘Unless there’s somewhere else you can suggest?’

‘It’s handy for the airport. I’ll meet you there in the morning.’

She placed the empty bottle on the deck.

‘Thanks, Joe,’ she said. Then she leaned in and kissed me on the cheek.

Chapter 2

After Kate left, I pulled my things together. My stuff didn’t amount to much; it fitted inside a single backpack. Then I went back out on the deck with another Corona, watching the sun go down over the Gulf of Mexico. It was blood-red on the horizon.

I thought about Kate’s parting gesture. The kiss. I could still feel her lips on my skin. It was a nice feeling but tomorrow’s calendar date was in my mind, and I brushed it away with my fingers.

The beers helped me sleep. I was up before dawn. I ran five miles along the beach, worked out, showered, shaved and dressed. Then I drove to Tampa and left my Audi A6 in a long-term parking lot. I asked for Kate at the front desk of the Marriott and she joined me for breakfast. She was still beautiful, but she didn’t look like she’d slept that well; probably apprehension about the task ahead. I didn’t ask too much. We could talk on the flight north.

My documents saw me through security, but a couple of questions were raised concerning a gun Kate carried. Her right to carry gave me pause for thought, but I didn’t dwell on it – a number of people have special dispensation for personal defence weapons these days. It stood to reason that she’d come packing, thinking we could face danger in the days ahead. I made a mental note to have Rink check up on her background for me.

We flew into Capital City Airport, near Frankfort, where we had to take a connection flight down to a blip on the map named Little Fork. We’d been in airports or airplanes most of the day. Then it was all roads. The final leg of the journey couldn’t even be called a road. A single beaten track led up from the valley, terminating in front of Imogen Ballard’s house.

Imogen’s house was an A-frame set on a hillside overlooking a steep valley. Behind it was a sheer rock face that probed at the nickel-coloured sky with jagged fingers. The front of the house was raised up, a wooden porch and steps necessary to gain the front door. There was no vehicle parked under the lean-to at the side of the house.

The house was lovely, and so was the scenery. Part of the Appalachian Range, it was a very mountainous region, a secluded place of beauty.

I liked the remoteness. It was the kind of place that I would feel comfortable living in. My only concern was that, for a single woman, it was very vulnerable to the wrong kind of visitors. The remoteness offered privacy and a degree of anonymity, but the location was also a bottleneck with no escape route if things became dangerous.

‘Imogen lives here alone?’ I asked.

‘She lived here with her ex-husband, Ron, until April this year. After that she has divided her time between here and our family’s home in Maine.’

Kate had already told me about the unhappy breakdown of her sister’s marriage. She’d also told me that her sister had seemed to bounce back, setting up a bring-and-buy type business via the Web. It wasn’t eBay, but apparently she was doing OK. She spent most of her time hosting her site, and it seemed the remainder was spent up here at Great Wells Fall, walking and hiking in the woods. Her business passion was technical, but there was nothing in the world that could compare with the natural wonders of the wilderness.

‘She likes the serenity,’ Kate went on, nodding at the great outdoors surrounding us.

‘Can’t say I blame her.’

‘She’s a freelance photographer. She sidelines in wildlife photographs that she supplies to magazines and to the internet.’

We were in a rental I’d picked up at Little Fork, a Ford Explorer with 4×4 capacity and gun racks behind the front seats. Hunting – I guessed – was a passion of many visitors who came to this part of the country. Parking the Ford on the turning circle outside the house, I got out. I stood with one hand on the open door, my other creeping under the tail of my shirt to check that my SIG was positioned for a quick draw.

‘Quiet here,’ I noted.

Kate looked over at me and I caught a reflection of the evening sky in her eyes. She’d caught something, too: the tone in my voice.

Apart from the gentle breeze rattling the fronds of the surrounding trees, and a distant rumble that had to be Great Wells waterfall, there was nothing else. No animal calls, no birdsong.

I didn’t like it.

Kate stared off across the valley. At its bottom ran the river fed by the falls but it was lost to sight by the tree cover. She scanned right, allowing her eyes to roam over the house and up the steep cliffs.

‘Don’t see anything unusual,’ she said.

‘No,’ I said.

I kept my hand on the butt of my gun as we walked up the stairs to her sister’s house. Kate fished in her purse. I thought she was going for her gun.

‘I have a key.’

‘Is the house alarmed?’

‘All the way out here? What would be the point?’

Fair enough, I thought.

Kate unlocked the door and we went inside. On this floor the house had a split-level, open-plan layout with a kitchen at the far side. Open stairs led up to the second floor that extended out from the back of the house towards the cliffs. Up there were the bedrooms and the bathroom, I guessed. But I didn’t have the time to check; my eyes were too busy taking in the scene of destruction.

It was as though a mini-tornado had gone through the lower level. Furniture was upended, pictures torn from the walls. A TV set and DVD player had been left smashed on the floor. Credenzas had been pulled open, drawers emptied and their contents scattered. Ornaments had been swept from the mantel over the fireplace.

‘Goddamnit, the house has been burgled!’ Kate fisted her hands on her hips as she surveyed the wreckage. I touched her on the back.

‘Kate. Go and get in the car.’

She turned towards me, her dark eyes sparking with anger. ‘Who could have done this, Joe?’

I didn’t know. But we were about to find out.

The creak of floorboards from above was subtle; the shifting of a human body furtively moving into a better position. We both heard it.

Kate spun round. Before I could hush her, she called out. ‘Imogen?’

I drew my SIG.

Unless Imogen was two hundred and fifty pounds and wearing boots, I doubted that the next footstep was hers. This one was on the porch outside.

I was under no illusions.

There had been no sound of an approaching vehicle, no announcement or challenge. So the man sneaking up on us probably wasn’t a concerned member of law enforcement checking on the vulnerable property. Whoever was on the porch was in cahoots with the person upstairs, and they intended taking us by surprise.

I snaked a hand over Kate’s mouth and pulled her close. I caught a scent of flowers on her neck. Whispering in her ear, I said, ‘Get behind the counter in the kitchen.’

The men here were the ones responsible for ransacking Imogen’s house. Possibly they were the ones responsible for her disappearance. Kate struck me as being strong-willed, no shrinking violet if it came to standing her ground. But she would be a hindrance if she wasn’t going to do as I said. Give Kate her due, she quickly slid out of my grip and hunkered down behind the marble-topped prep counter in the middle of the kitchen floor. She was hidden from above and from anyone coming in the front door, but not from the window or the door at the back. I could only hope that all we faced were the two I’d already identified.

Quickly glancing up, I could detect no movement there, so I swung round, putting my body close to the wall next to the entrance. The front door had been fitted so that it opened towards me.

I hadn’t long to wait.

The door handle twisted violently and the door was thrust open. It was followed immediately by a large man. I saw the barrel of his shotgun first, followed by a thick arm and shoulder as he pushed inside. His mouth opened to shout a challenge.

The barrel of my SIG struck the nerves on the mound of his forearm, then I moved alongside him and the second whack of my gun was made at his collarbone. I didn’t know who these people were, so I didn’t have the luxury of killing them outright. My strikes were aimed to disarm. The shotgun clumped to the floor as the man’s entire arm went numb. Then I had my fingers in his beard and I pulled his head down and struck him a third time on the nape of the neck.

He was a huge man and his neck was protected by a thick roll of fat, but he still sagged under the blow. I pulled him back up, jamming the SIG under his jaw. The man rolled jaundiced eyes my way, realising he’d fucked up.

‘You upstairs,’ I shouted. ‘Come out or I’ll put a bullet through your friend’s head.’

Movement at the head of the stairs came immediately. But there was no sign of the second man giving up. He came out shouting a challenge of his own as he raised a rifle and fired.

The bullet struck the door lintel behind me, and I took cover behind the first man. Blindly, I fired back, but I didn’t hit the man with the rifle. Testament to that was his second shot. It hit the big man I was holding in the chest, punched a hole right through him and splattered blood down the front of my jacket. Some of the spray got in my eyes and clouded my vision.

The big man dropped from my grip like a slaughtered steer, straight down in a boneless heap at my feet. Leaving me open to a third shot. I fired in reaction, but I didn’t have the man clear in my sights. He must have been aiming directly at my chest.

I heard the crack of a gun. Then another, then another, followed by a veritable roll of thunder as a magazine was emptied. At the top of the stairs the second gunman danced as bullets smacked through the planks beneath his feet, making tatters of his legs.

Kate had come to my rescue. I scrubbed the blood from my eyes, spared a second to look her way. She was raised above the marble counter firing directly through the ceiling with a Glock 19, emptying the gun into the man who would be my killer.

Shit, I thought, damn good shooting.

When my eyes were clear enough to get a bead on the man, I put a single round through his forehead. The force of the bullet threw him backwards against a wall, then he bounced forwards and did a head-over-heels roll down the stairs.

Dead men tell no tales: neither of these two was going to give us any answers to what the hell had just gone on here. I glanced at Kate. She was standing upright now, looking at the men who had died so violently. There was no sign of fear in her eyes, only resignation.

She had answers to give – primarily to explain how she could shoot as well as any soldier I’d ever worked with – but they would have to wait. Hyenas didn’t normally hunt in pairs. They came in packs.

‘Kate. Get in the car.’

She had her jaw set in determination, but she nodded acquiescence and moved to the door. As she stepped over the dead man with the beard, she looked at me. I was crouching alongside him, quickly patting him down.

‘No wallet,’ I said. ‘No identification.’

She stood in the doorway as I went over to the second man and confirmed he too was lacking in personal papers. From her purse she took out a fresh magazine and fed it into her Glock. She racked the slide like a pro, then went outside. I noted she was in a professional stance, her gun hand supported on her opposite wrist as she sought further targets.

‘Joe,’ she called. ‘You’d best get out here.’

Damn it, I thought. Hefting my gun, I followed her.

Below us in the valley, racing at a speed that wasn’t prudent on the narrow trail, came a convoy of three vehicles. Two were SUVs, the third a flat-bed pick-up truck. Even across the intervening distance I could make out that the men on the truck were packing guns.