THE THOUSAND DOLLAR HUNT: Colt Ryder is Back in Action! (10 page)

Chapter Eight

The feeling lasted right up to eighteen hundred, six o’clock at a site a couple of hundred yards from the front gate.

I had the SCAR back, a secondary thermal recording sight hidden in my sleeve, a standard daytime mini-camera attached covertly to the front of my combat webbing. Even now – when light conditions were good, before the sun went down – it was filming, recording the famous faces around me.

It had been hard to smuggle the units out under the combined scrutiny of Hatfield, the armorer, and a couple of dozen Vanguard men who were also drawing weapons, but I’d managed it; it was all about distraction and sleight of hand, as any pickpocket will tell you.

The excitement on those faces was palpable, those of the soldiers rather more resigned, perhaps even bored.

Something about the situation bothered me, and I could feel the hackles rising on Kane as he stood next to me, but I decided it could wait as Badrock started to address the sizable crowd.

‘Friends,’ he said, arms open, ‘thank you for being here this evening, on what I hope will perhaps be our park’s most memorable hunt thus far.’

There were whoops and calls from the crowd, which died down with a wave of Badrock’s hand.

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘tonight is when hunting becomes
real.
’

At this, a commotion erupted from the side of the crowd, and I watched as six men were marched into the open area where Badrock stood. Cheers rang out, but again the general silenced them with his hand.

I recognized the men as workers from the park, four of them Mexican. I wondered if the other two came from backgrounds like Benjamin Hooker, homeless and with nobody to miss them, nobody to ask questions, and finally things started to fall into place and I was horrified that it had taken so long to do so.

I think perhaps I had suspected, but had erased the thoughts, too diabolical to even consider.

But there they were – six park workers,
handcuffed
I could see now, one for each of the hunters. And then I realized what was wrong with the clients, what had been bothering me, what I had picked up on that had made Kane react to my own subconscious reaction.

The weapons the clients were holding were not game rifles – there were no big-bore elephant-killers here.

Just man-stoppers, each and every one perfect for hunting human game.

The fear on the faces of the handcuffed workers indicated that they’d worked out the same thing.

One of them tried to run, but was brought down by a blow to the back of their head from Hatfield’s rifle butt, much to the amusement of the crowd.

The graveyard at the old chapel flashed before my eyes, the body of Ben Hooker and so many more – all killed by hunting parties like this.

There had been no ‘accidents’ here.

‘Yes,’ Badrock said, ‘tonight you will get an opportunity afforded to very few.
Very
few. The chance to hunt man, to kill another human being. Without fear of prison, without moral judgement. Just the thrill of the chase, the ecstasy of the hunt. And I will tell you this,’ he continued with a gleam in his eye, ‘once you get a taste for it, you will thirst for nothing else.’

The general turned to me then, eyebrows raised. ‘Does this shock you?’ he asked.

I had no idea what to do, the emotions raging through my body uncontrollably, the fear on the faces of the handcuffed men heartbreaking, and contrasting totally to the mask of evil covering the faces of the baying crowd.

I hefted the weight of my rifle, wondering for a split second if I could kill them all.

But I knew that almost every single person around me was also armed, and I wouldn’t stand a chance.

But could I stand by and let this happen?

I breathed out slowly; if I reacted incorrectly now, I was sure to die. I would have a better chance in the field.

‘No,’ I said eventually, ‘not really. I’d suspected as much.’

‘And you have no problem with this?’ the general probed.

‘Why would I? You know my background, you know what I’ve done. A human life isn’t much, in the overall scheme of things.’

‘Ah,’ the general said, nodding his head to one of the guards nearby, ‘but what about
this
human life?’

A second later I could hear the screams of a girl.

Talia
.

The soldier reappeared, dragging the general’s bound daughter behind him and throwing her at her father’s feet, where she collapsed, tears blinding her.

‘Son of a bitch!’ I yelled before I could stop myself, raising the SCAR reflexively.

The next instant all I could see were stars, as someone gave me the same medicine as Hatfield had given the handcuffed worker, a blow right behind the ear with the heavy butt of a rifle.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Kane reacting, jaws open wide; then his body spasm in pain as he was hit by a Taser on full blast, two other men rushing forward, hooking the nooses of their catching poles over the poor animal’s neck and drawing them tight.

Kane whimpered, weak from the shock of the Taser, and the men held him still, pinned to the ground with their poles, keeping well away from him.

My rifle was taken away from me and I was dragged to my feet, a man on each side of me.

‘Yes,’ Badrock said, ‘we caught my little daughter here trying to hack into our systems. With some
persuasion
, she told us that you’d asked her to.’ I didn’t want to know what persuasion they’d used, but I didn’t blame the girl for talking one bit. Why had I asked her to help me? I’d sealed her fate forever.

‘Now why would you want her to do that?’ Badrock continued. ‘A man I’d been good to, a man I’d given a nice, well-paid job to?’

I didn’t respond, just stared at the general with hate in my eyes.

‘Anyway,’ he carried on nonchalantly, ‘she’s useless to me now. I can’t possibly trust her again. So it’s goodbye sweetheart, I’m afraid,’ he said, looking down on her with mock pity. ‘It’s time for you to play the piper.’

‘Son of a bitch,’ I breathed, eyes still focused with hate on the general.

‘Perhaps,’ he said. ‘Perhaps. But I haven’t even touched on what makes tonight so special, why these people are paying five million
each
to be here.’ He smiled at me. ‘They’re here for you, my friend. The ultimate game. They’ve come here to see if they can be the one to bring down the Thousand Dollar Man.’

Chapter Nine

I saw the hungry, sadistic smiles on the faces of the hunters, the smug satisfaction of the Vanguard men, and felt a chill go through my very bones.

Badrock smiled. ‘You thought I wouldn’t find out?’ he asked, before shaking his head slowly. ‘I was always going to find out, you know.
Always
. And we’ve been having a bit of fun with you, to be honest. The little cocktail party this afternoon was to whet our guests’ appetites, so they could get to see the main prize.’

The general looked the other handcuffed men up and down with a touch of disdain. ‘Oh, they have these men to hunt too of course.
Her
as well,’ he added as he kicked his daughter with a booted foot. ‘But I really don’t think any of them are going to present too many problems for our guests here, do you?’ He laughed. ‘But you? You’re a different story altogether.’

He turned to the gathered crowd. ‘The main event tonight,’ he announced, ‘is Colt Ryder, an ex-Ranger, an elite soldier who saw action as part of a specialist recon team in Iraq and Afghanistan. Winner of the Silver Star, the Purple Heart no less than
three
times,
and
the Medal of Honor for his valor in combat. Now known by the
nom de guerre
‘the thousand dollar man’, a do-gooder private eye slash bounty hunter slash mercenary who wanders the country helping people sort out their problems, for a thousand dollars a time. This is a man trained in camouflage, concealment, living off the land, silent killing techniques, advanced armed and unarmed combat, demolitions, the list goes on. A man that now kills for money, a man who is
very
good at it. He is not your ordinary prey. He is a legend, a myth, perhaps not a man at all but something altogether more valuable.

‘And so one of each of your five million dollar contributions will go to park funds, to help our conservation program.’ There were subdued laughs and chuckles from the crowd, although it might well have been true. ‘That buys each of you one of the park workers. You’ll each be assigned a territory, and each territory will have one of the workers released into it for you to hunt. But at the same time,’ he added gleefully, ‘the thousand dollar man here will be on the loose, somewhere inside the park. A trained killer, an elite soldier, a man who knows the park layout and can use it against you. A hard target if ever there was one. And so the man – or woman – who bags Colt Ryder will win the rest of the money, a total of twenty-four million, as well as getting the right to hang his handsome head from your wall.’

There was animated conversation among the hunters and the Vanguard men, as they looked me over like the piece of meat they expected me to soon be.

‘But there’s an added wrinkle,’ Badrock said. ‘This time
I’ll
be hunting too; and if
I
get him, then the money – and the glory – is all mine.’

He looked across at me. ‘That okay with you, sweetheart?’ he asked with a crooked smile. ‘You want to play the game?’

I kept my eyes leveled on Badrock’s. ‘It’s not a game when the other players don’t have a chance.’

‘Oh,’ Badrock said as he looked at the helpless park workers, ‘I wouldn’t say they have
no
chance. Sure, they don’t have weapons, they don’t have infrared, thermal or night vision optics, they’re not trained and they have no idea what they’re doing, but don’t consign them to their graves too quickly. Everyone has a chance.’

‘I wasn’t talking about
them
,’ I said, ‘I was talking about
you
.’ I cast my eye over the hunters and the soldiers hired to protect them and let a smile flicker across my features. ‘You get me into that park and come after me, and you’re all going to be
dead.
I swear I’m going to kill every single last one of you.’

There must have been something in my eyes – something that told these people on an instinctive level that I wasn’t messing around, that I was deadly serious – because they grew suddenly quiet, their false bravado vanishing into the four winds. The hunters kept their smiles pasted to their ignorant faces, but the Vanguard men – those that had seen me in action – knew for sure that I meant every word that I said.

Badrock’s laughter broke the silence a few moments later. ‘Excellent!’ he said, applauding me. ‘Truly excellent! You see, ladies and gentlemen, what dangerous game I have captured for you to hunt! What is a lion, compared to this man?’

The general’s words soothed his guests’ fears, and their old cockiness returned. ‘What about
her
?’ asked Billy Johnson, the huge NFL quarterback, pointing down at Talia who still lay sobbing at her father’s feet.

‘Her?’ the general asked with disgust. ‘Consider her a free gift. She’ll be released into the park with the others. If you find her, do with her what you will.’

Johnson grinned, and I could only imagine what his plans for her would be.

‘What do you think of that, Mr. Ryder?’ the general asked.

I knew what he was trying to do of course – manipulate me, goad me into a course of action that he could foresee, and therefore utilize for his own ends. He wanted me to find Talia once we were inside the park; all he had to do was watch the girl and I would turn up sooner or later, the good general waiting for me, waiting to liquidize my skull with a 7.62mm long round.

But I would give the man an answer to his question anyway.

‘What do I think?’ I asked in turn. ‘I think that you’re a sick sonofabitch. And I think that I’m going to track down little Billy-boy here, and cut off his dick before he does something he regrets. And then I’m going to find you, General Badrock, and I’m gonna shove that quarterback’s dick down your throat until you choke on it. And then I might bury your dead body in that little graveyard of yours, along with a sign that reads ‘here lies Roman Badrock, choked to death on a dead man’s dick’. How would you like that for your epitaph, fuck-face?’

If manipulation was good enough for the general, it was good enough for me. And for a second, Badrock’s face clouded over and I could see that my words had angered him. Generals, retired or not, were not in the habit if having people speak to them in that fashion. But he quickly regained his composure and laughed at my words.

‘Well that’s the thrill of the hunt, isn’t it?’ he said jovially. ‘Maybe that’s exactly what will happen. But then again,’ he continued, face hard now, ‘maybe it’s
you
who will end up with your dick cut off, my friend. Sliced off and mounted on my wall with my other trophies.’

‘You’d like that, wouldn’t you?’ I responded without missing a beat. ‘Mounted on your wall so you can suck on it whenever you like.’

Badrock couldn’t even try and disguise his temper now. ‘You arrogant little fucker,’ he growled, ‘you’ll regret that little joke.’

‘Who said it was a joke?’

But the general’s face didn’t change now, it showed no anger, no engineered joviality; it was just deadpan, devoid of feeling and emotion. ‘Hatfield,’ he said, and his servant snapped to attention.

The general pointed at Kane, who was alert now, the shock of the Taser blast having finally worn off; he was emitting a deep rumbling growl, lips back over his bared teeth, the two men pinning him with the poles struggling now to contend with his colossal strength.

‘Kill the dog,’ Badrock ordered. ‘
Now
.’

What happened next occurred in slow motion, the adrenaline dumped into my bloodstream altering my perception of time beyond all measure.

I saw Hatfield smile and unsling his rifle, the SCAR carbine’s barrel rising to point toward Kane; and at the same time I saw the gleeful wrath in Badrock’s eyes, shining bright like a crazed demon’s.

Even as the barrel was rising, I also felt the men on either side of me tensing for action, bodies reacting reflexively to the movement of Hatfield’s rifle.

But they didn’t tense fast enough, and I stamped down hard on the foot of the man to my left, twisting from his grasp and whipping my elbow backwards into his face with a satisfying
crack
.

At the same time, I launched a low side kick into the other man’s knee, bringing him down instantly; the next moment, I’d pulled him in front of me, wrapped my hands around his neck and yanked hard.

The spine snapped and the body went limp, and then I had the man’s falling rifle in my hands; but Hatfield had seen my intentions and thrown himself sideways to avoid my shots. It was good that he’d obviously been warned off killing me before the hunt could begin; it gave me carte blanche to do what I needed.

I snatched off the safety as I moved the rifle around, and snapped off four rapid fire shots, hitting the men holding the catching poles in the chest, two rounds apiece.

They dropped hard in plumes of spraying blood, and I could see Kane was going to rush to my aid.

‘No!’ I shouted, firing off two more rounds near his front paws. I appreciated his desire to help, but there were so many guns here that he would almost certainly get hit within seconds and I didn’t want that happening to my little buddy. ‘Go!’ I shouted louder now. ‘Go!’

His head cocked in puzzlement to the side for one moment, and then he was gone, running at full speed past the startled onlookers, dragging the poles that were still hanging from his neck behind him.

I watched him running into the darkness, saw other men raise their rifles and fire off shots at his fleeing form, prayed that they would miss.

But, still trapped in the otherworldly sensation of slow-time, I was already swinging my rifle around to fire off some shots toward Badrock, hoping to embed some rounds in the great man’s chest.

But then my entire body convulsed painfully, muscles cramping so hard that I knew I must have been hit with the Taser.

I dropped to my knees, gasping for breath; felt my hands still on the rifle, and tried with all my might to raise it again in the general’s direction, muscles rebelling but getting there slowly.

Too slowly.

I felt the surge of electricity hit me again, right against my body, and knew somewhere in the dark recesses of my mind that almost fifty thousand volts were pouring into my nervous system.

And then my eyes closed, and I felt nothing.