THE THOUSAND DOLLAR HUNT: Colt Ryder is Back in Action! (7 page)

Chapter Two

The tray hit the back of my head hard, and I only narrowly avoided my face hitting the table by getting my hands there first, with just fractions of a second to spare.

It was breakfast time at the Vanguard security accommodation block, and – despite the general’s seal of approval – I was not turning out to be the most popular guy there.

I supposed it might have had something to do with the four contractors I’d smashed up the day before, back in Groban’s office.

I was stunned, but that was never going to stop me; an instant after the tray hit me, I pulled one hand from its braced position on the table, grabbed the fork from in front of me, whipped around in my chair and buried it right into my attacker’s balls.

The man cried out in a high-pitched, strangled scream as his eyes rolled up into his head and he fell to his knees in agony, fork still embedded in his anatomy.

There was only one guy, but I knew my response was going to create some more heat; I could already feel the men to my right and left tensing, getting ready to strike in retaliation.

I moved before they did, elbowing the guard to my left in a backward swing that hit him right in the face and knocked him back off his chair; in the next breath, I caught the wrist of the other man, stopping the table knife just inches from my ribs, and smashed his face down into the table in front of him.

I was on my feet in the next second, turning to face two new assailants running at me from the next table along. I dropped the first with a heavy thrusting front kick to the gut, then sidestepped the next and whipped a vicious Thai round kick across the man’s exposed thigh muscle, the pain from the scything impact putting him down immediately.

Another man went down from a straight right, the big knuckles of my fist connecting hard with his jaw; and then another hit the deck from a side kick to the knee cap.

But then there were too many people around me, arms and legs coming at me from all angles, fists and feet hitting, and then hands grabbed me and forced me to the floor and it was all I could do to cover my head with my own hands as the blows came raining down. There must have been thirty guards at breakfast, and I thought they must all have been hitting me at that moment, and I could feel the weight of them crushing me.

Where was Kane when I needed him?

A gunshot rang out then, and the blows stopped hitting me, the weight stopped crushing me.

I heard shouting through the blood rushing in my ears, felt the men move away from me until I was just there on the floor, alone and bleeding.

‘. . . the general told you he doesn’t want him harmed,’ I heard a voice shouting, and as my vision cleared I could see Hatfield standing there, pistol in his hand. ‘Now back off,’ he continued, ‘and I mean right now.’

The crowd slowly shrank away, murmuring and muttering to themselves but obviously not wanting to cross Hatfield. And why would they? Even if he wasn’t their commanding officer and meal ticket, he was an ex-Delta commando with a loaded handgun; they would have to have been crazy to argue.

‘Come on,’ he said to me as he approached. ‘Get on your feet.’

He ignored the other men scattered unconscious on the dining hall floor, and stepped over the man I’d slammed in the balls with the fork, who was still screaming in pain, and helped me up with one huge, callused hand.

‘You’re not exactly endearing yourself to the men here,’ he said with a half-smile, ‘are you?’

I tried to smile back, though the bruising was already starting to make it painful. ‘They just haven’t got to know me yet,’ I replied, and Hatfield chuckled to himself.

‘Well,’ he said, ‘that guy right there on the floor with the fork in his balls is the brother of one of the guys you beat up with that metal baton of yours yesterday.’ He watched the man writhing on the ground for a few moments before turning back to me. ‘But maybe we’ll leave the formal introductions for another day. Why don’t you get yourself to your room and clean yourself up? We’ll be starting work soon, and you don’t look so good.’

I nodded my head, and wiped the blood from my mouth. ‘Yes sir,’ I said in agreement.

Although the company left a little to be desired, the accommodation was as good as Badrock promised. We were in a block close to the main house, a huge log cabin purpose built as a bunk block for security personnel; but it was a far cry from the places I’d lived in during my time in the military. Here we had private rooms with en suites, a full bar with open fire places, a Swedish sauna and an outdoor hot tub. There was the dining room too of course, and I’d already got to know that all too well.

Turned out dogs were welcome too, at least if you worked here, and Kane had soon settled in to our luxury suite as if he’d been born to it.

The girl was gone, but we’d had a good time the night before, and some more good times before breakfast too; Kane had been so embarrassed he’d gone to hide in the bathroom.

I watched him look at me now as I limped back into my room, face bruised and bloody – but it was only a cursory glance, used as he was to seeing me that way. Just another day at the office, I suppose he thought, and he soon got back to the serious business of sleeping.

As I eased out of my clothes and got the shower running, I considered the fact that – even after the story I’d given him about what I would tell my ‘client’ about Benjamin Hooker – Badrock surely still wouldn’t trust me completely, might think that I’d only accepted the job in order to investigate further. Which was true of course – I had no intention of going back to Kayden with anything less than the entire truth. But I knew I was going to have to do my best to appear as if I really wanted to be here.

There was also the danger from the other security personnel, as I’d just experienced back in the dining room. Some of them wanted me dead, plain and simple. They’d tried it once, and I had no reason to believe that they wouldn’t try it again.

Except I knew Badrock would order them to leave me alone, and who would want to go against the general? They’d had their shot and blown it; perhaps things would cool down now.

I wondered, idly, about the possibility of Badrock making some sort of link between me and my alter ego as the thousand dollar man. It was unlikely though – my name wasn’t connected to the legend, even in that Washington
Post
exposé a few years back and – as far as I was aware – not even the FBI had put the two together. But even if the general somehow managed to make the link, then so what? I supposed he’d see me as a mercenary, which was exactly what he was after anyway.

I turned the shower off and left the bathroom, picking up the telephone on the bedside table. I dialed the number for my army friend who was looking into Badrock’s background for me, to see if she’d managed to find out any more details about his mysterious retirement.

‘There isn’t much, I’m afraid,’ she said when I’d finally got through to her. ‘Just rumor really. Apparently there was some sort of family scandal, Badrock tried his best to cover it up but the chiefs learned about it and, well, it ruined his chances of further promotion.’

‘What sort of scandal?

‘I can’t find out, there’s no official record of it. As I said, it’s all rumor. But there was no disciplinary action, it wasn’t that sort of thing at all, but there was some damage to his personal reputation that meant full general was going to be permanently out of reach. That’s why he retired, because he’d gone as high as he was ever going to go.’

‘Thanks for the intel,’ I said. ‘I owe you one.’

I put the phone down, wondering if the lines were tapped. But what if they were? Even if I was taking on the job for real, I would want to know what sort of man I was working for, and I was sure that Badrock would understand my near-paranoia; it was what kept men like us alive.

Ten minutes after the phone call I was clean shaven and dressed in one of the plain black combat suits that served as uniforms for the Vanguard troops here.

I looked at myself in the mirror, readying myself for the day ahead.

It was time to go to work.

Chapter Three

The morning was spent familiarizing myself further with the park property, and with the weapons and equipment the hunters would be using.

The other Vanguard men kept away from me as much as possible, and the ones I did interact with greeted me with a mixture of open dislike and – having seen what I could do – grudging respect.

I spent time poring over plans of the ranchland – taking in the relief, the boundaries, the geographical makeup of the place – before heading out in a jeep for a closer look, with Kane in the back and one of the tour guides driving. We followed much the same path as the tourist trail the day before, but with the advantage of being allowed into otherwise forbidden areas – animal holding areas and feeding pens secreted in dark ravines, vehicle hangers and resupply centers hidden in the woods, and hunting stations wherever there was decent cover.

Badrock had a great set-up for the rich hunters here, I had to admit; it was a professional operation through and through. He was making it as safe as it could be for them, and I could understand why. At the prices he was charging, the type of people coming here for the hunts weren’t those that Badrock could just bury in the cemetery of the on-site chapel with no questions asked. They were politicians and business leaders with big money behind them – and wherever there was money, there were people interested in those who had it. If anything happened to one of the hunters, investigations would be launched and Badrock would be out of business, perhaps even imprisoned.

I wondered why I was still there, why I hadn’t just left and gone to the authorities, had the park investigated.

It was a no-brainer though – I knew I would be killed if I tried to leave. Badrock was charming and charismatic, but he was as ruthless as his reputation suggested. The snipers back at the cemetery were proof enough of that. Maybe I could sneak out with the tourists, but what then? The ranch was fifteen miles away from the nearest town, and that was small enough to be difficult to hide out in. No, I knew the Vanguard men would get to me. And what then? They were only hired hands like me, just doing their jobs; would I really want to be forced into killing them?

And what would happen if I
did
escape? I had no evidence, it would be my word against Badrock’s – and he was a famous general, whereas I was . . . well, I wasn’t a general anyway. Nobody would believe me over him. Especially if – as he’d indicated – some of the people who hunted here were the very people I might want to go to with the information.
A presidential candidate accidentally getting shot by an overexcited chief of police
was one of the examples Badrock had used, and I had no way of knowing if this was literal or merely figurative. Were these existing clients, or just an example of the sort of people who came here? Either way, I couldn’t afford to take the chance of contacting the wrong person.

I considered the fact that the general might keep records – who was visiting, how much they paid, the trophies they bagged. It was more than likely that he did, but where would I find them? It was unrealistic to think that there would be paper records in an old metal filing cabinet somewhere; Vanguard would be sure to employ computer security specialists, and any evidence would be well protected on a hard drive somewhere. I was good at many things, but hacking into computers wasn’t one of them. Hitting people with batons, yes; sophisticated network security, unfortunately not. I wasn’t exactly a Philistine, but I wasn’t far from it.

So I would do what I always did in these situations – I would play it by ear. And if I got the chance – decorated war hero or not – I would bring it all tumbling down around Roman Badrock’s head.

I was back at the main station, not so far from Badrock’s house, checking out the supply of hunting rifles, when Miles Hatfield strolled into the armory.

Kane responded immediately, hackles raised as he emitted a low warning growl.

‘Hey,’ Hatfield said with palms held out in placation, ‘I come in peace.’

I nodded at Kane and he retreated to my side, still keeping his gaze on the Delta Force commando but silent now, allowing me to take the lead.

‘Well,’ I said, ‘I suppose we’re colleagues now, right?’

‘Exactly,’ Hatfield said with smile. He looked around the large room, with its specially made gun racks and ammunition stores, then back at me. ‘So what do you think?’ he asked with a raised eyebrow. ‘Has Bruce done a good job?’

The Bruce he referred to was Bruce Underwood, the armorer here. He was in the back, rechambering a Winchester hunting rifle for a bigger load. Previously a Small Arms Repairer/Technician with the Marine Corps, he’d been running his own specialist high-end gunsmithing workshop in Montana when Badrock had come to see him, apparently making him an offer he couldn’t refuse.

‘Well,’ I said as I looked down at the Ruger No.1-H Tropical Rifle chambered in .458 Lott, designed for taking down African big game, which rested in my hands, ‘he definitely knows his business.’ I looked around the armory, then back at Hatfield. ‘And I think that there are enough weapons here to invade a small country.’

‘You know how it is,’ Hatfield said with a grin. ‘The people we get here, they’ve got lots of different needs, we need a lot of different weapons to suit them. Let’s say we’ve got a young lady, maybe five two and a hundred pounds, but she wants to put down a bull elephant. What’s she gonna use? It’s a problem, right? She needs a big load, a powerful rifle, but then will she be able to control it? So we’ve got weapons here to suit everyone, and Bruce helps to personalize them to requirements. We don’t want our clients to embarrass themselves out there, you know?’

‘That would be a real shame,’ I said as I put the Ruger back in its rack.

Hatfield laughed. ‘Sounds to me like you’d love it if they did.’

‘What can I say?’ I responded. ‘I’m a mercenary, like you. I’m willing to take the general’s coin, so I don’t judge. Hunting animals isn’t for me personally,’ I continued as I ruffled the soft hair on Kane’s broad skull, ‘but I’m not going to stand in the way of people that want to do it.’

Hatfield nodded his head thoughtfully. ‘I can respect that,’ he said. ‘Yes, I can surely respect that. We’re paid to do what we’re told, and not to ask any questions about it. Same as back in the military, except we get paid properly here.’

‘That’s true enough,’ I said. ‘We’ve traded one master for another, this one’s just more generous.’

Hatfield walked to a shelf and picked up a Barrett .50 caliber, hefting its weight easily. But I could see his mind was elsewhere, the rifle a mere prop. I waited to hear what was on his mind.

‘Roman says you won the Medal of Honor,’ he said at last. There was respect – even admiration – in his voice, but tainted by a hint of jealousy, a threat of competition.

‘It was a long time ago,’ I answered.

‘Well anyway,’ he continued, putting the rifle back, ‘it’s a hell of a thing, it really is. We don’t get that many Medal of Honor winners down here, that’s for sure. There aren’t that many of you
anywhere
, as a matter of fact.’

‘Not alive, anyway,’ I said, wondering where Hatfield was going with this.

The man chuckled. ‘I guess that’s right,’ he said, before shaking his head in wonder. ‘Well anyway, Roman’s got big plans for you my friend.
Big
plans. You’ve impressed the hell out of him, you know? So you’ll be staying with him in the house, away from the others. They’ve been warned off you, but you know how it is – boys will be boys and all that. We can’t guarantee your safety if you stay in the block with them.’

‘Are they jealous?’ I asked with half a smile.

‘You could say that – word has already got out that you’re on more money than they are, and a few of them are pissed about your roll in the sack with Talia last night too. Plenty of the boys had designs on that one, but nobody wanted to mess with the general’s daughter.’

My eyes must have registered my shock despite myself. ‘The general’s –’ I couldn’t help myself repeating, stopped by Hatfield’s nodding head.

‘Yes,’ he said with a wicked smile. ‘The girl you fucked this way and that last night was Talia Badrock, the general’s daughter.’

‘But why would – ’

‘I told you Roman likes you,’ Hatfield said. ‘And Talia is a resource to be used like any other. He
is
a most practical man.’

My stomach turned at the thought of how Badrock had used his daughter, and I felt strong pangs of guilt myself. Who had I thought she was?

The thing was, I had just assumed she was a working girl, hired by the general. And I’d thought that that was okay, in its own way. But was it? Everyone was
someone’s
daughter, after all.

But it was the sheer cold-blooded manipulation of the man that shocked me, his willingness to use his own flesh and blood to achieve his aims. But what aim did he have in mind when he sent me back to my room with Talia? What had he hoped to accomplish?

The whole situation bewildered me, but at the same time the beginnings of a plan started to form in my mind.

‘Anyway,’ Hatfield continued with the smile still playing across his lips, ‘the reason I’m here is to tell you that our next hunt is tomorrow night. And it’s going to be an important one too, some real big name VIPs are coming here. They start arriving in the morning, you’ll be on the meet and greet team, you’ll help them with their weapon handling drills, make sure everyone’s capable of being out there in the field without hurting themselves, or other people. Then when the park closes, you’ll get to see the real fun begin.’

I looked at Hatfield and smiled weakly. ‘I can’t wait,’ I said.

The ex-commando’s smile was much more convincing than mine. ‘I bet you can’t,’ he said. ‘I just bet you can’t.’