Atlanta Extreme (9 page)

The military bite in Hawker's voice set the man back for a moment. “Well, it's just that I think he should tell us—”

“I don't give a flying fuck what you think, mister,” Hawker said, cutting in. “You aren't getting paid to think. You're getting paid to follow orders. And right now your orders are to shut the fuck up and do exactly what I tell you to do. Question?”

“No, sir.”

Hawker looked from face to face. “Do any of you other men have questions?”

They avoided his eyes; no more questions.

“Good. Then listen up. Sergeant Miles and I are going to enter that village. We are going to do it quietly, under stealth, so that if any government troops are hidden in those chikees, we can take them by surprise. If there are troops, you will hear the firing and Sergeant Miles will set off a red flare. Upon seeing the red flare you will immediately attack. If there are no government troops, we are going to centralize the village population—bring them into one chikee or one common area. Upon our signal—a green flare—you men are going to enter the village and attack. But you are not going to charge down off the hill; you are not going to make noise. This is an exercise, gentlemen. Colonel Curtis will be watching you carefully from the other side of the valley. We want to see how well you do in a hand-to-hand attack situation. That means no firearms. Only knives.”

“Only knives!” weasel-face sputtered under his breath.

Hawker gave him a searing look. “If Sergeant Miles fires a green flare, that means that there are no government troops, mister. It means that there are only women and children and old men in the village. It means that even without firearms it will be like killing fish in a barrel. Do women and children and old men frighten you, mister?”

“I … I didn't think of it that way, sir. When you put it that way, it sounds kind of fun.”

“That's what we're here for, fuckhead—to make sure you have fun.” Hawker had been squatting; now he stood. “Okay. It will probably take Sergeant Miles and me about twenty or thirty minutes to scope out the village. You men are not to move under any circumstances—repeat, under
any
circumstances—until you see a red or green flare. Understand?”

They understood.

Hawker nodded to Miles, and the two men headed down the hill. When they were out of earshot, Miles whispered, “We're not really going down to the village, are we? We're skipping out, right? Hell, that was a great idea, Mr. Hawker! With a half-hour lead they'll never catch us.”

“Yeah, but we won't have a half-hour lead because I really am going into the village. You'll stop at the line of trees and hold my weapons. I don't want to scare anybody when I go in.”

“And then what? What the hell are you going to do when you get down there?”

Hawker put the M16 on the ground and unbuckled the belt that held his canteen and cheap production military knife. “I'm not sure,” he said. “I'm going to have to play it by ear.”

Hawker
was
sure what he wanted to do, but he still felt uncomfortable telling Miles. What if the sergeant's story were an elaborate setup?
At least
, thought the vigilante,
I can save most of these villagers. If I'm lucky
.

As Hawker walked into the village he forced himself to relax, put a broad, easy smile on his face, and let his arms hang loose, like some benevolent uncle coming to call. He took care to stay close to the circle of chikees so that he could not be seen from the far hillside where Curtis and his troops waited. As he did he confirmed what he had noticed on the hike over: the edge of the village drifted into the line of trees not far from the river. It would be the one exit not open to easy view. When the village dogs saw him, they came to attention, ragged ears held high, then set off the alarm, barking wildly. The stickball game stopped; infants ran; mothers stood to stare. From beside the cooking fire in the center of the yard, an old man stood. He wore a brightly colored serape, still wet from the storm just past. His eyes were milky with age; his face gaunt, sun-blotched. He couldn't have weighed more than a hundred pounds, but he walked fearlessly toward Hawker.

The vigilante held up his hand, feeling ridiculously like Tonto on the Lone Ranger.

“Buenos días, señor.”

The old man said nothing.

“I have come as a friend.”

The old man stared.

“Habla Español? Habla Inglés?”

He said finally, “For what purpose do you come to our village? You are not of these parts.” The old man spoke the slow, formal Spanish of the mountains, probably heavily accented with Mayan, though Hawker did not know the language well enough to be sure.

“I have come to tell you of—” What was the Spanish word for danger?
Peligro?
Yes,
peligro
. “I have come to tell you of danger. To warn you. In the hills waiting to attack are soldiers,
guerreros
. You must take your people away.
Peligro grande
. The danger is very great.”

The village women had collected behind the old man.

The old man gazed up into the hills, then back at Hawker. “Do you speak of the evil white man? Do you speak of his soldiers, the ones who take heads?”

“
Si
. It is the evil white man of which I speak. They will be coming soon. You must leave quickly.”

“Why do you, an
Americano
, come to warn us?”

“Because we are not all evil ones.”

“Yes, that is so,” the old man said simply.

Hawker motioned toward the chikees that disappeared into the trees. “You must go now! That way!” Hawker pointed to the far hillside and to the hill behind where Miles waited. “The soldiers are there and there. To escape you must stay hidden. Send the
hijos
, your sons, back out to play. They must be the last to leave. The soldiers will become suspicious if everyone disappears at once. Are your boys brave enough to do such a thing? To wait until the women are gone, then to run?”

“Like all boys, they are not so brave. But like few boys, they do as they are told. It will be done.”

“Is there a safe place where your village can hide?”

“Yes, not far, in a hidden cave, there is such a place.”

Hawker took the old man's hand. “Please hurry. There is not much time.”

“This evil man, the one who seeks heads, will he not now kill you?”

“Only if I do not kill him first.”

The old man nodded his simple understanding. “Then I wish you luck, my friend. On such a quest you will need great good luck.…”

Doug Miles blended into the jungle so well in his camouflage that Hawker jumped when the blond-haired sergeant stepped out into the path. “You all set? You warn the villagers?”

“Yeah,” said Hawker. “Any movement from the seven up above?”

“No, that little tongue-lashing you gave Blake really put the fear of God in them. They won't move until they see a flare.” Miles looked across the valley where the boys had resumed their game. “Why are those kids still out there? Hell, Curtis isn't going to wait much longer. In about five minutes, if he doesn't see our signal, he's going to shoot off that gun to signal us to attack. And when we don't, he's going to go raging in there like a brushfire. Those kids will be slaughtered.”

“The women and old men are escaping now. When they're gone, the boys are going to run for it.”

Miles whistled softly. “That's cutting it awfully close, Mr. Hawker.”

“There's no other way. If all activity in the village stops, Curtis won't wait. He'll go right in to see what's wrong.”

Miles shook his head. “I'll tell you, between the fucking communists and Curtis, these people really get the peanutty end of the stick. Hell, all they want to do is live, work, and eat their beans at the end of the day.”

“Yeah, I know.” Hawker strapped on his webbed belt and picked up the M16. “We'd better get going, Miles. We've got a lot of ground to cover and not much time. Which way?”

“Straight up the mountain, Mr. Hawker. They won't expect that. They'll expect us to follow the valley back toward Guatemala. Since that's the closest civilization, that's where Curtis will expect us to head.”

Hawker smiled. “You weren't kidding. You have thought about this escape plan, haven't you?”

“Every fucking night since the first week I was here,” Miles said grimly.

“The first week?”

“Yeah, about ten months ago. Like I said, I came to fight communists. Instead Curtis stuck a machete in my hand, pushing me into the center of camp, and made me chop off the head of a little girl. Since that night I've spent every waking hour planning this escape. Maybe it's because when I'm asleep, all I ever dream about is that poor little child.”

Hawker gave the big man a gentle push in the back. “Let's get going. If it makes you feel any better, Sergeant, you helped save a lot of kids today.”

Miles brightened. “Yeah, that's true. Hey, you're right! Hell, I actually did something good today. Kind of makes up for it a little bit, doesn't it? Hell, we've got clear sailing from here.”

But it wasn't clear sailing. Half an hour later, well up the mountain and out of personal danger except for the rapids of the Rio Espiritu, the headhunters, and the communist troops of Masagua, Hawker stopped to look down into the valley.

Later in his life the vigilante would often wish that he had never stopped, never looked.

But he did. A moment earlier the boys of the village had dropped their sticks and made a show of ending the game for the benefit of the soldiers who watched from the hills. Hawker knew it meant that the women were safely hidden, and now the boys would follow.

Calmly they trotted back toward the chikees as if to dinner. In truth, they would continue running until they got to the cave where their mothers were waiting. But most of the boys never made it to the cave. From out of the line of trees soldiers charged them, led by Wellington Curtis on his rangy white horse.

Just behind and to his left, on a brown horse, rode Laurene Catacomez.

Both of them carried swords.

Absorbed by the jungle, the gunfire was a distant, muted popping, like the sound of a distant woodpecker. But Hawker could see pale puffs of smoke as the weapons jolted in the hands of the toy soldiers, and he could see the small brown boys tumble, fall, and scratch their way toward the trees, toward safety, on their scarlet bellies.

In tandem, Curtis and the woman chased the running children, cutting them down with their swords. A small boy of about ten, weary from running, held up his hands to protect his face from the charging horses—and both of his arms were cut off at the elbows. Another boy took a slash from Curtis that cut him from the shoulder and deep into his chest, yet he continued to run—only to have his throat cut by the woman.

Hawker felt someone tugging at his arm, and it took him a moment to realize that it was Sergeant Miles. “Come on, Mr. Hawker, don't look no more. It ain't good for you to watch that shit. You'll have the bad dream like I got. Don't look no more, man.”

“They're worse than animals,” Hawker whispered, still watching in disbelief.

“They ain't worth your time, Mr. Hawker. Come on, it's just like you said—it's all behind us now. We don't ever have to come back to this goddamn place.” The vigilante noticed only peripherally that the big man was crying, crying for the children who now fell in the far valley.

Hawker turned slowly away, his gray eyes blazing. “You're wrong, sergeant. I
do
have to come back. I'm going to go to Atlanta first, but someday soon I'm going to return. And when I do, I'll wipe every trace of Wellington Curtis and his people from the face of this earth.…”

eleven

Atlanta, Georgia

Even at nine
A
.
M
. the heat was beginning to dominate Atlanta. The sun rose over the red-clay counties of Elbert, Wilkes, Oglethorpe, then hit the glass and white-stone skyscrapers of Atlanta, the burned brick of the Underground with its plush shops and cutesy boutiques, the hard gray geometries of the
Journal and Constitution
building, the steel and aluminized windows of Ted Turner's empire, the asphalt streets, the concrete apartment houses, the slums and suburbs and colonial mansions of one of the South's most modern cities.

James Hawker stepped out of the canned chill of his hotel and climbed into an oven disguised as a bright yellow rental car. He rolled down the windows, turned the air on full, and by the time he had turned from Auburn Avenue onto West Peachtree, the car was sufficiently wind-blasted that he could roll the windows back up.

Not far from the Federal Building, which was across from St. Joseph Infirmary and Harris Park, Hawker matched the address of a nondescript brownstone duplex with an address written on a piece of paper. A small bronze plaque outside said that it was the office of Hale & Sons, Exporters, by appointment only, please.

Hawker knew it to be a safehouse operated by the CIA.

He parked on a side street, trotted up the steps, slowly rang the bell three times, then twice quickly. Games. CIA games. Everything had to be in code.

The door cracked, then was thrown open.

“James! By God, it's good to see you. Come on in!” Jerry Rehfuss, CIA operative and, once upon a time, Hawker's friend, greeted him warmly and ushered him inside. “Come on up to the office. It's cooler. This damn central air doesn't work worth a crap, but they've installed a couple of window units up there that will freeze your knees off. God, I'd forgotten how shitty it is working in the field. Washington's got me spoiled.”

The vigilante followed the rangy, red-haired man up the steps. From the other offices he could hear muted voices, the plastic clatter of a computer keyboard, the
bong
and
ding
of a switchboard, the rattle of a printer, but he saw no one else; every door was closed.