Slash and Burn (30 page)

‘I don’t think he has those kinds of resources,’ I said. ‘I had Kate’s phone with me for a day and a half. If he had connections he’d have been able to trace it. The same kinds of connections would’ve been able to dig up information on me. He hasn’t acted on tracing the phone, and I don’t think he’s found anything out about me. Nothing about my past anyway.’

‘First rule of engagement?’ Rink asked.

‘Never underestimate your opponent. But that’s not what I’m doing. I just can’t understand why he would want to face me. What would it achieve?’

Rink wagged a burger-loaded bun at me. ‘You’re forgettin’ what you’ve accomplished. You’ve killed half his people; destroyed one of his buildings, fucked up his entire operation in Kentucky and taken Kate back from him. Maybe there’s a little grudging respect in him.’

‘It’s still weird.’

‘And the rest of your life has been normal?’

I had to acquiesce.

‘Larry Bolan I understand. As far as he’s concerned I murdered his brother. If the tables were turned, I’d want me dead too. I just don’t get Huffman.’

‘So don’t bother,’ Rink said. ‘Let’s just go kill the frog-giggin’ son of a bitch and get our asses back to Florida.’

Rink’s suggestion seemed as good as any other. I chewed on my food as the sun broke over the skyline behind me. It was that false dawn that stretches through the still hours before the rest of the world comes alive. When I’d enough carbohydrates inside me, I washed the greasy taste away with strong coffee. Junk food and caffeine is never the choice of athletes, but I was hoping to get this over with quickly and not run a marathon before my enemies were dead.

Harvey had a mission to perform before we could set off. He’d promised that the M24s would be back with the sergeant at Fort Worth Joint Reserve Base. This time we wouldn’t need the rifles, it would be all close stuff. Plus, we had to use guns that would be untraceable on any data base. When Rink and Harvey had fired on the two out at Quicksilver Ranch, we’d relied on the fact that the Winchester bullets would pass through their targets and be lost on the vast prairie. This time there’d be no way to avoid leaving behind incriminating rounds.

Harvey returned within ninety minutes. Meanwhile we had cleaned up the cabin, wiping prints, and ensuring there was no trace of my blood anywhere inside. There was little likelihood that the three supposed-fishermen who’d rented the cabin would be tied to what was to occur in the coming hours, but you could never be too careful. Then we’d prepped our weapons. I had my SIG and a KA-BAR knife, and Rink elected for the Glock 17 and his trusty Mossberg combat shotgun. He too had his knife. I knew that Harvey packed a semi-automatic handgun and he’d be ready to go. We all wore black jackets over T-shirts, jeans and boots: Rink and I looked like doormen from the roughest bar in town, but Harvey still looked sharp.

Before we left Pilot Point for the final time, I had one last task to fulfil. I walked along the shore of the lake while I phoned Kate. Although I told myself that my motive was to check she’d arrived safely at Rink’s office, really I wanted to hear her voice again. We hadn’t spoken about our time in the cabin and I just wanted to reassure myself that she didn’t now regret getting so close. If she didn’t want anything further to do with me, it wouldn’t change the outcome of my day, except maybe I’d be even more heavy-handed than usual.

‘Hi, Joe.’ Her voice was low. She sounded tired, but I was relieved to find that it wasn’t of me. She had put in a few exhausting days, and I’d woken her from her first sleep in many hours. ‘How’s your shoulder?’

‘It’s fine. I’m fine.’

‘Let’s keep things that way, shall we?’

‘You bet,’ I said. ‘You’re back at Rink’s place. Are McTeer and Velasquez still with you?’

‘They’ve set up shop in the front: we’re using the back room to get a little sleep.’

‘Is Imogen OK?’

‘She’s fine, Joe.’

‘I was a little rough on her back there. Tell her that I’m sorry.’

‘She’s fine. Really.’

‘Good. We’re about to set off,’ I said. ‘I just wanted you to know.’

‘I’m not going to say goodbye.’

‘Me neither.’

‘See you later then.’

‘Yeah. Try and get some sleep. I’ll see you tonight, OK?’

‘OK.’

We both rang off before things grew awkward. Then I put the phone away. It was time for my other tools, I thought, and I touched the butt of my gun. When I got back to the cabin, Rink and Harvey were waiting beside the Windstar.

‘Ready, Hunter?’ Rink asked.

‘Let’s roll.’

Some people refer to what I do as vigilantism; they assume that I must be some sort of damaged freak raging at the inability of law enforcement to do what needs doing. Often, vigilantes do have a slightly psychotic outlook, so much so that they become exactly what it is they are fighting against. Maybe a small measure of me could be weighed in that context, but it would be very, very small. As a child, I was the one who’d stick up for the little kid who everyone else thought was a loser. I suppose, instead of a vigilante, I should be looked upon as a protector. And the best way I know to protect is to take the fight directly to the threat.

In the past I’ve been guilty of rushing in and depending on my skills and a huge amount of luck to see me through trouble, but this time it couldn’t be so rash. I wanted Huffman dead, but not at the expense of the lives of my friends, Rink and Harvey; they were owed more consideration than that. With that in mind, I decided my plan of attack on the drive to Quicksilver Ranch.

Last time we’d got no further than the entrance to Huffman’s land. The ranch itself was over the horizon so we had no idea of the layout of the buildings or the surrounding countryside. But it appeared that Harvey’s skill with a computer was up to its usual high standards. While Rink drove the Windstar, Harvey jammed in a mobile broadband connector and brought up aerial images of the ranch. There was little need for spies when you could Google just about anything or anywhere you desired. But Harvey went one further, bringing up the schematics of Huffman’s house by digging into planning and construction records held on file in a Grayson County database.

The house was large by anyone’s standards, with four storeys if you counted the basement and attic spaces. To me it had the look of a colonial mansion house, with an upper tier serving as the living quarters while the ground floor was given over to kitchen, dining and utility rooms. The house was next to a series of large buildings ending in what looked like livestock pens alongside a large rectangular structure. Then it was just grassland for miles in any direction I chose.

‘Won’t be easy getting close,’ Rink said. ‘Not without being seen. We should’ve kept the M24s and took 'em from a distance.’

This from a man who I’d witnessed crawling to within yards of a terrorist training cell in the Libyan desert to set up close target reconnaissance, then lying undetected, gathering intelligence, until the rest of our unit charged in and wiped them all out.

‘The grass will give us cover almost all the way to the house,’ Harvey said. ‘Unless they have FLIR.’

He was talking about technology that military personnel use to locate enemies lying in ambush. Forward-looking infra-red detectors apply digital thermal imaging to build a picture of anything warmer than the ambient background. Heat leaking from even the best-camouflaged person cannot escape the device.

I didn’t think that Huffman had FLIR technology to hand. The people he had working for him came from the criminal underworld and, though they had access to M16 assault rifles, didn’t deem the more esoteric equipment necessary. But I could be wrong.

‘They won’t be looking for us sneaking up on them if I create a diversion,’ I said. ‘I could draw their fire while you two get into the buildings at the back of the ranch. It’s me Huffman wants; they’ll concentrate on me and that’ll give you the opportunity to come in through the back door.’

‘He’ll be expecting us, too.’ Rink was referring to the fact that we’d shown our hand when launching the ambush yesterday. ‘He’ll know that there were two shooters out in the grass because of the angles of the shots.’

‘But he won’t know if you’re still working with me or not. If I play the demented vigilante bent on revenge, I think I can hold their attention long enough to make them forget all about you.’

‘What’s your idea?’

I told them.

Both of my friends shook their heads at the absurdity of my plan.

‘Who do you think you are, goddamn Rooster Cogburn?’ Rink asked.

Conjuring a picture of John Wayne with his horse’s reins between his teeth and a gun in each hand, I grinned. If it was good enough for the Duke, it would be good enough for me.

Fill your hand, Huffman
, I thought,
you son of a bitch!

Chapter 43

Robert Huffman had any number of places he could have waited for Joe Hunter. He owned several buildings spread across the Midwest. There was an office in Dallas that gave him a view of Reunion Tower and was little more than a stone’s throw from the Texas School Book Depository, from where Lee Harvey Oswald purportedly fired the bullets that assassinated John F. Kennedy. His office was perched on the penthouse floor, on a level with the top of the nearby Hyatt, and on the days before the Dallas Stars moved to the American Airlines Center he could hear the cheering of the crowds from the nearby stadium.

But he chose to remain at Quicksilver Ranch because it was the most remote of his properties. Twice now in the past twenty-four hours the sounds of gunfire and exploding vehicles had not raised the interest of the police, and he was counting on the third time being no different. He wanted his war with Hunter to be waged with no outside interference. That wouldn’t be the case if they went at it in downtown Dallas.

He waited for Hunter to come to him.

Some of his men were ranged in a skirmish line protecting the approach to the ranch house. They had been out there for hours now. Larry Bolan was somewhere inside preparing himself for Hunter’s arrival. He’d allowed Bolan this latitude in order to keep the big man from exploding too soon. His need for revenge on Joe Hunter was like a slowly burning fuse of indeterminate length. Huffman didn’t want Bolan’s rage let loose until Hunter was no longer a threat. If he had been out there now, the likelihood was that he’d murder Grade and the others in order to ensure he was the only one to get an opportunity to kill Hunter.

He asked himself why he had allowed Bolan to live. His remark that Bolan had always been his favourite was as false as his jovial demeanour. Bolan meant nothing to him other than as a handy tool when it came to doling out violence. But he had become a defective tool. Bolan had murdered six of Huffman’s people in his attempt to gain revenge on his brother’s killer. He didn’t doubt that Bolan would try to kill him if he was perceived as a threat to completing the mission.

Bolan had agreed to give Huffman the glory of killing Hunter, but Huffman didn’t believe him. Bolan would want his own legend. He’d sworn to his dead brother, Trent, that he would avenge him. Unless he shouted Hunter’s defeat loud and clear, how would Trent hear him all the way from the afterlife?

Bolan would have to die.

There was nothing else for it.

But not yet. Defective tool that he was, Bolan was still useful. Even a blunt hammer could knock a nail into wood. Once Hunter was dead Larry Bolan would follow him. He could personally tell his wall-eyed, crazy brother all the details when he joined him in hell. He could tell Trent that Robert Huffman, Quicksilver, was the top dog, and he could show his slit throat as proof.

Huffman slid out his razor.

He picked a slip of notepaper off his desk and ran the razor against it, cutting a neat line and allowing the severed portion to flutter to the desktop. The edge was incredibly sharp. Then he turned the blade so that it reflected his eyes. He peered into the depths of the steel, as if the eyes staring back at him were those of a metaphysical being locked within. He wondered if the man in the blade was in fact the real Quicksilver, some elemental spirit that had lain dormant for way too long. Or that a portion of his own soul had been imprisoned within the steel and was demanding release. It had been many years since the razor had tasted blood, but since it had stolen the life from Desmond Molloy, Huffman could almost believe that the blade-being demanded more. All fanciful stuff, he had to accept, because he wasn’t one for fantasy. He knew the truth: there was only his own desire for violence. But it did no harm to dream.

‘It’s time,’ he whispered.

Chapter 44

The sun was a full hand’s breadth above the horizon when I drove the Windstar through the gate and on to Quicksilver Ranch. The hire vehicle had been a dependable ally over the last twenty-four hours but it was almost time to say goodbye. Not that I was going to grow all sentimental over it. It was an inanimate object, given the illusion of life by electricity and the combustion of gas. It was simply a tool.

I checked the gas and saw that it was hovering near the empty mark. Maybe I should have put a little more juice in the tank when I’d filled the drum riding on the back seat: I’d look an idiot if the car ran out of fuel before I reached my destination. But I only had a mile to go, and the fuel in the reserve tank would be enough.