Slash and Burn (33 page)

Both my enemies were right there.

I didn’t want Larry just yet but Huffman was a necessity.

An M16 rattled and bullets punched into the room. The bullets went high, digging up and into the attic space above. Harvey and Rink had the men cornered at the back of the building just as we’d planned. I moved into the room, lifting my SIG. I had to disable one or other of them immediately: even with my friends watching my back it would be difficult fighting both men.

Then I heard a rumble on the planks, saw through the door a huge shadow hurtle over the balcony. This was followed seconds later by the clatter of shattering glass and I understood that Larry Bolan had jumped for it, throwing himself across the space between the house and the next building and had crashed through a window in an effort to evade capture. The big man was proving more agile than I’d ever have given him credit for.

For now, Larry was out of the picture. Let him run. Rink and Harvey would chase him down between them, but right then I only wanted Huffman. I moved quickly across the room, gauging his position by the sound of muttered curses coming through the open door.

I considered shooting him through the wall. The wood would do no more to stop my bullets than cheesecloth. But that just wasn’t satisfying enough. In my present state of mind, I wanted revenge on the punk. I wanted the son of a bitch to know exactly who had killed him.

So slowly, ever so slowly, I edged out of the door and looked down at the man who was on one knee firing at my friends below. I pressed the muzzle of my SIG on the top of his head.

‘Drop the gun, asshole.’

Huffman’s eyes rolled up at me and he sighed.

‘You think this is bad, Huffman? Think again. It’s about to get much, much worse.’

Chapter 47

A man weighing almost twice the average isn’t designed for flight. There was nothing graceful about the way Larry threw himself through space, and within a few feet he was losing altitude and speed. Noticing the window on the building opposite as a means of escape from the burning house he’d trusted to momentum to carry him to freedom. It was a bad calculation. He missed the window completely. However, his weight did come with a guarantee: it was a greater force than the wall of the building could withstand. He slammed the building feet first, smashing directly through the boards. He was lucky that there were no hidden support joists as he’d have likely smashed himself flat against them. Instead he went directly through the wood and fell the remaining body length on to hard-packed dirt inside the building. Above him, his demolition work on the wall caused more wood to fall and the window he’d originally aimed for shattered as its frame gave way.

Coming to his feet, Larry felt blood on his face and he probed a shallow gash on his forehead. His feet had taken most of the brunt of the collision but his head hadn’t gone unscathed. He didn’t recall knocking his head on the window ledge, but that was what must have occurred. When his blood had settled and the adrenalin surge had subsided, his head would likely feel like a punchbag. But that was a consideration for later. Right now he had to keep moving. Two men with guns were too close by for comfort.

He still had no idea who the two dudes were, other than that they’d come here with Joe Hunter. He was pretty sure they wouldn’t stand around while he got his shit together and faced Hunter on more stable ground than the rapidly disintegrating ranch house. Man to man he’d kick both their asses, he was pretty sure of that; even together he still thought he could take them. But not when one had a shotgun and the other a machine-gun. They’d flank him and riddle him full of lead. That would spoil his plan for their illustrious leader.

He still clutched the Desert Eagle.

He fired a couple of shots through the wall, just to make the men hold back for a second or two. He needed that time to decide what the hell he was going to do next.

Then he thought,
the crap with this
! Got to move, take the fuckers one at a time.

He charged across the building, dodging round some abandoned agricultural equipment. Towards the front of the building the door stood open, but that would take him dangerously close to the guy with the shotgun before he was ready. He aimed instead for a door in the far side. He didn’t wait to check if it was unlocked, he just raised one arm and barrelled directly through it, knocking the door off its hinges. He burst out into daylight tinged with smoke from the burning house, turned immediately to his left and raced along a passageway next to the building where Huffman had stored the wreckage of the chopper shot down the day before.

At the end of the passage he slid to a stop. He poked his head round the corner of the building, looking for the black man. There was no sign of him and Larry ran across rocky earth to where he’d parked Tito’s appropriated Cadillac. He leaped in without opening the door, thankful that he’d left the soft top down, and jammed the keys into the ignition. In all those horror or thriller movies cars have a habit of refusing to start first time, adding to the tension as someone sneaks up on the good guy. But the Cadillac burst to life first turn.

He wasn’t running away. No, this was all about strengthening his position. Huffman was pure ego. He wanted to be the top dog in everyone’s eyes.

Well, crap on you, Huffman
, he thought.
You think you’re the toughest dude alive: wait till you get a load of me
.

He floored the gas pedal, turning the Cadillac in a wide circle, and headed along a service track that followed a route past the cattle pens. No shots followed his mad flight and he knew that for the moment he’d given the black guy the slip.

Larry swung the Cadillac round the end of the slaughterhouse. The stench of old blood and animal dung displaced the acrid smoke from his nostrils, but he wasn’t sure it was a good trade. Then he powered the classic car to the front and stomped on the gas again. Then he’d no time for smells or any other distractions; he had to concentrate on killing the man with the shotgun without him blasting his head from his shoulders.

His size made it difficult to scrunch down in his seat, and he knew that his head still offered a target the size of a basketball, but there was nothing else for it. He powered on, trusting as much to luck as speed to see him through. He whipped by the building containing the chopper. Then he passed the one he’d so recently smashed inside. Next he was passing the gap he’d jumped.

The guy with the shotgun was there, his weapon aimed at the balcony. Larry glanced up and saw Joe Hunter standing with his gun pressed to Huffman’s head. Hunter could wait until later. He fired at the Japanese man.

He saw the man spin and go down in the dirt.

Everything had happened too quickly to see how badly he was injured. Maybe he was dead.

Then he was passing the house.

Wind made smoke billow across his vision. Sparks from the fire were like a swarm of burning locusts. The front of the building was already gone. But none of this registered. All that concerned Larry was spinning the wheel and making a return run.

The Cadillac burst through the smoke into clear air. Here the road sloped up to where Nixon and the others had launched their ineffective ambush. Larry used the slope to swing the vehicle on, and he turned back towards the house, giving the big car throttle.

He blasted through the smoke, relying on its cover to put another .357 round through the Japanese dude. Sparks billowed around him and the smoke brought tears to his eyes, but he didn’t stop. He didn’t see the figure spilling out of the remains of the house. The man was on fire, hair and clothing burning. The man was screaming, but he looked senseless, as though he was merely screaming at the world in general. At the last second he stumbled, turning directly in the path of the Cadillac.

It was too late for Larry to swerve. He just blasted right on into the man. Larry had never liked that coward, Rourke, anyway.

The huge car was more than a match for the fragile human being. It smashed Rourke into the air and his body caromed off the windshield. If the car had had a hard roof, that would have been that, but the soft top was down. Rourke’s flailing body spun over the shattered windshield and landed directly in Larry’s lap.

Rourke was a fair-sized man, and his body slammed Larry like a battering ram. The shock of the collision, spattering blood and flames, all conspired against Larry and there was nothing he could do to hang on to the Cadillac’s steering wheel. The car veered to the left and hit the raised walkway at the front of the house, punching out a couple of support beams to the balcony above. Then, in the next second, the car bounced outwards, flipping in a roll that hurled Larry and Rourke out of the car and on to the rocky earth.

Cognisance left Larry. His mind was full of flashing images and explosions of pain as his body rolled across the floor. Stones dug at him, dust filled his eyes and mouth, something gave in his ribcage with a pop. Then he was lying on his back and the world was spinning and dipping in his vision. Everything was eerily silent.

He lay there for mere seconds.

Then he sat up, blinking and spitting crud from his mouth.

Smoke wreathed across his vision.

Larry groaned, felt for the abnormal shape in his chest and realised that he’d broken a rib. The pain was only one of many similar pains; nothing serious like a shattered spine or crushed skull plagued him.

His hearing came back with a jolt. Trent was screaming at him to get his ass in gear.

He rolled on to his knees, head swimming, then got to his feet where he swayed like a tower in the face of a hurricane.

Superheated wind tore the smoke away from him.

Shit.

Standing directly in front of him was the Jap dude. Blood was apparent only by its absence. Larry had missed the shot and the man was holding a goddamn Mossberg aimed at his gut.

‘You have a beef with Joe Hunter,’ said the man, ‘you have a beef with me.’

Chapter 48

‘Drop the gun, Huffman.’

It’s the power a beautiful face has over a man. For the last few days I could have been accused of being led by my heart instead of by my brain. Pretty much everything I’d done had been driven by the rage I felt at Huffman because he’d threatened a woman that I was attracted to. But now I’d hit melting point. Considering everything, my actions weren’t the most rational. I’d tried to validate them by telling myself that to defeat Huffman he had to believe that I was a rabid lone wolf who was unmindful of the consequences. My plan seemed to have worked.

But now the madness had to stop.

Here on in I had to get a grip on what I was doing.

‘Son of a bitch,’ Huffman said under his breath. Then a smile crept on to his lips. It looked too forced to be genuine. ‘So you made it by everyone and now it’s down to just you and me?’

‘Drop the gun, Huffman,’ I repeated. ‘Or I swear to God I’ll kill you now.’

‘Then what happens? You shoot me anyway?’

‘Maybe you’d prefer to burn to death.’ Without taking my gun from his skull, I nodded backwards at the flames behind us. The heat was stinging the exposed flesh on the back of my neck.

‘I’d prefer to talk.’ Huffman gave me a patronising smile that made me wish I could kill in cold blood.

‘We’ve gone way past talking. Now drop the goddamn gun.’

Huffman allowed the gun to fall from his fingers. I dragged it away from him with my foot and then back-heeled it into the flames.

‘I’m worth millions of dollars, Hunter. Name your price.’

‘No, Huffman, this wasn’t ever about money.’

He twisted his smile. ‘You’re pissed at me because of the women. OK, I get that. But it wasn’t personal. I’m a businessman; I was simply looking after my interests.’

‘That’s not the way I see it.’

‘People have died, yes! But they were all greedy men with their own agendas.’

‘You played them as much as you tried to play me, Huffman. It was all a game to you. One you wanted to win. I bet you’re the one that’s pissed now.’

He gave a shrug as though the destruction of his empire meant nothing. ‘You win some, you lose some. That’s business.’

Just then I heard the roar of an engine. Larry Bolan drove past us in his Cadillac, firing his gun at Rink. I knew by the way that Rink spun to the ground, then bounced back up again, that he was unhurt. We shared a brief glance before I had to return my attention to a more pressing task.

‘Your business partner has the right idea,’ I pointed out. ‘Looks like Larry’s making a run for it.’

‘Bolan wasn’t my partner,’ Huffman sneered, as if such a thing was beneath him. ‘Even he has his own agenda.’

‘Yeah, I know that. But you were playing him too.’

‘You seem to have got my number.’ Huffman laughed. ‘Yeah, and you’ve got me. So what now?’

I indicated that he stand, transferring the gun to a point under his jaw.

‘We’re going to get it on. That was always the idea of your little game.’

‘And when I kill you, what’s to stop your friends shooting me?’

‘Who says you’re going to kill me?’ I pressed the SIG tightly enough to put pressure on the nerves. He stoically took the pain, but it was all a bluff. I could see it in the way his smile faltered.