Hawke's Prey

by Reavis Z. Wortham

  I came back to the real world with a long, bloody knife in my hand, not knowing where it came from until I saw the corpse at my feet and the empty sheath at the belt around his knees.

  I let it go and the knife fell point first, sticking into the wooden floor.

  Choking back her sobs, Kelly rose from the table and removed her tights and torn underwear. In a strange move, she picked up my dropped Colt and put it back in the holster like she was tidying up. I saw Jerry holding his bloody nose by the door and pushing Stephen back out.

  “Go with him, son.”

  “Did he—”

  “No. Out!”

  He followed Stephen without looking back.

  Kelly leaned into my arms. Trembling, we clung to each other in the middle of hell, almost on top of the body at our feet. She held my head against her cheek and I held her with my eyes closed, not wanting to see the bruises again. Not yet.

  “I’m not going to ask if you’re okay.”

  “It didn’t happen.”

  I had to grit my teeth to bite back another storm. “You weren’t—?”

  “No. Hush. You got here in time. Are you okay?”

  My breath hitched in my chest. In the midst of all that, she was worried about me. I wiped my tears and collected myself. We’d already wasted too much time.

  “We need to move.”

  She used a thumb to collect a tear on my cheek in a sweet, ridiculous gesture, because I figured we looked like we worked in a slaughterhouse. All was silent on the opposite side of the half-closed door.

  I got a good look at the split across the bridge of her nose. Blood was clotting in her hair from a scalp wound. Both eyes were turning black.

  I waved a hand toward a headless body at the back of the room. “Who is that?”

  She refused to look in that direction. “Wilfred Bates. They did that when he tried to fight back.”

  We opened the door to find shell-shocked teenagers and adults watching us with big eyes. Mary spoke through the hand over her mouth. “Dad, are you all right?”

  I didn’t need to look down to know what she was thinking. “Fine.”

  She hovered on the edge of a sob. “Are you sure? Dad, you’re covered in blood.”

  I saw the looks on their faces and wished I could kill the bastard again.

  I held out my arms and the twins rushed forward. “All right, y’all. Easy. If more of those guys come in, we’re gonna feel pretty stupid standing here hugging one another.”

  Jerry stepped back and I saw an MP4 slung over one shoulder. It belonged to the terrorist I’d killed with the cane. “Did you figure out how it works?”

  “Yessir.”

  “Safety on till you need it.”

  “But Dad, he didn’t have the safety on.”

  “He was an idiot. That’s why he’s laying there. Remember what I’ve taught you.”

  “Yessir.”

  I wondered what kind of damage was being done to the kids in that room.

  Stephen stood near Mr. Beck, who held a Glock. From the expression on his face, he was ready to use it. He scratched at a hairy ear. “Good to see you made it, son.”

  I was glad to see Mr. Beck was alive and kicking. I’d been afraid one of those shots at the outset had taken the old warrior down. “Mr. Beck. You all right with that pistol?”

  He straightened a couple of inches. “Sure ’nough. This ain’t no .45, though. Where’s the safety?”

  “There ain’t one.”

  He gave me a look like I’d grown another head. “No safety? How come people don’t shoot themselves?”

  “Sometimes they do. Point it and pull the trigger.”

  “Don’t you worry about that part.”

  Stephen couldn’t take his eyes off my blood-splattered clothes, and when I moved in his direction, he backed up a step. I reckon I’d have felt the same if I’ d seen my best friend’s dad go berserk.

  The terrorists were causing more damage than they’d hoped for.

  I hoofed it back to the conference room for more hardware. I handed the second M4 to Kelly and gave a pistol to Mary. My family got the weapons because I knew they could handle ’em.

  I took stock of the adults in the room. I knew most of them, except for two women who were complete strangers.

  I saw trouble with Maribelle Baird, who stood there stiff and prim with her eyes loose, looking the kids over and voicing a disapproving grunt each time I armed one of them.

  Maribelle stalked up to Mary and stuck out her hand. “Give me that gun. Give it here. You children have no business with those things.”

  My daughter’s eyes flashed. She twisted away from the stout woman to keep her body between the pistol and Maribelle. “No ma’am!”

  Maribelle wagged her finger first at Mary then the kids. “Those things are dangerous. You’ll hurt someone with them.”

  Mr. Beck put himself between us. “Maribelle, I’ve heard you holler for fifty years about things that ain’t none of your business, but this is the last time. You let them kids alone and shut up!”

  Her voice sounded like a sore-tailed tomcat. “Aren’t you afraid they might shoot one another with those guns, or me?”

  I couldn’t stand that cranky woman, even when I was a kid. “If those people come back in here, what difference does it make? You’re all gonna die anyway. They can at least have a chance to protect themselves, and maybe you, if one of ’em don’t take a notion to shoot you first for being so aggravatin’.”

  Mr. Beck spoke up. “That’s liable to be me.”

  I handed the pistol I’d taken from the first guy to Stephen, who was a good shot. I knew, because he’d gone into the desert with us to practice many times. He took it, keeping his finger off the trigger.

  “Y’all listen. We’re far from out of the woods here. Sooner or later, someone’s gonna come up to relieve these guys, or to find out why they aren’t answering their radios, so I doubt we’re going to be lucky much longer.”

  “Mr. Hawke?” Evangelina Nakai put her hand on his arm. “My phone isn’t working.”

  If we’d been out of trouble, I’d have laughed. Most of the devices looked as if they’d been through the wringer. No matter whether they worked or not, a couple of the kids held onto ’em as if they were lifelines.

  “Hon, you can try, but Ethan says the cells are clogged with so many people trying to call.”

  They stared at the hunks of plastic in their hands, as if the technology had betrayed them.

  Mr. Beck raised an eyebrow. “You’ve talked to the sheriff ?”

  “For a second. They know a little bit about what’s going on.”

  “Why haven’t they come in to get us?”

  “Firepower.”

  A soft, round man stood beside Mr. Beck. Neal Hampton worked at home, and we didn’t often see him out of the house except for church on Sundays. “You have any more guns?”

  I handed him a well-used Russian Makarov pistol I took off the man in the conference room. He’d been armed for bear.

  “This isn’t much, but it’ll do.” I looked at the frightened faces around me. “Bet y’all wished you’d stayed home today.”

  Hampton shrugged. “Came in to pay my taxes.” The corners of his mouth twitched. “Think I’ll mail them in next time.”

  Chapter 70

  Dorothy knew she should have already checked on Al-Zahwi and Qambrani, the two Syrians guarding the hostages, but the floor was so quiet she assumed they were doing their jobs. The truth was she couldn’t stand the way Al-Zahwi kept staring at her. He licked his lips so much the material over his mouth was always wet.

  She’d been overwhelmed with the additional duties DeVaca had assigned after he saw how efficient she was, even though there were more than enough men to carry out his orders.

  Now she’d failed him and a ball of fear lay heavy in her stomach. She hadn’t been in contact with either Lion since he left to destroy the communications system or Scarecrow after he went to find hi
m.

  She pointed at the courtroom’s closed doors when they reached the second floor, directing Fuentes and Torres as if they’d been her immediate team members. “Relieve those two in there and send them out to Mslam. I’ll be back soon.”

  Dorothy took the stairs two at a time. She needed to find those two right now and give them a dressing-down before solidifying their story and taking them down to Wicked.

  * * *

  Fuentes and Torres headed for the door. They’d been friends for over two years and were excited about their successful first operation in los Estados Unidos.

  Both were glad they hadn’t been assigned as lookouts in the snow. Down in the basement would have been just as bad, so watching the hostages was easy duty.

  Gerardo Torres liked to clown around, trying to get a laugh out of his friend Rafael.

  Torres opened the door, bent at the waist, and waved Fuentes through with a flourish. “Después, mi amigo. Edad antes de belleza, ya que estos norteamericanos dicen.”

  After you, my friend. Age before beauty, as the North Americans say.

  The man who’d only that morning cut a tweaker’s throat and left her dying in the snow laughed when he stepped through the door.

  * * *

  Dorothy was on the third floor when the sharp report of a gunshot stopped her. She knew Fuentes and Torres had stepped into something unexpected.

  Chapter 71

  “Here’s the deal, guys.”

  There wasn’t a person in the room who wasn’t scared, including me, but most of them were determined. Behind their mama, my redheads Mary and Jerry waited with their shoulders touching, weapons pointed downward.

  “I know y’all want to go charging out of this place, but that ain’t gonna happen. There’s an ass-load of killers one floor down, and I’m pretty sure they all know how to hit what they aim at. If they knew what was going on up here right now, they’d swarm us. They’re trained and you’re not—shut up, Jerry.”

  He’d opened his mouth to say something, but I wasn’t going to allow any discussion. I gave him a wink to soften the order and he clammed up.

  “All y’all are fixin’ to sit in the same places you were when I came in. Put your weapons down beside you and wait. If any of those guys come to check on their friends, they’ll just walk in, because they’re overconfident right now.

  “If you’re standing up and ready, they’ll shoot you. It’s that simple. You won’t win in a fight. This isn’t television. You will die. What you’ll do is wait until they’re in the room, point at the office there, and when their attention is directed that way, then you shoot them. In the back if you get the chance. Pour it on ’em, then you real quick reload and barricade the door with everything you can move, kick these chairs loose from the floor if you have to, and wait some more.”

  “Where will you be?”

  “Mr. Beck, I’ve got a couple of half-baked ideas, but they involve me and no one else.”

  A girl I didn’t recognize pointed at the window. “We can get out that way.”

  “Hon, it’s a long drop to the ground. We don’t have anything to lower you guys, and most everyone here couldn’t get down even if we had a rope. Climbing down like that is harder than it looks in the movies.”

  Kelly stiffened. “Sonny. Where’s Arturo?”

  I loved that woman even more right then. In spite of all that had happened to her, she remembered one of her kids was still out of the nest.

  “He’s hid out the next floor up.” I pointed to the ceiling.

  “I still say we can get out the window.” That came from Maribelle Baird.

  I felt my face redden. “Go ahead on. Jump. I won’t stop you, but this isn’t a democracy. The rules went out the window the minute they hit the courthouse.”

  “But—”

  “Go, then, if you want to!”

  She wouldn’t quit. “Fine. But I think we need to do something besides wait. What if we wrote help on something and hung it out the window so they can see where we are?”

  Mr. Beck’s face hardened. “I don’t see anything in here bigger’n a sheet of typing paper, and with that blowing snow, no one can read it anyway. Why don’t you sit down somewheres and think some more?”

  The whole room fell silent as the rest of ’em tried not to catch my attention.

  “Y’all need to get quiet now.” Mr. Beck gave me a pat on the shoulder. “Sonny, go ahead on with what you’re gonna do. I’ll take care of things in here, and I don’t want to hear another word about it. They caught me by surprise, once. It ain’t-a-gonna happen again. Good luck, son.”

  That instant revealed the young man inside that wrinkled face who’d seen more than I could imagine.

  Kelly touched my arm. “What are you going to do?”

  “I don’t have a clue.”

  Chapter 72

  Arturo couldn’t take it any longer. He fidgeted behind the judge’s bench, shifting back and forth to bleed off nervous energy.

  His attention wandered to the snow blowing against the windows, then he scanned the room. A folding table leaned against the railing. Beyond that were two heavy oak tables for the lawyers and their clients, an easel, a portable rack of electronic gear with a giant tube television strapped to the top, and a long orange extension cord on the floor.

  Arturo picked up the cord that was rolled in an odd, chainlike series of loops. He tugged at one end, expecting it to knot. Instead, the loop pulled free of the next link. Another tug and still another loop came free. In no time, he had a hundred-foot extension cord in his hands.

  “Hijo de puta!”

  Son of a bitch!

  Arturo rushed to the window. Expecting the window to be painted shut, he put both hands under the lower rail and pushed upward. It didn’t budge. He checked the frame and, feeling like a dummy, flipped the lock and pushed again. This time the window slid open. Icy wind poured inside, cutting through his jeans like they were made of tissue. Despite the falling snow, he saw a deep drift piled against the courthouse two stories below. It didn’t seem to be that far. The snow looked soft and inviting.

  Excited that he was about to escape, he tied one end of the cord into a slipknot and secured the loop around the armrest of the chair nearest the window, figuring that since it was bolted down, the iron and wood should hold his weight. Dropping the free end out the window, Arturo stuck his head out, pleased to see that the cord reached the snowy ground with plenty to spare. Wind snatched Sonny Hawke’s hat from his head and sent it spinning into the storm.

  The extension cord felt stiff when he grabbed it with both hands and threw one leg over the sill. He pulled on Sonny’s gloves.

  With the courage of a teenager, he leaned outward and almost fell when his grip slipped on the thin plastic covering. He yelped in fear and struggled back inside. Heart thudding, he glanced at the door, all the while expecting another terrorist to come in. He well-roped the cord back inside.

  Let’s say sixty feet to the ground. Half of a hundred is fifty, and that snow’s deep and soft enough that I can drop the last few feet and won’t get hurt.

  Pleased with his estimations and problem-solving abilities, Arturo doubled the extension cord and tied a series of knots at intervals, just like he did with the rope in the attic, though that seemed like days earlier. Finished, he threw it back outside. It dangled short of the ground, but close enough for a safe drop.

  Taking a deep breath, he once again straddled the windowsill and gripped the first double knot with both hands. It felt smaller than he expected, but he couldn’t stay there. The youngster slung the MP5 out of the way and wiggled out on his stomach, feetfirst. With a terrified gulp, he pushed off with his elbows, dangling in the wind. The drop stretched twice as far away and the entire idea seemed stupid.

  Snow blew down his neck. Gasping, he snagged the skinny cord between his feet and slid down to the next knot. Hanging on like a monkey, he slithered downward another foot at the same instant the wind slammed him into the s
ide of the building. Dangling free, Arturo knew he’d made a serious mistake when he found it impossible to climb back up.

  No matter how hard he tried, the slick cord defied his attempts and he slid downward several more inches. The wind gusted again, twisting him on the doubled cord that seemed hair thin. The next knot shot through his hands. Despite giving it everything he had, Arturo lost his grip and fell with alarming speed.

  The sickening drop was a blur. The earth rushed upward and he expected to slam into the ground and crack his head open. Instead, the youngster was yanked to a violent stop when one leg slipped through the doubled loop at the end, catching him with a painful snap in the groin.

  He flipped upside down. The H&K slapped the side of his head with a loud crack. He came up short, and the extension cord pulled tight against his leg, jerking him to an abrupt stop.

  Folded in half by the sling caught under his arms, he dangled like a parachutist tangled in a tree. The strap dug into his shoulder, and the only thing keeping him from strangling was the bulk of Sonny’s coat and the shirt bunched up under his arms, leaving his midriff bare to the blowing snow.

  Adding insult to injury, the wind slammed Arturo against the side of the building, once again knocking the breath out of him in a harsh bark of pain. He swung like a pendulum against the rough pink stucco.

  Helpless, and fighting for air, he dangled in the blizzard and realized his calculations were wrong.

  Chapter 73

  The two guys who came stumbling into the second-floor courtroom broke the whole thing wide open. I guess they’d all gotten a little lazy, what with no trouble from anyone after they’d taken the courthouse and raked everything outside with gunfire. With the blizzard raging, no one was giving ’em any grief and they must have felt pretty secure.

  I’d seen a lot of things happen pretty fast within the last few hours, but the speed with which our fragile sense of security evaporated was breathtaking.

  The door opened and a terrorist with tattoos up his neck came dancing in, shuffling his feet in that cocky way young people have to show that they’re cool.