by Matt Hilton
‘Keep down,’ I warned again.
‘Aw, hell, Joe! I think he saw me.’ Billie squirmed around on the seat, and I didn’t know if she was trying to get down into the foot well with the bags or if she’d given up the deception. ‘I’m sorry, but I couldn’t help looking. I think he looked right at me.’
By then we were two car lengths beyond the SUV and moving further away. I checked my mirrors, and saw the man poke his head out of the window to get a bead on us. Either that or he was taking down the licence plate number. Not good. Not good at all.
‘I asked you to stay down.’ I tried not to sound angry.
‘My curiosity got the better of me. I said I was sorry.’ Billie didn’t sound sorry, she sounded equally angry. ‘I wanted to know who it was we were running from.’
‘It looks as if we’re about to find out.’ Behind us the man had switched on the engine. The lights came on automatically. I gave my rental throttle but not too much. I probably couldn’t outrun the SUV in a sedan on these mountain roads. I placed my SIG on the passenger seat when I saw the SUV do a rapid turn on the road and follow. ‘OK. This isn’t working out the way I hoped.’
The SUV powered up behind us.
Headlights flashed, glancing off my mirrors.
Still playing it dumb, I turned on my lights, and offered a friendly wave of thanks out of the window.
Behind me the guy flashed his main beam again, then hit the horn. I sped up, passing the lake; the road began to rise up into the surrounding hills. The SUV came close on our tail, the driver accelerating and decelerating aggressively. His lights flashed, his horn blared.
I braked and pulled over.
‘What are you doing?’ Billie demanded.
‘Seeing how our friend wants to play things,’ I said.
The SUV came to a halt. I couldn’t see for the glow from his headlights but it was fair to assume that my abrupt stop was the last thing the guy had expected. Grabbing my gun, I was out of the car in an instant and marching towards him. I kept the gun hidden behind my thigh, but I had to be fast and decisive before he thought to call in reinforcements.
‘Hey, buddy! Hey!’ I acted drunk, loud and slurring my words. ‘What you doing blinding me like that, huh?’
The driver didn’t reply. Maybe he hadn’t seen Billie after all and was now wondering how best to deal with a belligerent drunkard. As I strode up to his door I hoped that he would reach for his phone before he did a weapon. I pressed up close to his window, making an angry face, but really checking out his hands. I thumped the ball of my left fist on the glass. He wasn’t easily intimidated. He peered back at me, evaluating, unconcerned by my bravado. Both his hands were still on the wheel. Then he reached and switched off the engine. I stepped back as the door swung open. The guy stepped out. He was taller, and outweighed me by a number of pounds. Younger too.
‘Who the hell are you?’ His voice was husky. A crescent scar above his right eyebrow was puckered and white against his ruddy complexion. I didn’t require the extra details to recognise him as the first man I’d spotted lurking at the back of Billie’s house.
I lifted my SIG and aimed at his gut. ‘That’s exactly what I want to know about you.’
He glanced down at my gun as if it was a peashooter. His mouth turned up at one corner. ‘If you’re gonna shoot me, you betta make it count. A pissant little gun like that won’t stop me from ripping your head off.’
I lowered the barrel so it was inches from his groin.
The corner of his mouth drooped.
‘Who are you?’ I asked.
‘Who are you?’
‘If I tell you, you’re day won’t end well. Now come on, I’m not fucking about. Who are you and what do you want?’ My promise to Brandon Cooper was weighing heavily in my mind. Maybe the guy read that I was reluctant to shoot, because he just laughed.
‘Who’s that in the back of your car?’ He aimed a finger past me. If he expected me to follow his gesture so he could coldcock me while I was distracted he was mistaken.
‘What’s it to do with you?’
‘It’s Wilhelmina Womack, right?’
‘Never heard of her,’ I lied.
‘Richard Womack’s wife,’ he went on.
‘Aren’t they the pop singers?’ I said. He looked at me dumbly. ‘Womack and Womack? You know them. You look like a man who enjoys his disco music.’
‘Yeah, right. Funny,’ he said, unimpressed by my humour as much as by my appearance, or my gun. Maybe the same joke had been made a few times during discussions with his pals. ‘That’s her, all right. I saw her. I want to speak with her.’
‘Not going to happen.’
‘You’re gonna stop me?’ He raised an eyebrow. He opened his hands, palms up. It wasn’t a sign of surrender; he was readying himself for action.
‘Yes.’ Now I dropped all pretences at being anything other than what I was. I jammed the muzzle of my gun under his chin, forcing back his head. Now his palms did come up, open, near his shoulders. ‘But first you’re going to tell me a few things. You’re from Procrylon, right? You want Billie to draw out her husband? Well I hope you’re a fucking psychic medium, because he’s dead. You understand that? Dead. Just like you’re going to be unless you get the fuck in your car, drive away and don’t look back.’
The man snorted. He craned his neck, disdainful of my gun. Maybe he thought a nine mm slug up through his jaw and into his brain was something to be shrugged off. He even placed the fingers of one hand against the barrel, about the press it away. I shoved it harder into the soft flesh of his neck. ‘You’re not taking me seriously enough, buddy,’ I warned him.
‘Why’d I even bother? If you were gonna shoot, you’d shoot. All this talk just tells me that you ain’t gonna.’
Sadly he had a point.
‘Try me,’ I growled.
He craned his neck again. ‘Pal, you ain’t gonna do nothin’.’
I kneed him in the groin.
Gasping, he went down on his knees, his hands cupping his sore bits. ‘Son of a . . .’ his words ended in a wheeze.
I shoved the barrel of my gun into the nape of his neck. ‘You’d best start taking notice. Now listen up. Up till now you haven’t given me reason enough to kill you, but we’re getting there. Now stop trying my patience. You’re with Procrylon, right?’
‘They pay the bill,’ he agreed.
‘What are you? Merc, hired muscle, what?’
‘Private contractor.’
‘Same thing,’ I said. ‘How many guys are you working with?’
‘Enough for you to know not to mess with us.’
‘Still being the asshole, eh? Well, pal, it’s you on your knees with a gun to your head. Doesn’t matter how many others you can call on, they aren’t going to get here in time to help.’ To enforce my point I pushed down hard on the gun. The guy didn’t resist. Maybe his mind was still on his damaged balls. Before now he’d been smug, thinking I was all bluff, but now I got a whiff of his scent. He was sweating, the raw stink of fear evident. ‘Now listen up. This is how things are going to play out. You leave, you tell your friends to leave. Nobody goes near Billie Womack and we’re good. Do anything else and I swear to you; you’re entering a battle you’re not going to win.’
He let go of his groin to hold out his hands. This time they were palms down. ‘You can threaten all you like,’ he said. ‘Won’t mean a damn thing to the Jaegers. They won’t turn away from a fight, even if you were Jack-fucking-Reacher.’
‘The Jaegers: are those the two brothers you were with at the house?’
He stiffened slightly. Alarmed that I knew about the men in the van? Or maybe he was more surprised that I’d admitted to being at the farm when they’d searched it.
‘You should fear them,’ he said.
‘I don’t.’
‘Just let me call ’em, and we’ll see.’
‘Once you’re back in your car and driving away, you can call who the hell you want. In fact,
do that. And tell them what I just told you.’ I grasped his collar and hauled him up, transferring the gun to his eye socket. ‘Are my instructions clear enough for you?’
Behind me there was a gasp. Shit! I’d told Billie to keep her head down. But her curiosity had got the better of her again. I glanced quickly at her. She was standing alongside the rental car. The guy spotted her too. He laughed to himself. He was a big man. Solid. On his knees. Nobody of his size should have been able to move as fast. Yet he contradicted everything in a split second. With one hand he butted my gun over his head, with the other he snapped round my right ankle and yanked upward, even as he bounded up. He didn’t release my leg and it was snatched off the ground and I’d no way to go but backwards. I tried to realign my gun on his body, but his free hand swept my hand aside and he shouldered me in the chest. I went down on the gritty road. Distantly I heard Billie’s squawk of alarm.
I wasn’t hurt, not if you discounted my ego. But things were about to change. The man kicked my gun out of my hand. It skittered away across the road. He looked as if he was going to go after Billie, but thought better of it. I was a long way from being out of commission. He reached to grasp me by my jacket front and hauled me up. If I’d tried to fight free of him, he’d have kicked me stupid while I was attempting to scramble up: I went with the flow. He set me on my feet, but kept hold of me. He was bigger, stronger, had the upper hand now that my gun was lying in the dirt across the road.
‘Let’s just go through those instructions of yours again, shall we?’ he said, grinning at my expense. I feigned defeated as he pulled me in close.
‘Let’s not.’ I head-butted him, and felt his nose cartilage collapse under my forehead. He reared back, blood flooding over his top lip, and his eyes screwed tight. He didn’t release his hold, but that was good. It meant he couldn’t punch me. I butted him again, this time against his left cheekbone. We both fell against his car and the door slammed shut. The man used the body of the car to support his weight, then he swung me round and thrust me over the hood. Pain flared through my lower back, but it was muscle pain; my spine was still intact. I still didn’t fight his hold, I actually allowed him to push me further up and as my hips popped over the curve of the SUV’s hood, I lifted my legs and braced my heels in his pelvic girdle. I used the power in my legs to force myself out of his grip, but not so far that he fully let go. Immediately I wrapped my left leg over his arms, and bridged up with my hips. The move painfully locked his right arm at the elbow. Now he wanted to let go, but I gripped his right wrist in both hands, allowing no escape, even as I transferred my foot from over his arm to under his chin. He fought to free his left hand to get a good punch at me and it was the moment I was waiting for. I pistoned my leg, kicked his head back, yanking in the opposite direction on his arm.
He grunted in pain, but shook off the kick. He chambered his free arm to power it into my chest.
So I kicked him harder.
There was a crack like a gunshot.
I released his trapped arm and the man slid backwards, no strength in his knees, or anywhere else from the way he flopped in a boneless heap on the road.
‘Oh my God!’
I heard Billie’s exclamation, and it echoed the words that went through my mind. I slid off the hood and stood over the man. He didn’t move. He was too still.
‘You’ve killed him,’ Billie said.
‘Stay there,’ I warned her. Not for one second did I believe the guy was playing possum, but it wasn’t a chance I was going to take. I crouched, pushing aside his head so I could feel for a pulse. His flesh was warm, clammy, but there was no life in it. ‘Jesus, they make bad guys too brittle these days,’ I murmured. My intention had been to knock him unconscious, not snap his vertebrae!
Billie again chose to ignore my instructions. She stood at my shoulder as I checked the guy a second time.
‘He’s dead.’ It wasn’t a question.
‘Yeah,’ I said.
‘You didn’t have to kill him, but you did.’
‘Trust me: I wasn’t trying to.’ I stood up, frowning down at the mass of inert humanity. ‘How many bloody warnings does one man need? I tried to avoid this.’
‘This complicates things, doesn’t it?’
‘Very much so,’ I sighed.
I stood looking down at the corpse, hands fisted on my hips. This did indeed complicate matters.
‘I suppose we have to call the cops now,’ Billie said glumly.
Ordinarily she’d be right. His death was an accident; he was the bad guy who’d intended kidnapping a woman. But it’d be me who’d end up locked in a jail cell until things were cleared up. Billie would be defenceless against his friends. ‘Go and get in the car,’ I said.
‘We can just walk away from this?’ Billie’s stare was locked on the dead man’s face. ‘What are you planning on doing?’
‘What’s going to happen is this: you’re going to have to start listening to my instructions, and not challenging them. I’m here to protect you, and I can’t do that if you’re forever second-guessing me. Now go on. Get in the car, and this time keep your bloody head down.’
Billie transferred her stare from the dead man to me. I held her flinty gaze. No more messing around.
She finally pushed her hands through her hair. ‘OK. You’re right.’ She walked away cursing under her breath, but I was happy to note her displeasure was aimed at her husband for placing her in this hellish situation. I retrieved my SIG, checked it over for damage and found it worked fine. I pushed it away in my belt at the back, then bent to deal with the dead man. He was heavy, felt even more so in death, but I got my hands under his armpits and dragged him to the SUV. I then got the door open and hefted him up and into the driver’s seat. By the time I was done I was bathed in sweat. I put his hands on the steering wheel, then clasping mine over his used them to twist the wheel sharply to one side. At the edge of the road was a deep gully where a stream poured off the mountainside, under the road and downwards to the lake. The trees on the gully’s embankments had been felled in recent years but new growth had sprung up in their place. The saplings wouldn’t halt the plunge of the SUV. I was about to turn on the engine and set the SUV on its course when I spotted a cell phone in a holder on the dash. It still glowed from recent use. Actually, for all I knew, it was still turned on and had an open line to the Jaegers. Could my unlucky streak get any worse?
With no other recourse, I started the engine, slipped the gear into ‘drive’ and stood aside as the SUV began rolling across the road. It dipped off the shoulder, and bumped up again over a small mound of earth. Then it hung there for a long moment, while I considered going and putting my shoulder to it to help it on its way. Maybe the mound of dirt gave way beneath the weight, because in the next instant the SUV plummeted out of sight. It made a lot of noise crashing its way into the depths of the ravine.
15
‘I can’t believe what happened back there.’ Billie rocked forward, her head thrust between the front seats as I drove for Hope End. She spoke so close to my ear I felt her breath on my neck. It was hot. There was a tremor in her voice, but it wasn’t through fear or revulsion. Her excitement was palpable.
For my part I felt numb.
I genuinely hadn’t intended killing the man. My heel must have struck him just right – or just wrong for that matter – so that instead of the impact knocking him out it had transferred to the fragile vertebrae of his spine. If I’d tried to kill him like that I just bet that the opposite would have applied. The guy had been too full of himself, a grade one ass, but killing him was more than he deserved. But what was done was done. I’d killed many times before, and might be called upon to do so again. I couldn’t dwell on his death or it would slow me down if the time came when I must choose a fatal option again. I’d seen other soldiers sickened by violence, who grew reluctant when it came to pulling the trigger, and it was them who ended up in a grave.
‘Things weren’t meant to go down li
ke that,’ I explained. ‘I hoped to frighten him off, not send his corpse to the bottom of a valley.’
‘He asked for it,’ Billie said. Her forthrightness surprised me.
‘He was just a guy earning a wage,’ I countered.
‘If you hadn’t stopped him, he would have hurt you. Maybe even killed you. Then where would that have left me?’
Jesus, talk about reverse psychology.
That was the only thing that gave me any sense of peace. But it surprised me to hear Billie say as much. I thought that she’d be horrified to learn that the man supposed to protect her was a killer. On the other hand she seemed excited by the prospect. Except, once she thought about it, and her heartbeat had slowed some more, then I expected she’d see the man’s death for the horrible thing it was.
‘How far to Hope End?’ I asked, trying to focus her mind on something else.
‘About fifteen miles. But on these roads it could take half an hour or more.’ She rocked forward and back, barely able to contain her fidgeting. ‘Do you think we’ll make it?’
‘We’ll make it, I’m just not sure it’s a good idea to go there now.’ I told her about the cell phone in the SUV and how I suspected that the man had contacted his friends before I’d had chance to confront him. ‘They could already be after us.’
She sucked in breath, but again it sounded more like anticipation than fear. She was thoughtful for a moment before saying, ‘They’ve no chance of catching us before we get to town. Once we’re there we’ll be able to hide out.’
‘They’ll find us. To be honest I don’t really want to get stuck in a small town with a bunch of mercs. They might not be too particular about who they hurt while trying to find us. I don’t want to put anyone else in danger because of what I did.’