But then, at the side door, he saw the evil old face, the contorted expression of anger and desperation, the man who had worked hard to ruin the lives of his three partners, the man who had destroyed many men on his climb to the top, the man who had murdered his two friends Tom Dulles and Lomela Carthay, the man he now wanted to kill as badly as he had ever wanted to kill anyone.
Bill Nek came through the door slowly, his eyes wide and glazed with an expression of insane desperation. In his right hand was a revolver. And the barrel of the revolver was jammed into the ear of the blond and beautiful Melissa Nek. “I’ll kill her, Hawker. I swear to God I’ll kill her if you don’t let me pass!”
The vigilante stood his ground, the .44 magnum in his right hand pointed at the ground. “Why should I care if you kill your wife, Nek? She doesn’t mean anything to me.”
“Bullshit! You’ve been sleeping with her, Hawker! She’s in love with you. Told me so herself. Now put down that sidearm, and I’ll let her live. And I’ll let you live, too, though I should have your damned nuts cut off for fucking with something that’s mine.”
He had the woman’s arm twisted up behind her back, and the woman’s face was contorted with pain as she said, “Don’t listen to him, James! He’s lying! He’ll kill you the moment you put down your gun. He’ll kill me, too.”
The vigilante paid no attention to the pleas of the woman. His eyes were still focused on Bill Nek, the Silver King. “Okay, Nek,” he said slowly. “I’ll let you pass. I’ll put down the gun. But first you have to tell me something. Tell me who killed Dulles and the woman. Was it you?”
The old man was less than thirty feet from the vigilante now, trying to slide past him sideways as he replied, “Who killed them? I killed them, that’s who. They come up here snooping into things that was none of their business, trying to get involved in my affairs. They had no right. None at all. You goddamn right I killed them. I’m going to kill those three old fools I got locked up out back, too—leastaways, the moment they sign the mine over to me, I am. People got no business messing in my affairs, Hawker. I got more money than them. That gives me more right, doesn’t it? I tried to tell Dulles that. Tried to make him beg for his life. Wouldn’t do it. Wouldn’t admit that I’m the better man and I got the right.”
“You tried to make Dulles beg?” Hawker said in a deadly calm voice.
“And then I shot him.” The old man laughed, showing a row of very black teeth. “But that don’t mean nothin’ ’cause now you’re going to put that gun down, and I’m going to leave you and sweet Melissa here—”
In that instant, the woman suddenly lunged to the side. The vigilante tilted the .44 magnum just over ninety degrees and fired before Nek could finish his sentence. The Smith & Wesson sounded like a cannon going off. Melissa and Bill Nek both dropped in their tracks.
The old man jolted backward, and his face was immediately transformed into a spongy horror of red gore. His hands clawed at the sky, and his legs kicked spasmodically.
The woman got shakily to her feet, staring at the gruesome figure that lay on the white snow. Bill Nek’s eyes opened, straining to focus. Hawker stood over him now as the woman leaned against him as if to keep from fainting. The old man’s eyes looked at Hawker, then at the woman, as he gasped, “You’ve killed me, daughter, you’ve killed me—” Then a gush of blood vomited from his mouth and his eyes froze in the wide exclamation of death.
Hawker looked incredulously at Melissa Nek. “That’s the hold he had over you? You were his daughter and he married you?”
The woman pulled away from the vigilante and took a step toward the corpse of the Silver King. After a moment’s hesitation, she turned and lifted her hand toward Hawker. “Take me away from here, James,” she said in a tiny voice. “I owe you three hundred thousand dollars. That’s all you need to know.”
Turn the page to continue reading from the Hawker series
one
It didn’t anger James Hawker that Con Ye Cwong, head of North Vietnam’s secret police during the Vietnam war, had become a millionaire drug kingpin and warlord on one of the South Pacific’s Solomon Islands.
And it didn’t make Hawker angry that Cwong still hated Americans and American soldiers enough to order his drug pushers to single out servicemen on bases around the world, supply them with cheap drugs until they were hooked, then up the price until they were out of dough … or dead.
And if the American servicemen didn’t have money, military secrets might be traded for a week’s supply of cocaine or, for the really adventurous, heroin or opium—if the military secrets could later be sold to, say, the Soviets.
For Cwong, the war in Vietnam would never be over—could never be over. He didn’t just hate American military men; he despised them. He loathed them.
He wasn’t satisfied with just killing them. He wanted to humiliate them as well.
And he made use of his drug network to do just that. Several hundred jobbers around the Western world worked for Cwong, most Vietnamese, many former North Vietnamese soldiers. Cwong’s base operations bought and processed the dope, then saw it safely to the jobbers, who sold it wherever they could but preferred American servicemen as targets. Cwong’s jobbers quickly became wealthy, riding in Cadillac limos, living on expensive estates. And Cwong, just as quickly, became rich, a millionaire many times over because he got a cut of everything right down the line. And with his drug monies, he reinvested in armaments. He compiled a major military arsenal right there in the Solomons, and he sold his weapons to the highest bidder—as long as the bidder was a communist. After becoming one of the black market’s most successful drug dealers, he just as quickly became one of the world’s largest military arms dealers. He was the major supplier of weapons to the terrorist organizations of Iran, Libya, Eygpt, Israel, and any other country that had an outlaw group whose goal was the total destruction of Western civilization.
No one ever tried to short-change Cwong. He was absolutely merciless when someone got in his way. It was whispered among the drug haunts even in the U.S. that to cheat Cwong was to invite the same kind of physical torture he used to torment American prisoners of war.
If someone did try to cheat him, he never tried it again.
But none of this angered Hawker—not the drug running or the gun running or the torturing or the killing. And yet it was Hawker who had been called upon to stop it. It was Hawker who had been ordered—secretly, of course—by the United States government to declare private war on Cwong’s men, on Cwong’s drug trafficking. He had been hired, in short, to assassinate Cwong and take along as many of Cwong’s men as he could.
But, for all of this, Hawker couldn’t let himself generate any anger toward Cwong, and for one simple reason: Anger was for amateurs.
And when it came to private warfare, James Hawker was anything but an amateur.…
Hawker’s first target was a private estate on Lynnhaven Bay, not far from Norfolk, Virginia. It was one of those huge stone mansions on grounds the size of a park, on the water, built during the days when the Chesapeake Bay was the place where eastern seaboard millionaires came to shoot ducks, drink good whiskey, and enjoy their wealth.
Cwong’s men had bought the place to stockpile the drugs they were dealing to sailors from the naval base. They usually brought the drugs up the coast from the Carolinas, then either into their private dock by vessel or their private runway by plane.
The local law had figured it out long ago. It had made two raids on the house, come up with plenty of dope and bags of cash, enough fail-safe evidence, in fact, to put the Vietnamese running Cwong’s Norfolk operation behind bars forever—except none of them ever saw the inside of a jail. Those the judges didn’t let go free on technicalities, Cwong’s bank of high-priced American lawyers got off. Racial discrimination, the lawyers called it, picking on the poor Asians just because of their color—which was nonsense. But then the news media picked it up, all about the racist WASPs, and that was that. End of case, end of st
ory.
Finally Norfolk’s local cops gave up in frustration, swallowing their pride and dignity and letting the madness go on because they knew better than almost anyone else that, when lawyers and big money and the news media get involved, law rarely has anything at all to do with justice.
But then the Norfolk cops began to hear the rumors, began to hear the whispered stories of a dark-haired man who had come to town, a stranger who would take care of everything if he was just left alone, left to his own devices. And when he got done, said the rumors, there would be no drug stronghold left, let alone Vietnamese punks to sell the drugs.
The local cops liked the stories; they liked the tales of the tough vigilante who had blasted the bad guys in Detroit and L.A. and New York and a dozen other cities where the goons, the punks, and the big-money crime bosses had taken control. They told the stories over coffee between the endless duties and calls and the numbing workload.
The stories were fun, even though no one really believed them.
At midnight Hawker got into the black Chevrolet rental car and drove through downtown Norfolk until he found Ocean View Drive. He drove slowly along the edge of Chesapeake Bay, looking at the water, making sure he was not being followed. Then he saw the turnoff, the long private drive that led to the estate inhabited by Cwong’s drug merchants, and he went on past without slowing. The guards at the gatehouse sat inside, smoking and talking. They paid no attention to the passing car.
Half a mile down the road, Hawker turned into the lane he had scouted earlier that day, a public access to a chunk of scraggly beach. He parked the car and got out. He wore a black Aran wool sweater against the icy November wind, and had a navy wool watch cap pulled down low over his ears. His pants were wool too, soft British khakis with plenty of oversized cargo pockets.
He wore all wool for a reason. He knew he was going to get wet, and wool was the only thing that would keep him warm despite being soaked.
Taking a tin of military greasepaint from his pocket, he darkened his face, his gray eyes peering out. Then he opened the trunk of the car and selected his weaponry. He wanted to travel light because he knew he was going to be in the water, swimming. But he also wanted enough firepower to handle any situation. For a long gun, he chose the Colt Commando automatic rifle. The Colt was really a cutdown version of the M-16. It had been developed during Nam where a heavy-firepower weapon was needed that could be used in extremely close quarters. The barrel had been shortened and a flash eliminator had been added. The stock was telescoping; when stored, the weapon was a little over two feet long.
The Commando fired standard 5.56-millimeter ammunition from twenty-round clips. With the safety tang on full auto, it fired eight hundred rounds per minute—if you could feed it that fast. Hawker had nine preloaded clips in the webbed belt around his waist; one was locked into the weapon and another taped to the stock for quick access.
Fixed atop the weapon was the new Star-Tron MK 303 night-vision system, the waterproof version especially developed for the navy SEALS. The scope looked like an expensive underwater lens. The Star-Tron’s complex mirror system sucked in all available light—from the moon, stars, streetlights—then amplified it more than fifty thousand times. The resulting image, seen through the scope, was as bright as high noon on a cloudy day.
Hawker switched on the Star-Tron, testing it. He pointed the Commando down the beach, and suddenly it was eerie red daylight. He could see waves feather on the cold, rough Chesapeake, and he could see the big cement dock-and-wharf complex that was controlled by the Vietnamese, a high barbed-wire fence bordering the property and running clear down into the water. He could see a brace of guards too, see them so clearly that he had to ignore the impulse to dive back into the bushes for fear of being seen himself.
Hawker switched off the scope, slung the weapon securely over his shoulder, barrel pointed downward, and returned to the business of arming himself. He belted a .45 Smith & Wesson magnum around his waist, put a few carefully selected explosives into his small canvas backpack, then took out the Cobra crossbow, a deadly weapon developed for the military that fired small aluminum arrows or bolts. With the razor-sharp killing points screwed on, the bolts had an effective killing range of two hundred meters and could travel a hundred meters in less than a second.
Remaining in the trunk was a lone M-72, a free-flight disposable missile launcher. The M-72 was a telescoping tube that fired the extremely powerful sixty-six-millimeter HEAT missile. Even fully armed, the launcher and missile weighed less than five pounds, yet carried enough destructive power to destroy a high-flying jet fighter five miles away—or an entire building.
Hawker closed the trunk and headed off down the beach, carrying his weapons, staying low, moving quietly in the shadows of the trees that lined the beach.
Two hundred yards from Cwong’s Norfolk stronghold, he stopped and hid the missile launcher in the bushes.
Then, looking this way and that, he waded out into the water, the Cobra crossbow in hand.…
two
He half waded, half swam.
The water was numbing cold, rough. He had to fight the heavy surf the entire way. But it was the only way to get within striking distance without being seen.
He had talked to enough people, had done enough research to know that entering Cwong’s Norfolk compound from the front or either of the sides would be tough, if not impossible. So that left the back side. The sea side. And Hawker knew that the toughest options were usually the most effective.
When he was within fifty yards of the big wharf, Hawker struck out into deeper water. He did a struggling, awkward sidestroke, fighting the heavy surf. He had planned to swim in close to the dock, grab on to one of the big cement pilings, and then sneak onto the grounds from there. But the closer he got to the pilings, the more dangerous the plan seemed. The surf was crashing into the cement, pushed by a freezing northwest wind. If the waves didn’t smash him on the pilings, the barnacles and oysters would certainly cut the hell out of him.
So how would he get past the guards?
Reluctantly Hawker began to push himself back toward shallow water. Finally he could touch, and he stood lifting, rising and falling with every roller that came in, his shoulders just above the surface. Looking up, he could see both of the guards plainly: two short, wiry men in ski masks and heavy coats, holding scythe-clipped automatic weapons—Soviet AK-47s. The dock formed a Τ and, on the inside of the far corner, a thirty-eight- or forty-foot cruiser rocked and creaked. Mercury lights on both points of the Τ bathed the area in a circle of cold white light.
Damn.
There was no way he could get over the fence without being seen. And, even if he did, the fence was wired for sound as well as to a complex burglar alarm system.
There was only one way in, and that was either on the dock or under the dock … but what about beneath the cruiser? Hawker gauged the distance, wondering if there was any way he could make it underwater.
Nope. No way. Even without all the equipment he was carrying, he probably couldn’t have made it.
Why in the hell hadn’t he brought some kind of scuba gear?
There was only one way. It was risky, but he had to take the chance. Spitting salt water, Hawker cracked the self-cocking Cobra crossbow down. Then he loaded in one of the silver eight-inch arrows and flipped up the peep sight.
The guard farthest from him had his back turned, a halfhearted effort at walking the picket on this cold, dark night.
That was good. One at a time. That was best.
The guard closest to him was just lighting a cigarette, having trouble getting it going in the wind, cupping his hands around the lighter. Hawker could see the man’s face in the orange glow of the flickering light: a gaunt, simian-looking little man with antlike cheeks and eyes.
Waiting for a pause in the rolling surf, Hawker steadied the weapon—he had leaned it against the dock railing—then fired. There was a thit sound, nothing for a moment, then the guard buckle
d at the waist, dropping his lighter, clawing the air violently as he tumbled over the rail into the water.
The splash was absorbed by the hollow roar of the wind and the surf.
Hawker cocked the Cobra again, loaded in another arrow, and moved closer.
The second guard had turned, suspicious, aware that something had happened but not quite sure what. He walked carefully toward the spot where the first guard had been, AK-47 at the ready.
The vigilante brought the peep sight to bear on the man’s chest and squeezed the trigger … but a wave hit him unexpectedly, throwing off his aim, causing him to shoot high. When he had wiped the water from his face, he saw the second guard running crazily around the dock, hands clamped to his head … then he hit the railing, waist high, sprawled headfirst into the sea, his screams lost to the waves.
The arrow had apparently hit him in the face—not a pretty thing to see.
Hawker stood in the surf, waited … waited for the alarms to go off, the bells to ring, for a little army to come running out, gunning for him.
But there was only the sound of the sea.
The vigilante waded down the beach, angling shallower and shallower, then climbed up the steel ladder onto the dock. He was plainly visible in the circle of light, and he knew the worst possible thing to do was to act as if he didn’t want to be seen—as if he didn’t belong. So he strode down the dock like he owned the place, past the big cruiser that rocked and creaked on its lines, into the bank of trees that marked the beginning of the estate.
Through the bare trees, he could see the lights of the big stone mansion glittering. He could see the dim outline of several outbuildings too. The outbuildings interested him. From local information, he knew that Cwong’s men kept their drug cache in separate quarters under heavy guard. Hawker liked the idea of destroying the drug stash—or making sure it would be destroyed—before assaulting Cwong’s main Norfolk force. He didn’t like to leave anything to chance. And he didn’t want there to be any doubt about why he was hitting the place.
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