by Dane Hartman
The strategy the soldiers had was clear; these were not West Point graduates Harry was dealing with. He realized that he could not allow them to fan out and so he fired off four rounds in rapid succession which, while not doing any damage, did send the soldiers scurrying. They were unused to combat and would sooner hunker down than face someone who seemed to know what he was doing. Their hasty retreat allowed Harry time to put in another clip.
This abrupt interruption in the firefight left the soldiers confused. They couldn’t even see Harry what with all the smoke; he must be behind one of the columns but which one they had no idea, not so long as he held his fire.
In another country there would have been reinforcements; you would have heard sirens heralding the arrival of a great deal more firepower. But this was Tapaquite, and there were no more reinforcements. This was the island’s entire army. And it was all dedicated to one purpose—destroying Harry.
Whether Braxton’s men had determined that they were unneeded in view of this situation or whether they thought it the better part of wisdom to escape before these ignorant soldiers turned their guns on them Harry didn’t know. But one way or another, they seemed to have withdrawn.
Now a couple of the soldiers decided that it was worth venturing out; their comrades laid down a covering fire from behind what once had been the reservations desk. Not that it mattered. Having no real sense of where exactly Harry was, their fire was totally ineffective.
The problem for Harry was that he was denied access to the only two routes of escape available; one led out to the airstrip past the customs control, the other, with all its shattered glass, lay well within the line of sight of the soldiers. And true, though they might be inexperienced and badly trained and callow, their very amateurishness made them in some respects as dangerous as hardened troops. They might kill Harry just as dead. There was such a thing as beginner’s luck. Harry was not at all inclined to be overconfident.
The two soldiers moving forward were obviously afraid; the fear showed in their eyes, sweat was visible on their brows. They seemed to expect that they would be shot down at any moment and were surprised that they had survived so far. The others began to follow them, but they were very tentative. They looked puzzled, unable to figure out what had happened to Harry. Soon they were all exposed which was what Harry’s intention had been.
Firing four rounds, he managed to score four hits. The first victim spun around, clinging to his ruptured stomach. The second went down in a heap so fast that it was impossible to see where the bullet had penetrated. The third was caught in motion; his thigh sustained the damage and on impact he was thrown up into the air like a marionette suddenly being jerked up offstage. The fourth was hit squarely in the chest. In his descent to the ground he fell against a companion and knocked him over, too. The survivor remained down, whether because he thought he’d been hit as well or because he simply decided it was a whole lot safer to do so.
This left just six men in action and none of them was happy with the way their ranks had so suddenly been decimated. They seemed to have lost all sense of direction—possibly their commanding officer had been put out of commission—and so rather than keep up the engagement, they scattered, falling back, some to where they’d hidden before—behind the reservations desk, others right out the door. Only one soldier, undaunted, remained to continue firing. At least he had a good idea of where Harry was. He yelled to his deserting comrades, calling them to come back, but they just weren’t interested.
Throughout all this, the wounded people on the floor, their life ebbing away in their hemorrhaging blood, still were screaming, demanding an end to their agony.
Harry determined, that it was either stay pinned down indefinitely or else risk exposing himself for a few moments while he sought cover closer to the exit out to the airstrip. It looked to him like he could attain it with one concentrated run of ten seconds’ duration.
Hurtling himself out from behind the column that had afforded him his safety, he rushed, weaving in and out in the direction of the open door. The soldier’s bullets followed him but failed to catch up with him. Instead they punctured significant portions of the walls and the glass windows which burst apart into thousands of fragments.
Harry was already outside and nearing the tarmac when the soldier, disgusted, picked himself up and charged after him.
As fast as Harry was running he noticed that two of the fleeing soldiers were running faster—and away from the terminal. Their carbines lay discarded on the steamy asphalt surface.
The soldier found himself a new position from which to continue firing; he seemed to feel that it was worth the trouble since Harry had no shelter available to him—there was just lots of open space on the airstrip and Harry presented a clear target. However, the lone soldier appeared not to have noticed what kind of shelter he’d selected or else noticing, hadn’t considered it the liability it was. Because he was now directly behind a rack that held two unwieldy fuel tanks. And while he couldn’t be seen it made no difference to Harry who turned and still in motion, fired the last two rounds in the Magnum at the tanks.
Instantly the tanks exploded; there was a huge roar and a ball of flame shot up toward the pale blue sky. The soldier’s scream was lost in this roar; the force of the explosion blew him apart, sending bits and pieces of him into the air. A scorched hand dropped down not far from where Harry stood watching the spectacle.
In the distance there was the sound of a high-pitched siren. Most likely it was the island’s one available ambulance; there was only one available hospital too, a two-story structure crumbling inside and out, and there was no question it was unprepared for a catastrophe of this nature.
It was strange, Harry considered, to find himself alone on this airstrip. But there certainly was no sense lingering about here. He determined on finding a taxi—if there was anyone left to drive one—and going back to the hotel. He glanced at his watch. After four. Well, he had missed his meeting with Braxton and his guest from the States. Under the circumstances, this was probably a good thing.
By the time dusk fell Harry was becoming nervous. Not that anything had happened to him since his own flight from the airport. That was the problem. When nothing happened it made Harry edgy. Dinner at the Whitby. Drinks at the Cay. Another drink at the Mimoso. A periodic reconnaissance of the pier. And nowhere was there a sign of Braxton, his boat, or his men.
Like they’d been night, the streets were relatively quiet. Except for the occasional tourist on his way from one bar to the other no one else was about; all the natives seemed to have melted into the tropical breezes that swept in from the Caribbean at night. The people who wanted to sell you bananas and lottery tickets and the beggars who cursed you even when you gave them some money, all of them had vanished.
Harry concluded that there was nothing more he was going to get done—nothing more that he could do actually—this night. He decided to return to his hotel room and get some sleep—that was if he didn’t have to contend with another intruder who had a speech to deliver to him.
Two blocks away from the Crown, a figure stepped out from the shadows, partially blocking Harry’s way. Immediately, Harry was on the alert. Streetlighting being as minimal as it was in Ocho Rios, it was difficult to make out what this man looked like from a distance. Still, Harry recognized a threatening situation and he stepped back, withdrawing into the shadows while he lifted out a fully reloaded Magnum from underneath his jacket.
The man approached him. He was now close enough for Harry to discern him with greater clarity. He had seen him before, no doubt of that, and just last night. He was one of the assailants who’d unwittingly participated in Braxton’s little scenario.
Just as he was wondering what had happened to his friend, the one with the blowgun, he heard a faint whispery noise, almost like a sigh. He half-turned in response but just then felt a sharp, violent pain in his left leg. A small dart quivered in the wound. Well, he thought as the drug sped through his b
lood to his brain, he didn’t have to wonder any longer. Darkness took hold of him before he reached the ground.
C H A P T E R
E i g h t e e n
Shadows, hazy and shapeless, began gradually to form themselves into something more coherent. Recovering consciousness Harry found to be an exacting task, a violent struggle to draw up to the light. But when he got to the light and opened his eyes he didn’t like what he found there.
Looming over him was Matt Braxton, and he was surrounded by the men who had grown tan and prosperous over the years following him and doing his bidding. Harry realized after a while that he was in a room, and not a very big one, with stucco walls all of white; and there were no windows.
“How are you feeling, Mr. Callahan?”
Braxton spoke to him like a man truly concerned over the state of his health. He gazed down at Harry and his face, capturing all of Harry’s visual field, assumed monstrous proportions: big inquisitive gray eyes studying him.
“Like shit,” Harry replied. Small rocks seemed to be bouncing back and forth, hard, against the walls of his skull.
“You’ll recover. The drug wears off in an hour or so.” Braxton pulled over a hassock and seated himself next to Harry’s bed. “That was some stunt you pulled at the airport.” Braxton shook his head gravely but kept his slightly idiotic smile fixed on his lips. “I don’t know what you were doing there, I surely hope it wasn’t with intentions to leave, but it was not a wise thing to do. Mr. Chauney invited you to a little party I was having on board my boat and you didn’t come. I was insulted, I was truly hurt. Well, it can’t be helped . . .” He glanced back at the men gathered around him, maybe to see if they were still attending to his every word. “Mr. Chauney told you that I was interested in acquiring your services. I figured you to be a reasonable man who recognizes when the odds are against him. I wanted to give you a chance. Truth is I like you, Callahan. I mean I hate you, but I respect you and that’s important. To a simple uneducated guy like me, respect’s what counts in this life. Don’t you agree?” Getting no answer, he continued. “I assume you agree. So I said to myself, Matt, this cop, he could prove useful. Give him some money, we’re talking big bucks, he’s got instinct, he’s got intelligence . . . What I’m saying, Mr. Callahan, me not being so good with words, is that you have a choice. Most people deal with me, I never give them no choice. You, you’re different. I’ll give you an hour. You mull it over. You come join my crew, you’ll never regret it. You don’t, in an hour you’ll be in the bottom of the water out there.” He motioned toward the wall, perhaps expecting to find a window. “I may be a hard man but I’m an honest one. This is square business.”
He kept pausing, waiting for Harry to respond, to react in some way. But Harry didn’t. He could barely concentrate on what Braxton was saying; he was too busy trying to fight back the pain that had taken up residence in his head.
“And don’t think you can simply say yes and go back to San Francisco and forget about it. We don’t operate that way. We do a deal we do a deal. But you’re locked into it. We get your signature on a few papers, we make photos, document some transactions. All for our own protection, you understand? If nothing goes wrong you got nothing to fear. We put our records in a very safe place. If not, then, hey, we’re not responsible. The way we work it is first we fuck you, then we kill you. Nothing personal, it’s just the way we work it.”
“I get you,” said Harry, not really interested in the mechanics of this.
“I want you to meet a friend of mine, a fellow who can verify what I’m telling you.” He gestured toward the door behind him. A guard opened it and a man walked in.
Harry knew immediately that this was the visitor who’d been shuttled away from the airport too fast, and under too much protection, for him to get a glimpse of. And he knew that this same man had acted as the broker and rabbi for Braxton back in San Francisco. He’d met him before.
It was the assistant D.A.—Robert Nunn. He looked as smug as ever. He offered a smile to Harry.
“It’s strange,” he said, “how we keep running into each other.”
“Yeah, and in the oddest places, too.”
“You might be confused, Mr. Callahan, seeing my friend, Bob Nunn, here.” To make it clear just what good friends they were, Braxton clapped his hand on the assistant D.A.’s back. “Oh sure, we once were on opposite sides, but things, as you know, change. We used to work with Pritchard, Bob’s boss, but people get old. Pritchard’s on his way out. And frankly, Pritchard was too close to Bull and you know what they say when you add up one shark and one fluke. You get one shark!” He had a good laugh at this. His friends apparently felt that it wouldn’t hurt if they joined in laughing as well. “Pritchard and Bull, they used to spend hours eating together. Places like the Top of the Mark. And you know who paid for all those meals?” Braxton stabbed his chest with a spatulated thumb. “I did. Out of my fucking pocket. Thirty bucks, forty bucks a meal, it ain’t much. But you add it up over the years. Hey, it gets goddamn expensive.” He was really serious about this; the thought of all the money he’d laid out over the years for Bull’s benefit and for Pritchard made him furious. Then he stopped himself, realizing he’d gotten distracted. The smile reappeared. “Sorry. Bull’s a sore subject with me. One of these days, if we ever find the son of a bitch, I’m going to have him sent down here for a little heart-to-heart. So now we come to my friend Mr. Nunn here. Bob, well, he fucked me but good. See, but do I hold it against him?” Another laugh straight up from the belly which had become quite big with all the food he was consuming on Tapaquite. “We get along just like brothers now.” Weirdly, Nunn didn’t look at all embarrassed about this. On the contrary, he seemed almost pleased. “It’s just like what I told you, Mr. Callahan, I don’t hold no grudges. I see talent, I use it. That’s how I got to where I am today. That’s why I’m never down for long. Talent’s for me or against me, makes no difference. I buy it or I dispense with it. That’s how it works with us.”
“That’s what you keep telling me.”
“Harry, he’s right,” Nunn put in, giving his testimonial. “It makes sense in a lot of ways.”
“That’s what they taught you in law school?”
“Don’t turn nasty now,” Braxton said. “I’ve given you an hour.” He looked down at his Seiko. “And we’ve already eaten into that time with our jabbering. So you begin doing some serious thinking and we’ll leave you in peace.”
He signaled his retainers that they were to exit. On the way out Harry called to Nunn. “You know what they say about lawyers, don’t you?”
Nunn shook his head. “No, Harry, what do they say?”
“Comes the revolution they’ll shoot them all first.”
Nunn wouldn’t answer that, and so he turned and went away with all the rest of them. The metal door clanged shut. Then a bolt was flipped into place.
The problem now was—aside from facing a death sentence—Harry had no way to determine when his hour was up; along with everything else his captors had seized, they’d taken his watch.
After thoroughly checking the room, Harry soon ascertained that there was no way he was going to escape, not with the walls a couple of feet thick, as he estimated them, not with no window. Nor was there available any instrument, even the homiest of household objects—a pot, for instance—that he could employ in defending himself. If you had to stay too long in this room, with its bare cold white walls, Harry considered, you were liable to go mad. He had less than an hour. Still it was not the sort of place he would have chosen to await his execution.
It could have been just a couple of minutes that had passed for all Harry knew. Seemed in any case like a whole lot longer. In this sensory deprivation environment, minutes had a way of taking hours to go by. But whatever time had elapsed it was obvious to Harry that his hour was not up. Nonetheless, there was a terrible racket at the door. It didn’t last long. Sounded like chalk being scraped against a blackboard. Whatever it was it se
nt chills up Harry’s back.
The bolt now was being unlatched. He positioned himself by the side of the door—the right side—waiting to grab hold of whomever came in and throw him to the floor. It was, he felt, his only chance. Undoubtedly, he’d confront a regiment of armed men but better to take that risk than to allow himself to be dragged away unresisting and garroted, then hurled into the shimmering waters of the Caribbean.
The door came open and as it did so a man came with it. There was no need for Harry to try to subdue him. Someone had already done it for him. The guard collapsed at Harry’s feet, his gun pitching from him at the same time. At first it was difficult to account for his condition until Harry noticed the small, perfectly round red hole that appeared in the middle of his forehead.
The dead man was followed into the room by the person who’d made him that way. Another old friend from the past. Looking frazzled maybe, a bit more haggard, but easily identifiable: Darlene Farley.
She entered the room, a .38 in her hand, ignoring the body lying at her feet. Baffled, she looked around for Harry, clearly unaware he was standing directly behind her. Harry was a bit puzzled, too, speculating on this crazy lady’s motives—had she come to kill him? Well, that didn’t make any sense. No reason to go out of her way to do that with his being condemned already.
Still, he took no chances and, grabbing her from behind, gripped her arms so that she was incapable of using her gun. She let out a small cry of surprise, twisted her neck to get a glimpse of Harry, muttered first, “Hey, you’re hurting me,” then, “I was looking for you. I came to help you.”
Harry loosened but did not relinquish his grip. “And why’s that?”
“We don’t have much time. They’ll come down here in a minute. Let me go. We’ve got to go find him.”
She was talking a mile a minute; she talked like she smoked actually, starting a new word when she hadn’t finished with the one before.