M.I.A. Hunter

by Mertz, Stephen

  The runner saw him, but too late. He tried to veer around the obstacle, but Hog's long arm was reaching out, the fingers tangling in his suit lapel and hauling him up, almost off his feet. A fist the size of a Christmas ham was rushing at his face with freight-train speed, and there was only time for him to give a strangled cry before the crushing impact.

  Stone broke his stride, trotting toward the car where Hog now had their captive draped across the hood like some bizarre hunting trophy.

  "This one almost got away," the big man jibed.

  "Like hell. I have to give you one from time to time," Mark answered with a trace of a smile.

  Chapter Six

  Loughlin found the empty black sedan a block down, to the east, and keys secured from the pocket of one opposition agent let them bring it on around in back of the pagoda. Another moment saw both silent figures loaded in the trunk and locked there, momentarily secure from prying eyes.

  The problem now was what to do with them.

  Mark Stone had no intention now of killing them, not after all the trouble he had gone through just to capture them alive. At the same time, they could not be allowed to communicate with their headquarters until Stone and his companions were away and running free toward their destination and the arms they had come to pick up from An Khom. In the end it was decided that the trackers would remain exactly where they were, and that their car would be abandoned in a public place, where someone would be sure to hear their cries for help and let them out—within a day or two, at any rate.

  Hog was chuckling as he rested on the trunk lid, one leg cocked across the other.

  "Somebody's gonna be a little limp before they get out of that sweatbox."

  And from Hog's tone of voice, it was clear that he did not mind the thought at all.

  "Their problem," Stone replied. "Come on, we've got a pickup to make."

  He tossed the second pair of keys to Hog, and motioned to him to climb behind the wheel of the enemy tail car.

  "Follow us until I give the signal, then we'll wait while you drop off the package and regroup."

  "Roger that."

  The big man climbed into the driver's seat, filling it with his sizable bulk. He waited there as Stone went back inside the temple to collect the British soldier and their guide, An Khom.

  "You'll ride with us," he told the little Oriental. "No point taking three cars on a simple run like this."

  "My pleasure."

  There was something like a glint of humor there, behind the old man's eyes, and Stone knew he was seeing through the small talk and the crap, picking up on the real motive for Stone's order. Too much had gone wrong already on a simple mission, and Stone was not taking any further chances with their guide. He had already paid up front, and there was no way in the world An Khom would get out of his sight until the arms were safely in possession of his team.

  They waited while the old man locked the entrance to his temple-cum-business office, and the tall men flanked him on their short walk to the waiting car. He looked like a wrinkled, malnourished child between them, but his bearing had the dignity of years behind it, and his face was filled with hard-won wisdom that no child could ever bear. As they walked together, Stone found himself briefly wondering about the old man, probing at him with a dozen silent questions that he knew would never be asked aloud. What made a man like this, of obvious social rank and breeding, turn to trading in the toys of death? What kept him here, in what might any day become a powder keg, when he could clearly find the cash to settle anywhere he liked?

  No matter. An Khom's reasons were his own, and none of Stone's concern. A man had choices from the cradle to the grave, and he would answer for his own selections in his own good time. As for Mark Stone, he had made choices of his own along the way, which just might get him killed unless the old arms dealer had their weaponry on hand and in good working order.

  They reached the rental car and scrambled in, all three of them together in the broad front seat, with An Khom in the middle. Loughlin took the wheel, and Stone rode shotgun, with his jacket open and the sleek Beretta easily available.

  "All right," he told their passenger. "Your show."

  An Khom supplied them with enough directions to get started in an easterly direction, and from prior visits to Bangkok, Stone recognized their course as leading in the general direction of the wealthy, hilly suburbs laid out in a horseshoe pattern halfway around the teeming city. The arms, of course, could be stashed anywhere between their starting point and the city limits, but a nagging hunch was growing in the soldier's mind, and he decided to check it out.

  "Where's the stash?" he asked offhandedly, his tone conveying nothing more than casual interest.

  "Excuse me, please?"

  "The merchandise. Where is it?"

  "Safe. I keep the major shipments at my home, outside the city proper."

  Loughlin cast a sidelong glance at An Khom, the surprise apparent on his face.

  "The weapons are inside your home?"

  The Oriental flashed a cagy smile, including both men in its scope.

  "Where else could they be more secure? The competition in my business is . . . intense. Some of my competitors are ruthless, verging on the common criminal. I buy a certain amount of official protection, of course, but still . . ."

  They were passing out of the downtown area now, and entering the slums that somehow always seem to flower in the shadow of a thriving business district. Houses in name only slumped together, row upon reeking row of clapboard, tin, and tarpaper fashioned into dwellings that might house a single family or three or more in putrid squalor. Garbage lined the streets and overflowed the large communal dumpsters that were situated at the corners in a feeble gesture toward some now-forgotten effort to clean up the city. Each dumpster had its little clique of scavengers picking through the rubbish, scrounging for their evening meal. Around their feet, the ubiquitous scrawny dogs were waiting for the scraps their masters missed, and running constant risk of being added to the cooking pot themselves.

  Every man becomes a child again when he enters the slums of an Oriental city. There is nothing in the West, in Detroit or Newark or Buenos Aires, to compare with Asia's urban wastelands. Nowhere in the West—perhaps nowhere outside of Africa, and seldom there—could such a scene of human misery be tolerated as the natural order of things. No one seemed to question that these dwellers in the depths belonged exactly where they were, and Stone observed that An Khom did not seem to see them, could not seem to focus on their plight as children and old women flocked around the car, their hands outstretched and begging for some meager charity.

  Loughlin cursed beneath his breath, but kept the car in motion for another several blocks until they lost the crowd. Stone cast a backward glance, making sure Hog was with them, hanging close. They traveled on another block, then two and three more, before Stone spied a drop off point that satisfied him, on a lonely little side street.

  At a word, their British driver nosed the car over and kept the engine running as Stone got out and walked back toward the approaching car with Hog at the wheel. He pointed out the drop, and was already moving back in the direction of his own car by the time Hog found a parking place beside the vacant lot.

  Come sunup, this lot would be teeming with the hungry, homeless, jobless, urban refugees of wars gone by or still in progress. They would strip the car, of course, as soon as they determined there was no one near enough to stop them, and in the process they would free the captives from their metal prison. That would raise some eyebrows, set some feet in motion, right enough.

  Stone almost wished that he could stay around and watch, but he had business elsewhere and it wouldn't keep.

  When they were all together in the rental car, with Hog filling up the back seat with his girth, they set out once again.

  "All right," Stone told their front-seat passenger. "We need an address. Now."

  The old man simply smiled and nodded, rattling off directions to a street tha
t Stone remembered as a pleasant, palm-lined circle dotted with beautiful homes. Not the most luxurious neighborhood in town, but getting there, and just the address gave him a close indication of the old man's net financial worth. Stone looked at him again, with new respect.

  "You run a risk, An Khom. Your neighbors might not care for having arms and ammunition hidden so nearby."

  The old Oriental shrugged, and once again the little, canny smile was back in place.

  "How do you say it? 'What they don't know won't hurt me'?"

  "Close enough," Stone answered, and he couldn't quite help grinning.

  The old man was a savvy soldier, all right, and cool as ice, considering the hellfire business he was in. He was a valuable ally and associate, but he would make a ruthless enemy if it ever came to that.

  Stone hoped it never would.

  They were close to their destination and following An Khom's last-minute guidance when the sharp, pervasive, odor of smoke hit them. The windows of the car were down, and it was coming from outside, somewhere ahead of them. And close by, from the smell of it.

  "Somebody throwin' a barbecue around here?" Hog inquired, half-seriously.

  In the seat beside Mark Stone, the old man was erect and suddenly alert. His tension was contagious, and the others sensed that they were moving into some potential danger, nameless yet, but all too real.

  "What is it?" Stone asked, seeing An Khom's sudden agitation.

  "Wait."

  Just that, and nothing more. The old man was craning forward in his seat now, one hand on the dashboard, narrowed eyes probing at the night beyond the bright cones cut by their twin-beam headlights.

  Another curve, and then the trees were clearing as a driveway opened up on their left. Behind a low retaining wall were more trees, and the suggestion of a large house in the middle distance. There were cars parked in the driveway, several of them, and a strange, dancing light illuminated figures running all along the drive, across the manicured lawn.

  The house was burning, providing battlefield illumination for a scene straight out of hell.

  And now, as if the silent curtain had been lifted, they could hear a crackle of distant gunfire, some of it confined, as if the shooters were inside the burning house. Out on the lawn, a pair of automatic weapons answered, spitting dirty yellow flame, gunners raking the façade of the house, pinning its occupants inside and keeping them from making their escape.

  An Khom was trembling now, and Stone knew what was wrong with him as Loughlin hit the car's brakes, before the old man found his voice.

  "That is my house!" the Asian groaned. "My family is inside!"

  Chapter Seven

  Stone was out of the car and moving on his own before it came to a halt, the black Beretta in his hand and ready. Loughlin and Hog Wiley hit the pavement a heartbeat later, each of them unlimbering the holstered hardware that he carried in concealment.

  They had not come seeking battle, but the fight was theirs, for now. Perhaps within the burning house itself were weapons and explosives they had paid for in advance. If nothing else, they had a large investment to protect, including the success of their mission.

  "Fan out and keep it low," Stone barked, aware that both of his soldiers already knew the routine. They had seen combat, and plenty of it, long before they joined his little band of manhunters. Each of them was able to protect himself in a killing situation, and to make long odds more comfortable than they had any right to be. Trained killers, yes, but killers in a cause. And neither man was here with Stone because he chose to sell his gun. Instead, they were committed to a cause, the oldest one around.

  Good versus Evil, and the devil take the slackers.

  Stone was moving out, his two men peeling off to either side, when An Khom passed him like a streak. He made a grab at the little darting figure, but his fingers only grazed the old man's jacket sleeve. In other circumstances he would not have thought An Khom had so much life left in him, but the weapons dealer saw his home and family going up in flames before his eyes, and he was definitely motivated now.

  The soldier let him go, and old An Khom was lost within a moment, disappearing in the swirling smoke of battle. Of them all, he had the greatest right to be here, and Mark Stone did not have time or inclination now to try to hold him back.

  There was enough for all of them to do, damned right, and Stone was in the thick of it from the moment he passed inside the arched gate of old An Khom's estate.

  The grounds were spacious, and under other circumstances, in the sunshine, would have been a lovely vista. At the moment, with the backlighting of the flames and the pall of smoke hanging over everything, the landscape was more like a view of hell.

  Three cars were parked along the curving driveway, carbon-copy limousines, each capable of carrying from eight to ten men. From where he stood in shadows, taking stock, Mark Stone could count perhaps a dozen running figures that he didn't recognize, approximately half of them equipped with automatic weapons. Most of them were occupied in firing at the house or running in its general direction, with a few men left behind to guard the cars.

  He took advantage of the enemy's preoccupation to advance, but in his eagerness he almost met disaster. In the shadows to his right, a flanker with an automatic rifle saw his move and swiveled toward him, shouting a warning that was more surprise than anger.

  In the end, it was the sentry's sudden noise that saved Stone's life. The guy could easily have dropped him cold if he had kept his wits about him, but the sudden shock of seeing an intruder had been too much for him. And that one mistake was all Stone needed.

  Pivoting, he dropped to one knee, swinging his Beretta up and bracing it with both hands. A single stroke of the curving hair-trigger, and the pistol barked, the muzzle flash obscuring his target for an instant.

  On the grim receiving end, his man was reeling, staggering away from there, a bloody hole where his left eye used to be. His dying brain, already mangled, sent a final signal to the hands, and his assault rifle ripped out an aimless burst into the night. It missed Stone by several yards, but it was more than loud enough to put his fellow gunners on alert.

  Stone broke away from there, not waiting to see the lifeless target fall. He hit the fire-selector switch on his Beretta, setting it for automatic three-round bursts as he put ground between himself and the body of the sentry.

  The shit was coming down, and he would need every ounce of firepower at his disposal to see his way through. At once, he put An Khom and all the others from his mind, instantly and totally preoccupied with his own survival.

  Hog Wiley vaulted the chest-high wall with incredible grace and ease for a man of his size, landing in a fighting crouch on the other side. At once, the six-inch Colt Trooper .357 Magnum was in his giant fist, almost a live extension of himself as it swept the fire-lit darkness, seeking hostile targets.

  He was on the hunt, and it felt good. Hog had been missing combat since his last time out with Stone, and practice sessions at the range could only do so much to take the edge off, no matter how realistic they were made.

  The fight was what he liked, what turned him on about his chosen martial trade, and here it was again, made to order. At the moment he didn't have the first idea who his enemies might be, and it didn't seem to matter in the least. Somewhere inside the house, his guns were burning up, if they were not already burned, and men with guns prevented him from saving them. It was enough for now.

  He scanned the field, locating opposition soldiers by sound as much as by sight. He picked out the sounds of automatic weapons, and heard the flat, distinctive bark of Stone's Beretta when it joined the dance.

  Hog moved, edging out and away from the wall in a crouch, keeping as low as possible, considering his bulk. Palm trees formed a marching line across the lawn, circling away to some point out behind the house, and he tried to keep them between himself and the crowd of running, dodging figures that were his eventual targets.

  The longer he could keep hi
s presence there a secret, the greater the surprise would be when he erupted in their midst, a shouting, shooting giant out of hell.

  And sometimes, when he was outnumbered, the advantage of surprise could be enough to turn the tide. This time, perhaps.

  He was twenty feet from the final line of palms when a shrieking figure burst from cover, charging directly at him on a collision course. Without thinking twice, Hog swung the Trooper up and squeezed the trigger, riding out the recoil of his doubly powerful hand-loaded cartridges, to watch the bullet impact on its rushing target.

  It never failed to startle him, the way hot metal and soft flesh reacted at their meeting. When 158 grains of hollow-point thunder struck his target square upon the nose, a human face was suddenly wiped out, replaced by something sodden and no longer human, something flowing, in transition to another state of being. It became a liquid thing, and it could not command the body still appended to it. Limbs refused to answer signals from the newly hollowed skull, and as he watched, the running figure did a spastic little dance before collapsing into death.

  There was no time to think about it now, for yet another figure was approaching on his left, this one closer, more determined. The second man was smart enough to squeeze the trigger of his weapon anyway, but he was too excited to make time for aiming, and the bullets whistled past an inch or two from Wiley's face.

  The Texan dove into a flying shoulder roll, and came up several yards from where he had been standing. His adversary veered, attempting to regain his target, but he was too close for that, and it was much too late to compensate when Hog reached out to grasp his wrist in one giant, crushing hand. The little guy screamed and dropped his weapon as Hog twisted his arm, bringing it around in a swift arc until the bone snapped with a sound of dry twigs breaking underfoot. Hog shoved the smoking muzzle of his Colt into the screaming mouth and pressed the trigger, closing both his eyes against the sudden spray of blood and bone.