Slash and burn jh-3

by Matt Hilton

  Kate spun round. Before I could hush her, she called out. 'Imogen?'

  I drew my SIG.

  Unless Imogen was two hundred and fifty pounds and wearing boots, I doubted that the next footstep was hers. This one was on the porch outside.

  I was under no illusions.

  There had been no sound of an approaching vehicle, no announcement or challenge. So the man sneaking up on us probably wasn't a concerned member of law enforcement checking on the vulnerable property. Whoever was on the porch was in cahoots with the person upstairs, and they intended taking us by surprise.

  I snaked a hand over Kate's mouth and pulled her close. I caught a scent of flowers on her neck. Whispering in her ear, I said, 'Get behind the counter in the kitchen.'

  The men here were the ones responsible for ransacking Imogen's house. Possibly they were the ones responsible for her disappearance. Kate struck me as being strong-willed, no shrinking violet if it came to standing her ground. But she would be a hindrance if she wasn't going to do as I said. Give Kate her due, she quickly slid out of my grip and hunkered down behind the marble-topped prep counter in the middle of the kitchen floor. She was hidden from above and from anyone coming in the front door, but not from the window or the door at the back. I could only hope that all we faced were the two I'd already identified.

  Quickly glancing up, I could detect no movement there, so I swung round, putting my body close to the wall next to the entrance. The front door had been fitted so that it opened towards me.

  I hadn't long to wait.

  The door handle twisted violently and the door was thrust open. It was followed immediately by a large man. I saw the barrel of his shotgun first, followed by a thick arm and shoulder as he pushed inside. His mouth opened to shout a challenge.

  The barrel of my SIG struck the nerves on the mound of his forearm, then I moved alongside him and the second whack of my gun was made at his collarbone. I didn't know who these people were, so I didn't have the luxury of killing them outright. My strikes were aimed to disarm. The shotgun clumped to the floor as the man's entire arm went numb. Then I had my fingers in his beard and I pulled his head down and struck him a third time on the nape of the neck.

  He was a huge man and his neck was protected by a thick roll of fat, but he still sagged under the blow. I pulled him back up, jamming the SIG under his jaw. The man rolled jaundiced eyes my way, realising he'd fucked up.

  'You upstairs,' I shouted. 'Come out or I'll put a bullet through your friend's head.'

  Movement at the head of the stairs came immediately. But there was no sign of the second man giving up. He came out shouting a challenge of his own as he raised a rifle and fired.

  The bullet struck the door lintel behind me, and I took cover behind the first man. Blindly, I fired back, but I didn't hit the man with the rifle. Testament to that was his second shot. It hit the big man I was holding in the chest, punched a hole right through him and splattered blood down the front of my jacket. Some of the spray got in my eyes and clouded my vision.

  The big man dropped from my grip like a slaughtered steer, straight down in a boneless heap at my feet. Leaving me open to a third shot. I fired in reaction, but I didn't have the man clear in my sights. He must have been aiming directly at my chest.

  I heard the crack of a gun. Then another, then another, followed by a veritable roll of thunder as a magazine was emptied. At the top of the stairs the second gunman danced as bullets smacked through the planks beneath his feet, making tatters of his legs.

  Kate had come to my rescue. I scrubbed the blood from my eyes, spared a second to look her way. She was raised above the marble counter firing directly through the ceiling with a Glock 19, emptying the gun into the man who would be my killer.

  Shit, I thought, damn good shooting.

  When my eyes were clear enough to get a bead on the man, I put a single round through his forehead. The force of the bullet threw him backwards against a wall, then he bounced forwards and did a head-over-heels roll down the stairs.

  Dead men tell no tales: neither of these two was going to give us any answers to what the hell had just gone on here. I glanced at Kate. She was standing upright now, looking at the men who had died so violently. There was no sign of fear in her eyes, only resignation.

  She had answers to give – primarily to explain how she could shoot as well as any soldier I'd ever worked with – but they would have to wait. Hyenas didn't normally hunt in pairs. They came in packs.

  'Kate. Get in the car.'

  She had her jaw set in determination, but she nodded acquiescence and moved to the door. As she stepped over the dead man with the beard, she looked at me. I was crouching alongside him, quickly patting him down.

  'No wallet,' I said. 'No identification.'

  She stood in the doorway as I went over to the second man and confirmed he too was lacking in personal papers. From her purse she took out a fresh magazine and fed it into her Glock. She racked the slide like a pro, then went outside. I noted she was in a professional stance, her gun hand supported on her opposite wrist as she sought further targets.

  'Joe,' she called. 'You'd best get out here.'

  Damn it, I thought. Hefting my gun, I followed her.

  Below us in the valley, racing at a speed that wasn't prudent on the narrow trail, came a convoy of three vehicles. Two were SUVs, the third a flat-bed pick-up truck. Even across the intervening distance I could make out that the men on the truck were packing guns.

  For the third time in as many minutes, I said, 'Kate. Get in the car.'

  Chapter 3

  'There's movement up at the woman's place,' said Larry Bolan, juggling a cell phone in his large hand.

  The man in the designer suit looked up from his meal and pointed at Larry with a fork on which was speared a medallion of pheasant. 'Where's your brother?'

  'Outside taking a smoke.'

  'Get him,' said the suited man. 'Go on up there. I don't trust those other imbeciles to get the job done.'

  Larry smiled at the compliment. At least he thought it was a compliment. It would have rung truer if his employer hadn't mentioned other imbeciles, but he didn't mind the slip.

  Larry Bolan had been in the business of hurting people all his adult life. And, even if he said so himself, he was damn good at his job. In fact, there was only one man he knew who was anywhere near as good as him and that was his twin brother, Trent. Much of their ability came with the genes passed down to them from their brutish father. Their father had worked the Kentucky coal mines most of his days; his weekends he spent drinking in brothels. He wasn't happy if he didn't come home with the smell of a whore on him and men's blood on his knuckles. But Larry and Trent also boasted something that their father never had: money behind them. Their boss paid well and his influence kept the cops from asking too many awkward questions. Whereas Daddy Bolan ended his days strapped to an electric chair – soiling his pants as the switch was thrown, Larry heard – the same would never happen to him or his little bro.

  So he didn't challenge his boss's turn of phrase. He only nodded, shifted his jacket so it covered the Magnum strapped to his hip and walked out of the restaurant. Other customers in the place knew Larry Bolan. They knew to get out of his way, so he had a free passage through the main dining area and the vestibule that led to the street.

  He stepped out into a cool evening breeze, pushing a hand through his spiky hair. He looked along the street towards mountains looming over the small town of Little Fork. Snow capped the highest peaks. Not long now, he thought, and the entire town would be snowed in for winter. He pulled out a pack of Marlboros and lit up, took a satisfying drag on the cigarette, then flicked the remainder of the cigarette against the kerb.

  His brother Trent also flicked the cigarette he'd been smoking and turned to look at his big brother. Trent eyed him in that strange way he had. Thirty-seven years they'd been together, and even now Larry found his brother's gaze a little disconcerting. It was the oddnes
s of his eyes – one pale blue, the other dark brown – that did it. He reminded Larry of a palomino stallion he'd owned that used to look at him the same way before trying to snatch off his face with a snap of its teeth. Larry curled his lip: even Trent's damn Mohawk hairstyle looked like that crazy horse's mane.

  'We on?' Trent asked.

  'We're on.'

  Side by side they moved across the street to where Trent had parked their affectionately named Grand Taurino. The vehicle was really a Dodge Ram quad-cab pick-up truck, but it had been adapted to match the men that drove it. It had a raised suspension and huge tyres, and was painted metallic-black with the head of a snorting animal on the hood. Flames licked from the nostrils of the beast and curled along the sides of the truck. Two huge horns had been strategically placed on top of the light rack on the cab. Like the Bolan twins, this pick-up truck was a giant bull.

  Inside, the cab had also been specially adapted. Ordinarily there'd be four seats, but the rear two had been removed to allow space for the two men who collectively weighed over forty stone and stood near fourteen feet tall. Larry always drove. Being the shorter of the two at six feet nine, it was easier for him than his seven-foot-tall sibling. Not that their respective heights meant anything in their relationship; Larry was thirteen minutes older, so would always be the big brother.

  He fired up the engine, revved it a couple of times for good measure, then peeled away from the kerb like he was a teenager again. Larry, despite his coolness, felt excited. It was always the way when he was on a job. He was good at hurting people, but more pertinently, he enjoyed it.

  From Little Fork to Imogen Ballard's home up at Great Wells was a little under ten miles. Ten miles of bad road. It would take the best part of a half-hour to negotiate the twists and curves of the mountain trails. Larry didn't tell his boss, Robert Huffman, that shots had been fired at the Ballard place. Or that some bad-ass had tagged along with the woman when she'd returned home. He wanted to please his boss by delivering both their heads on a silver platter. That'd look good in that fancy restaurant Huffman liked so much.

  Cell phones were haphazard round here. He knocked his brother's shoulder with his elbow. 'Hey, Trent. Make yourself useful, will ya? Get on the radio and see what's goin' on.'

  Trent rolled his pale eye at his brother. Lazily he grabbed at the CB handset fixed to the dash, turning switches with fingers that weren't designed for such delicate manoeuvres. Then he called up their associates on the channel reserved exclusively for their use.

  'Yo! Any of you assholes got your ears on?' he demanded.

  'Trent? Trent? That you?' came back an agitated voice.

  'Who the fuck you think?'

  'You'd better git yourself up here an' sharp,' said the voice from the radio. 'Richie and Tom-Boy are dead, man. Whoever this mutha is, he's giving us hell!'

  Larry shared a glance with his twin. Trent's pale eye sparkled. Then they both broke into mirror-image grins.

  'Looks like we're in for a little fun tonight, bro.'

  'You ain't shittin' me.' Larry elbowed his brother again. Affectionately this time. 'About time, Trent. I was gettin' bored watching Huffman eat.'

  'At least you get to stand inside. Why'd I have to stand out in the cold, freezin' my ass?'

  'You know why.'

  Robert Huffman said that Trent's wall-eye put him off his dinner. Trent had killed men for less. But he wouldn't hold it against his boss. Not when opportunities like this were handed to the Bolan twins on a regular basis.

  Chapter 4

  'Buckle up, Kate. Things are about to get rough.'

  Experience has shown me that the best course of action isn't always the most obvious. We could have run. But the trail ended at Imogen's house and the only alternative was a two-hundred-yard drop through trees and boulders to the river valley below. We could have given up, put down our weapons and waited for the posse of rednecks to arrive, then thrown ourselves on their mercy. Except I don't come from that school of thought. Sometimes you just have to shock a reaction out of those trying to hurt you by taking the violence to them.

  Pushing the Explorer into drive, I swung the vehicle round. The tyres kicked up gravel and dust as they dug for traction, then we were rushing down the trail. The sun was sinking, the clouds burning umber above the hills across the valley. Night would soon be on us like a fall of soot: sudden and all-consuming. But I didn't turn on my headlights. I pushed the Explorer to greater speed heading directly for the three vehicles charging up the hill.

  'Who the hell are they?'

  'Don't know, but they don't look too friendly.'

  Even as I said it, a man on the back of the pick-up lifted a hunting rifle and fired at us. The bullet missed by a mile, continuing behind us and into the cliff behind Imogen's house.

  'They'll be even less friendly when they find out we killed their friends back there.'

  I saw that Kate was biting her bottom lip. Sexy, if it hadn't been for the torment in her eyes.

  'You're experienced with that gun.'

  'I've only ever shot at targets,' she said.

  'You haven't killed before?'

  'No.'

  'If it's any consolation, you still haven't. It was my bullet in his brain that finished him.'

  'I still shot him,' Kate whispered.

  'He was shooting at us. He got what he deserved.'

  Kate looked across at me.

  'You saved my life, Kate. Keep that in mind and things won't seem so bad.' I reached across and patted her knee. She slipped her fingers on top of mine and gave them a squeeze.

  Then there was no more time for ruminating on the morals of taking a life. We'd be dead if we didn't concentrate on the task at hand.

  There was indecision in the lead SUV driver's mind. It was apparent by the way he swerved from one side of the narrow trail to the other before coming to a halt. The second vehicle had to brake to avoid hitting him, and that in turn caused the pick-up to slew to one side. The men on the truck jostled to stay upright and to swing their rifles towards us. I continued on, straight as an arrow in their direction. It was the most insane game of chicken I'd ever played.

  'OK, Kate, brace yourself. We're going through.'

  'They're going to shoot us!'

  'They'll try,' I said.

  The gap between the two SUVs was marginally too narrow for the Ford to fit through undamaged, but not enough to halt us. At the last moment I down-shifted to give us more power, pressed hard on the throttle and rammed the Ford into the front end of the SUV on our right. The SUV was shunted aside, and I continued to push through without stopping. The men in that vehicle were too busy taking cover to offer any immediate problems, but those on the left were already lifting guns.

  My earlier aversion to killing these men had disappeared when the man upstairs in Imogen's house had opened fire. He had killed his own colleague trying to get at me, so I had to assume that he wanted us dead. So would those in the convoy. I lifted my gun and fired almost point-blank at the driver of the vehicle on my left. The bullet took a chunk of his skull and filled the cab with brain matter. The man in the passenger seat recoiled from the spray, his gun dipping away, and I shot him too.

  Then we were past the two SUVs and the pick-up truck was now on our right. Shooting them meant firing past Kate through the window on her side. Not the ideal situation; the last thing I wanted was to risk hitting Kate. But then I saw her hit the automatic window button and lift her own gun. She fired at the pick-up, her Glock discharging noise like a string of firecrackers. Her bullets didn't hit anyone, but it made those on the flat-bed leap overboard and take cover behind the truck. The driver flung himself down inside the cab as well. Then we were past them and heading down the trail toward Little Fork.

  Pursuit would come, but not immediately.

  I'd killed the two men in the SUV, putting that vehicle momentarily out of commission, but they still had the use of two of their vehicles. The first SUV I'd rammed was only bashed up, not
out of action. The pick-up only required its passengers to climb back on board. Our best advantage at this time was to put distance between us while they turned the vehicles on the narrow trail.

  Glancing in my mirrors, I saw one man at the front of the pick-up with a mobile phone in his hand. Calling up reinforcements, I assumed.

  'There could be more of them ahead,' I said. 'You'd better load your gun again.'

  Kate had a dazed expression on her face. Her mind was rebelling against the horror she'd found herself submerged in. Twice in so many minutes she'd discharged her weapon at living, breathing targets, and I could tell it was not something she'd been prepared for. I had to give her kudos for even having the gumption to act the way she had. Many people would never contemplate shooting another human being, and when push came to shove they wouldn't have the presence of mind to draw their weapon, let alone fire it.

  'You did well back there, Kate.'

  'I didn't hit anyone.' Part of her statement sounded apologetic, but underneath it there was more than a little relief.

  'You kept their heads down. That's all we needed.'

  'You killed two of them.'

  There was a hint of challenge in her voice, as though she was asking why I hadn't simply made them drop for cover.

  'I was too close to miss.' My words were non-committal and she'd have to take them whichever way her mind was working. When men are trying to kill me, I don't generally give them a second try.

  Kate dropped the Glock on her lap, her face ashen. 'Those men back there weren't waiting for us.'

  'No.'

  'They were waiting for Imogen.'

  'Looks that way.'

  'They were going to kill her. There's no other reason for two armed men to be at her house. Or why there would be a group of men waiting at the bottom of the hill to cut off her escape?' Kate was shaking as she picked up the Glock and ejected the empty clip. A new emotion shone in her face. 'But that means that she's still alive, doesn't it?'