Slash and burn jh-3

by Matt Hilton

  'Your head's split wide,' Trent remarked, helping him to his feet.

  Larry touched the cuts on his skull. 'Tell me about it.'

  A rifle cracked almost by Larry's ear and he flinched from the noise. Looking towards the trail, he caught a glimpse of tail lights as the Grand Taurino sped round the curve.

  Larry looked at the tall youth with the smoking rifle.

  Without warning, he grabbed the boy's throat between his massive fingers and squeezed. The boy was lifted off the ground, toes scrabbling for purchase on the dirt.

  'The hell you doing shooting at my wheels, Jeb?' he roared in the youth's purpling face. Then he tossed Jeb aside and the gangly youth cartwheeled into the nearby bushes. He landed awkwardly on his back, twisted among branches.

  Larry and Trent stomped down on to the road. Looking in the direction where their vehicle had disappeared, they both stood in silence. Behind them, the rest of their friends dragged Jeb out of the undergrowth.

  Larry turned and looked dispassionately at the dazed youth. 'You OK, Jeb?'

  Jeb nodded in confusion, wiping at scratches on his forehead.

  'Be thankful I'm not in a bad mood,' Larry told him. Then turning to the group of men surrounding him, he warned, 'Any of you motherfuckers mess up again, believe me, I'll rip your fucking heads off.'

  The men all nodded in acquiescence.

  'Any of you idiots got a phone with a signal?'

  One man handed over his phone. 'One bar only, but it might be enough, Larry.'

  'Go get the fucking cars,' Larry told the men. 'We ain't achieving nothing standing round here, are we?'

  The men scattered, and only Trent was with his brother as he reported in to Huffman.

  'How did he take it?' Trent asked when Larry hung up.

  'In his usual way,' Larry said. 'He's bringing in some help for us.'

  'We don't need help.'

  Larry touched the tender spots on his head. 'No,' he said.

  Before they returned to town, they backtracked up the hill. They laid out the four dead men in the living room of Imogen Ballard's house, then Trent got busy with a can of gasoline off the pick-up. Flames fought back the flurries of snow falling on the disintegrating A-frame.

  Sending the others ahead, Larry and Trent commandeered Tom-Boy's SUV.

  'It's full of shit,' Trent complained as he surveyed the blood and tissue sprayed through the interior.

  'It'll clean up back at the shop,' Larry said.

  As was the norm, Larry drove.

  They caught up with the others at the pass. Trent got out the SUV armed with his can of gasoline and doused the Ford Explorer. Then there were two fires raging on the mountainside.

  Good job it's winter, Larry thought, otherwise Trent'd probably burn the entire forest down. Trent's growing fascination with flames was another thing that concerned Larry about his strange sibling.

  Trent grumbled all the way to town, brushing at drips falling on him from the roof.

  'I ain't cleaning this fucking thing,' he told Larry about a dozen times before they reached Little Fork.

  Larry didn't bother arguing. His head felt like someone was beating it with a hammer and all he wanted was to get back to their workshop where he could find something to take away the pain.

  They'd left the snow up in the hills, but it was still a gloomy night. Not too many people out on the streets. The others continued on, but Larry slowed the vehicle as they approached the back alley that led to the workshop where they'd customised the Dodge. A guy with a bag of groceries was standing in the mouth of the alley, watching them warily.

  'The fuck's his problem?' Trent enquired, then he leaned out the window and yelled at the man. Larry closed his eyes, flinching with every word rocketing around inside his skull. When he blinked open his eyes the man had stepped up on to the kerb. Larry drove into the alley.

  'Should have run the fucker over,' Trent said. 'Inconsiderate bastard!'

  'Trent…'

  Trent blinked across at him. 'What's up, bro?'

  Larry could only shake his head.

  Arriving at their lock-up, Trent clambered out and set to the padlock. As Trent cursed loudly, Larry reached for his Magnum. But it wasn't there. Good job, because this time he really would have put a round through his brother's skull.

  When Trent opened the door, Larry drove the SUV into the workshop. He didn't turn off the headlights until Trent found the light switch and bathed the shop with stark light. Larry climbed out of the vehicle, trailing a string of viscous gunk that clung to the sleeve of his jacket. Gross! he thought, wiping the congealed blood on the hood of the SUV.

  'Jesus Christ, Larry,' Trent moaned. 'You don't have to make things worse than they already are!'

  'Shut the fuck up, will ya?' Larry walked over to a tool bench arranged along the far wall. He was pretty sure he had a stash of morphine somewhere. His head was pounding, and his nose was full of the stink of Tom and Richie's brains. God knows what the hell he had sticking to his clothes. 'How could things get any worse?'

  Chapter 12

  'Maybe I can answer that.'

  At the sound of my voice the two men turned to stare at me. They were the biggest human beings I'd ever seen, and between them they almost blocked out my view of the far wall. I'd thought that Rink was big, but next to these men he'd have looked slight. It made me feel like a child in comparison.

  The difference between us was really measured by the fact that I was armed and they weren't. The SIG made me the top dog in the room.

  Both men looked at me, then down at the gun.

  'Either of you fancy your chances?' I brought up the SIG so that it was aimed directly at the face of the man with the odd eyes. He was the most vocal and likely to be the most irrational.

  'You're the asshole who was blocking our way,' he said, pointing a hand at me. He rolled the hand into a fist the size of a Sunday roast. 'You want to fuck with me because I bawled you out?'

  The other man turned fractionally. 'Trent? It's the goddamn man from the woods.'

  Nodding in confirmation, I moved further into what I now could see was a mechanical workshop. There were tools arranged on the wall, a pit under the parked SUV. Perished oil made dark patches on the floor and had made its way on to the walls and furniture too.

  'I recognise your voice,' said the man I'd pistol-whipped. 'What are you? English?'

  I didn't bother answering. Instead, I asked, 'Why are you after Imogen Ballard?'

  Both men exchanged glances. I saw something in their faces that I hadn't noticed before. It wasn't obvious face-on, but when they turned in profile I saw that they had the same shaped features. Kind of Neanderthal.

  'You're brothers, right?' I said, advancing a step. 'So who's the youngest out of you?'

  'We're twins,' said the man with the odd eyes. Trent, the other had called him.

  'So you're the youngest then?' It was the way he'd answered, as though in defence of his pride, that told me. I turned my attention to the eldest brother. 'OK, it's like this: you tell me everything or I shoot your little brother. How does that sound?'

  A strange look passed over the man's face, but it wasn't fear of my threat. 'He's big enough to look after himself. Why'd I care if you shot him?'

  Trent scowled at his brother, but it was as if he saw the humour in the words and he started huffing out a laugh.

  'Fair enough,' I said.

  Then I shot the youngest brother.

  His left knee buckled where my bullet punched through it, and as big and strong as he appeared, he still went down on the ground screaming.

  'Motherfucker!' His brother lurched towards me. I brought up the SIG so he had a good look directly down the barrel.

  'See,' I said. 'I knew you were bluffing.'

  The older brother had come to a halt again. His face was painted with rage. 'I'm gonna rip your fucking head off for that.'

  'No, big man, what you're going to do is start talking.' I moved the SIG so it was o
nce more pointing at his brother. 'Otherwise I'll show you what a hollow-point can do to a face already that ugly.'

  Some people have decried the effectiveness of the P228 over its predecessor the P226. With the nine mm parabellum ammo having less stopping power than.45 ball, some military and law enforcement officers prefer other sidearms. However, I didn't see the problem. When loaded with hollow-point ammunition, the P228 has enough power to stop a charging rhinoceros. It would easily blow the man's face apart, however huge his head was.

  Taking another step, I held out my gun with both arms at full stretch in what's known as a stressfire isosceles stance. It's one of the stances favoured by Israeli Special Forces, designed for point shooting under extreme duress. It's also damn intimidating as the stance suggests that you are aiming directly at a specific target and about to discharge your weapon.

  The older brother's hands came up. 'OK, OK, easy now. I do care about my goddamn brother. What is it you want to know?'

  'Start with your names,' I told him.

  'Larry. That's Trent.'

  'Second names.'

  'Don't fucking tell him,' Trent groaned from the floor. Some of the shock of having been crippled had dissipated, but none of the agony. I guessed these men were used to pain. So I shot him in the other knee.

  'Aw,' was all Larry said as he looked down at his screaming brother.

  'Let's keep this conversation strictly between us from now on,' I told him.

  'Bolan,' Larry yelled. 'It's fucking Bolan, OK?'

  'Got it. Now you tell me who you work for.'

  There was a little reticence in Larry's posture, so I fired again. This time into the wall behind his head. He must have felt the heat of the bullet passing his ear, it was so close.

  'Robert Huffman.'

  'Is he from here? Little Fork?'

  'Dallas, Texas. He has offices there.'

  'But he also has offices here?'

  'Yeah.'

  I fired another round the other side of his head.

  'Let's speed this up a little, shall we? Give me the address.'

  There was murder in Larry Bolan's eyes but he told me the address. Some office block in the affluent central district. Above a restaurant, he said.

  'Why does he want the woman?'

  Larry Bolan must have known the consequences of lying because he told me enough to make a considered guess. I shook my head in disgust: people dying for greed was nothing new.

  When he was done, I saw Larry glance down at Trent and there was tenderness in his gaze not normally associated with hard-asses.

  'You going to let us live?' Larry asked me.

  'Would you let me live if the circumstances were reversed?'

  'Sure, I would.' A smile crept over his face, and fleetingly I wondered if he'd seen something I was unaware of. Maybe a confederate sneaking up behind me.

  But it wasn't that at all.

  It was resignation.

  'I'd keep you alive while I ripped your arms out of your sockets. I'd gut you and make you watch as I stamped your guts all over the floor.'

  'Sounds entertaining.'

  I knew it was coming before he even moved. I could see the tightening of his hands, the creases appearing next to his eyes, the slight dip of his body. He was coiling for the attack. Larry had realised he was going to die, but he wasn't about to give in without a fight.

  Squaring my SIG on his chest, I prepared for the tell-tale widening of the eyelids.

  Then my peripheral vision caught a flicker of movement. Trent rising up, his hand whipping towards me. A wrench he'd snatched off the floor spinning at my head. Despite myself, I ducked, and the wrench missed me. But it had also pulled my aim a fraction of an inch. As Larry charged and I pulled the trigger, I already knew it wasn't enough to kill him.

  The bullet hit his left shoulder, too high up on the meat to even stop him. He was massive and all the power of his driving legs covered the short distance between us in a little over a second.

  He loomed over me like the proverbial barn door. Only barn doors don't come equipped with piston-like limbs intent on rending you apart. He snatched at my gun with one massive hand and grabbed me round the throat with the other. It would be a waste grappling for the gun because it was a fight I couldn't hope to win. I drove my knee into his groin instead. Wind huffed out of him but it didn't stop him.

  Larry picked me up, his fingers digging into my throat and wrist and he swung me and slammed me against the roof of the parked SUV.

  'Bastard!' he snapped into my face. 'You should have killed me sooner.'

  'Yeah,' I grunted, my back bent tortuously over the roof of the car. 'I should have.'

  Larry laughed, picked me up and then slammed me down again. My kidneys felt like they'd been mashed and black flickers of non-light span across my vision. His arms were too long for me to strike at his face with my free arm, so I brought down my fingers, digging for the radial nerve in the arm holding my throat. I'd have been as well trying to sink my fingers through oak. To show me the error of my ways, Larry dug his hand into my throat. Luckily for me his hand was so large that it wasn't putting all his pressure on my trachea. If that had been the case, the cartilage would have easily popped and I'd have choked on my own blood. Still, the pressure was making me black out.

  With compressed blood pounding in my skull, I brought up my knees, getting my feet wedged into his pelvic girdle. I strained, trying to push his weight away from me, using my legs to gain distance.

  I was aware of Trent's voice in some recess of my mind. 'Kill him, Larry! Kill that motherfucker!'

  He didn't know, but his baying was actually my salvation. It made Larry realise that he was going to finish me too soon. He'd told me he wanted me to live while he ripped me apart and eviscerated my body. That wouldn't be the case if he choked me to death. Larry picked me up so that I was over his shoulder, then he hurled me through space and I landed on the hard concrete. My head smacked the floor, my teeth gnawing a chunk out of my tongue, but that was a small price to pay in exchange for the oxygen I sucked in.

  I'd also held on to my SIG.

  Larry was coming at me again. I brought up the gun.

  Then Trent wanted in on the action.

  He threw himself across the floor at me. Grabbing my arms, he hauled me towards him, throwing his weight over my face.

  Larry's feet found my exposed ribs. He got two swift kicks into me before Trent rolled further on top of me, blocking me from his brother's boots. Not that he was trying to protect me; he wanted me all to himself.

  Trent punched me, his knuckles connecting with the top of my head. He had to rear up to get a clearer punch at my face.

  I felt like I had a mountain on top of me, but I wasn't about to give in yet. Freeing one hand, I groped for his face. My thumb found his blue eye, and I pressed with all my might. It doesn't matter how big a man is, there are still vulnerable points on his body. The eyes are the most vulnerable of all. I felt his eye implode, and jelly-like gore pulsing over my hand. Trent pulled away from me. He was screaming again.

  My SIG was now free of him and I brought it between our bodies. I jerked the trigger. Blood danced above him, some of it spattering on the ceiling. Trent groaned, and I heard Larry's tortured scream of denial. I shot Trent again – just to make sure.

  As his weight collapsed over me, I shoved him aside, putting him between me and Larry. He would have to reach over his dead brother to get at me, but before he could do that I'd put a bullet in his body too.

  As I searched for him, my view was blocked by the front end of the SUV.

  Where the hell is he? I wondered.

  Then I was scrambling out from under Trent's dead weight, looking for the other man, expecting him to be coming at me from the far side of the SUV.

  But Larry wasn't up to avenging his brother instantly. The fucker was making a run for it.

  Let him run, I decided. I'd achieved what I came here for. I now knew who my real enemy was and why he want
ed Imogen Ballard dead. I could always kill Larry Bolan another time.

  When I didn't feel like a train wreck.

  I staggered to my feet.

  I half-expected sirens as the local cops responded to the sounds of gunfire. But subconsciously I knew that was unlikely. The twins' workshop was in a deserted commercial strip. Metallic bangs and angry shouts were probably a regular feature of this place. Maybe screams were too.

  Painfully, I made my way to the head of the alley.

  My bag of groceries was still there, untouched.

  I picked it up and continued my return to the motel. Kate would be wondering what had kept me. She'd probably be angry that I'd been away so long.

  Chapter 13

  What I did, I did because I thought it was right. But I couldn't disregard the knowledge that I'd viciously tortured a man, then half-blinded him. Putting two rounds through his heart when he was trying to kill me was probably the least despicable of my actions. But that wouldn't be a factor, not when I'd been the one who'd gone into the workshop armed and looking for blood.

  I've killed men before. Only occasionally in nightmares do I ever recall the faces of those men. Still, as I walked back to the motel, I was experiencing a cold sickness in my soul from what I'd just done.

  Justifying my actions, the Bolan twins were trying to kill Imogen Ballard. Trent Bolan had murdered others in the past, and would have gone on doing so until I stopped him. Given the opportunity the twins would have murdered Kate and me if we'd been caught in their ambush on the mountain trail. But none of that would mean a damn thing in a court of law. Vigilantism is never tolerated, whatever the justification.

  There'd be a shit storm when the deaths became public, and – apart from my anonymity up until now – I didn't see how I could avoid arrest and imprisonment. I'd already used up all my cards, according to my old CIA contact, Walter Hayes Conrad, who'd covered for my actions in the past.

  Approaching the motel where I'd left Kate, I shrugged off the worry. It was pointless being concerned about something that might never happen. I intended going after the men who were threatening Jake Piers' sisters, and there'd likely be more deaths. If I survived, I could worry about the consequences.