Slash and burn jh-3

by Matt Hilton

  'Ready, Hunter?' Rink asked.

  'Let's roll.'

  Some people refer to what I do as vigilantism; they assume that I must be some sort of damaged freak raging at the inability of law enforcement to do what needs doing. Often, vigilantes do have a slightly psychotic outlook, so much so that they become exactly what it is they are fighting against. Maybe a small measure of me could be weighed in that context, but it would be very, very small. As a child, I was the one who'd stick up for the little kid who everyone else thought was a loser. I suppose, instead of a vigilante, I should be looked upon as a protector. And the best way I know to protect is to take the fight directly to the threat.

  In the past I've been guilty of rushing in and depending on my skills and a huge amount of luck to see me through trouble, but this time it couldn't be so rash. I wanted Huffman dead, but not at the expense of the lives of my friends, Rink and Harvey; they were owed more consideration than that. With that in mind, I decided my plan of attack on the drive to Quicksilver Ranch.

  Last time we'd got no further than the entrance to Huffman's land. The ranch itself was over the horizon so we had no idea of the layout of the buildings or the surrounding countryside. But it appeared that Harvey's skill with a computer was up to its usual high standards. While Rink drove the Windstar, Harvey jammed in a mobile broadband connector and brought up aerial images of the ranch. There was little need for spies when you could Google just about anything or anywhere you desired. But Harvey went one further, bringing up the schematics of Huffman's house by digging into planning and construction records held on file in a Grayson County database.

  The house was large by anyone's standards, with four storeys if you counted the basement and attic spaces. To me it had the look of a colonial mansion house, with an upper tier serving as the living quarters while the ground floor was given over to kitchen, dining and utility rooms. The house was next to a series of large buildings ending in what looked like livestock pens alongside a large rectangular structure. Then it was just grassland for miles in any direction I chose.

  'Won't be easy getting close,' Rink said. 'Not without being seen. We should've kept the M24s and took 'em from a distance.'

  This from a man who I'd witnessed crawling to within yards of a terrorist training cell in the Libyan desert to set up close target reconnaissance, then lying undetected, gathering intelligence, until the rest of our unit charged in and wiped them all out.

  'The grass will give us cover almost all the way to the house,' Harvey said. 'Unless they have FLIR.'

  He was talking about technology that military personnel use to locate enemies lying in ambush. Forward-looking infra-red detectors apply digital thermal imaging to build a picture of anything warmer than the ambient background. Heat leaking from even the best-camouflaged person cannot escape the device.

  I didn't think that Huffman had FLIR technology to hand. The people he had working for him came from the criminal underworld and, though they had access to M16 assault rifles, didn't deem the more esoteric equipment necessary. But I could be wrong.

  'They won't be looking for us sneaking up on them if I create a diversion,' I said. 'I could draw their fire while you two get into the buildings at the back of the ranch. It's me Huffman wants; they'll concentrate on me and that'll give you the opportunity to come in through the back door.'

  'He'll be expecting us, too.' Rink was referring to the fact that we'd shown our hand when launching the ambush yesterday. 'He'll know that there were two shooters out in the grass because of the angles of the shots.'

  'But he won't know if you're still working with me or not. If I play the demented vigilante bent on revenge, I think I can hold their attention long enough to make them forget all about you.'

  'What's your idea?'

  I told them.

  Both of my friends shook their heads at the absurdity of my plan.

  'Who do you think you are, goddamn Rooster Cogburn?' Rink asked.

  Conjuring a picture of John Wayne with his horse's reins between his teeth and a gun in each hand, I grinned. If it was good enough for the Duke, it would be good enough for me.

  Fill your hand, Huffman, I thought, you son of a bitch!

  Chapter 43

  Robert Huffman had any number of places he could have waited for Joe Hunter. He owned several buildings spread across the Midwest. There was an office in Dallas that gave him a view of Reunion Tower and was little more than a stone's throw from the Texas School Book Depository, from where Lee Harvey Oswald purportedly fired the bullets that assassinated John F. Kennedy. His office was perched on the penthouse floor, on a level with the top of the nearby Hyatt, and on the days before the Dallas Stars moved to the American Airlines Center he could hear the cheering of the crowds from the nearby stadium.

  But he chose to remain at Quicksilver Ranch because it was the most remote of his properties. Twice now in the past twenty-four hours the sounds of gunfire and exploding vehicles had not raised the interest of the police, and he was counting on the third time being no different. He wanted his war with Hunter to be waged with no outside interference. That wouldn't be the case if they went at it in downtown Dallas.

  He waited for Hunter to come to him.

  Some of his men were ranged in a skirmish line protecting the approach to the ranch house. They had been out there for hours now. Larry Bolan was somewhere inside preparing himself for Hunter's arrival. He'd allowed Bolan this latitude in order to keep the big man from exploding too soon. His need for revenge on Joe Hunter was like a slowly burning fuse of indeterminate length. Huffman didn't want Bolan's rage let loose until Hunter was no longer a threat. If he had been out there now, the likelihood was that he'd murder Grade and the others in order to ensure he was the only one to get an opportunity to kill Hunter.

  He asked himself why he had allowed Bolan to live. His remark that Bolan had always been his favourite was as false as his jovial demeanour. Bolan meant nothing to him other than as a handy tool when it came to doling out violence. But he had become a defective tool. Bolan had murdered six of Huffman's people in his attempt to gain revenge on his brother's killer. He didn't doubt that Bolan would try to kill him if he was perceived as a threat to completing the mission.

  Bolan had agreed to give Huffman the glory of killing Hunter, but Huffman didn't believe him. Bolan would want his own legend. He'd sworn to his dead brother, Trent, that he would avenge him. Unless he shouted Hunter's defeat loud and clear, how would Trent hear him all the way from the afterlife?

  Bolan would have to die.

  There was nothing else for it.

  But not yet. Defective tool that he was, Bolan was still useful. Even a blunt hammer could knock a nail into wood. Once Hunter was dead Larry Bolan would follow him. He could personally tell his wall-eyed, crazy brother all the details when he joined him in hell. He could tell Trent that Robert Huffman, Quicksilver, was the top dog, and he could show his slit throat as proof.

  Huffman slid out his razor.

  He picked a slip of notepaper off his desk and ran the razor against it, cutting a neat line and allowing the severed portion to flutter to the desktop. The edge was incredibly sharp. Then he turned the blade so that it reflected his eyes. He peered into the depths of the steel, as if the eyes staring back at him were those of a metaphysical being locked within. He wondered if the man in the blade was in fact the real Quicksilver, some elemental spirit that had lain dormant for way too long. Or that a portion of his own soul had been imprisoned within the steel and was demanding release. It had been many years since the razor had tasted blood, but since it had stolen the life from Desmond Molloy, Huffman could almost believe that the blade-being demanded more. All fanciful stuff, he had to accept, because he wasn't one for fantasy. He knew the truth: there was only his own desire for violence. But it did no harm to dream.

  'It's time,' he whispered.

  Chapter 44

  The sun was a full hand's breadth above the horizon when I drove the Winds
tar through the gate and on to Quicksilver Ranch. The hire vehicle had been a dependable ally over the last twenty-four hours but it was almost time to say goodbye. Not that I was going to grow all sentimental over it. It was an inanimate object, given the illusion of life by electricity and the combustion of gas. It was simply a tool.

  I checked the gas and saw that it was hovering near the empty mark. Maybe I should have put a little more juice in the tank when I'd filled the drum riding on the back seat: I'd look an idiot if the car ran out of fuel before I reached my destination. But I only had a mile to go, and the fuel in the reserve tank would be enough.

  Pressing on, I kept steady pressure on the gas pedal. Momentum was my best ally right now. The assault was on. No turning back.

  The thought that innocent people might be at the ranch had been a worry, but I didn't think there were any innocents where Robert Huffman was concerned. He knew I was coming; he wanted impartial witnesses on site as little as I did. If there were any staff employed at the ranch who weren't party to his criminal dealings, they'd have been shunted off by now. I hoped. Because what I planned did not differentiate bad guys from good. It wouldn't be selective. Anyone who got in my way was going to die.

  In some respects my tactics weren't the type I'd normally use. Not with any conscience. I'd fought my entire professional career against men who employed these kinds of extremes. Suicide bombers, they're called. In my opinion, driving a moving bomb into a packed marketplace is both crude and cowardly, but it got the job done. In the eyes of the fanatics, these bombers are heroes. I'd always thought of them as the worst kind of scum. And now I'd joined their likes. Nothing would validate my actions except the knowledge that my plan was to save innocent lives. Then there was the fact that I didn't plan on suicide. I was a kamikaze pilot with an ejector seat.

  The Windstar roared along the road, picking up speed. I passed the place where I'd rescued Kate. Then I continued, going over the swell in the land and seeing for the first time the lair of my enemy. The house was pale under the wash of the morning sun. It looked archaic in this modern world, and it made me wonder if Huffman was the type to long for past times. But the thought was only fleeting. I saw a man rise up from the side of the road and lift something to his mouth. Radio, I realised, announcing my arrival. Another man materialised from the long grass on the other side of the road and aimed an M16 assault rifle at me. I hadn't seen this bespectacled man before, but Kate had told me about someone called Nixon whom she'd knocked cold when she'd tried to make her own run for freedom. She'd said he was about the most human out of all of Huffman's hired guns.

  'Bad judge of character, Kate,' I said.

  I gunned the engine, just as the man with the rifle let loose a stream of bullets at the Windstar. Metal tore through the vehicle, sparks and deafening bangs marking their progress, even as I pushed down on the door handle. I felt the tug of a bullet against my jacket, the heat of another passing my nose. Then I jumped for my life. I rolled across the road surface, came to my feet and fired at the man with the radio. My bullet hit him in his throat, cutting off any further words, and he fell over backwards, the radio thrown from his hand when he hit the dirt.

  All of three or four seconds had passed since the man with the rifle opened up on the Windstar. I'd gone out the far side, blocked from his view. He was still unloading the remainder of a clip. The vehicle was bucking under the onslaught but hadn't deviated from its target. I had a clear view of the gunman but I let him continue to fire. All part of the plan.

  Finally one of his bullets struck the canister in the rear seat and the Windstar went up like a Roman candle. Pieces of steaming metal were cast across the fields, igniting the grass, and the flash of exploding petrol immediately turned to oily black smoke roiling out of the shattered husk of the vehicle. The Windstar's engine died, shredded by the explosion, but the vehicle continued to roll at speed towards the ranch on flaming tyres.

  I turned my gun on the man I believed to be Nixon. By now he had seen the devastation his bullets had wrought on the vehicle, but he was still a moment away from realising what the consequences were. His expression turned from one of triumph to one of disbelief as the Windstar continued towards the house.

  'Oh, shit!'

  'That's about right,' I said under my breath. Then I shot him in the chest. The shot was aimed at centre-mass: it punched his heart out through a hole in his back. At least he was saved from witnessing just how much he'd messed up.

  Immediately I started for the house, following in the wake of foul-smelling smoke, dodging puddles of burning fuel that dotted the road. I could have used some of that FLIR technology Harvey had mentioned earlier because I couldn't see a damn thing. But I was happy. I couldn't see them but they couldn't see me: not a bad trade-off.

  By the time the Windstar reached the house it was limping on deflated tyres. It wasn't speeding any longer, and it wouldn't be a battering ram the way I'd used Larry Bolan's Dodge Ram back at le Coeur de la Ville. It still hit the front left corner of the house with a solid thump. I could have sworn that the building swayed for a moment, but then smoke wreathed the scene and hid the building from me. I continued running as flames began to lick through the smoke like angry serpents. My rolling incendiary device had achieved the desired result: an unorthodox but explosive method of entry.

  There was no time for gloating. I had to keep moving. Show Huffman the true meaning of shock and awe. In my peripheral vision I caught movement off to my left. Another man was running through the grass in my direction, lifting an assault rifle. He fired as he came, but he had about as much danger of hitting me as of winning the lottery. I flinched out of reaction, but not from the bullets whizzing over my head. A living shadow rose up from beside the man and jammed a KA-BAR to the hilt in the man's flesh. It was a savage stab, one that pierced the point just behind the man's clavicle and drove the knife down and into the upper chambers of his heart. He died instantly. Rink grabbed the rifle out of his hands even as he fell dead on the ground. Rink dropped low again and was lost to view.

  Three down, but with no idea how many we were up against, I kept running. One thing was for sure, the odds had to be creeping in our favour.

  Passing the burning Windstar, I gave it little attention, happy only that the flames from the vehicle had set the tinder-dry building alight. I jumped up on to the porch, my SIG searching for targets. Hearing a thump from above me, I kicked open the front door and quickly rushed inside the building, putting my back to the door frame as I cleared the room before me. I heard the thud of running feet above. Shouts. I also heard gunfire from some distance away and guessed that Rink or Harvey had engaged someone on the far side of the building.

  Now it was on for real.

  I was going to flush Huffman out of his house so that I could kill him in the clear light of day.

  To my left flames were licking through new holes in the wall. Pretty soon this entire corner of the house would be aflame. Then the rest would become an inferno. I could wait to allow the flames to do my job for me, but things had become way too personal between me and Huffman to allow that. I moved through the room, only barely aware that it was a kitchen, and I took a quick glance into a passageway beyond.

  Clear.

  I went on, my gun seeking targets.

  More thumps from above. People were responding to the flames engulfing this part of the building, seeking escape at the far end. I looked for a way up there and noticed a stairway halfway down the passage. There were doors either side of the passage and it would be reckless to head directly for the stairs without first ensuring those rooms were empty. I didn't relish the thought of a bullet in my spine.

  Gunfire rattled outside, Rink or Harvey loosing a barrage of bullets. Flames crackled and wood creaked and shifted. There was a dull pop as something inside the Windstar exploded, possibly the remaining fuel in the gas tank. Still no sign of Robert Huffman, though. No Larry Bolan either. For a brief second I was worried that both my enemies had fl
ed the farm and I'd merely engaged in war with their underlings. But, I realised, the underlings had to go. They knew my name and if ever any of us were going to be safe again, they had to die.

  Pulling open a door on my right, I swept the interior for targets. The room was a utility area with washing machines and the like, but no people. So I returned my attention to the bottom of the stairs. I could hear the retreat of feet as someone upstairs ran to the back of the house. I was eager to get up there after whoever that was, but it was still important that I left no one behind me.

  Pulling open another door, I brought round the SIG.

  Something whacked down on my extended wrist. I cursed under my breath as my hand went numb. Desperately I held on to my weapon. If I relinquished it now, that would be the end of me. In reaction I threw up my left arm and caught a blow aimed at my face on my elbow. But then a knee pounded me in the chest and I was pushed back into the passageway. I slammed the far wall, rebounded and immediately I fired. My bullet hit the man coming at me. It stopped him in his tracks, but only fleetingly. In some distant part of my mind I registered the man was wearing a Kevlar vest. The point-blank shot had struck him like a mule kick, but the vest had saved his life. The man came at me, lifting his own gun. I wasn't wearing a vest.

  I dodged as the gun fired, barely avoiding the round that punched a hole in the wall next to my head; if he'd aimed at my body instead he'd have got me. There was only a fraction of a second between the realisation that I was still alive and my response. I brought up my gun and fired again, hitting the man in the meat of his left thigh. The bullet took a chunk of his leg, but his forward momentum threw him against me and we both grappled with each other's gun hands like we were engaged in a crazy dance.

  I was only vaguely aware of the man trying to kill me. It was the same sinuous son of a bitch who'd survived when I took Kate from Huffman. He was older than me by fifteen years, slim of build, but strong. Even with one leg crippled, the man still had an incredible fluidity to his movement. He flipped my gun hand, turning my gun towards me, trapped my elbow, and then headbutted me in the face. I saw red flashes. But I didn't let the sudden shock stop me. I pivoted on my feet, lifting and looping my trapped elbow so that we disengaged from our chest-to-chest position, then I kicked at the knee of his good leg. The man grunted, but he straightened my elbow out, swung his armpit over it while raising the wrist, then forced his body weight down on the flexed elbow in an effort at snapping it. My gun hand was stretched out aiming away from him, but his gun hand was also tied up as he grappled with my wrist. Neither of us could get off a shot. I released his gun wrist, giving me room to move, and I dropped my centre of balance lower than his, taking pressure off my elbow. It was simply about angles. I turned my elbow a fraction and he no longer had me controlled.