Slash and burn jh-3

by Matt Hilton

  For now, Larry was out of the picture. Let him run. Rink and Harvey would chase him down between them, but right then I only wanted Huffman. I moved quickly across the room, gauging his position by the sound of muttered curses coming through the open door.

  I considered shooting him through the wall. The wood would do no more to stop my bullets than cheesecloth. But that just wasn't satisfying enough. In my present state of mind, I wanted revenge on the punk. I wanted the son of a bitch to know exactly who had killed him.

  So slowly, ever so slowly, I edged out of the door and looked down at the man who was on one knee firing at my friends below. I pressed the muzzle of my SIG on the top of his head.

  'Drop the gun, asshole.'

  Huffman's eyes rolled up at me and he sighed.

  'You think this is bad, Huffman? Think again. It's about to get much, much worse.'

  Chapter 47

  A man weighing almost twice the average isn't designed for flight. There was nothing graceful about the way Larry threw himself through space, and within a few feet he was losing altitude and speed. Noticing the window on the building opposite as a means of escape from the burning house he'd trusted to momentum to carry him to freedom. It was a bad calculation. He missed the window completely. However, his weight did come with a guarantee: it was a greater force than the wall of the building could withstand. He slammed the building feet first, smashing directly through the boards. He was lucky that there were no hidden support joists as he'd have likely smashed himself flat against them. Instead he went directly through the wood and fell the remaining body length on to hard-packed dirt inside the building. Above him, his demolition work on the wall caused more wood to fall and the window he'd originally aimed for shattered as its frame gave way.

  Coming to his feet, Larry felt blood on his face and he probed a shallow gash on his forehead. His feet had taken most of the brunt of the collision but his head hadn't gone unscathed. He didn't recall knocking his head on the window ledge, but that was what must have occurred. When his blood had settled and the adrenalin surge had subsided, his head would likely feel like a punchbag. But that was a consideration for later. Right now he had to keep moving. Two men with guns were too close by for comfort.

  He still had no idea who the two dudes were, other than that they'd come here with Joe Hunter. He was pretty sure they wouldn't stand around while he got his shit together and faced Hunter on more stable ground than the rapidly disintegrating ranch house. Man to man he'd kick both their asses, he was pretty sure of that; even together he still thought he could take them. But not when one had a shotgun and the other a machine-gun. They'd flank him and riddle him full of lead. That would spoil his plan for their illustrious leader.

  He still clutched the Desert Eagle.

  He fired a couple of shots through the wall, just to make the men hold back for a second or two. He needed that time to decide what the hell he was going to do next.

  Then he thought, the crap with this! Got to move, take the fuckers one at a time.

  He charged across the building, dodging round some abandoned agricultural equipment. Towards the front of the building the door stood open, but that would take him dangerously close to the guy with the shotgun before he was ready. He aimed instead for a door in the far side. He didn't wait to check if it was unlocked, he just raised one arm and barrelled directly through it, knocking the door off its hinges. He burst out into daylight tinged with smoke from the burning house, turned immediately to his left and raced along a passageway next to the building where Huffman had stored the wreckage of the chopper shot down the day before.

  At the end of the passage he slid to a stop. He poked his head round the corner of the building, looking for the black man. There was no sign of him and Larry ran across rocky earth to where he'd parked Tito's appropriated Cadillac. He leaped in without opening the door, thankful that he'd left the soft top down, and jammed the keys into the ignition. In all those horror or thriller movies cars have a habit of refusing to start first time, adding to the tension as someone sneaks up on the good guy. But the Cadillac burst to life first turn.

  He wasn't running away. No, this was all about strengthening his position. Huffman was pure ego. He wanted to be the top dog in everyone's eyes.

  Well, crap on you, Huffman, he thought. You think you're the toughest dude alive: wait till you get a load of me.

  He floored the gas pedal, turning the Cadillac in a wide circle, and headed along a service track that followed a route past the cattle pens. No shots followed his mad flight and he knew that for the moment he'd given the black guy the slip.

  Larry swung the Cadillac round the end of the slaughterhouse. The stench of old blood and animal dung displaced the acrid smoke from his nostrils, but he wasn't sure it was a good trade. Then he powered the classic car to the front and stomped on the gas again. Then he'd no time for smells or any other distractions; he had to concentrate on killing the man with the shotgun without him blasting his head from his shoulders.

  His size made it difficult to scrunch down in his seat, and he knew that his head still offered a target the size of a basketball, but there was nothing else for it. He powered on, trusting as much to luck as speed to see him through. He whipped by the building containing the chopper. Then he passed the one he'd so recently smashed inside. Next he was passing the gap he'd jumped.

  The guy with the shotgun was there, his weapon aimed at the balcony. Larry glanced up and saw Joe Hunter standing with his gun pressed to Huffman's head. Hunter could wait until later. He fired at the Japanese man.

  He saw the man spin and go down in the dirt.

  Everything had happened too quickly to see how badly he was injured. Maybe he was dead.

  Then he was passing the house.

  Wind made smoke billow across his vision. Sparks from the fire were like a swarm of burning locusts. The front of the building was already gone. But none of this registered. All that concerned Larry was spinning the wheel and making a return run.

  The Cadillac burst through the smoke into clear air. Here the road sloped up to where Nixon and the others had launched their ineffective ambush. Larry used the slope to swing the vehicle on, and he turned back towards the house, giving the big car throttle.

  He blasted through the smoke, relying on its cover to put another.357 round through the Japanese dude. Sparks billowed around him and the smoke brought tears to his eyes, but he didn't stop. He didn't see the figure spilling out of the remains of the house. The man was on fire, hair and clothing burning. The man was screaming, but he looked senseless, as though he was merely screaming at the world in general. At the last second he stumbled, turning directly in the path of the Cadillac.

  It was too late for Larry to swerve. He just blasted right on into the man. Larry had never liked that coward, Rourke, anyway.

  The huge car was more than a match for the fragile human being. It smashed Rourke into the air and his body caromed off the windshield. If the car had had a hard roof, that would have been that, but the soft top was down. Rourke's flailing body spun over the shattered windshield and landed directly in Larry's lap.

  Rourke was a fair-sized man, and his body slammed Larry like a battering ram. The shock of the collision, spattering blood and flames, all conspired against Larry and there was nothing he could do to hang on to the Cadillac's steering wheel. The car veered to the left and hit the raised walkway at the front of the house, punching out a couple of support beams to the balcony above. Then, in the next second, the car bounced outwards, flipping in a roll that hurled Larry and Rourke out of the car and on to the rocky earth.

  Cognisance left Larry. His mind was full of flashing images and explosions of pain as his body rolled across the floor. Stones dug at him, dust filled his eyes and mouth, something gave in his ribcage with a pop. Then he was lying on his back and the world was spinning and dipping in his vision. Everything was eerily silent.

  He lay there for mere seconds.

  Then he
sat up, blinking and spitting crud from his mouth.

  Smoke wreathed across his vision.

  Larry groaned, felt for the abnormal shape in his chest and realised that he'd broken a rib. The pain was only one of many similar pains; nothing serious like a shattered spine or crushed skull plagued him.

  His hearing came back with a jolt. Trent was screaming at him to get his ass in gear.

  He rolled on to his knees, head swimming, then got to his feet where he swayed like a tower in the face of a hurricane.

  Superheated wind tore the smoke away from him.

  Shit.

  Standing directly in front of him was the Jap dude. Blood was apparent only by its absence. Larry had missed the shot and the man was holding a goddamn Mossberg aimed at his gut.

  'You have a beef with Joe Hunter,' said the man, 'you have a beef with me.'

  Chapter 48

  'Drop the gun, Huffman.'

  It's the power a beautiful face has over a man. For the last few days I could have been accused of being led by my heart instead of by my brain. Pretty much everything I'd done had been driven by the rage I felt at Huffman because he'd threatened a woman that I was attracted to. But now I'd hit melting point. Considering everything, my actions weren't the most rational. I'd tried to validate them by telling myself that to defeat Huffman he had to believe that I was a rabid lone wolf who was unmindful of the consequences. My plan seemed to have worked.

  But now the madness had to stop.

  Here on in I had to get a grip on what I was doing.

  'Son of a bitch,' Huffman said under his breath. Then a smile crept on to his lips. It looked too forced to be genuine. 'So you made it by everyone and now it's down to just you and me?'

  'Drop the gun, Huffman,' I repeated. 'Or I swear to God I'll kill you now.'

  'Then what happens? You shoot me anyway?'

  'Maybe you'd prefer to burn to death.' Without taking my gun from his skull, I nodded backwards at the flames behind us. The heat was stinging the exposed flesh on the back of my neck.

  'I'd prefer to talk.' Huffman gave me a patronising smile that made me wish I could kill in cold blood.

  'We've gone way past talking. Now drop the goddamn gun.'

  Huffman allowed the gun to fall from his fingers. I dragged it away from him with my foot and then back-heeled it into the flames.

  'I'm worth millions of dollars, Hunter. Name your price.'

  'No, Huffman, this wasn't ever about money.'

  He twisted his smile. 'You're pissed at me because of the women. OK, I get that. But it wasn't personal. I'm a businessman; I was simply looking after my interests.'

  'That's not the way I see it.'

  'People have died, yes! But they were all greedy men with their own agendas.'

  'You played them as much as you tried to play me, Huffman. It was all a game to you. One you wanted to win. I bet you're the one that's pissed now.'

  He gave a shrug as though the destruction of his empire meant nothing. 'You win some, you lose some. That's business.'

  Just then I heard the roar of an engine. Larry Bolan drove past us in his Cadillac, firing his gun at Rink. I knew by the way that Rink spun to the ground, then bounced back up again, that he was unhurt. We shared a brief glance before I had to return my attention to a more pressing task.

  'Your business partner has the right idea,' I pointed out. 'Looks like Larry's making a run for it.'

  'Bolan wasn't my partner,' Huffman sneered, as if such a thing was beneath him. 'Even he has his own agenda.'

  'Yeah, I know that. But you were playing him too.'

  'You seem to have got my number.' Huffman laughed. 'Yeah, and you've got me. So what now?'

  I indicated that he stand, transferring the gun to a point under his jaw.

  'We're going to get it on. That was always the idea of your little game.'

  'And when I kill you, what's to stop your friends shooting me?'

  'Who says you're going to kill me?' I pressed the SIG tightly enough to put pressure on the nerves. He stoically took the pain, but it was all a bluff. I could see it in the way his smile faltered.

  Sometimes men are at their most dangerous when they see no way out.

  He spun quickly, and I caught the glint of steel flashing from under his sleeve. He pulled away from the gun even as he turned to slash at my exposed throat. He was a second away from opening it right up.

  He should have waited, because, unlike the others he'd murdered by this sneak attack, I'd anticipated his move. It's the way to win any game: not by cheating, but by always being one step ahead of your opponent.

  I knew that he'd try to cut me. I let him think he was going to. I even let him pull away from my gun because an instantaneous death courtesy of a bullet through his brain was too good for him. Instead I rammed my KA-BAR through the meat of his upper right arm.

  Huffman's mouth went wide in a shout of incredulity. His fingers opened reflexively and I saw four inches of gleaming steel hanging useless from a leather strip attached to his wrist. I ripped the KA-BAR out of his bicep, angled it towards his gut.

  Then the world tilted.

  There was an incredibly loud bang from below us, coupled with the screech of tortured metal; the balcony lurched upwards, and dropped from beneath my feet. In reaction I grabbed at the door frame, dropping my knife, and held on tightly. Out in the open, Huffman skidded away from me across the planks, hit the rail and toppled over. My first thought was that the fire had eaten away at the foundations of the building much sooner than I'd anticipated, but then I recognised the sound as the impact of a vehicle and knew that Larry had never been running away. Whether or not he'd intended to, Larry had just saved Huffman's life.

  Not for long, though.

  Sparks danced around me as my feet scrabbled for purchase on the sloping balcony. My SIG was still tight in my left hand and I shoved it into my waistband. My knife was gone, probably down on the ground where Huffman had fallen. I couldn't see the bastard, but I did see Rink stalk into the smoke at the front of the house. Rink was going after Larry Bolan, and I wanted to follow him, but first I wanted to make sure that Huffman didn't sneak away.

  The heat from within the building stung the flesh of my fingers. I let go of the door frame, sliding on my heels and backside to the edge of the balcony. Striking the base of the wooden rail, I wedged myself there, then started looking out for Huffman. Rink had gone to the right: I quickly scanned left and caught a flash of Huffman lurching out of sight round the corner of the adjacent building.

  I went over the railing and dropped to the ground, tucking and rolling the way I'd learned during parachute training, and came back to my feet. Then I went after Huffman. A figure materialised out of the smoke haze to my left. Harvey, an M16 gripped in his hands.

  'I'm going to kill Huffman,' I told him. No ifs or buts, just the surety that the bastard would die. 'Rink's gone after Larry. He might need your help.'

  There was no need for spoken affirmation; Harvey nodded and we passed each other at a run.

  Chapter 49

  'The fuck do you think you are?' Heedless of the Mossberg shotgun aimed at him, Larry Bolan smiled at the man blocking his way.

  'The name's Rink.'

  Larry rumbled a laugh deep in his chest, ignoring the pain throbbing in his ribs. 'Rink? What kind of pussy Jap name is that?'

  'It's the name of the man who's gonna kill you.'

  'Are you going to shoot me, asshole? Or are you a bigger man than your punk friend?'

  'I'm gonna shoot you.'

  Larry shook his head. 'No you ain't. If you were going to shoot me, you'd have done it by now.'

  'Didn't say I was gonna do it yet.'

  'So what you going to do, bore me to death?'

  'You're gonna get your giant ass kicked first.'

  Larry shook with laughter. He lifted a hand the size of a boxing glove and rubbed at the dirt round his mouth. He appraised the man whose head barely reached Larry's shoulder. 'You
think a midget like you can handle me?'

  Through the smoke charged a tall black man. He was holding an assault rifle that he immediately lifted and aimed at Larry's chest.

  'Shit, how many cockroaches we got around here?' Larry asked.

  Rink and the black man shared a glance.

  'Hunter wants this asshole,' Rink said.

  The black man's lips turned down and he scowled. 'We should just kill the mutha.'

  'He'll die,' Rink promised.

  Larry grunted scornfully. 'The two of you better make your move; I'm getting kind of sick of standing here.'

  Rink waved the shotgun away from the burning building. 'Take a walk.'

  'Going to shoot me in the back like a coward?'

  'No, when I kill you I'll be smilin' in your face.'

  Larry walked.

  People like Rink and Joe Hunter and this black dude had an intrinsic flaw in their make-up as killers. They laid too much emphasis on all this honour bullshit. With the roles reversed, Larry would have blasted the fuckers' heads off. Rink especially seemed the kind of man who'd commit ritual seppuku before letting anything ignoble get in the way of his code of honour. Larry was kind of counting on that.

  He'd only taken three paces when he suddenly stooped low. Neither gun blasted chunks out of him, so he quickly stood back up and spun all in one movement. He was gripping the smoldering corpse of Rourke, and he launched it through the air at the black man. In life Larry had deemed Rourke a pitiful excuse for a human being, but he was worth much more now that he was dead. His charred remains flying through space caused the black guy to step back, his eyes widening in shock, and his intention to shoot forgotten. Larry didn't go after him, he launched himself at Rink.

  Rink was caught in a flux of indecision, but he wasn't encumbered by a flailing corpse. He began to bring up the gun so that the butt was aimed at Larry's chin. Even as Larry caromed into him, Rink slammed the wooden stock into his jaw. A jolt like electricity shook Larry, but he'd been hit harder during rough-house play with Trent when they were boys. He snatched at the shotgun, tore it out of Rink's hands and hurled it from him.