by Ralph Dennis
Bantry swung his head to the right. “I’ll give that a looksee.”
Hall stopped and saw Bantry kicking in a door marked COMMUNICATIONS.
The next door was marked ASSISTANT DIRECTOR. Hall passed that door. He eased to a stop in front of the door marked DIRECTOR. This one. He reared back to give the door a kick directly next to the knob. He stopped and leaned forward. A twist of the knob. The door was unlocked. Now that was careless of them, he thought. He entered the office. The drapes on the far side of the desk were open. He found the cords and drew them closed before he switched on the desk lamp. Just in case.
A bathroom and a shower to the left. A faint scent of shaving lotion. He crossed to the other side of the room. That whole wall was lined with file cabinets. Hall found the “C” file and pulled at it. Locked.
Bantry entered and placed his Ingram on a corner of the desk. “You ought to see that comm room. It’s got three-quarters of a million in gear in there.”
Hall gave the “C” file another yank. Nothing. Bantry laughed and reached into a knife sheath near the calf of his left leg. He drew out what looked like a miniature version of a crowbar. He stepped around Hall, inserted the tip at the top of the file drawer and gave the blunt end of the tool a whap and a push with all his weight. The lock gave and the file sagged forward.
“Never go anywhere without one of these,” Bantry said. He backed away from the “C” file. “I’ll get M for Marcos.”
Head down, rifling the files. Hall heard another lock break. He didn’t look up. Costa Verde, Company, C.I.A. He pulled those files.
“Got Marcos,” Bantry said.
“Try United Mining,” Hall said.
“Here’s H.” Bantry inserted the tool and broke the “H” file lock.
In a matter of minutes, Hall and Bantry had a stack of files almost two feet thick. Bantry split the stack and grabbed his Ingram. “Short of time.”
“With you.” A sudden, unexpected thought. “Crack the J for me.”
“Here.” Bantry passed him the tool. When the file flew open, Bantry turned his leg toward Hall. Hall slipped the miniature crowbar into the sheath. Bantry nodded at the back pack. “One charge left.”
“Leave it there. I’ll be right behind you.”
As Hall bent over the “J” file he heard Bantry running down the hall.
In the office below it was calm. The heavy man behind the desk had a patch of tape across his mouth and his hands were wrapped behind him. Hall placed his stack of files on the front edge of the desk.
Sly Joyce was beside the door. The riot gun in the crook of one arm. “Quiet on the street,” he said.
“Nothing at all?” Hall drew in a deep breath.
“Lights going on in a couple of the barracks rooms.” Sly Joyce dipped his head at the stack of files. “Got everything we came for?”
“And more,” Hall said. “Ten minutes. We got to haul it.”
Bantry opened the door to a closet behind the desk. He reached in and came out with an empty mail sack. He flapped it open and threw in the files he carried. Hall passed his stack of files across the desk to him.
Bantry slung the mail sack over his shoulder. “We leave these two in here?”
Hall hesitated. It was a risk. “Can’t leave them. This place is ashes in twelve minutes. We haul them up the slope a ways with us.” He crossed to the door and relieved Sly Joyce. “Cut that one’s feet free. Take him with you.”
Joyce nodded. A few long strides and he stood over the guard who was face-down on the floor beside the sofa. He pulled a knife from his belt and bent over the man. He slashed at the tape that held the man’s ankles together.
Sooner or later, Buck Winston knew that somebody would step into the shit. That was the first law. And if there was shit, around you could bet you’d find a footprint in it. That was the second law.
It was almost time to withdraw and there was no sign of Will Hall.
Move it, goddam it, he whispered to himself. It was time. It was past time.
And then came the first footprint in the shit. Joe Paris drove the jeep to within five feet of the corner of the building where Winston stood. He left the engine running and jumped from it.
When he was close to Buck, Paris said, “I took the other five men down the road to join Franco.”
Good idea. And that was exactly what Buck was about to tell Joe to do when the front door of the admin building opened. A tall, lanky man in a tan WW Security uniform stepped onto the landing and stood there. He carried a riot gun loose in his right hand, the barrel low.
“That you, Milton?”
Buck swept Joe and Mission away, until their backs were flat against the siding. Steps squeaked under the man’s weight. He was coming down to the street level.
“Milton, you taking a nap?”
The grind of thick boots on sand. The guard marched toward the corner of the building. Buck cut his eyes toward the Browning 50 position where Carter and Briggs were. They’d seen the guard and flattened to the ground. The Browning muzzle pointed toward the guard, tracking him. So far, the guard probably hadn’t glanced in that direction.
Two or three, not more than four steps away from the corner, Buck estimated. He held the Ingram toward Joe and gave it to him, then he reached behind and drew the short Gerber blade from its case next to the holstered Browning 9 mm. Buck held the blade low, angled upward. Waited. He saw the man’s boot tip first. Now. He swung away from his hiding place. The blade hitting the man just below his breastbone, centered there and Buck pulled it high and hard. The guard held the riot gun at a high port. He felt the blade and tried to pull away. The knife edge turned and struck a rib. With his last strength the guard tried to ram the riot gun at Buck’s head. Buck had stepped against him and the riot gun slammed against his collarbone. Locked together. Buck turned the blade and gave it another hard pull upward. The guard was dying. The last thing he did alive was get off one round from the riot gun. The slugs slammed against the wall of the barracks across the street.
“What the hell was that?” Sly Joyce stopped and pushed the guard he held by the arm onto the sofa. Hall was at the door. Len Gauss and Ed Bantry came from behind the desk and crowded near the door.
Hall couldn’t see anything on the street. The angle was bad. It was then he turned his head and saw the guard who was seated in the chair behind the desk.
Sly Joyce had reached the far end of the desk and was about to pass in front of it. Hall saw the heavy guard push his chair forward and push his legs into the space under the desk.
Hall shouted, “Watch it, Sly.”
It was a credit to his reflexes and training that Sly could move at all. There wasn’t time for him to change directions. He couldn’t fall forward to the floor. What he tried was a backwards curl leap. He was in the air, falling backwards, when the twin barrels of the shotgun mounted under the desk went off. The force of the shotgun blast slammed the desk against the heavy guard who’d hit the trip switch with his foot.
It was close, very close. The blast of the shotgun caught Sly’s left leg just below the knee and sliced it off to the jagged bone. The force threw him across the room like a rag doll.
The roar in the closed room deafened Hall. He lifted the Python and pointed it at the guard behind the desk. He was too slow. Bantry shouted something and aimed the Ingram M-10. A long burst slapped into the guard and tipped the chair on its side.
Hall lowered the Python and dropped to a knee beside Sly Joyce. He was in shock. “Anybody got morphine?”
“Always,” Gauss said. He squatted on the other side of Joyce and opened a kit. He brought out a needle and broke the protective tip away. He jammed it into Sly’s shoulder. Hall snaked his belt free and wrapped it around Sly’s thigh. He pulled it as tight as he could. Blood had pooled next to the stump. Now the bleeding slowed.
Hall stood. “Len, you got the carry duty first.”
Gauss passed him the SAW. He lifted Sly Joyce. As he turned, he looked at th
e other guard who was watching what was happening with wide eyes. “What about him?”
“Fuck him,” Bantry said. He tipped the barrel of the Ingram upward and shot the guard in the face.
Hall looked away. He shoved the Python into the hip holster. He refolded the metal stock of the SAW and aligned the tripod, so it was out of the way. He charged the SAW and nodded at Bantry.
Bantry opened the door and swung it inward. Hall was through the door first. Then Len Gauss carrying Sly Joyce. Bantry followed. As they went down the steps, Spence joined them from his station beside the building.
A window on the second floor of the barracks across the road grated open. A man in a dingy t-shirt leaned on the sill. He backed away and was gone for a few moments. When he returned, he braced what looked to be a .22 rifle on the window casing. He fired twice at Buck Winston. Both rounds were high, slapping against the building.
Winston sheathed the Gerber blade and reached behind him for the Ingram. Joe Paris passed the M-10 to him and then stepped wide of him and fired the M-21 from the hip. Wood splintered from the casement, glass flew, and the man in the window ducked out of sight.
“Movement at the other end of the street,” Joe Paris said when he passed Winston. He lowered the SAW and ducked into the cover at the corner of the building.
“Hall?”
“Leaving,” Paris said.
“Three minutes,” Winston said. “Then we do a bug out.”
Joe Paris checked his watch.
Will Hall waved Spence ahead of him. Spence locked hands with Gauss and they formed a carry sling for Sly Joyce. Hall turned and looked down the road when he heard automatic fire. He dropped to one knee. The SAW in place. To his left, facing the end of the mess hall, Timmons and Cline huddled over the Browning 50. Hall lifted a hand, pointed his finger and cocked his thumb.
Timmons waved before he flopped into a prone position. He swung the Browning, tilted it, and sprayed the end of the mess hall.
Hall remained where he was. After the burst of fire from the 50, Timmons looked toward Hall.
Hall waved him up the slope. Timmons and Cline ran past him. When they reached the slope’s crest, Timmons stopped and set up the Browning again.
In the distance they could hear the whir of the chopper blades.
“Ours,” Buck Winston said when he heard the 50’s. He lifted a hand and rubbed his left collarbone. It was swelling, Broken, he thought.
“Time?” Paris asked.
“One minute,” Buck said. “Wave Carter and Briggs in.”
Joe Paris stepped around Winston. He gave a long, piercing whistle. A wave of his arm and Briggs lifted the Browning 50. He ran toward the cover where Winston, Paris and Mission were. Carter following, covering.
“Crank up the jeep,” Winston said.
To the east there was the sound of the chopper starting and catching. Hall’s chopper. Time to go.
“Load up,” Buck yelled. He remained at the corner of the building and emptied a magazine from the Ingram into the face of the building across from him. Pain from the swelling collarbone stabbed at him. He turned and walked very carefully to the jeep and got into the passenger seat beside Joe Paris. He passed the M-10 behind him to Mission. He lifted his left arm and braced it across his chest. The road was going to be rough.
Franco waited at the defensive line he’d established near the end of the road that ran along the north side of the mine crater. Earlier, when Joe Paris had dropped off five men from Buck Winston’s team, he’d sent those five and seven of his own men back to the helicopter landing site. Mace Curtis sat behind his Browning 50 mount. Whispering Bill Thompson cradled his M-21 and smoked a short dark twist of a cigar.
There had been firing. It hadn’t panicked him. Not with the men they had. Twenty-seven of the best that were outside the Company now. The pros.
A thought came to him. He chuckled to himself. Hell, they ought to do this once a year rather than having a sit-down dinner somewhere.
“Jeep,” Whispering Bill said.
“Ours?”
“I think so.” Whispering Bill took the M-21 from the crook of his arm. He jacked a round into it, just to be sure. At twenty yards the jeep slowed.
“Hey, we’re friendlies,” Joe Paris yelled.
The jeep stopped next to Franco. Franco circled it and looked in on Buck Winston. Winston’s face was pale and he was sweating. There was blood on the front of Winston’s shirt and down his trouser legs. “You alright?”
“A collarbone, I think.”
“Move it, Joe.” Franco backed away.
“Back for you in a couple,” Paris said.
The jeep kicked up fine red dust. It moved away. Franco turned his eyes toward the buildings in the distance. Got to blow it soon. His hand went to the pack slung over his shoulder. The command detonator.
“Let’s jog a bit,” he said.
Franco gave Mace Curtis and Whispering Bill a fifty-yard lead. Then he turned and trotted after them. They ran in the dust trail left by the jeep.
Three hundred yards past the road and the west edge of the mine crater, Franco stopped and unslung the command detonator. Whispering Bill returned and stood over his shoulder.
“Boom time?” Bill said.
“Bet your ass,” Franco said.
The helicopter that carried Hall and his team looped north again and headed to the west. They were to the north and parallel to Flat Canyon when the world below them seemed to explode all at once. Buildings, the railhead and siding, the road and the mine itself.
A reddish yellow dust coned into the sky.
Even miles away, after the three choppers had joined up and headed for the landing strip, the sky behind them looked like an unnatural sunset. A sunset at seven-twenty in the morning.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Stanford Brewster placed the bucket of ice on the drink cart. He poured himself a jigger of single malt scotch and dropped one ice cube into his glass. “Help yourselves, gentlemen.”
There was a soft glow to the library. A new log burned in the fireplace.
“I’ll mix for you, Buck.” Hall stood in front of the row of decanters.
“Cognac straight up,” Buck said. The break in his collarbone had been wired in a brief operation at a hospital the Company used. Now he wore a sling that immobilized the arm. He accepted the shot of cognac and nodded his thanks. Hall splashed himself a single malt. He didn’t add ice.
“Two hurt?” Brewster asked.
“The other one’s bad.” Hall had remained at the hospital as long as he could. Brewster wanted a report from the two of them. When he left the hospital, the doctors were trying to save the knee. It was fifty-fifty, touch and go, whether Sly Joyce would lose the knee as well.
“The one’s hurt bad … what does he do?”
“Arson investigator in Tampa.”
“A good living?” Brewster sipped his scotch and looked over the rim of the glass at Hall.
“He jobs in work for a couple of the big companies. That’s eighty to a hundred an hour when he’s working. He’s got a good reputation.”
“The loss of his leg. Will that hurt his work?”
“Only his life,” Hall said.
For a moment, Hall thought the old man would flare at him. But Brewster swallowed the words, “At least there were no deaths in our party.”
“Amen to that,” Buck Winston said.
“I talked to Stiggers this afternoon. The leak in the Company, if there is one, hasn’t revealed himself yet.
“Give it time.” Buck sipped his brandy.
“Whoever it is will probably play sleeping dog for six or seven months,” Hall said. “And then resign.”
“You sure?”
“Unless we try a flush and run,” Hall said.
“How?”
“Leak the information about the files we took from WW Security. The man we want probably insisted that he be given some kind of code name by WW Security. A man we can’t trust probably doe
sn’t trust WW either. He can’t be sure his ass is covered. Maybe he’ll worry that his name is in the files somewhere.”
“I’ll talk to Stiggers.” Brewster said. “The files are interesting reading.”
“I’ll bet.”
“I’m having selected pages photocopied.”
Hall didn’t ask the question. He knew the sly fox would tell him anything he needed to know.
“I want the two of you to have lunch with me here tomorrow.”
“All right,” Buck said.
Hall nodded.
“There’s a special reason for the lunch. Do either of you know John Cabot Masters?”
Hall shook his head.
“John Cabot Masters is chairman of the board of Worldwide Metals.” Brewster smiled. “I thought we’d open his closet for him and rattle the bones.”
“Fun,” Buck said.
Hall laughed. It did sound like a fun way to spend part of an afternoon.
The table was set for four in the solarium.
In one corner of the room was a table that hadn’t been there before. It didn’t seem to serve any special function. There was, however, a silver ice bucket on one side of it in which there was a decanter of Wyborowa vodka. What seemed odd to Hall were the chair and the leather-covered folder.
Hall and Winston took their pre-lunch drinks in the library. Stanford Brewster waited alone in the living room for John Cabot Masters. After greeting Masters, Brewster led him to the solarium.
Two appetizers had been prepared. On one tray there was thinly sliced smoked salmon, rounds of a coarse black bread, a tub of softened butter and a pepper mill. The other tray held a large container of Beluga caviar, as well as toast points, chopped egg and grated onion.
“I’ve had the salmon prepared a special way,” Brewster said. “A man in Scotland smokes it over a mixture of ferns and sawdust and sprays it from time to time during the process with a mist of rum.”
“It looks delicious,” Master said. He was a tall man with a flat, elongated face and eyes that were almost the color of a slate blackboard.