by Bob Mayer
He froze when he saw the Bowie knife impaled in his door, holding a piece of paper in place.
Kane pulled the knife out, holding the note in one hand.
Block lettered:
A BLOOD DEBT MUST BE PAID WITH BLOOD
“Right,” Kane muttered, crumpling the note. The tell was in place. He entered and locked the door behind him. On the far nightstand in the bedroom was The Godfather, open and face down. He smiled. Truvey had probably gotten about a dozen pages into it. Kane reached to get the book and relieve the pressure on the spine, but he stopped himself and let it be.
He lay down on top of the blanket, still holding the Bowie knife. He could smell Toni’s perfume on the pillow. The knife was heavy in his hand. He lifted it and stared at the razor edge sharpness.
Kane got up, took his poncho liner and went to the kitchen. Grabbed a spool of fishing line and several empty soup cans from the trash. Went out the back door. Climbed the few steps to the garden. He quickly strung the wire around the perimeter of Pope’s small garden. Hung the cans by their P-38 opened lids on the line and put pebbles in them. Stepped over the line and pushed into the weed infested, dying garden until he was out of site. There was a clear spot, just big enough for him to lie down in. He stretched out, covering himself with the camouflage poncho liner. He drew the .45 and laid it next to his left hand. He rested his right hand, holding the Bowie knife, on his chest. Stared up at glow of the city reflected back by the scattered clouds. A few stars glittered through a break, dulled by smog.
Utter exhaustion washed over him.
Oddly, his last conscious thought was of Caitlyn and her hand in his hair, holding his head.
THE END
Walk on the Wild Side continues Will Kane’s story from Lawyers, Guns and Money.
An excerpt follows Author Information
The Green Beret series.
While this is part of the Green Beret series as book #11, it’s actually part of a prelude to the first book in the series, Eyes of the Hammer, which features an older Dave Riley.
Books 1 through 6 feature Dave Riley.
Book 7, Chasing the Ghost, introduces Horace Chase. Books 8 and 9 feature Chase but with Dave Riley as a character.
Authors Note:
This story is framed around historical events, but the people and details have been changed, except for significant historical figures.
The West Point class of 1966 lost 30 members, the most of any West Point class, in Vietnam. Four of the eight assigned to the 173rd Airborne were KIA.
Roy Cohn was a controversial figure and many say he shaped Donald Trump’s vision of the world.
The 173rd Airborne was involved in numerous engagements in Vietnam and the battles of Hill 1338 and Hill 875 occurred, but details and people have been changed.
Father Watters was awarded the Medal of Honor.
There was a Green Beret Affair in 1969 where a double agent was executed. Colonel Rheault, the commander of the Fifth Special Forces at the time, was the basis for Colonel Kurtz in Apocalypse Now.
Son of Sam began his reign of terror on 29 July 1976. By August 1977 he had killed 6 and wounded 7.
In 1977 the first tours of Ellis Island began. The bridge to the island was not built until 1986.
About the Author
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Bob is a NY Times Bestselling author, graduate of West Point and former Green Beret. He's had over 80 books published including the #1 series The Green Berets, The Cellar, Area 51, Shadow Warriors, Atlantis, and the Time Patrol. Born in the Bronx, having traveled the world (usually not tourist spots), he now lives peacefully with his wife and dogs.
For information on all his books, please get a free copy of the Reader’s Guide. You can download it in mobi (Amazon) ePub (iBooks, Nook, Kobo) or PDF, from his home page at www.bobmayer.com
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Excerpt from Walk on the Wild Side
Excerpt from
Wednesday Morning,
10 August 1977
GREENWICH VILLAGE, MANHATTAN
“I could have killed you while you were sleeping.”
Former Green Beret, currently exhausted, William Kane heard the words distantly, on the cusp between sleep and consciousness, not sure for a moment whether they lay in dream or reality, but based on his luck lately, odds were the latter.
He reluctantly opened his eyes to clarify. Night sky with clouds reflecting the constant glow of the City That supposedly Never Sleeps. The view was framed by wilting plants which fixed his position: lying in the midst of his landlord’s garden in the back yard of the Greenwich Village brownstone where he rented the basement apartment. The thought that there were no ‘front’ yards in Manhattan flickered across his brain.
“May I have my knife back?” the intruder asked.
Definitely reality. Kane lifted his head from the dirt and looked toward the voice. A dark silhouette was squatting beyond his feet, backdropped by plants. The man pointed with one hand toward Kane’s chest, while aiming a gun in the other.
Kane lifted hand from chest and extended the Bowie knife, spinning it so that the haft was toward the Navajo.
“Do you sleep out here often?” the man asked as he took the Bowie and checked the edge as if Kane might have dulled it during his slumber.
Kane remained on his back, considering limited tactical options. “Occasionally.”
“It is good to be under the stars, although they are hard to see in this city.”
“Yeah, I know,” Kane said. “It’s a cesspool. Yazzie and Johnson already told me.”
Kane considered sitting up but he was still tired and he didn’t know how far Navajo blood feud custom extended. Obviously, no killing a sleeping man which was damn considerate. But a man who sat up? He belatedly wondered why he’d given the knife back, then chalked it off to an autonomous obeying response hammered into him by four years at West Point. And there was the gun.
“Got your message,” Kane said, referring to the note pinned to his door with the knife reading: A BLOOD DEBT MUST BE PAID WITH BLOOD. It was referencing Kane’s killing of one of this man’s Navajo ‘brothers’, Johnson, in the course of his search for a team of Irish terrorists trying to blow up the Statue of Liberty.
His life was complicated.
The Navajo remained quiet.
Kane remembered he’d drawn his forty-five and put it just next to his left hand just before sleep. He also knew that it wasn’t there, without having to reach. His Fairbairn-Sykes knife was in place, however, pressed against his spine in its sheath.
“Can I sit up?”
“You must stand so that we can finish this.”
“I had a long night. I thought I’d have more time.”
“We always think we will have more time,” the Navajo said.
“Right,” Kane said. “You know who I am, but I never caught your name on th
e boat or in the warehouse.”
“Dale.”
“’Dale’? I’d have thought you guys had names like Soaring Eagle or Man With Big Knife. Something like that. So far Yazzie, Johnson and Dale.”
“We have the names we were given,” Dale said. “They are honorable names because they are our fathers’ names.”
“Your real fathers,” Kane said. “What happened to them?”
“They were code talkers and died in combat.”
“And Boss Crawford adopted all of you,” Kane said, knowing he was stalling. “At least he gave you your fathers’ names but they sound Westernized.”
“Our Navajo names remain within us and are not to be shared with outsiders.”
Kane sat and glanced to his left. As expected, the pistol wasn’t there. He could see that Dale wore khaki pants and nothing else. There was a single line of red smeared across his forehead. His skin was dark and smooth. He was in his mid-thirties and his body was lean, muscles like taut ropes. Despite the dim light, Kane could see several scars crisscrossing the man’s torso. This wasn’t his first knife fight. Kane had his own scars under his clothes and a nasty one on the side of his head from an AK-47 round, but it was mostly hidden by his thick, dark hair. He was lean, not as much as Dale, six feet tall, and after a busy week of tracking down and stopping the terrorists, his face was dark with the first stage of a beard. He wore black jungle fatigue pants, a grey t-shirt and jungle boots. The denim shirt he usually wore was rolled in a ball as a field expedient pillow.
As Kane got to his feet, Dale also stood, putting the gun in the holster on his belt, keeping knife in hand. The first gray of dawn was permeating the air which meant Kane had been asleep less than an hour since returning from stopping the terrorists and disposing of their bodies and gear.
“BMNT,” Kane said.
Dale inclined his head inquisitively.
“Begin morning nautical twilight,” Kane said. “When the Indians traditionally attack which is ironic. I should have been on alert but I had a very long night.” Kane looked past him. “Did you hit the wire and I didn’t hear?” He was referring to the fishing wire hanging soup cans with rocks in them he’d put around the perimeter of the garden as early warning against an intrusion just like this one.
“The wire told me you were out here and not inside,” Dale said. “Why put an alarm where you are not?”
“Right.” Kane added that logical tidbit to his tactical repertoire.
“Where is the knife with which you killed my brother?”
“If I draw it, will that commence the fight?”
Dale readied himself, feet shoulder width apart, right slightly forward, Bowie held in front of his chest.
“I take that as a yes,” Kane said. “What if I don’t want to fight?”
“Either way you die. One path is honorable. The other the coward’s.”
Kane slid his right foot back. Then his left. He took another step back, pushing through the plants, sliding his feet. Another. Dale matched his retreat with advance.
“I don’t want to have to chase you,” Dale said.
“We’ll need space to fight,” Kane replied. “Plus, I don’t want to ruin Pope’s garden with blood and guts and all that.”
“He has not taken care of his plants,” Dale noted.
“He’s had a bad couple of months,” Kane said. “Got laid off from his job and he lived for his work.” He knew he was being chatty, an anomaly to his nature, but talking delayed the fighting and Kane was still considering tactics because the scars, and the way Dale was moving and holding the knife, indicated he might have more prowess than the last Navajo, Johnson, whose death via Kane’s blade had precipitated this blood vengeance.
Kane kept moving, slowly, steadily toward the edge of the garden and the open space between it and the brownstone. He drew the Fairbairn-Sykes fighting knife from the sheath in the middle of his back. The rear of his left leg hit the tripwire and the stones in the cans rattled loudly in the relative pre-dawn quiet of the city, against a backdrop of a distant siren and blare of a car horn. Kane paused, then lifted that leg to continue his retreat.
Dale attacked, a short slice of the Bowie at Kane’s face, but it was a feint to get Kane off balance.
It didn’t work as Kane jumped back, clearing the wire. Dale charged, hopping over the wire and slashing, three times, back and forth, closer and closer. Kane gave ground until they were both free of the plants.
Kane shifted and moved so that they faced each other in a five-foot-wide stretch of gravel and stone. Kane took a couple of steps back. The fence was just behind him.
“No more ground to escape,” Dale noted.
Kane wasn’t watching the knife, but rather the Navajo’s eyes in the glow from the light over the back door and the gathering dawn. He spotted the decision a fraction of a second before Dale charged.
Kane threw the Fairbairn directly toward Dale’s face with no hope of the point impacting at this close distance. It had the desired effect as Dale jerked his head to the side in the midst of his attack, slightly altering the angle of approach, even as he brought the Bowie down in an extended strike toward Kane’s chest.
Kane blocked the thrust with his arms crossed in an X at the wrist just in front and above his face. He flowed, twisting, trying to lock down on Dale’s knife wrist, but the Navajo surprised Kane with a punch to the throat with his free hand.
Kane staggered back, gasping, losing his tentative grip on the man’s knife hand.
Dale was on him, free hand clenching Kane’s throat, one leg sweeping Kane’s feet from underneath him.
Kane fell hard on his back, knocking the wind out. He punched Dale in the face as the Navajo was on top, bringing the Bowie up for a final blow.
The knife came down and Kane used both hands to stop it, gripping Dale’s wrist. The point was inches from his throat. Dale put his other hand on the hilt, lifting his body to put all his weight behind it.
Kane stared up into the Navajo’s eyes. A drop of sweat from Dale’s forehead fell onto Kane’s.
Fraction by fraction the tip of the Bowie closed the distance. Kane tried to roll, but Dale’s legs were spread wide, a stable platform with superior position. Kane jerked his knee up, slamming into Dale’s crotch but there was no apparent effect.
The point touched Kane’s throat.
Kane dug his thumb into Dale’s wrist, deeper, finding the right place, then squeezing with all his strength. Dale grunted from the pain as a bone broke and the Bowie lifted because his own pressure was making the break worse.
Kane did a quick adjustment of his hands, thumb into the other wrist, digging. Dale’s eyes widened as he realized he was going to lose use of both hands.
The tableau was interrupted by a familiar light pfft sound from behind Dale in concert with the slight mechanical sound of a pistol’s slide functioning, ejecting the fired round and slamming forward, seating another.
A .22 caliber bullet hit the wood fence, but Dale remained on task, giving it one last attempt, the point reaching flesh and putting pressure on it.
The sound of the suppressed High Standard pistol firing was repeated and a round struck Dale in the back, hitting the base of a rib and doing little damage. The bone in the other wrist gave way to Kane’s thumb and Dale finally let loose a grunt of pain, no longer able to maintain downward pressure with the Bowie. He made a quick decision, pulled back and slashed. Kane blocked it with a forearm on Dale’s forearm.
Dale straightened, pulling the knife away from Kane, turning on his knees. The gun fired four more times in rapid succession, the small bullets all missing.
Kane used both arms to shove Dale to the side and rolled away. He jumped to his feet.
Pope was standing eight feet away, the gun at the ready, his eyes wide. If circumstances were different, he’d be a comical figure in his bathrobe and slippers, with stick like white legs ending in big, fuzzy slippers.
Dale was also getting to his feet, the .22 c
aliber long rifle bullets having distracted him but the one that struck causing as much apparent damage as Kane’s knee. Dale charged, knife in his good hand and Kane side-stepped, grabbed that hand and flowed it, down and in and around, the wrist completely snapping. The Bowie slammed into Dale’s chest, breaking through the ribs, into the heart.
Dale reached for the knife, whose presence in his heart was actually sealing the wound and keeping him alive for the moment. He pulled it out, letting loose a spurt of dark red blood directly from his heart. He took a step toward Kane, who was retreating. Dale looked down at the blood pulsing out of his chest. He dropped the knife and looked skyward, whispering something in Navajo. He collapsed to the ground, blood still flowing from the wound as his heart gave a few last beats, pumping his life out.
“I shot him,” Pope said. “I know I hit him.”
“You did,” Kane said. “You did good.”
“I heard the cans.” Pope’s voice was a monotone, his mind still processing the shock of what had just happened. “I saw you fighting. Is he dead?”
Kane knelt next to Dale and checked the pulse in his neck while staring into the gathering cloud in the Navajo’s eyes. “Yeah. He’s dead.”
“I killed him?”
“No,” Kane said. “I killed him.”
“I’ve never killed anyone,” Pope said.
“You still haven’t.” Kane checked the body, finding the pager clipped to the belt. He wondered where the rest of Dale’s clothes were? How did he get here? “Don’t move,” he ordered Pope as he reclaimed his knife, sheathed it, and found his forty-five lying behind where Dale had been squatting. He partially pulled the slide to make sure a round was in the chamber.
Pistol at the ready, Kane climbed the fence to the next yard and ran up the narrow alley to the front of the row of Brownstones. A large dark car, the same make which he’d ridden in with Yazzie and the other Flint Boys, was idling out front. It burned rubber peeling away as soon as the driver spotted Kane.