Gundown (29 page)

Doc frowned at the package. “Goddamn MREs. I’d kill for a hot breakfast; it gets harder and harder to choke down this room-temperature mystery muck. Have a seat.”

Hank took the chair by the other MRE. He ripped the heavy plastic open and stared at the contents for a long moment.

Doc raised an eyebrow. “Yeah.” He ripped open his MRE. “So,” he said, “what’s happening out there? Are the Allies still big dog in the street?”

After a half hour of Doc ranting about the evil Alliance, one of his hangers-on had just taken away their empty MRE containers and another had provided finger bowls and towels when a skeletally thin man hurtled through the tent door, his arms windmilling to regain his balance. He fell on his front with a grunt of pain, rolled over on his back, and lay there. A bloody mess had replaced his face, but there was something familiar about him . . . It was the skinny guy who’d been thrown out of the food line.

Nick, his knuckles red with blood, sauntered through the door.

Doc said, “What’s this?”

“Tried to steal food.”

Doc went to the skinny man. He prodded him with a toe, and the man whimpered. Doc turned to Hank and said, “Come here.”

Hank did as told.

Doc held out the wooden stiletto. “Kill him.”

Hank took the weapon, its point honed to an ice-pick-sharp tip. The blackened wood felt hard; they’d used fire to temper it.

He looked down at the man, whose eyes were clenched shut.

Hank glanced at Doc’s face, and then Nick’s. If he didn’t do as told, he would suffer the same fate. He knelt and poised the stiletto over the man’s heart.

The man’s hands grabbed the shaft. Poor bastard still wanted to live.

Although Hank had killed people, he wasn’t a murderer. The Alliance promise whispered into his thoughts. To help, the best you can. Hank stood and handed the stiletto to Doc. “I don’t think so.” Nick brought his club up and Hank braced for an attack, but Doc held up a hand.

Doc shrugged. “Your loss. You could have been one of my men.”

“Thanks for the breakfast.” The hair on the back of Hank’s neck prickled when he turned away. As soon as he cleared the tent door, he shifted into a ground-covering stride and headed for the exit at the far end of the building.

The place was a zoo packed with caged beasts. He passed hundreds of dirty, long-haired men. Each eyed him as if he were a threat or a potential victim.

A few feet from the connecting building, he looked back. Forty yards behind him Nick, flanked by three hefty men, marched toward him. Prisoners hurried to clear a path for them, and an occasional laggard received a shove that sent him crashing into others.

Nick grinned at Hank and thumped his club into his palm.

Hank slammed through the door into the round center and ran through the right-hand door. This air structure was less crowded, and the men seemed thinner, less vigorous. Many lay on beds and stared at nothing.

There was no place to hide. The acre under the fabric contained only furniture, the bathroom, and men.

He looked up. Outside, though, the roof should support a man. He ran to an exit door.

The desert air was cool, and he could see for miles. All desolate.

He’d kill for a gun. He smiled at the thought, but took the impulse seriously. He stuffed four stones, each about the size of an egg and heavy, into his jumpsuit pockets.

He pushed against the building fabric; it gave only slightly. It was slick, too—Donovan had said Teflon. Half-inch steel cables, anchored to a concrete foundation with steel rings about six feet apart, angled across the fabric at forty-five degrees. He jammed a toe against the fabric above a cable and stretched overhead for another.

He inched his way up. Sweat popped out and quickly evaporated. The wall was pretty much vertical at the start, but soon the slope allowed him to lean his body against the structure for support.

Three quarters of the way up, he looked back at a nasty slide to the desert floor. From the top it wouldn’t be much different from a fall from eight stories up.

The curvature of the structure prevented him from seeing the base. He liked that because it kept anyone on the ground from seeing him unless they went a ways out. He’d bet he couldn’t be seen once he was on top.

Just as he had the thought, one of Nick’s men trotted into view, headed away from the building. He turned and spotted Hank. He pointed and shouted, “Up there!”

Hank climbed.

#

On top of the air structure, Hank knelt, a rock in each hand. Wait till you see the whites of their eyes, he thought; kneeling would make them have to climb higher before his position was revealed.

A head appeared to his right . . . one of the guys who’d taken poor old Dalrymple to get screwed. He first looked away from Hank’s position.

He was not a lucky man.

Hank sprang to his feet, wound up just like when he pitched at college, and let fly.

The stone took his target square on the temple. He fell backward and disappeared down the eighty-foot slide to the ground.

Hank murmured, “Still got the old high hard one.”

Two other men puffed their way to the top, one twenty feet to Hank’s right, the other fifteen to his left. He took another rock from his pocket.

No sign of Nick.

Doc’s men were in no hurry—where could he go? Aerobic workouts were apparently not a part of their lifestyle; they gulped air, hands on knees for support.

Hank let fly a rock at the nearest man. As soon as he released it, he shifted the other rock to his throwing hand and went into a windup.

His target twisted right, the rock missed by inches.

This time, Hank aimed to anticipate the move.

The man laughed when he turned back toward Hank, only to see the finish of Hank’s second throw. He twisted to the right again . . . into the path of the rock.

It crunched into his upper arm with a meaty smack; in the quiet of the desert the crack of bone breaking came loud and clear.

The guy howled and clutched his arm. “Goddamn, he broke it. How’m I gonna get down with a broke arm?”

Hank heard the slap of feet on fabric and wheeled to see the other man charging. The boneman roared, club held high, other arm spread wide. He was big. And fierce.

And easy.

Hank faked toward the club arm, and the attacker reflexively extended his other arm to block. Hank grabbed his hand, fell back, planted a foot in the dummy’s belly, and put momentum to work.

The man flipped through the air, landed on his back, and slid helplessly on the slick fabric.

Hank got to his feet and watched as the man went straight at Broken-Arm, who tried to sidestep. He slipped as well.

They collided and spun away from the roof’s center, a tangle of legs and arms.

Down the slope they went, grabbing at cables. Their screams faded when they disappeared beyond the curve of the roof.

Hank stared at the point where the two had vanished.

Their screams cut off. Three down.

Something smashed into the back of his head, the world turned gray, and he pitched forward onto his belly, grasping for a handhold—

A Righteous Plan

Martha slipped her electronic earmuffs back on after reloading the clip in her .45 caliber Glock 21. As good as the sound baffles were in her basement shooting range, she knew too many militia members who said “Huh?” a lot because they were too cool to use the muffs. Macho idiots. She taped a printout of the Alliance logo onto her target and ran it out for her last run.

Thirteen rounds later the
A
in
Alliance
was just a hole. She inhaled the scent of gunpowder and smiled, set her muffs on the workbench, and quickly cleaned the gun.

Sparky was waiting for her when she emerged into the kitchen, her puppy claws clicking on the linoleum as she danced and hopped and yipped a greeting. You’d think Martha had been gone for days.

She picked Sparky up and cuddled her. “I’m sorry to shut you out, honey, but you know the noise hurts your little ears.” She rustled up a Teenie Greenie dog treat, and Sparky trotted off to enjoy it in her little bed.

Her palm still tingling pleasurably from the Glock’s recoil, Martha headed for her office. An email from Rick Hatch awaited her. She’d followed the disappointing reports of the Rogue Militia’s failure to take Noah Stone out, so she needed to know more than ever when she could meet up with the bastard. The message was simply “How about this?” and a link.

The link led to an Ashland
Daily Tidings
notice. Noah Stone would give the dedication speech for a new university building in two days.

Excitement stirred in her belly. This was gonna be big. She was gonna make the son of a bitch shit his pants. She wondered if there would be TV cameras.

Woo-hoo.

She dialed Mitch Parsons.

• • •

Mitch pushed his desk chair back. He couldn’t sit still, so he paced. Nothing was happening to stop Stone. A new poll out West had close to a majority of voters in California and Washington agreeing with gun laws modeled on Oregon’s. It was happening, and with Hank Soldado out of action, Mitch couldn’t do shit. He fished out a mini Tootsie Roll, his fourth in a row, but the hell with his stomach.

He stopped beside his grandfather’s Colt .45 automatic, hanging on pegs at the bottom of the bronze star plaque above the fireplace mantel, just like the one Colonel Hanson had. Mitch fetched a tissue to polish away a fingerprint on the plaque and then lifted the gun. Holding it, he felt stronger, more sure of himself.

His cell phone rang. He hung the pistol back on its pegs and answered.

It was Martha Hanson. She said, “Pack your bags.”

“What?”

“Be in Ashland in two days. Wire me a thousand dollars today, and you need to arrange for that tool that we talked about that you want me to show your Oregon friend.”

Oh, God. Excitement fluttered in him, fear on its heels. “What’s, ah, where—”

“It’ll be at a speech he’s making at the college. I’ll send the info. Are we on?”

With a sense that he was locking the safety bar on a roller coaster car, he said, “Yes. I’ll be there. I’ll get the, er, tool then.”

The call ended. First thing he had to do was round up the cash. His gaze went to his grandfather’s gun, and then he thought about how it had felt when Hanson had aimed a pistol barrel between his eyes. He had a feeling Stone would be retiring soon.

Mitch whistled as he went to his computer to book a flight.

Surrendering to Win

Pain flared red in Hank’s closed eyes. Awareness came with it, and more pain flashed when a foot landed a kick to his ribs. Nick’s deep laugh sounded above him.

“Wake up, you son of a bitch. I ain’t got all day and I want to see your face when you go.”

Hank opened his eyes. The sun was hot on his face.

“Ah, there you are.” Nick drew back his foot to kick again. “Good-bye.”

Hank twisted, but not quickly enough. The kick caught him in the shoulder blade and sent him rolling toward the fast way down.

He scrambled with hands and knees and feet and managed to stick a toe onto one cable and snag fingers on another to stop, belly down.

He looked up at the boneman. “Hello, Nick.”

Nick nodded. He stood still as if inviting Hank to get up.

Hank was happy to oblige. He crawled and pulled himself to the top of the roof. Nick waited, now ten feet away. Hank had nothing to fight with . . . Wait, that lump pressing into his right leg was his fourth rock, still in his pocket.

On the top, Hank sat up with his right side hidden from Nick.

Nick held his club ready. His smile was white in the midst of his black beard.

Hank got up on hands and one knee, his left foot on the roof, his right knee down to position his pocket out of Nick’s view.

“Why didn’t you just roll me off while I was out?”

“And miss the best part?”

“Maybe you ought to slide down and sell tickets first.” He slipped his hand into his pocket and gripped the stone.

Moving to get up, he faked weakness, stopped a fall with his left hand on the roof. The move concealed his right hand taking the rock from his pocket.