Dead Men's Harvest

by Matt Hilton

  ‘I think it’s time I finished this alone.’

  Shaking his head adamantly, Harvey said, ‘I started this with you, I’m gonna finish it with you.’

  ‘Not a good idea, Harve.’

  ‘Has anything we’ve done been a good idea?’ He considered his words, then added, ‘With the exception of saving Rink and killing the bad guys, that is?’

  ‘There are still two bad guys out there. Baron I’m not worried about, but this won’t end until Tubal Cain’s finally in his grave. No, scratch that. A grave couldn’t hold him last time. This time I’m going to have to make sure there isn’t enough of him left to put in a coffin.’

  ‘That’s the big problem. How do we find him?’

  ‘We set a trap.’ I dropped the subject of going it alone. Jesus, if I suggested as much, Rink would likely hand me my arse on a platter. ‘That’s why I wanted to speak to John. To see if he was prepared to help us.’

  ‘You’d use your brother as bait?’

  ‘I’d have made sure that he was never in any physical danger. But that’s moot now. I don’t know how to contact him.’

  ‘I thought Walter was setting that up for you?’

  I hadn’t yet shared my suspicions with Harvey, but it looked like it was time. ‘Who do you think sent the cops after us, Harve?’

  ‘I don’t know Walter the way you guys do, but I find it hard to believe that he’d turn you in.’

  ‘Walter plays a constant game; one where he’s only interested in being the winner.’

  ‘Could have been someone else,’ Harvey pointed out. ‘Baron escaped. Could have been him who directed the police to us.’

  It was plausible, I supposed. When I thought about the slimy bastard, Baron had made his escape in a vehicle. It was possible that he’d followed us as we got away from Hendrickson’s estate, and had tried to have us captured by the police. I thought that Walter had been stalling in order to triangulate my mobile phone, and had then sent a car to keep an eye on us. But, the omnipotent eye of the CIA wasn’t as all-powerful as made out in movies: what were the chances that he could have located us and dispatched a car to our location in such a short time? Pretty slim.

  I tried to picture the scene outside the Tudor hall. I have trained myself to take snapshot images that I compartmentalise for future use. But it’s one thing when consciously deciding to save an image for later, quite another when concentrating on something else. I couldn’t bring to mind the makes and models of the vehicles in the small fleet arranged on the gravel parking space. One of them could have been a dark sedan with tinted windows. Perhaps the blame had been wrongly targeted at my old friend. I felt a trickle of relief, but then it was pushed aside by a different concern. If Walter hadn’t set us up, then why had he stalled over John’s unavailability?

  I used the satellite phone to call Walter.

  ‘Walt, it’s me, Joe.’

  ‘Hunter, I’m glad you called.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes, really. I told you to leave phoning me for a few hours. Big mistake! I’ve been frantic to get a hold of you since.’

  ‘You didn’t hear about Richmond yet?’

  ‘Richmond? No, I’ve been too busy dealing with what else has happened.’

  ‘What has happened? Is it John? Does Cain have him?’

  ‘It’s worse than that, son.’

  ‘What could be worse than Cain capturing my brother?’

  When he told me, he was right. It was much worse.

  Chapter 32

  Over in Manchester, my old home town, three boys had innocently enquired of the time from a stranger. Mistaking them for thugs, he’d threatened them with a collection of knives and a gun. Upset by the incident they’d debated whether to telephone the police, but it seemed that the one mobile phone between them had a flat battery, and public telephone kiosks – those that hadn’t been vandalised – were as rare as chicken’s teeth in their neighbourhood. Instead they’d decided to spy on the stranger and see what he was up to. He’d allegedly gone into a block of flats, where shortly afterwards a Ford Transit van had arrived. The youths then swore that the stranger and driver had carried the body of a woman to the van and placed it inside. The van drove away and they’d come out of hiding and immediately ran to a friend’s house where they’d alerted the local police. The police officer dispatched to investigate their claim soon discovered my niece and nephew, Beatrice and Jack, unharmed and safely locked inside their bedroom. But of Jenny there was no sign. My parents had gone to the kids’ rescue, taking them home out of the hands of the social workers. The street on which the Telfer family had lived was now a major crime scene while the police tried to determine what had happened.

  That Jenny’s abductor was Tubal Cain was obvious. I didn’t need the boys’ description of the fair-haired Yank with a scar on his throat for confirmation. The knives did it for me.

  If it wouldn’t have sent Harvey and me plummeting to our deaths, I’d have turned the cockpit of the Jetranger inside out. That was the level of my rage. No, it was worse than that: it was the measure of my sense of futility. I was thousands of miles away, and Jenny was in danger.

  I lost track of things after that, and rode the chopper with intense dread gnawing at my insides. I tried not to conjure the nightmare scenario of Jenny eviscerated, her skeletal remains displayed as an insane trophy, but it was there. Closing my eyes made it worse, so I stared straight ahead, trying to bury the horrific image behind the clouds.

  Things were totally out of control.

  For years now, I realised, I’d been very lucky in that the events I’d chosen – or been manipulated – to involve myself in had been resolved with the back-up and resources of a certain friend. But this time, trying to fix things without the benefit of Walter’s sanction made me understand how ineffective it was for one man to try to combat the evil of the world. It was always a demanding mission I’d set myself, but it was one thing punishing a low-life criminal, quite another to take on an entire network of world-class villains. Petoskey was dead, and so was Hendrickson. So what? What exactly had I achieved if it meant that Jennifer might also be slaughtered? There was no balance in that. I could kill a hundred, a thousand gangsters, and their lives would be nothing compared to that of one innocent woman.

  I’d been a soldier most of my adult life. I’d been trained by the best and had served with the best. But I was no Superman. I was a human being and I suffered the same weaknesses and frailties as any man when faced by a situation beyond my control. I wanted to scream and shout and rail at the world. And God – though at that moment I couldn’t believe that a benign all-powerful being could allow such an injustice to occur – I wanted to wring His fucking neck!

  Despite all that, I kept my peace. Violence, rage, anger pointlessly directed wouldn’t help anyone. Luckily Harvey could still think clearly enough to have a destination in mind. He’d had the chopper refuelled while at the heliport in Richmond, so we were good for the trip to the north. Somewhere along the way I fell asleep. Mentally exhausted, I didn’t wake again until Harvey shook me gently and I unglued my eyes and peered over at Walter Conrad’s fishing retreat.

  My first sight of the cabin brought everything crashing down on me again. The last time I’d been here was to witness the deranged work of Tubal Cain. I didn’t want to be reminded of it, when in place of Bryce Lang and the bodyguards I superimposed the face of Jenny. It took me a few seconds to get a grip of myself, and yet when I did it was with a new resolve. The cabin horrified me, but I’d always been one for facing my fears. There’s an old adage I subscribe to: If you are afraid of what lies within the cave, walk in. No matter what kind of monster lurked in the darkness, running away didn’t diminish your fear of it. You have to face it and – if needs be – rip the fucker’s throat out with your teeth.

  I hitched up my jeans as I stepped down from the chopper and led the way to Walter’s front door. Now that it appeared that Tubal Cain was out of the country and Hendricks
on no longer a threat, Walter had chosen to return to his cabin. We found him in the living area, supervising a clean-up crew. The air was redolent with the sharp smell of disinfectant, but it couldn’t hide the sickly undertone of the depravity that had gone on here so recently. Walter was chewing on a fat cigar, but had not as yet lit it. He’d been trying to give up the vice of tobacco for years, and had only recently been able to ditch the panacea of the unlit stogie. Still, I couldn’t blame him for grasping at his old habit. He needed the comfort of it, I guessed. The truth be told, I could have smoked a cigarette myself.

  Sometimes I forgot how old Walter was. He was now in his late sixties, but looking at his haunted features, I’d have put him at twenty years older again. His normally rotund body was deflated and his jowls, usually plump and full around the stub of cigar, looked like those of a bloodhound. The whites of his eyes were reddened with broken capillaries. His bald pate seemed to be expanding daily. He made me feel my own mortality like a leaden weight.

  I touched the old man on the shoulder and watched as he hung his head. He’d lost a dear friend in Bryce Lang, and most likely in his regular bodyguards as well. I felt for him. But more than that, I felt for Jenny.

  ‘We need to end this fast.’

  He nodded silently.

  ‘I’m a wanted man,’ I went on. ‘There’s no way that I can do things by the regular channels. Even with false documents, I can’t beat the security measures now that they’re watching for me.’

  ‘I’ll see to it that you’re given immunity,’ he said.

  I’d been expecting him to deny me help this time. I was supposed to be on my own. He had to be kept out of the entire fuck-up. But he came across as being more intent on stopping the monster than concerned about protecting his own arse. Maybe he too was feeling his mortality.

  ‘You know why Cain has done this.’ I wasn’t referring to the splotches of gore the clean-up crew were tackling.

  Walter chewed furiously at his stogie, but didn’t answer.

  ‘He intends using Jenny to bring John out of hiding. He has only one way of making his demands, and that’s through you, Walt. I want to be there, ready for the bastard when he makes the call.’

  ‘What if he has already killed her?’

  ‘I’ll make him pay.’ Never in my life had I made a more powerful resolution. ‘I don’t think he will, though. He’ll keep her alive as bait. I need you to play your part in this, Walt. I need you to have John ready to make the exchange. When that happens, I promise you, Cain won’t live a second longer.’

  Walter stood there, wouldn’t even look at me. Finally he nodded and said, ‘Best prepare yourself then, son. I think he’ll make contact soon.’

  I’d forgotten that Harvey was standing by my shoulder until he stirred uncomfortably. ‘What about me?’

  Walter looked up at him like he was a stranger. I turned to Harvey and gave him his answer. ‘I’m doing this part on my own.’

  ‘Now hold on a minute!’

  ‘Look, Harvey,’ I said, ‘I’ve already dragged you and Rink through a huge pile of shit, but it ends here. You’re both great friends, and it has to stop. I’ve fucked your lives. It’s about time I let you get back to some sort of normality.’ Before he could argue, I turned to Walter again and I wasn’t going to take no for an answer. ‘Harvey and Rink’s involvement has to be covered, Walter. I don’t care how you do it, how many strings you have to pull or how many favours you have to call in, they weren’t involved. Got it?’

  ‘I’ll do what I can.’

  ‘That’s not good enough. I want your word on it. Their inclusion is buried. Full stop.’

  ‘My power isn’t infinite, son.’

  ‘I know. Blame everything on me if you have to, but my friends are kept out of this.’

  I grew aware of a hush in the room. The cleaning crew had all paused at our raised voices. I shot them each a dark look and they went back to what they were doing. Quieter, I said; ‘You owe them as much as I do, Walt. Make sure that they’re exonerated. And,’ I leaned in close to his ear, ‘make sure that John is ready for when he’s needed.’

  ‘OK.’ Walter walked away without further comment. He went through to the back rooms where I’d entered when Hartlaub and Brigham first brought me here. I trusted that he was already on to it. Harvey clutched my shoulder. ‘Let’s go outside, Hunter. We need to speak.’

  I followed him outside and I could tell from the way his shoulders had bunched tight that I was in for more raised voices. Yet he surprised me. ‘Thanks for what you just did for me and Rink, Joe.’

  ‘It’s not right that either of you should suffer for my mess.’

  ‘It’s not your mess. You didn’t start this.’

  ‘Maybe I did, Harve. Maybe I did.’

  I’d turned my back on my brother when he was at his lowest. Christ, I’d been close to punching his lights out, but had walked away instead. I’ve often asked myself whether, if I’d just handed over the money he needed then, everything would have been different. Because I hadn’t helped him, John had sought to solve his problems by running away. That had led him to cross paths with Petoskey and then Hendrickson. In turn, that had brought him into the crosshairs of Tubal Cain. It was the butterfly effect, my inaction reverberating down through the years to this point where all those I held dear were in more danger than ever. Shit, it had even made me the man I’d become. Some legend: a fucking vigilante guilty of murder. Well, enough was enough. It was time to send the bad karma back at the person who truly deserved it.

  ‘Do something for me, will you?’

  ‘Anything,’ Harvey said.

  ‘Go back and check on Rink. Tell him I’m sorry for taking off without saying goodbye.’

  ‘Tell him yourself when you get back.’

  ‘If I come back,’ I corrected.

  I wasn’t talking about running away from the law; I seriously doubted that I’d return in one piece. If it meant the difference between John and Jenny’s safety, and me dying under Tubal Cain’s blade, then I chose the blade. No question.

  Chapter 33

  Getting into the UK had been relatively simple for Cain; not so getting out again with a hostage added to the equation.

  Nevertheless he was resourceful, and using Hendrickson’s contacts he arranged flights for himself and Jennifer Telfer on a private jet employed to shuttle a TV mogul back and forth across the Atlantic. Said mogul was known to travel with a contingent of staff and ‘guests’, some of the latter often a little the worse for wear when arriving at their destination, so Jennifer blended in nicely.

  Cain found the flight interminable. Not because he was surrounded by starlets stoned out of their heads, but because he had no way of satisfying his urge to take a memento or three from their skinny bodies. The TV guy was an insufferable ass, someone whose ego was larger than his fat head, and was sarcastic without wit. He sat in his plush leather seat, liquor flowing freely, and a couple lines of white powder offered to him on a tray. He used a glass tube to snort the cocaine, and Cain considered going and giving him a pat on the head for all he was doing for the TV ratings. He wondered if one pat would be enough to ram the glass tube all the way into the unctuous bastard’s brain. The two minders wouldn’t be able to stop him; in fact, they were an embarrassment, engaging in the party the way they did. Cain had once worked as a bodyguard to US dignitaries, and these scumbags brought shame to his trade. The only thing that stopped him from slaughtering them was that he’d have to go through the entire retinue, and the cabin crew, and Cain did not have the ability to safely land the plane.

  As a consolation prize, Cain lifted a steak knife from the silver service galley and went to thank the TV guy for his hospitality. Up close his eyes were a little crossed, and he had accepted Cain’s hand without listening to a goddamn word, but when Cain walked away again he was palming a strip of cloth snagged from the asshole’s necktie. Neither the mogul nor his inept guards realised how close Cain had got to slipping the knif
e under the man’s sternum and into his heart. Cain returned to his seat, and showed Jennifer his prize. She was decisively underwhelmed, as the TV guy was wont to say. Cain spent the flight rubbing the fabric between his index finger and thumb like it was an executive stress ball.

  On arrival at Baltimore/Washington International, Cain had mingled with the noisy group, swaying along with the rest of them, even cackling with everyone else at a girl who went down on her hands and knees on the tarmac. As the giggling TV mogul lent his arm to the stoned girl, Cain supported Jennifer on his elbow and handed over both their passports. Used to dealing with celebrities and dignitaries, the security was lax and the couple were waved through as readily as all others in the entourage. Their fake passports would have passed muster even if Homeland Security had studied them, but the young guard manning the booth at the private entrance had eyes only for the beauties that flanked the haughty celebrity star-maker. The leggy blonde who’d recently taken the tumble was a minor celebrity in her own right, having been a stand-out on a countrywide talent show. Her mediocre singing voice might have ensured she was voted through each week, but the way she was nibbling on the TV boss’s earlobe indicated a more likely explanation.

  Cain was pleased to be leaving them all behind and quickly veered away once they were through the first-class arrivals lounge.

  Cain had a van waiting outside and helped Jennifer in and strapped her into her seat. For good measure he gave her another shot of anaesthetic to ensure she remained drowsy. Regretfully, he’d dumped his weapons back in the UK, but there was another set waiting for him on the passenger seat. He had been mildly surprised to find that everything was in order for his return, but it seemed that Kurt Hendrickson’s name carried weight even after his death.

  News of Hendrickson’s demise had filtered through to him via the gangster’s contacts back in England. Cain hadn’t been upset at the news. Neither was he surprised. He had cautioned Hendrickson that Joe Hunter was remorseless, but his warning hadn’t been taken seriously. He was only amazed that Hunter had allowed Baron to escape when he had him in his sights. That was a big mistake, because the man had taken the loose reins of Hendrickson’s empire and was even now plotting vengeance. That he had organised the pick-up and supply of weapons for Cain meant that Baron intended using him to finish Hunter once and for all. Well, Cain thought, let Baron think he was in command, but he would be used by no one. Especially by someone who’d made so many mistakes that he was becoming a liability.