Cut and run jh-4

by Matt Hilton

  In a split second everything went to shit.

  I had no recourse now but to shoot or die.

  The man nearest me lifted his Galil, and I swept out my SIG at the same moment. My single round took him in the throat and he went over backwards. His dying act was to pull the trigger of his rifle and bullets zipped over my head, knocking roof tiles from a nearby building.

  Then everything was happening round me like I was caught in some kind of slow-motion nightmare.

  I lunged towards Abadia, even as the second Galil bore round on me, and the henchman from the Lincoln grabbed at a weapon inside his jacket. The man with the rifle was the immediate threat and I dropped low in a stress fire isosceles stance as I sent two rounds into his central body mass. Ribbons of blood flew from the man's back as he was thrown down on his side. The Galil slid harmlessly beneath the town car. Abadia had caught the boy in his arms. I couldn't shoot him now. Anyway, the man from the car was now aiming his handgun at me. I saw the gunman squint as he targeted me, and knew that his bullet would follow a fraction of a second behind the action. I dipped my body to the left, saw his gun waver as it tried to follow, then I snapped back to the upright, leaving his aim trailing and I placed a round in his forehead.

  The driver was clambering out of the car. He was a danger, but my most pressing thought was where Abadia was now – or more correctly to see if I had an opportunity to drop him without placing the boy or his mother in danger.

  I caught a snapshot glimpse of the situation and saw that it was hopeless. Abadia had the boy held tight to his chest with one arm, while his other hand was drawing a revolver from a snap-lock holster on his hip.

  The son of a bitch. He wasn't cradling the boy out of love. He'd recognised my reticence to shoot where the child was involved and he was now using his own son as a shield. Jimena had also come to that conclusion, and she was clawing at him to get the boy away. Her actions bought me a couple of seconds to deal with the man coming out of the car.

  The driver had drawn his weapon – an H amp;K I immediately identified from its shape – and was bringing it over the roof of the car to shoot me. He snarled something in Spanish that I didn't catch. I was already dropping low, like an old-time gunslinger, shooting from the hip so that my bullets passed through the open car door on my side and out the open one on his. I hit him in the gut. He was sorely wounded, but not yet dead. He fired, and I'd no option but to throw myself to the ground. Now I fired under the car, blasting one of his ankles from under him. As he collapsed screaming, I again fired under the chassis and this time my bullet silenced him.

  Four men dead in less than fifteen seconds, but none of them the man I'd come for.

  I rolled over on to my back, bringing up my SIG.

  The snapshot had changed from before.

  Seeing me distracted, Abadia had released his grip on the boy, and Jimena had now taken charge of him. Abadia was taking a running step towards me, his revolver aiming at me.

  So this is how I die, I thought, looking into Abadia's contorted features.

  But then I saw Abadia shudder, and blood spattered from a wound in his chest. Another bullet tore a chunk out of his right shoulder and the revolver went spinning from his hand.

  Jack Schilling, his MP5A3 rattling out death, continued to race nearer to me laying down covering fire. Behind him, I saw Bryce revving our car towards us.

  I quickly came to one knee. Abadia was on the pavement not ten feet from me, face down, unmoving. Standard operating procedure dictated that I put a round in the back of his skull. But I was more concerned with the other bodies lying sprawled on the steps to the house.

  They were unmoving too. Clutched in Jimena's death grip was a gun.

  The operation to stem the flow of cocaine from Abadia's cartel was deemed successful – despite the unfortunate collateral damage incurred – and we all went on to further missions. All but one of us. I didn't hold Jack Schilling responsible for killing the woman. I couldn't; not when he was trying to save me. But the fact that he'd killed the boy sent an ice-cold wedge into my heart that just wouldn't thaw. We were never the same after that. Shame burned in the two of us. Jack retired from our unit before I did and I heard that he swallowed a bullet from his own gun a short time later. Maybe the killing of the boy had driven a wedge into his heart too.

  Chapter 8

  My home is on the beach overlooking the Gulf of Mexico, but we couldn't go there. The cops would have it under constant surveillance. So instead we went to another house I use, a few miles to the south. No one but Rink, Harvey Lucas, who is a friend out in Arkansas, and Walter Hayes Conrad, my old CIA controller, knew about this place. I parked Bryce's brown sedan on a turning circle above the beach. Below us was tall grass that gave way to golden sand. Beyond the beach the sea was sparkling under the early morning sun like someone had taken a handful of diamonds and scattered them across the undulating water. The view was beautiful, but I couldn't appreciate it. I was thinking ugly thoughts.

  I was thinking about the boy lying dead in his mother's arms all those years ago. It was an image that occasionally came back to haunt me when sleep evaded me. Most times I'd get up and throw on some shorts and run along the beach under the scowling eye of the moon until the effort and streaming perspiration shoved the image aside. Now the boy – whose name remained a mystery to me – was back, and this time there was no opportunity for a night-time run.

  Bryce had become a catalyst for my nightmare. When Rink first mentioned Bryce's name yesterday, the first thing I'd thought about was that boy. The second image had been one that I hadn't witnessed, but one I could easily conjure: I saw Jack Schilling propped in a chair in some stinking apartment with his brains decorating the wall behind him. Now I actually had Bryce standing beside me and it looked like the nightmare wouldn't recede any time soon.

  'We'll talk inside,' Bryce said.

  'Maybe we should.' I set off for the house with Bryce following. He was alert, scanning the area for anything untoward. I didn't let it show, but all my senses were on overdrive, except nothing in the natural flow of the day warned me of hidden danger.

  At the door I checked for signs that someone had been there while I was out. The faint dusting of sand I'd scattered on the doorstep was unmarked. There were no glistening marks on the locks to show anyone had finessed their way inside. Someone could have entered by the back door, but I doubted that. Everything was still and silent and felt at peace. Bryce still looked like he was expecting to die at any second.

  At least Bryce had seen enough sense to put the gun away. It was pleasing; I was growing a little tired at being threatened by someone I had deemed a friend.

  We walked inside and I paused to get a feel for the house. It was as I'd left it. No eddies of air shifted to warn of stealthy movement nearby. There was no detectable odour of a nervous man waiting in concealment. I nodded Bryce inside. Bryce moved past me and if I wanted to I could have killed him easily. His fieldcraft had grown rusty, either that or the fear he was under had displaced the rules from his mind. Following him, I saw that his shoulders were rounded, as though he was already a defeated man.

  I'd spent last night here, sleeping on a futon in one corner of the living room. The only other furniture was a deckchair. Bryce sat down in it uninvited.

  'Tell me everything, Bryce.'

  He chewed his bottom lip. He was forced to lean back in the chair to look up at me. 'First I want to apologise for holding a gun on you.'

  'That'd be a start. But forget it. I knew you wouldn't use it.'

  'I'm surprised you let me get close enough to pull a gun on you.'

  'I was there as a friend,' I reminded him.

  Bryce indicated his breast pocket. 'Not a gun this time.'

  I nodded at him to go ahead and he withdrew an envelope and held it out to me. From his pinched expression, it held something nasty. The envelope disgorged a short stack of photographs.

  The first photo showed a woman and a teenage boy lying d
ead in the street. They looked like they'd been gunned down as they were walking out the front door of their home. The second showed a woman lying in woodland. She was dead, too. Her eyes were rolled up in their sockets as though she was trying to focus on the single bullet hole in her forehead.

  Sighing at the cruel nature of the world, I pushed these two photographs back in the envelope. I didn't know any of the faces.

  Photograph three was different, though.

  The dark-haired man had been hacked with a heavy blade. What made things worse was the fact that he was bound in a chair and had no hope of avoiding the blows. His dead face was twisted in agony. But I still recognised it: the DAS agent, Victor.

  'Montoya,' Bryce confirmed. He lifted a finger and tapped the photograph. 'Also found dead in the same room were his wife and six-year-old daughter.'

  Feeling my gut twist, I looked to the next photograph. Pete Hillman had been killed in an alley. There were at least five bullet wounds in his torso.

  The final photograph was of Robert Muir. Muir was dead as well, and his decapitated head had been placed on a table next to his corpse. He too had been bound in a chair.

  It was obvious why Bryce was feeling paranoid. We were the only two surviving members of the team sent to take out Jesus Henao Abadia.

  Pulling out the first two photographs again, I said, 'These people?'

  Bryce pointed at the dead woman in the woods. 'That's Robert Muir's wife. The woman and boy… they're Pete Hillman's wife and son. And, as you know, Victor Montoya's family were found alongside him.'

  Not only were the members of the hit team being targeted, but the families of those men.

  'Who's behind this, Bryce?'

  'According to some people… you.'

  That didn't deserve a response.

  'It doesn't help when Linden Case was tortured in a similar manner.' Bryce, his eyes downcast, flicked a hand towards the photos in my hand. 'Just like the rest, his family was targeted as well. Case said it was you…'

  'Someone told him my name. It doesn't make me responsible.'

  'He described someone that fits your description.'

  'Bryce, by the definition of our job, we're supposed to be the everyman. It wouldn't be hard to find someone my size and build, cut their hair like mine, put contact lenses in. Why'd he even kill Case? He wasn't a member of our team.'

  'Case was a decoy, I suppose. To set you up as the murderer. While the cops are hunting for you it allows the real killer to carry on with his plan.'

  'To kill us?'

  Bryce shuddered. 'We're the only ones left.'

  'That brings us back to my first question. Who's behind this?'

  Bryce chewed his bottom lip. 'My best guess? Could only be Abadia.'

  'Abadia's dead. You were there, Bryce. Schilling riddled him with rounds from a machine gun.'

  'You know the protocol, Hunter.'

  I should have made sure. I should have put a bullet in Abadia's skull as operating procedure dictated.

  'He couldn't have survived,' I said. 'Not possible.'

  I looked at the stack of photographs fanned in my hand.

  Anything's possible, I corrected myself.

  It looked like Abadia was back from the dead.

  Chapter 9

  February in Maine. It sounded like the title of a song; like something that Bing Crosby or maybe Nat King Cole would have crooned over. Those old masters would have made the place sound beautiful and romantic, but Imogen Ballard didn't see things like that. It was just too damn cold and wet to get maudlin over.

  Everything was grey. The trees, the sky, even the blacktop that her feet skated over. Maybe taking a run to clear her head wasn't her greatest idea. A roaring fire and scalding hot coffee would have been better. But it was too late for that now: she was two miles out from home, jogging along the coast road, overlooking the equally grey sea.

  The rain was a fine mist that clung to everything. It had soaked her clothing within minutes of setting off, and now sat in heavy beads on her shoulders and on the wool cap pulled down over her short hair. Her effort kept her warm inside her clothes, but she was uncomfortable. Maybe the run wasn't so bad an idea after all: concentrating on her miserable state kept her mind off her sister. Or it did until that errant thought.

  Imogen pushed harder at the road surface, exhorting herself to greater effort. The cold air bit at the back of her throat. She began to sprint, challenging the incline ahead to shake Kate loose. But she was right there, all the way up the hill, watching her – figuratively speaking – all the way to the top.

  She regretted involving Kate in her problems. It was her stupidity that had killed Kate.

  All her decisions had been made too rashly, she saw that now – especially her decision to move out here to Ass-end, Maine. At the time, she'd thought it was the best thing for her, being close to her parents and siblings who were buried in the family plot. She'd come here because it was the only place she felt safe. And to heal.

  She'd lived through a terrible ordeal. Her lover, William Devaney, had been murdered, and so had Kate. She had heard of something called survivor guilt syndrome, and wondered if that was what she was really hiding from. Her little sister had died protecting her. Joe Hunter and a couple of his friends had gone up against some seriously dangerous men to protect her, too. Imogen had done nothing but get them all in a fix. Guilt was a burden that she had to carry, and it was extremely heavy ploughing upwards to the top of this hill.

  At the crest, Imogen came to a halt. She fisted both hands on her hips, and then bent at the waist to suck in lungfuls of air. A stitch felt like a hot brand creasing her left side. Now this was penance, she decided.

  Back in the here and now, Imogen turned to look down the hill she'd just conquered. The blacktop was a glistening ribbon, some of the greyness refracted by the equally glistening trees standing like sentries at the roadside. The run uphill had looked ugly, but now she saw the beauty that beckoned her back down the hill. Her house stood on a promontory overlooking the Atlantic. It was hidden by the trees and the folds of the land, but it was a beacon. She set off jogging again, down the decline, feeling the tug of gravity at the centre of her chest. It was as if she was being reeled in on an invisible line. She felt light and easy now.

  A truck came over the hill behind her. She heard its grumbling engine and the whistle of thick tyres on the slick road surface. Without pausing in her run, she moved to the side of the road, kicking up wings of water in the puddles that gathered there. She glanced back, ensuring that the driver had seen her in the poor conditions. The truck swept past her, and cold droplets splattered off her face. She blinked against the sting and her lips pulled into a grimace.

  The truck was a blocky white shape. FedEx, she saw, delivering packages. Maybe the driver was headed for points south: Lincolnville or Camden, perhaps.

  The brake lights flared and the truck drew to a slow halt.

  Imogen wasn't concerned. FedEx trucks were a regular feature here. Maybe this was a driver unfamiliar with the area who'd decided to stop and ask for directions.

  She continued to jog towards the back of the truck. She heard the clunk of the driver's door being opened and saw a tall, muscular man in a FedEx uniform hop down from the cab. He was holding a clipboard in his hand. Yeah, she decided, he was lost.

  'Hi,' the man said. 'I'm sorry to interrupt your run, ma'am.'

  Imogen slowed down, and then jogged in place. Her trainers made squishing sounds on the asphalt.

  'I'm looking for…' he inspected the clipboard as though for confirmation. 'Yes, I'm looking for a Miss Imogen Ballard.'

  Imogen made a living by designing websites, but she sidelined in wildlife photography for magazine publishers. It wasn't unknown to receive packages of proofs from the publishers. Her eyebrows went up, even as a hand went to her chest.

  'You've found her.'

  'Wow,' said the man. 'That was very fortuitous.'

  Too fortuitous to be real, Imo
gen was slow to realise. Who used words like fortuitous these days? She squinted at the man, and his lips pulled into a sneer. Something about the coldness of his eyes warned her that his accidental luck was her misfortune.

  From under the clipboard he pulled out a gun. It had a long broad barrel that glistened under the same refracted light that made the road seem ethereal. There was nothing beautiful about it.

  'Oh!' Imogen said. It was all her mind could come up with while it was feverishly computing the information her senses fed it. She was thinking: Joe Hunter had killed all of my enemies, so what's this about? She should have been thinking how to get out of this alive. Then there was no more time for thinking, or for anything.

  The man lifted the gun and shot her once in the chest.

  Chapter 10

  There is a belief among soldiers that a highly tuned warrior exists in a state of readiness that transcends the norm. On high alert, all the senses thrum and, combined, they supersede anything that any of the individual senses can assimilate. This super-sense is what warns the soldier of ambush, of a silent assassin's approach, of impending death. Such is the belief that studies have been conducted and scientists have designated this state Rapid Intuitive Experience. Fancifully it has been deemed some kind of ESP. I've experienced RIE on too many occasions to dismiss it out of hand, but I don't consider myself psychic or even any more intuitive than anyone else. Never had I given credibility to anything like premonitions or crisis apparitions.

  Until now, that was.

  Not only was I in danger, but so were members of my family. My brother John was hidden deep in a witness protection programme, out of harm's way, but my parents and my ex-wife, Diane, were over in England, not necessarily out of reach of those trying to hurt me. Despite us divorcing, in my own way I still loved Diane, and to think of anything like that happening to her was enough to make me feel sick. I had to get a warning to her, set up some protection for her and my parents, but there was a more pressing matter.