by Matt Hilton
Chapter 26
When the urge to get moving takes me I've no option but obey. It didn't matter that I had no firm plan of action in mind, just that there was yet another woman out there fleeing for her life from a maniac. I had to do something. I was sick of running away, or playing catch-up, and it was about time I put Rickard on the back foot for a change.
'I need some air. I'm coming with you.'
I didn't argue with Rink. We come from the same school of thought and I knew that he felt exactly the same way as I did.
Harvey stayed behind. He was as good as any analyst that Walter had access to, and would be able to help the CIA men coordinate the search for Rickard from the hotel room. 'If anything comes up, I'll call,' he promised.
We took the Chrysler and went back to the office block from where Ken Wetherby ran his operation. Wetherby wasn't pleased to see us. His face had swollen where I'd given him the parting shot, but hadn't begun to bruise yet. Maybe he thought I was going to give him a matching lump on the other side.
'OK, take it easy, Wetherby. I'm not here for trouble this time.'
The two men that Rink had beaten up were conspicuous by their absence. Probably down at A amp; E, I assumed. Only the third man, the first to feel a clubbing right from Rink, was there, and he looked no easier than Wetherby did about us showing up again. His hand crept towards a gun in a holster on his hip. Rink gave him a slow shake of his head and the man's fingers drifted from his gun and dug awkwardly in his trouser pocket.
'Can we have a little privacy?' My question was more to spare the young mercenary any further discomfort, and offered him a way out without him losing any more face.
'You OK with that, sir?'
Wetherby scowled at the young man, then waved him out of the room. When the man was gone, Wetherby grunted. 'Not as if he was going to be much help anyway.'
'Like I said, we're not here for trouble this time.'
Wetherby slumped in the chair behind his desk. I noticed that his papers and laser printer had been returned to their rightful place, but it didn't look like much work had been done since our last visit.
'What are you here for, Hunter?'
Propping myself on the corner of his desk, I folded my arms over my chest and looked down at him from a position of dominance. 'I want your help.'
There was nothing of a request in my voice. Wetherby could refuse my order, but I didn't think he would.
'I told you that none of the people on my books were involved. What more do you want from me?'
'Tell me about Luke Rickard.'
A strobe of emotions flickered across Wetherby's face. The one that took root was fear. He looked down at his desk, focusing on the untidy pile of documents.
'Don't deny that you know him,' I said. 'You'd be wasting all our time.'
'I don't know him.' His voice was barely above a whisper. He looked up at me and then across the room to where Rink lounged against a wall. 'But I know of him.'
'You tried to recruit him?'
'I don't approach people. They come to me.'
'You came to me,' I reminded him. It was why I'd come back to clear things up with him. Most of the people on his books were all above board, applicants who were recruited via his website: usually they were soldiers returning from war with no hope of going back to a humdrum civilian lifestyle. After Wetherby put them through a rigorous selection process he sent them off to a training camp that he ran in the Everglades. Those that passed the course were shipped off to be close protection bodyguards to business people or minders to celebrities. But then there were other contracts that Wetherby negotiated – for these he sought and recruited specialists. Basically he was pimping murderers. It was this arm of his business that I'd taken umbrage with.
'Contrary to what you think, I don't deal with criminals,' Wetherby said. 'When I found out about Rickard, I immediately severed all communication.'
'He's that bad?'
'And then some.'
I shared a glance with Rink. Returning my attention to Wetherby, I asked, 'So how is it that no one seems to have heard of him?'
'He's that good at what he does.'
Imogen Ballard had thwarted him twice, and now so had his wife. 'So why's he making all these mistakes all of a sudden?'
'I can't begin to imagine why,' Wetherby said.
'Tell me about him.'
Wetherby didn't have to rack his brains very much and I wondered if he'd been considering Rickard as the shooter the first time we were here. If he'd said so then maybe a couple of his men wouldn't have needed a few days off to recuperate.
'First off, he's not really called Luke Rickard. That's an assumed identity.'
I'd already come to that conclusion. 'So who is he?'
He shrugged his shoulders. 'No idea.'
'How did you hear about him?'
'Some of the other men were talking about him. They'd heard stories from out in the field. It seems that Rickard is a freelance assassin who works for those willing to pay the highest fee.'
I thought about a man I'd killed last year. Dantalion: a freak who went by the name of a fallen angel. He had been a freelance assassin too. He didn't work through the usual channels either.
'What's his background?'
'I'd guess that he was military.'
'His prints aren't on record, so that rules that out.'
'Assuming that he's an American, you mean?'
He had a point. Both the FBI and CIA had been concentrating on their own databases. I made a mental note to have Harvey cast the net further afield. 'From what you were able to dig up on him, who are the people he's worked for in the past?'
'You know how difficult something like that is to substantiate. I can only tell you about the rumours…'
'So tell me.'
'Paramilitary groups mostly. He's been in Sierra Leone, Darfur, Bosnia, Lebanon and Gaza.'
'What about closer to home?'
'Yes, there are rumours that he's done select work here before.'
'OK. Next question, Wetherby, and I want the truth. You tried to recruit him. Who was it for?'
'I can't disclose any details about my clients. You can't expect me to do that.'
Rink picks and chooses his time to speak, but when he does his words mean something. 'Unless you want us to have another falling out, we do.'
Wetherby threw his hands in the air. 'You realise what my name will mean if this gets out?'
'Shit?' Rink asked.
'Exactly.' Wetherby ran his hands over his face. He probed the spot where I'd punched him earlier and it was a catalyst for his anger. 'Why the hell should I tell you anything? I don't owe you a goddamn thing.'
'No one will get anything from us,' I said. 'You have my word.'
He made a noise in his throat like he was being strangled. The anger went out of him like he was a deflating balloon. With resigned deliberation he leaned down and slid open a drawer in his desk. It was a good place to conceal a gun, but I was at an angle where I could see that wasn't the case. He pulled out a folder and opened it on his desk.
'I don't have a name, just a number. Maybe you have better resources than I do and can trace it.'
That was a given fact but I made him none the wiser. I borrowed a pen and jotted the number on a slip of paper that I pocketed. 'So what were your feelings?'
'About what?'
'About the people who wanted Rickard to work for them?'
Wetherby rolled his head on his shoulders. 'Like I told you: I don't use criminals.'
'But you were happy to make the introductions between the two parties?'
Wetherby's pause told me that I'd struck a nerve. 'It will please you to know that I got nothing from the deal. Yes, I put Rickard in touch with them, but that was it. I wouldn't have it any other way.'
'Did you know why they wanted him?'
Wetherby sat there straight-faced. 'No.'
Standing up I looked down at him with a face equally flat. 'We'll leave things at
that, then.'
'You didn't get that from me, right?' Wetherby nodded at my pocket where I'd slipped the note.
I patted him on the shoulder. 'As long as we're good now.'
'We're good,' he said.
Rink came up and dug a twenty-dollar bill from his pocket which he placed on the desk. 'Buy your guys a beer when they get back from hospital, Wetherby. Forget all about us. Everything will feel so much better afterwards.'
We left him staring at the tip and made our way outside.
'He's lying, Rink.'
'Of course he is. But he's also a self-serving asshole. I think the phone number's genuine, though. Why'd you think he gave us it?'
'My guess? He's greedy. Like he said, he didn't get anything from the deal. Maybe this is his way of getting something he wants.'
We'd just made it back to the Chrysler when my mobile phone rang.
Without preamble Harvey gave me an address over in Liberty City. 'Cops are already on the way there now, so you'd better hurry if you want to get Rickard first.'
Rink drove so I could get the rest of the details.
'It's him for sure?' Over the roar of the engine, I had to shout and Harvey sounded a little breathless in his need to tell me the facts.
'Without a doubt. Someone murdered a cab driver from the same company that picked up Alisha Rickard from behind the mall. Just before he died the cabbie radioed and asked his co-worker where he'd taken his fare and then that was it. It looks like Rickard has gone after his wife.'
I felt a jolt of adrenalin.
'OK, Harvey. We're on our way.'
Rink's normal mode of transport is his Porsche, and he drives it like a pro. He made no exception behind the wheel of the Chrysler. We blasted across town, hoping to beat the cops heading to the same location. Going for us was the fact that we were good to go while the police would be planning their approach. Directions would be shooting back and forth over the radio as the chain of command was organised. Their orders would be for a covert approach, the area surveilled and then a plan of action drawn up. The Miami Dade Special Response Team would be mobilised, negotiators brought in, the FBI on standby. All of that would take time. In comparison our plan was simple: get there quick and kill Rickard even quicker.
Chapter 27
Standing on the peak of the roof, silhouetted against the skyline, Rickard should have felt exposed, but he didn't. He felt invincible. Like he was a god towering over the mortals below him. He watched the car speed along the street and then come to a skidding halt. His first thought was that this was an unmarked police cruiser responding to the shots fired, but the two men leaping out the car weren't cops. They were tough guys with guns, but no one of any consequence to him. They were just a couple more of the drug dealer's gang called in as reinforcements. They would die as easily as every other man that got between him and Alisha.
The two newcomers took cover behind the car, and he could hear them swearing in that clipped manner of gangbangers. From further along the street came another curse and Rickard realised where the other guard had gone. He was hunkering down behind some trash cans. Unless they were full of building bricks, the cans were no cover for the man. Rickard braced his feet each side of the roof, while with both hands he drew a gun from his belt and flicked off the safety catches.
He fired seconds before the men below him did. His intention wasn't necessarily to kill, only to keep them down and unable to get a clear shot at him. His guns rolled a double volley, one at the car and one at the trash cans. The men's return fire was disjointed and badly aimed, but even so he was too obvious a target where he stood. His thoughts of giants and invincibility could only last as long as was pragmatic. A bullet drilled the roofline next to his right foot and he felt the sting of splinters in his shin. He crouched now, and depleted both guns at his twin targets. A yelp came from the man behind the trash cans but it sounded more a shout of alarm than that of someone taking a mortal wound.
Rickard dropped both empty guns; they clattered down the roof and thumped to the ground. Rickard heard none of that because he was already reaching for the third gun: his own. He fired repeatedly, swinging his aim from one target to the other. Then, in a practised move, he dipped his hand into a pocket and came out with a full magazine. He ejected the empty one from his gun, pushed the other in and racked the slide. Fired one round. All in the space of two seconds.
In the next two seconds he grabbed the roof at its apex and swung down and kicked through the window. To the men below ducking for cover it would have been like he'd done a disappearing act. He forgot all about them for now. Unless they intended climbing the roof they were stuck outside and no immediate threat, so he went after those who were inside. The room he found himself in was a cramped and jumbled space, little more than a peaked crawl space filled with junk and old furniture. There was no bulb in the ceiling fixture, but enough ambient light was coming through the shattered window for him to negotiate the junk and make for the exit door. He didn't observe niceties, just booted open the flimsy door and leaned out and fired his gun in a short volley of three rounds. The man he'd expected to find waiting on him didn't disappoint: he took two of the bullets in his chest and went down screaming. An illegal machine pistol clattered on the floor beside him. Rickard quickly stooped and grabbed the gun in his left hand. Distractedly he noted that the gun was a Czechoslovakian Scorpion – the old type that still used.32 ACP rounds. It was a popular machine pistol throughout the world; he only hoped that there weren't any more in the house.
Earlier he'd counted three male voices from inside – the mathematics were subjective: maybe there were others who were more disciplined and could keep their mouths shut, so he had no idea how many he was going up against. He didn't care because the Scorpion kind of levelled the playing field in his favour.
He was in a short hallway with a flight of steps leading down to the living space: a bottleneck if he didn't move. He went down the stairs at a run and ducked into the nearest doorway he could find, the machine pistol extended in his left hand. Without looking he unloaded a burst of fire into the room, sweeping low where people would naturally crouch. The bullets churned the furniture, and struck flesh. Rickard barely flicked a glance at the man lying dead behind a grimy settee. He turned and looked back out into the hallway. Whispering voices filtered to him from rooms nearer the back of the house. He quickly scanned over his shoulder and saw that the main entrance was indeed barricaded by a steel door with a single slot cut in it through which money would be exchanged for drugs. The reinforcements couldn't come on him that way.
Immediately he went along the hall. On his right was a kitchen area. Of course this house wasn't where the drug dealer lived – he'd have a fancy-assed pad somewhere – so the kitchen wasn't used in its conventional sense. He saw counters with weighing scales and stacks of polythene bags and there were traces of white dust on many of the surfaces. No way any of these guys were going to call for police assistance, not with that amount of evidence lying round.
There was also a guard.
He was a big man with a network of scars all over his face. He looked like he'd been in a fire once over and had suffered greatly. That's what comes of cooking your own crack, Rickard thought, as he fired at the man. The guy threw himself down behind a counter and returned fire with an old-fashioned Colt revolver. His shots were blind, and Rickard dodged away from the line of fire even as he rushed towards the man. He leaned over the counter and drilled the man full of bullets, watching the man's eyelids flicker as each round punched holes in his upper body. Then there was no more reaction and the man slumped down.
Rickard left him there and went back out into the hall.
That made three dead inside the house; which meant there had to be more than he'd originally reckoned. None of the men he'd killed looked like anyone that could have snared Alisha's attention.
The next room he checked was a bedroom. The only thing that told him so was the presence of a stained mattress propped
up against a wall. The rest of the room was devoid of home comforts and it seemed to have become a repository for old newspapers and girlie magazines.
On his left a closet door stood open. He glanced inside to ensure nobody lurked in the dark space and found it empty. Moving on, he found the door that let outside where he'd clambered up on to the porch. The door wasn't as heavily fortified as the front door, having only a beam nestled in brackets to hold it firm. He paid it little attention, choosing instead to move immediately to the remaining room. Whoever was inside had fallen silent now, but he guessed that was where he'd find Alisha and her ex-boyfriend.
He wanted a personal reckoning with Alisha. He'd teach her what it meant to betray him, but first he wanted to show her the true value of her ex-lover. He wanted to kill him personally too, although not at the expense of walking into a trap. He shoved his gun into his waistband and transferred the Scorpion to his right hand. He braced his wrist against his hip, then let loose the full fury of the gun, firing through walls and door alike. The bullets cut through the flimsy barricade and into the room beyond. Then he dropped the gun and burst open the door and followed inside. As he did he pulled out his ceramic blade and thumbed it open.
He was surprised by what he found: a lone man sitting with his back to a wall. No sign of Alisha. The man was dressed a little snappier than the guards he'd already killed, and he was young and handsome with a full head of wavy hair. He was the tall man who had met Alisha at the door. He was lightly tanned, but some of the colour had drained out of his features, making him look slick and pasty. Rickard glanced at the bullet wound in the man's gut. The man had one hand clamped over it to staunch the flow of blood, while his other hand still gripped the stock of a Glock 18. The man rolled his head up to stare at Rickard and though he was in agony he still mustered enough hatred to make his eyes flash.
Rickard lunged in quickly and jammed a heel down on the man's gun hand.
