by Roy Chaney
Hagen’s throat was dry. His voice sounded cracked and brittle in his ears. “Ronnie didn’t have anything to do with it.”
“Ronnie was like you, Bodo. He set himself up to take the fall.”
“You set him up.”
McGrath looked off to Hagen’s right, toward the shack at the base of the hillside, one eyebrow raised. As though he’d just seen something over there, out of the corner of his eye. Hagen glanced across his shoulder. Noticed a bird, looked like a prairie falcon, circling above the shack. The bird flew off after a moment, disappearing around the side of the hill behind the shack. McGrath continued. “I did what I had to. I wound up working the Jimmy Ray case myself and I needed to throw suspicion away from Gubbs. When Ronnie left town I started throwing it in his direction. I asked Marty Ray and his friends just enough questions about Ronnie to make them wonder what I knew about him and wasn’t telling. Ronnie was long gone—Marty Ray wasn’t going to chase him down overseas. It’s too bad that Ronnie came back. Too bad for him and too bad for you.
“Now, Bodo, let’s take a walk over behind that shack.”
Hagen stayed where he was, his eyes on the Beretta in McGrath’s hand. “I didn’t come back to Vegas to die, McGrath. At least not in your company.”
McGrath motioned with the pistol. “It’s too late for tough talk, Bodo. Get moving.”
Hagen nodded in the direction of the shack. “Maybe it’s not as late as you think.”
“And why is that?”
“For one, I’ve got a friend posted over there in that shack. She’s got a rifle sighted in on you. And when she pulls the trigger, she won’t miss. Not at this range. So drop the pistol, McGrath.”
McGrath looked in the direction of the shack. A slow smile spread across his haggard face at the thought of Hagen pulling an obvious feint. “Bodo, you’re a bigger fool than I thought.”
Hagen turned to look at the shack. He waved his right arm in a short arc. Hagen shouted, “Peach? Our friend doesn’t believe you’re out there. Why don’t you squeeze off a round, show him how wrong he is.”
Hagen studied the crumbling structure that stood fifty yards away. A morning shadow crept out from the edge of the shack, seemed to be reaching out to Hagen with a long crooked finger.
There was no response from the shack.
No sign of movement.
No rifle shot.
Nothing.
The shack and the desert around it was still and silent in the early morning light. The only sound Hagen could hear was McGrath’s labored breathing. Or was that his own breathing? Hagen turned back to look at McGrath. McGrath looked like a stick figure in the sunlight. A tall thin scarecrow, propped up here in the desert to watch over the barren soil where nothing lived for long. But the smile on the detective’s face had grown larger. And the Beretta was raised higher. McGrath had turned sideways to Hagen and was now aiming down the barrel of the pistol, aiming squarely at the center of mass of his target.
McGrath had decided to shoot Hagen where he stood.
Twenty feet of empty space separated them—Hagen was sure he could make it. His chances were good, he told himself. And even if they weren’t as good as he wanted to believe, he knew it didn’t matter now. There was nothing else he could do. There was nothing else to think about now. Hagen’s body tensed and he exploded forward, moving fast and low. He would knock the gun aside and hit McGrath hard and throw him backward onto the ground. Hagen expected a reaction out of McGrath that might give Hagen an extra second or two, but McGrath didn’t look startled. He didn’t flinch. He didn’t raise his head. The pistol in his hand didn’t waver. As Hagen came toward him, McGrath’s finger tightened on the trigger, the pistol barrel rose a millimeter or two, and before Hagen could reach him the gunshots echoed through the hills.
17.
THERE WERE TWO of them.
They stepped out from behind an outcropping of rock far up on the hillside behind the shack and walked down the hillside slowly, cutting to one side and then the other. Their dust-covered boots dislodging rocks and soil as they moved along.
Neither of them spoke. The first one had taken off his white T-shirt and tied it around his head, the tail of the T-shirt falling onto the back of his neck. His sunglasses caught the sunlight and flashed as he turned his head, searching the landscape around the shack. He held a large rifle in his hands. A long-barreled sniper rifle, with a telescopic sight.
The one behind him carried a pistol. A pair of black binoculars hung from a thin strap around his neck. He walked stiff-legged. His foot slipped on a patch of scree and he started to slide. He caught himself and moved on. The sound of the scree sliding down the hillside continued for a moment. A faint rustling sound, somehow peaceful, like the sound of rain falling on a roof.
The man with the rifle reached the bottom of the hill first. He paused, the rifle barrel swiveling from left to right as the man studied the landscape. Nothing moved. There was no threat here now. When the second man reached the base of the hill he removed a cellular phone from his belt and spoke into it quietly, then put the phone away.
A third man appeared, from the shadows behind the shack. He carried not one but two rifles. One of them slung over his shoulder, the length of the rifle resting against his side, and a shorter, more compact assault rifle that hung from a strap over his other shoulder and that he carried with the rifle barrel pointed forward and his hand on the rifle’s grip.
His other hand held Maxine Peach’s arm as he guided her ahead of him, out into the early morning sunlight.
Peach’s hands were bound behind her. The front of her thin brown shirt and heavy padded shooting pants were covered with dirt. She walked hesitantly, seemed to lose her balance once or twice, as though her legs had cramped up after sitting in an awkward position for a long while.
The four figures joined up beside the shack. Then the man with the binoculars stepped out in front and they approached McGrath’s car, the three Legionnaires holding their weapons at the ready.
The body of McGrath lay facedown in the dirt, five feet from the side of the car, along the edge of the dirt road. Arms outstretched, one leg cocked to the right, as though the corpse was trying to burrow straight down into the ground. Blood collected in pools in the parched soil around his shoulders and head.
Hagen stood beside the car with his arms raised, watching Colonel Zahn and his Legionnaires approach with Peach under guard. The automatic that McGrath had planned to shoot him with now lay several feet to the left of where Hagen stood. McGrath’s own police special remained tucked away in the detective’s side holster. Hagen didn’t dare make a move in the direction of either of the pistols.
Not that the Beretta would have done him much good.
It was jammed.
Hagen had jammed it himself.
The rigged pistol was part of the setup Hagen had put together back at the MGM Grand, before his meeting with Colonel Zahn. If McGrath had been clean, he would never have known about the ploy. But Hagen had acquired some doubts about McGrath. Nothing solid, just a feeling that things didn’t quite wash. Certain things. McGrath not telling Hagen about Jimmy Ray’s murder, or the possibility that Ronnie had known something about it, that was one thing. And the idea that Gubbs had told McGrath that Ronnie was looking for a fence, but hadn’t told him why, that was another. Gubbs had known about the wooden hand from the start—or at least the photograph of it that Ronnie had given him. It didn’t make sense for Gubbs to mention a fence to McGrath without mentioning why a fence was needed. It seemed to Hagen that if Gubbs had been trying to hide the situation from McGrath, he would’ve hidden the whole thing, not just half of it.
So McGrath should’ve known about the wooden hand. But McGrath had played dumb, and later sent two detectives to strong-arm Hagen and accuse him of Gubbs’s murder. It was a heavy-handed move, but it gave McGrath the opportunity to throw suspicion on Harry Needles, so that Hagen would be sure to go after Harry himself. With Gubbs dead, McGrath decid
ed to let Hagen find the wooden hand for him.
Yesterday Hagen had thought that everything tied back to Jack Gubbs. Over the course of the night Hagen had come to see that there might be one more link in the chain, stretching from Gubbs to the man who stood behind him, pulling his strings.
John McGrath.
But Hagen had also seen that time was running out. The Legionnaires were closing in. If Hagen wanted to know what McGrath’s angle truly was, he’d have to take some action soon. Sitting there at the MGM casino bar, he’d made three phone calls. One to Zahn. One to McGrath.
And one call to Peach.
She’d said she wanted to help him. He decided to take her up on the offer. Hagen told her about the utility road off Highway 95, just south of Searchlight. Told her about the shack out in the desert. Told her to take her target rifle and drive out there and get set up, out of sight. He’d told Peach to give Tate’s cell phone a call, use a one-word signal so that Hagen would know that she’d reached the shack and was in position, waiting. Hagen even killed time after meeting with Zahn at the MGM to make sure the sun was up when Hagen and McGrath arrived out in the desert. And as a further precaution, Hagen jammed the Beretta, using one of the small stones he’d picked up in front of the Excalibur casino. Before meeting with McGrath in the Circus Circus parking garage, Hagen had cleared the pistol’s chamber, then removed the first three cartridges in the magazine and wedged the stone down into it, below the point where the reloading mechanism would shave off the next round. The magazine still had weight, and a person could still rack the slide to chamber a round. But they wouldn’t know there wasn’t a round in the chamber until they tried to fire the pistol. Hagen had felt certain that if McGrath wanted to get rid of him, McGrath would rather use Hagen’s pistol than one that could be traced back to him.
The whole thing had been a hunch, that’s all. A gambler’s hunch. And Hagen had played it.
But the Legionnaires had had a hunch too.
And they’d gotten here first.
When Colonel Zahn reached McGrath’s car he stopped, slid his pistol into his shoulder holster. Zahn studied the blue sweatshirt bundle lying on the hood of the car for a long moment. Finally he reached out and picked it up. Hefted it in his hand. Like a man unsure of what he’d just bought.
Hagen smiled at Peach to reassure her. She tried to smile back but it was a grim, tight-lipped smile. Her eyes were watchful and afraid. Trails of sweat snaked out from under her hair, running down the sides of her face, disappearing under her jawline. Her forehead was covered with sweat smeared with dirt. There was a nasty bruise forming low on one cheek, a cut above her right eye, and more bruises and small abrasions on her bare arms. The Legionnaires had been rough, but Hagen was sure that Peach still had some fight left in her.
Hagen turned back to Zahn, watched as the old Legionnaire unwrapped the bundle and inspected the wooden hand of Captain Danjou, then wrapped it back up again, taking great care, using the sleeves of the sweatshirt to tie off the bundle.
Zahn tucked the bundle under his arm. Stepped over to McGrath’s body. He prodded the body with the toe of his boot. Nodded to himself, as though pleased with the quality of the sniper’s work. The other two Legionnaires broke off, one of them taking up a position to Hagen’s left, the other moving to the right. Hagen recognized one of them. He was the Legionnaire that Hagen encountered in front of the High Numbers Club—the German Hagen had thrown against the car. That memory seemed to belong to a time long ago. Another life perhaps. The third Legionnaire Hagen hadn’t seen before. A thin young man with black hair, flattened nose, large plastic sunglasses tinted dark blue. The rifle he held in his hands was much smaller than the German’s sniper rifle, looked like a modified FAMAS assault rifle. The rifle slung over his other shoulder must’ve been Peach’s target rifle. Small-bore, lightweight gray frame, high-tech telescopic sight.
Now Colonel Zahn looked up from McGrath’s body. Looked directly at Hagen for the first time.
“Who was he?” Zahn said.
“A cop,” Hagen said.
Deep creases appeared on Zahn’s forehead. “Is that so?” Zahn nodded again, this time with a judicious frown. The dead man at his feet was suddenly more interesting. “Why is he here?”
“He found out what the hand was worth. He wanted to sell it.”
“Indeed.” Zahn made soft tsk-tsking noises with his tongue. “An unfortunate idea.”
Hagen glanced at the German. “Gruss Gott,” the German said, sarcastic, patting the butt of his rifle with his hand. The sun glinted off the glass face of the telescopic sight. The other Legionnaire reached down and picked up the Beretta that lay near McGrath’s body, then removed the revolver from McGrath’s side holster. Tucked both pistols into the waistband of his trousers.
“How did you find this place?” Hagen said.
“Not so difficult,” Zahn said, looking around him as though he’d just noticed where he was. The corner of his thin mustache twitched.
“Perhaps you’ll remember, this morning I had a vehicle positioned just north of this town”—Zahn pointed vaguely off in the direction of the highway—“what’s the name of it? Searchlight? Tate talked to the men in the vehicle from somewhere just south of that town. A few minutes later he called again. He was in no condition to speak at that point but he was able to convey to us that you had driven off the highway and into the desert. So wherever you were, it had to be a place only a few miles north or south of the town. Now why would you leave the road and drive into the desert?” Zahn waved a dismissive hand in the air, as though the question hardly needed asking. “A short time after Tate called us, my men spotted your car and followed you. They kept you under observation all the way back into Las Vegas. They even saw you leave Tate’s vehicle when you arrived at the casino where we spoke. You had nothing with you when we met, and while you were inside the casino talking to me my men searched the car. The hand wasn’t there either. So it was a very simple deduction—you drove off the road and hid the Hand of Danjou out here.
“I still had a few men operating in this area, and after I spoke with you this morning, I ordered them to take up spotting positions north and south of the town. I knew you’d come back. It was only a question of time. My men were prepared to sit out here for a week if that was what it took. But I was sure it wouldn’t take that long.” Zahn nodded at Peach. “When your friend’s vehicle was observed leaving the highway we followed and approached this location on foot, and when we saw that she’d brought a rifle with her we confronted her. Unfortunately, she couldn’t tell us where the hand was, much as we tried to convince her otherwise. So we took up a position on the hillside and waited for you to arrive. Very simple. It required a bit of work but not so much.”
“Sweat saves blood,” Hagen said, recalling the phrase his father used to repeat. The old Legionnaire motto.
Zahn looked surprised to hear it. “That’s right, Mister Hagen. Sweat saves blood. In this case it saved yours.” Zahn glanced at the corpse on the ground, one eyebrow raised. “Not that I am concerned about your welfare. But I don’t like to see a man killed in cold blood. There are certain rules, Mister Hagen. Soldiers must live by them too.”
“I appreciate the thought.”
“I hope you do.”
“If it means anything to you, the pistol he wanted to shoot me with was jammed. And I knew it was jammed.”
Zahn shrugged. “Well then, I suppose that makes his death doubly unfortunate, wouldn’t you say?”
In the distance Hagen heard the high-pitched whine of an engine traveling in low gear. A moment later a utility vehicle appeared on the dirt road. A white Range Rover. It drove down into the narrow valley, moving slow. Zahn watched it approach. The Range Rover stopped on the road. Zahn raised his hand. The driver rolled down the window, waiting, the engine idling.
“You’ve been lucky for us, Mister Hagen,” Zahn said now. “You led us to the Hand of Danjou quickly and, if I may say so, decisively. But it remain
s to be seen how lucky you are.”
“What do you mean?”
Zahn patted the bundle under his arm. “We have what we came for. Now we are leaving. Within three hours most of my men will be out of the country. By tonight all of them will be gone. Let me advise you of this, Mister Hagen—there will be no evidence that we were ever here. The names on our passports belong to people who do not properly exist. And of course the Legion will disavow any knowledge of what has happened here. Officially, the Hand of Danjou has never left Aubagne. Any inquiries made by your police or your government will go no further than that. So, Mister Hagen, let’s hope that your luck continues. We are going to leave you here with this dead policeman. I suspect you may have some explaining to do.”
“I’ll take my chances.”
“Let’s hope it’s not the kind of bet that is—what do you call it?”
“A sucker bet.”
“That’s right. A sucker bet. Good-bye, Mister Hagen.”
Zahn motioned to the other two men, then turned and started off toward the Range Rover. As soon as Zahn’s back was turned the German Legionnaire stepped up to Hagen with his rifle held at port arms. Hagen saw his own reflection in the German’s sunglasses.
The German smiled.
The butt of the rifle shot out. Slammed into the side of Hagen’s face.
Hagen fell to the ground, dazed. Sharp pain shooting up the side of his head and down his neck. With the German standing over Hagen, the third Legionnaire knelt and patted Hagen down, took Hagen’s wallet and Tate’s cell phone. As the third Legionnaire moved off, the German leaned in the open car window of McGrath’s Chevrolet and removed the ignition key. The German hurried past Hagen, and a moment later Hagen heard the doors of the Range Rover slam shut and the popping sounds of loose rocks under the tires as the vehicle turned around. He raised himself up onto his elbow. Shook his head. Spit blood out onto the ground, his fingers gingerly feeling his jaw. Peach dropped to her knees beside him and together they watched the Range Rover drive off down the dirt road.
