The four men grew quiet for a moment. Finally, Lynch shook his head. “Well, you’re going to have to finish this without me. I’m done.”
Steiger looked astonished. “What? No! You can’t leave now! We’re in the middle of this! In less than four hours, we’re handing fifty grand over to a known murderer!”
“And that’s your mess, not mine!” Lynch snarled. “I wasn’t hired for this! Maybe if you’d been straight with us from the beginning, I’d be on board. But I had my fill of being butt-fucked by the brass playing games with my life in Vietnam. That whole goddamn war was one big sack of lies, so jumbled together and wrapped around each other, you didn’t know where the truth ended and the lies began.
“So I’m done with that bullshit, right now. You decided to play the same games with us, and I don’t know about Richard, but I don’t work for someone who doesn’t have enough faith in me to tell me the truth. You’re just going to have to find another tin soldier to play games with, because this is as far as I go.”
Lynch turned to go, but as he walked past Richard, the Texan stood up and grabbed Lynch by the arm.
“Hold up just a minute now, you’re bein’ hasty,” Richard said.
Lynch shook himself free of Richard’s grip and glared up at the taller man. “Put a hand on me again, and I’ll fucking tear it off!”
Richard held up both his hands and took a half step back. He looked at Blake and Steiger. “Gentlemen, let us have the room for a few minutes.”
The two men walked out of the office and shut the doors behind them. Richard watched them leave, then turned back to Lynch, who still had a murderous look in his eye. Richard held his gaze for a moment, then turned and walked over to the bar, where he threw some ice in a glass and added some soda water and a wedge of lime. Finally, Richard turned and leaned against the bar, taking a sip from his glass.
“Y’know, I’m not really much of a drinking man,” he said. “It dulls the senses, and I don’t like that, especially when I’m on the job. But no one trusts a Texan who doesn’t drink, and all these big-dollar boys do business over the rim of a glass, so I play along.”
“It doesn’t bother you that we were lied to by these men?” Lynch asked.
Richard shrugged. “You call it lies, I call it deliberate disinformation. Think of it this way - what if Reynolds and Tully got the drop on us, and we were the ones wound up in the trunk of a car? Sometimes puttin’ your assets in play with the wrong information can be the smarter move.”
Lynch laughed. “You think those two knuckle-draggers would’ve ever gotten the drop on us? Please. They had no chance.”
“I’d expect a smarter attitude from someone like you,” Richard said, a stern look in his eye. “There ain’t such a thing as ‘no chance’ in this business. When two men face off, there’s always the chance the lesser man comes out on top. Best you remember that. You might be good, but you need a little seasoning, yet.”
“That’s some strong language from a guy who still hasn’t explained where he’s earned his stripes. You’re no military man, and you’re no cop. So what are you, Richard?”
The Texan looked down into his glass and swirled the ice around. “My father was an Army Ranger lieutenant, died trying to take Point du Hoc. My uncle was in the OSS, led Jedburgh teams into France. Best they can figure, he died in some Gestapo or SS torture chamber. Never did find out what really happened to him; he just disappeared.
“When I grew up, I was fed a bunch of flag-waving horse-pucky about my old man and his brother, but unlike all the other dimwits I grew up with who were missing fathers or uncles, I never let any of that blind patriotism infect me. In fact, it did just the opposite. I began to turn rotten, to believe the only thing worth my allegiance was cold hard cash. I fell into a bad crowd as I got older. Didn’t realize just how bad things were until it was nearly too late, and I had to claw myself free.
“By the time it was all over, I’d become pretty handy with one of these,” he pulled his coat aside to show the .38 Super on his hip. “I’d also attracted some unusual attention. Someone approached me, asked me if I wanted to do some good with the rest of my life, or if I wanted to rot in a cell until my teeth fell out. I decided I liked my teeth just the way they were.”
“So you became what, a secret agent? A fed?” Lynch asked.
Richard shook his head. “I’m not on anyone’s payroll. Not officially, anyway. If my skills might come in handy, I get an offer. If I like what I hear, then I get a wad of cash and I do the job. Sometimes it’s for the government, sometimes the private sector. Been at this for eight years now, and let me tell you, it sure as hell beats sitting in an office from nine to five every day, wearing a necktie.”
“So you’re a mercenary,” Lynch said.
“I suppose that’s one way to look at it,” Richard replied. “Although I think that definition don’t quite fit. I think of myself as more of a problem solver, a fix-it man, a mechanic who works with a pistol, instead of a socket wrench.”
Lynch walked to the bar, fixed himself his own Scotch on the rocks. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because General Carson didn’t call Steiger after talking to you that morning,” Richard said. “He called me.”
Lynch frowned. “You? How’d he know you?”
“Carson has been feeding...how do I put this? Talent, to the people I do business with most often. He passes along men like you, former military, most of ‘em elite types, Green Berets, Navy SEALS, Rangers, Marines. Men who are experts in guerrilla warfare and covert operations. Your experiences operating on the Recon Teams made you a perfect candidate.”
Lynch froze. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Richard smiled. “You think someone who lives in my world doesn’t know the truth behind Studies and Observations Group? Cambodia? Laos? Carson read me all the highlights of your file over the phone.”
“I still don’t know what you’re talking about, but if such operations did occur, they’d be classified.”
Richard smirked. “Classified? Hell, what do you think the clearance level is on the things I’ve done for the government? A lot of it right here in the United States?”
“So why did Carson call you?”
“Because when Steiger brought me in, I knew I needed more manpower, I needed a partner. I called Carson when I took the job, and I told him that if he had any prospects in California, to let me know when I got to San Francisco. Your timing was dead on, and you fit the bill, so I told him to send you.”
“So this was all lies and more lies,” Lynch said. “You’re not forming a very persuasive argument for me to stay.”
Richard took a sip from his soda water. “Tell me, Lynch. Why did you call Carson? He said you were going stir-crazy down in San Diego, chasing skirts and drinking it up and playing at being a beach bum. Civilian life get too boring for you? Needed that thrill again, the sprint down the edge of the razor blade?”
Lynch thought for a long moment. “A couple of months after I moved to San Diego, I went to Balboa Park, visited the zoo. After a while, I found myself standing in front of the tigers. I looked at those big, deadly bastards, trapped for the rest of their lives in a steel cage, watching little kids and their fucking parents gawking at them, laughing at how lazy they were, sitting around getting fat on raw beef thrown to them by their keepers. Those poor sons of bitches will never again feel what it’s like to take down a gazelle, to stalk and chase and kill their food. I left the zoo and I’ve never been back, because if I ever return, it’s going to be with my gun. I’ll shoot those animals rather than let them sit in a cage for the rest of their lives.”
“Gee, that metaphor was just too subtle,” Richard said, a wry grin on his face. “Can you be a little clearer?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Lynch said, embarrassed. “You get my point. I feel the same way you do; what am I going to do for the rest of my life? Get an office job, marry some blonde with big tits who’ll fatten up after pushin
g out a couple of kids? Mow my lawn every Saturday and have all my friends from the office over to the backyard barbecue every Sunday after church?”
Richard shuddered and put up a hand in front of his face. “Please, stop. I might just have to shoot myself if you keep talking like that.”
Lynch laughed. “So you get my point. I’d had my taste of the lazy life, and either I stayed a beach bum, put on a suit and tie, or I got back into the game, somehow. That’s why I called Carson.”
“Well, if you’re looking for the game, here it is,” Richard said, gesturing around Steiger’s office. “What we’re doing right now, this is it. You’re in. But if you walk away from this, you’re done. No one’s going to contract with a guy who walks out on a job without giving it a hundred percent. Not hours before we walk into the lion’s den, ready to beard that son of a gun. And, if nothing else, there’s Roth.”
“Roth?” Lynch asked.
“If you walk, it’s just me and Blake tonight,” Richard said. “I’m good, darn good, but if this goes sideways - and you know as well as I do, it always does - I’m going to need a partner to get Blake and Roth out of there alive. Now Blake, he’s a trooper. He’s the old guard. He’ll charge through the gates of Hell because he’s Steiger’s man. But Roth, that poor soul’s in so far over his head, we’ll need a nuclear-powered submarine to bring him back to the surface. He doesn’t know it, but he’s counting on us to bring him home. Are you going to leave him out there to die?”
Lynch looked out across Steiger’s office, out the window towards the west, the sun low on the horizon, a gorgeous sunset that Steiger must have been considering during the planning of the building. Then he thought about the jungle, thousands of miles over the horizon, and all the good men left behind because no one came to save them. They didn’t exist. They were never in Laos or Cambodia, remember? And so, they were left to die.
After a long moment, he slugged back the last of his Scotch, set the glass back on the bar, and looked Richard in the eye.
“We’re going to need some more equipment,” Lynch said, and offered Richard a handshake.
Richard shook Lynch’s hand and smiled.
“Welcome to the brotherhood.”
SIXTEEN
Lynch set out from his insertion point at 2200 hours. The cab dropped him off three blocks from the entrance to Golden Gate Park he was going to use. Any closer and it was possible the cab driver would remember a fare going to the park. Lynch walked at an easy pace through the surrounding neighborhood, a musette bag slung over his shoulder, a small duffel bag in his hand. He wore dark blue jeans, a black t-shirt, and a dark brown jacket made from a light canvas material.
Under his jacket he wore the .357 snub in a concealable shoulder holster, the kind plainclothes detectives wore. The .45 automatic was in a holster on his hip, hidden by the jacket, and two spare magazines rode in a leather holder on his belt, along with a sturdy-bladed hunting knife. Lynch carried the slapjack tucked into his back pocket, where it was within easy reach. Inside the musette bag, he carried a pair of thin leather gloves, a balaclava, a military surplus compass, a red-lensed penlight, a compact pair of binoculars, a walkie-talkie, and a makeshift garrote.
The duffel bag contained the M76 submachine gun, several spare magazines, a short pry bar, a light blue nylon jacket in case he needed a quick costume change, and Blake’s handgun, a heavy-framed Smith & Wesson Model 57 revolver, chambered in .41 Magnum. Lynch had hefted the big handgun and imagined the punishment it’d deal his hand dropping the hammer on a full-powered Magnum load. He’d stick with his .45 automatic.
Ten minutes after exiting the cab, Lynch looked both ways to ensure he was unobserved and entered Golden Gate Park from the north. There were still a few people out at this hour, enjoying the cool summer breeze at night. Almost immediately, he moved towards the nearest clump of trees, and with a skill honed through countless hours of playing cat-and-mouse against the NVA, he disappeared. Although Kezar Stadium wasn’t that far away, he wanted to give himself an hour to get in position. At night, the human eye didn’t pick up color or detail very well, but the instincts of the primitive still picked up movement, especially in the peripheral vision.
So Lynch moved slowly, at a snail’s pace. It was still far faster than he’d moved while in-country as part of a Recon Team; there had been missions where they’d taken a step perhaps once a minute, for hours at a time, ears straining for even the slightest sound out there in the jungle. For a moment Lynch felt slightly disoriented, even naked, without a heavy rucksack on his back and his CAR-15 in hand. But eventually the sensation passed, and he continued on, a pace every few seconds, head on a swivel and alert for anyone nearby.
As he moved through the park, he realized there were a lot more people around than he’d first expected. Here and there, figures moved in the shadows, a few of them couples. Lynch passed one homosexual liaison, the two men engaged in furtive coupling, but he saw straight pairings as well. The smell of marijuana smoke was everywhere, and occasionally his ears picked up the clink of a glass bottle or the tinny sound of an empty beer can bouncing off a rock. When he needed to cross the roads cutting through the Park, Lynch saw that, even at this late hour, there was still plenty of traffic, and he had to wait for several minutes before crossing each road in order to avoid being seen by motorists.
As Lynch stepped around a clump of bushes, he heard the soft rustling of cloth and the sound of steel brushing against leather. Lynch froze for a moment, then slowly turned to look at the bush. He saw a prone man concealed in a small pocket hacked out of the bush’s undergrowth. The man had an Army surplus blanket wrapped around him, and wore an Army field jacket. In his hand, the man held a fighting knife, the blade glinting in the moonlight.
“I see you, motherfucker,” the man whispered, his body tensed and ready to strike out from his hidden position.
“Rest easy, brother,” Lynch whispered back. “I’m on patrol tonight. Go back to sleep.”
The man leaned forward a little and lowered the knife. “Is that you, Billy? I thought those gook cocksuckers nailed you in ‘68.”
“I’m sorry man. Billy’s dead.”
The homeless man sagged back onto his bedroll, and Lynch heard a sob. After a moment, Lynch just shook his head and moved on.
Minutes passed, and just before 2300 hours, he saw the security floodlights illuminating the chain-link fence around Kezar Stadium, perhaps fifty yards away. Lynch took a knee and opened his musette bag, then pulled on his gloves and took out the walkie-talkie. He pulled out an earpiece and plugged it into the two-way radio, then tucked the earpiece into his ear and turned the radio on. He made sure it was set to the right channel, then checked his watch, brought the walkie-talkie up to his mouth, and pressed the transmission switch.
“Hangman is at Waypoint Bravo, over.”
A few seconds passed, as static hissed faintly in his ear.
“Cowboy is at Waypoint Delta, over.”
“Copy that, proceed as planned.”
Lynch clipped the walkie-talkie to his belt, and was making sure the earpiece’s cord ran freely between the radio and his ear, when he heard the faint rustle of grass behind him, and the unmistakable snick of a switchblade snapping open.
“Hey, faggot, what’re you doing with that duffel bag? You going camping?”
“I think faggot’s gonna pitch a tent in the woods. Get it man? Faggot’s gonna pitch a tent?”
Cursing himself silently for his inattention, Lynch turned slowly and looked over his shoulder. Two young men stood a few feet to his right. One held an open switchblade in his hands, the blade gleaming bright, while the other held a narrow length of lead pipe as long as his forearm. They were both thin and unsteady on their feet, probably drunk on cheap booze. Penniless, they were trawling the park, looking for someone alone, someone who might have some money, or something that could be traded for cash. With his musette and duffel bags, Lynch must have looked like a promising target.
He made the decision in a heartbeat. Rising smoothly to his feet, his hands went under his jacket.
“Okay guys, be cool. My wallet’s right here. I got sixty bucks in cash.”
The knife man took a half step forward. It was all Lynch needed. His left hand pulled the hunting knife from its sheath, while his right hand emerged from his jacket with the slapjack. He lashed out, aiming for the knife hand, and the switchblade went spinning off into the brush as he broke its owner’s wrist.
The knife man opened his mouth and drew in breath to scream, but he never got the chance. Lynch stepped in and drove the hunting knife sideways through the man’s neck, burying the blade to the hilt. The scream emerged as a thin, gurgling whine.
“Fuck! Fuck! Oh, Fuck!”
Pipe man tripped on his own feet as he spun around and tried to run, not even attempting to avenge his dying friend. He sprawled across the ground, his lead pipe tumbling from his fingers. Pipe man scrambled to his hands and knees, crawling away as fast as he could.
“Fuck, man! Oh, Jesus, Fuck!”
Lynch ripped his knife free and knocked the dying man down, then ran after the crawler. In a moment he stood over his prey and delivered a vicious blow to the back of pipe man’s head with the slapjack. Instantly, the man’s arms and legs gave out, and he thumped face-first into the grass. Lynch wiped the slapjack clean on the man’s shirt, then pocketed the weapon. With his free hand, Lynch grabbed the unconscious man by the collar and belt, then dragged him into the brush before he grabbed pipe man’s hair, pulled his head back, and cut his throat. As dark blood pulsed from the wound and soaked into the ground, Lynch walked back to his first victim and made sure he was dead, cleaning his knife on the man’s pants leg before rolling him behind another bush.
“Fucking typical,” he whispered to himself.
Lynch’s mind returned to the homeless vet with the knife, only a hundred yards away. If the police found him around here when the bodies were discovered, the guy was fucked. Lynch checked his watch, cursed, then set off through the woods at a jog. In a minute, he’d returned to the man’s sleeping spot. The vet was huddled against the trunk of a tree, his knife at the ready, his eyes locked on Lynch as he approached.
San Francisco Slaughter Page 8
