The Lawless Kind

by Hilton, Matt

  ‘He is my son and his place is by my side,’ he said. ‘He must learn this valuable lesson. As must you.’

  Benjamin squealed in response.

  ‘For God’s sake, you’re frightening him. Can’t you see . . . ?’

  Molina forced her down, pushing the back of her head towards her knees. His next words addressed Benjamin directly. ‘Do you see, son? She is weak. You must forget her now.’

  ‘I want my mommy!’ Benjamin howled.

  ‘This . . . this whore is nothing to you. She is nothing.’ He placed the knife tip against the prominent cervical vertebrae exposed by her bent neck. ‘Forget all about her because you will never see her again. Believe me, son, you should not care.’

  ‘Jorge,’ Kirstie pleaded. ‘He can’t possibly understand you. Please, I don’t care what you do to me, but not in front of Benjamin. You will scar him for life.’

  ‘The only one scarred will be you.’

  ‘How can you expect your son to love you if he sees you murder his mom?’

  ‘It’s not his love I want,’ Molina snarled. ‘He must grow up to be a great and ruthless leader of men, the only way he will survive in this damned country. He will understand this lesson when he comes of age. He’ll know what it means to be the son of Jorge Molina, and he will act accordingly. It is the only way!’

  ‘Please.’ Kirstie now addressed the shrew-faced woman who held her child. ‘Take him away. If you’ve pity in your heart, take Benjamin out of here.’

  ‘Do that,’ Molina snapped at the woman, ‘and yours will be the next head I cut off.’

  Kirstie could see nothing of the woman but her shoes, and they barely scuffled in place. Kirstie understood how terrified the woman was of Jorge’s threat, but she hoped that her instincts to nurture and protect a child might outweigh the fear. ‘Please take him away,’ she cried.

  The woman didn’t move. Benjamin must have been struggling because Kirstie heard a harsh command spoken in Spanish.

  ‘Benjamin.’ Kirstie tried to offer a soothing tone, but her voice cracked on the final syllable. ‘Close your eyes, baby. Don’t watch. Turn your head away and close your eyes.’

  ‘No, Benny! You will watch.’ To the woman, Molina said in Spanish, ‘Bring him to me. Now. I will not tell you again.’

  Kirstie struggled against the inevitable, but there was nothing she could do. Molina commanded the woman to hold her and she felt hands pressing down on her skull. She could feel the trembling in the woman’s fingers against her scalp. She thought that she might be able to pull loose of her handler, but Molina stood over her, using his knees to hold her in position. He had taken Benjamin into his arms so the boy had no option but bear witness. But there was worse to come, and Molina’s words brought back the terrifying conclusion of the nightmarish dream she’d suffered two nights ago.

  ‘Here, boy, take hold of the knife. You can help me.’

  Chapter 46

  Harvey was sitting in the back corner of the room in which he’d been beaten. His hands and ankles were bound. Blood glistened on his chin from where he’d taken a blow to the mouth. Vivid welts decorated his chest, shoulders and thighs, purple against his dark skin. His silk designer shorts now looked like rags, stained and rumpled by his ordeal. Thankfully he was still alive, and appeared to be the least injured of my friends. McTeer was in the opposite corner, his face so bruised he was barely recognisable, nose crushed, eyelids swollen to the size of baseballs. Velasquez lay on the floor between the two, and he was unconscious, breathing raggedly through split lips. Bound as he was at wrists and ankles, he was collapsed in a tortuous position that didn’t help his ability to breathe: if he wasn’t moved soon, he could expire through lack of oxygen. Harvey and McTeer would have gone to his assistance if they could, but a trio of thugs with rifles threatened them. One of Molina’s men also carried a stave, and its width corresponded to some of the wounds on my friends’ naked bodies. The stave was dark with blood. I’d no regret whatsoever about killing that piece of shit, only that his death came too quick.

  I stepped up behind him, placed the muzzle of my SIG to the nape of his neck and blasted a hole in his spinal column.

  As the first dropped to the floor, I shot one of the rifle-wielders in the face and turned for number three. Marshall beat me to the punch and placed a round through the man’s heart before his mouth could fully form an elongated look of shock as his allies fell. I was so enraged at the state of my friends, I put another round in his head as he went down: waste of a bullet, but it brought me some satisfaction.

  ‘Thank the Lord,’ Harvey said weakly as I bolted for Velasquez. Harvey tried to straighten, a show of strength that simply wasn’t there. He sank down once more, even as Marshall brought out his dagger and approached him.

  I pulled Velasquez round so he was in a more comfortable pose, and watched as his mouth opened and blood-thick saliva pooled on the floor. He gasped a couple of times, spat weakly, and his breathing grew less ragged. He didn’t wake up, but his eyelids fluttered like beetles’ wings. By then, Marshall was done cutting Harvey free and moved to assist McTeer. I touched Velasquez on the forehead; my fingertips found it cold and clammy with sweat. He was in a bad way.

  Harvey clawed his way up, palms flat against the corner angle of the walls, barely capable of standing. His thigh muscles cramped visibly, jumping and bunching painfully. Yet he persevered and staggered towards me. I stood to meet him and supported him against me.

  ‘Molina took Kirstie . . .’ His voice was thick with shame, as if it was his personal failure that had put Kirstie into Molina’s hands.

  ‘Don’t worry about that for now. We have to get you guys out of here first. If Val doesn’t get help, he’s going to die.’

  ‘I can get the others out,’ Harvey said, and he placed his cupped palms over his face. I thought that he was weeping, but didn’t comment. In situations of stress, particularly during torture, even the toughest of people can’t hold back the emotions. Soldiers who’d face an army single-handed were prone to weeping, and it was no less a measure of the man, or maybe it only made them more admirable.

  ‘You’re in no state to help yourself, Harve. Marshall?’

  Marshall was helping McTeer to his feet, the older man having similar problems to mine when the circulation returned to my extremities. The notion that Marshall had once been our enemy was lost on him, as it was to the others, and it showed in the way he thanked Marshall profusely. Marshall glanced my way.

  ‘That vehicle back in the warehouse: it’s yours, right?’

  He slapped a pocket on his jacket. ‘Got the keys right here.’

  ‘I’m going to need you to get the guys to it, they can’t make it on their own.’

  ‘Hold on, who died and made you the fucking boss?’

  ‘Don’t start with the bullshit. This is what you came to help me do, get the guys out safely. But Molina has taken Kirstie and her boy. I’m not leaving without them.’

  Marshall shrugged. ‘Your choice, your funeral. Go for it, Hunter.’

  ‘You said you had two men left alive. That still the case?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Get them to go round the back and cover you as you leave. I’m assuming that more of Molina’s men will be out there. Velasquez needs medical attention, and you can’t afford to be penned inside.’

  ‘How are you planning on getting out?’

  ‘Don’t know. But it won’t be without Kirstie and Benjamin. Plus, Rink’s still in here someplace and I’m not leaving him behind either.’

  ‘Rink’s here too?’ Harvey visibly relaxed with relief. ‘We heard from those assholes–’ he aimed a bare foot at the three dead guards – ‘that he’d been killed in the mountains when you were captured.’

  ‘From what I’ve learned in the meantime, Rink’s a long way from dead. He cleared the way here for us, and I’m guessing it’s still safe to go back to the warehouse. Will you and Mac be strong enough to carry Velasquez between you? Marshall w
ill need his hands free just in case I’m wrong.’

  Harvey and McTeer shared a nod.

  ‘We’ll manage,’ McTeer said. ‘He ain’t heavy . . .’

  The strains of that old Hollies song played in my head, but only briefly. I moved to help them pick up Velasquez, the guys taking an arm each over their shoulders. Velasquez’s head lolled briefly, but then it lifted and he spat more bloody muck from his throat. He grinned through broken teeth. ‘Still beats patrolling a fucking mall for a living,’ he wheezed.

  Marshall shook his head, disbelief. He checked me out. ‘Shit, you look like something out of Die Hard. But even Bruce Willis had a vest.’

  ‘Is that your way of telling me to look after myself?’

  He raised an eyebrow, but his lips twitched momentarily, almost a smile.

  ‘Once I get these lads out of here, I’ll see about making it back for you and the others,’ he said.

  ‘No. Don’t do that. Make sure Velasquez gets to a doctor. The others too,’ I said against Harvey and McTeer’s objections. ‘If Kirstie and Benjamin are still alive, I’ll find a way. If they’re not . . . well, the fight won’t end here.’

  ‘Like I said, it’s your funeral. My job’s done here as far as Molina and Six is concerned.’ His singular gaze fell on the tattoo on my bare shoulder. ‘I’ll defer to Arrowsake if it’s all right by you.’

  ‘I’m not here on Arrowsake’s behalf.’

  ‘Think again, Hunter. Maybe you aren’t, but they were there for you. Who do you think hit Thomas Caspar and derailed Regis’s mission here?’

  When I’d learned of Thomas Caspar’s assassination, I’d immediately spotted the connection to Stephen Vincent, in the persona of Vince Everett, whose favourite method of killing happened to be a guitar-wire garrotte. I couldn’t figure out how he’d become involved, or why, but the answer was staring me in the face. Whereas Rink and I had all but severed our ties to the assassination bureau that was Arrowsake, and Walter had sworn to distance himself, it was apparent that the old man had called in a favour. What did that mean for the future? Nothing good, I bet.Yet Marshall had warned me about looking too keenly at gift horses and he was right. I should be thankful that they’d helped turn the tide in my favour, and not worry about future implications. Hell, maybe I wouldn’t have a future. I still had to survive a nest of armed killers and get Kirstie, Benjamin and Rink out alive. Bruce Willis had his lucky vest. Me? All I had was a pair of dead man’s trousers, two guns and enough rage to burn Agua Prieta to cinders. I hoped that would prove enough.

  I watched the others leave. The gunfire, more random now, was in the opposite direction, beyond a second door that the three guards had been watching. It was the only reason we’d been able to sneak up on them; they’d thought all the fighting was at the front of the building and had missed our stealthy approach. I wondered who was shooting. Marshall’s two friends – Mitchell and Paulson – were outside as far as I knew, but the gunfire was inside the building. It had to be Rink continuing his running battle, unless Regis was also forced to fight his way out after losing favour with Molina. Caspar, his boss, had died. I hoped that Regis would earn a similar fate, but not on the receiving end of a guitar-string noose. Given the opportunity, I’d gladly slay him as coldly as he had the coyote back when all this began. Then again, that was too good for the bastard: if I could find a container to lock him inside, then park him in some hidden corner of the desert then I’d do that too.

  Focusing my rage on him might sound wrong, because it was likely I’d have come into Mexico on Kirstie’s behalf without Regis having any part in the outcome, but it was because of him that we’d been tracked in – obviously he’d been the one to have our van fitted with a homing device – making it necessary to ditch the van and find alternative passage from Hermosillo. If that hadn’t happened, Rink and I wouldn’t have been separated from the others, and none of them would have been in this fix now. Regis had earned my enmity, almost as much as Molina had.

  No.

  Molina deserved to die more brutally than Regis, and it had nothing to do with the fact he’d beaten the hide off me with a wet rope. It was that he intended murdering his ex-wife, and perhaps already had.

  Following the sounds of gunfire, I raced on, desperately hoping that I’d be in time to save Kirstie.

  Chapter 47

  Benjamin was sobbing, and the boy’s distress was more heartbreaking to Kirstie than her own imminent death.

  ‘Just hold the knife the way I showed you,’ Molina yelled at the child. Out of her line of sight, Molina was losing patience with their son. Kirstie saw shadows writhe across the floor below her, knew that a struggle was happening between the two. A meaty slap followed, and Benjamin howled in pain.

  ‘Do not touch him!’ Kirstie’s scream was strident, yet held power itself. ‘You have no right to strike him like that. Leave him alone, you bastard.’

  More jostling ensued, with Molina’s body thumping against Kirstie’s lower back and thighs. ‘Take the knife. Like that! Yes, that’s it. Now press down.’

  ‘I don’t want to . . .’

  Kirstie screamed again.

  Molina kicked her over and she went down on her side, her back to him. Shouting and crying competed in volume. Kirstie struggled to roll over, to see what was happening. The woman who had been controlling her, holding her down while Molina attempted to coax Benjamin into stabbing her in the spine, stood back with a look of relief. She had no desire to be there, or to help in Kirstie’s murder, and she’d just been offered some respite. For the first time, Kirstie recognised from the woman’s uniform that she was a Border Control official. When the woman had first accepted bribes to turn a blind eye against cartel activities, she couldn’t have envisioned anything like this.

  ‘You have to do something,’ Kirstie yelled at her.

  The woman continued to edge away, shaking her head, her gaze switching from Kirstie to Molina, then back again.

  ‘Yeah. You can get the hell outta my way.’

  The new voice struck silence into the room.

  Kirstie turned to see a large figure silhouetted in the doorway. Bewildered, she watched as a hand plucked the border official off the floor by the collar of her shirt, and flung her bodily out of the room. ‘You know what’s good for you, get the hell outta here,’ said the new arrival. The woman staggered as she was propelled into the corridor, then she jerked upright, took one last wide-eyed glance into the room, and fled. Her footsteps echoed down the corridor, staccato sounds against the sudden hush.

  Jared Rington moved inside.

  He barely glanced at Kirstie, his full attention on Molina and Benjamin.

  ‘It would do you good to set the boy aside and face me like a man,’ Rink said.

  ‘You’re supposed to be dead.’ Molina stared at Rink with a look to curdle cream, as if Rink’s survival was a personal slight.

  ‘I was hoping the same about you. Now set the boy aside.’

  ‘So you can shoot me?’

  ‘Yup. That’s the idea.’

  ‘No, no, no,’ Kirstie cried. ‘You’ll hit Benjamin.’

  Rink gave her a warning glance, immediately returning his attention to Molina. ‘Let the boy go, it serves no purpose for you to endanger him.’

  Kirstie finally got her backside beneath her, and struggled up to stand and face her ex-husband. She saw now why Rink had chosen the words he had. Molina was shielding himself behind the boy, and the knife he’d recently threatened her with was now angled towards Benjamin’s throat.

  ‘The boy is useless to me. My whore of a wife must have conceived him with another man, because I doubt this coward came from my loins.’ Molina’s wrist twitched, and he appeared to be on the cusp of sinking the knife through Benjamin’s tender throat. ‘So . . . go on. Shoot me if you want, but I’ll kill him first.’

  ‘Jorge! How could you?’ Kirstie wailed. She made to move forward, a last-ditch effort at wresting her son free.

  ‘Get back!’
Molina adjusted the blade tip so that it was nestled in the soft spot beneath Benjamin’s right ear. ‘I’m warning you both, another move and I will stab him.’

  ‘No you won’t. You’re a punk coward, Molina, and you won’t give up your hostage like that. If you stab him, I swear I won’t shoot you; I’ll tear you to pieces with my bare hands. I’ll make you suffer in ways you can’t imagine.’

  ‘I don’t fear you, big man. I’m afraid of no man.’

  ‘You should be,’ Rink said, and he slid out a large knife.

  He didn’t lower his gun; it was aimed directly at Molina’s face and the cartel boss juggled Benjamin around to offer further cover. The boy kicked and squirmed. He reared backwards so that he could see his mom, wailing for her to help.

  ‘Here’s what’s going to happen,’ Molina said. ‘I’m leaving, and I’m taking the boy with me. Now stand aside or I will cut the little brat’s throat.’

  Rink’s face hardened, the blood draining from his features. His mouth was so tight, it was as if someone had pressed a thumb to his top lip and left its indelible mark there. A scar on his chin was bone white. He didn’t give any ground.

  ‘You’re going nowhere,’ he said.

  ‘Then you’re going to have to shoot me,’ Molina challenged.

  ‘Pick a knee,’ Rink said and lowered his aim.

  ‘Shoot me and I swear . . .’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, so you said.’

  Rink didn’t squeeze the trigger. Shooting Molina in the leg would most assuredly cause him to stab the boy in anger. Molina understood the reason for his reluctance and hoped to capitalise on it.

  ‘Get out of my way.’ He wrapped an arm round Benjamin, holding the boy tightly to his chest.