He slumped forward onto the wheel, and wrenched it to the side as he fell over the console and onto the passenger seat. His head bounced up and down off the armrest as the car fishtailed. They bumped over potholes and slammed into an electricity post on the side of the road.
Haruki grabbed at Adam. He dragged him across the two seats, out of the rear door, and into the ditch. Then he pushed Adam to the ground. Sharp granules of gravel dug into Adam’s hands and his knees. He yelped, and Haruki passed him the flask.
“Have a swig of this.” He pushed a mobile phone into Adam’s pocket. “You’re going to have to run. The boss wants to see you.” Haruki puffed, “Only one number in the phone. The second you get out of here, the second you’re somewhere safe, stay there, call. The boss’ll find you. I’ll distract them.”
“Wait,” said Adam, but Haruki was already tracking off in one direction, and he waved for Adam to go the other way.
The air zinged with bullets.
They slammed into the ground, sending up puffs of gravel and dust.
Adam took off in the opposite direction to Haruki and stayed low on the embankment. He ran bent over until he came to a stream crossed by a bridge.
He dived in and wedged himself in between the bridge and the bank overlooking the water.
There was a scream, a few shouts, and some more gunshots. Then Adam heard the revving of an engine, and the other black sedan thundered onto the bridge overhead, its engine whined, the gears set low. They stopped on the bridge.
The car’s occupants hopped out and shone a bright flashlights down into the depths of the water.
“He can’t have gone too far,” said a voice directly above Adam.
Adam bit his knuckles.
“Barefoot,” said another voice, “Bleeding, too. If we come back in the daylight, we’ll be able to see the tracks.”
“We don’t have time. We need him now.”
“You go that way.”
They set out to find him. A couple of black desert boots scrambled down the slope next to Adam. He stared at them.
The other man cast a flashlight around under the bridge.
Adam tensed.
The flashlight beam passed just above him.
A cough was coming on. He held it.
The boots scrabbled on the concrete and slid down the hill.
“Nothing down here.”
And then, they tramped back up the slope. Another flash of the beam, but Adam’s head and hands were tucked in under the girders and hidden behind his body.
He willed himself into invisibility.
The men climbed back into the car and the doors slammed shut. The car moved on further down the road.
Adam breathed, but he stayed still for another hour until the car passed by again and again, twice more, and then disappeared .
An eternity later, the sun came up. Adam uncurled himself. His wounds screamed for attention, and as he unfurled his body the scabs on his back cracked, sending irritable pain signals to his brain.
“Don’t black out, don’t black out!” he told himself, and pulled the cell phone from his pocket. He found the one number in the contacts and dialed.
It answered on the first ring. “Haruki,” a woman’s voice said. No voice modulator this time. Interesting.
“No, it’s Winters. I think Haruki’s dead,” said Adam.
“Marlowe?” she asked. Her voice was crisp. It had great tonal range. Was it the same as the deep male voice he’d heard in the other calls? Just unmodulated?
“Dead too.”
“Shit,” she said. “Where are you?”
Adam crawled out from under the bridge and stepped onto the road, the sharp blacktop dug into his feet, which were already torn up by the gravel last night. He wandered a little way, along the road and stared along its vast emptiness.
“I’m at a bridge. There’s a creek or a river. No sign of anything else. But I think their bodies are down the road, the way I came.”
“Wait at the bridge,” she said. “I’ll find you. There’s only so many options available to you.”
“How will I know it’s you?” he said.
“You’ll recognize me,” she replied, and for the first time Adam registered something in her voice, something familiar.
He strained his memory, but couldn’t quite place it. It was the intonation, the way she said ‘me’.
“I’ll be driving a pink Cadillac and waving hundred-dollar bills around.”
Adam laughed at this, out loud.
“I’m not joking, Adam,” she said, and he knew in those four words exactly who the voice belonged to.
His mother.
Hannah Winters.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Ray Hammer and Solomani Rodriguez watched from the shadow of the buildings across the street as the EMTs arrived and stretchered Jacinta out. They hadn’t covered her face, which Ray took as a good sign, and he said so to Rodriguez.
“She’s on a respirator, though,” said Rodriguez, and then crossed himself and looked down at his trembling hands. “I didn’t mean it, you know,” he said.
Hammer didn’t answer. He’d seen people do things they didn’t mean his whole life, and most of them ended up with death, or worse, and he wasn’t prepared to forgive them for that bullshit anymore.
‘Not meaning’ to do something just wasn’t enough. It wasn’t an excuse. If it happens, you own it, and Rodriguez was just beginning to learn that lesson.
Once the ambulance peeled off down the street, Hammer clapped Rodriguez on the shoulder. “Take me to her,” he said.
Rodriguez shook his head. “I don’t understand. Who?”
“To your boss,” said Ray.
“My boss is the same as your boss, Inspector Whitcombe.”
“Don’t give me that shit,” said Ray. “Take me to Okai Hatashi.”
“She’s dead,” said Rodriguez, “You already know that.”
Hammer raised an eyebrow, and squeezed his fingers tight on Rodriguez’s bicep and pushed the nose of the Smith and Wesson into the big man’s back. He waited with the patience that only a journalist and a soldier learn to have.
Sweat trickled down Rodriguez’s face. It could have just been the warm day, but his brow wrinkled and his lips quivered, and then opened and then shut, and then said, “Okay, I’ll take you to her, but . . .”
“But what?” said Ray.
“How did you . . .” he stopped himself.
“I was asked to watch her. I didn’t just watch her on the day she was kidnapped. I watched her for a week leading up to that. I watched the people coming and going, both military and civilian. I watched the people from the protest movement come in and out of that house, and I watched soldiers come in and out of that house, not just everyday grunts but high-ranking officials. You were there a few times yourself.”
Rodriguez shuddered.
“What?” asked Hammer.
“She might not be exactly what you’re expecting,” he said, “Just a heads-up from one ex-Marine to another.”
“What do you mean?”
But Rodriguez just smiled a knowing smile. “Let’s go.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Adam picked up another flat stone and skimmed it across the river. Ripples spread from the impact crater, and then were consumed by the small waves and the current. Insects skated across the surface and dragonflies touched down for a quick drink or to drown their prey. Adam didn’t know enough about insects to be sure, but he knew they were brutal.
He could walk back to the crash site but then he’d know for sure what had happened to Haruki and he wasn’t ready. He’d liked them. It was bad enough he’d seen Marlowe’s head explode. And if he walked back, the boss, his mother, might miss him when she arrived. He picked up another rock, swung his arm, and watched as it arched in the air, sunlight glinting off its flat surface.
He shook his head and muttered to himself. “My mother. After everything...”
It made no
sense. Did she want him dead? He picked up another rock and launched it.
Probably.
He dipped his toe in the water. It was cold, so instead of going in he scooped a handful of water and ran it over his forehead, then scooped another handful and tried to pour it down his back from above his shoulder. It dribbled and trickled and stung his wounds, but most of it missed and pattered on the creek bank.
A hum came from the road above. Adam looked up.
A dark gray sedan throbbed angrily on the bridge, and a tall man stepped out of the car and stood with a rifle raised to his shoulder, he aimed down at Adam.
The sun reflected off the gray paintwork and into Adam’s eyes. He raised a hand to shield his face. Adam imagined himself at the other end of the sight, a rabbit sitting in the crosshairs, tiny, defenseless . . . and about to be dead.
The birds chirped. Insect wings buzzed and fluttered and dipped down to the water. Adam glanced at the ripples on the surface and the light reflecting in them, glittering. His sour breath reached up to his nose and he tasted the tang of life.
“Adam?” said the man in a way that was not at all a question, rather an affirmation.
If Adam said yes, the man would pull the trigger. If he said no, the man would probably pull the trigger. There was no right answer, but one of them led to a second more life and Adam decided to take it.
“Who?” he yelled back.
The man lowered the rifle a fraction. “Adam Winters,” he said again, this time with slightly more inflection at the end in case the kid missed the question, “Are you Adam Winters?”
“No,” said Adam.
The man made a signal to someone in the car and took a few long, violent steps towards the bank and came down to Adam.
Adam held up his hands, but the man grabbed him by the throat and flung him to the dirt and kicked him in the ribs. “Are. You. Adam. Winters?” clearly, he’d run out of patience and was done playing games.
“No,” said Adam, again.
He was kicked.
Again, he said no.
Again, he was kicked.
Again, he was asked and said no.
“Then what the fuck is this on your forehead?” The man grabbed Adam and flung him over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry.
Adam kicked out and scratched at the back of the tall guy’s neck.
It made no difference. He hauled Adam up to the waiting car.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Hammer and Rodriguez approached a low-set building on the edge of town. It was made out of a pale brick, the kind that would look a lot better covered over, rendered, painted, but which would still keep out the heat and hold the cool either way. A large concrete parking lot surrounded the building, it was ugly and full of tumbleweeds, cracked concrete, and old bricks, with pieces of rubbish fluttering around in the wind.
Rodriguez raised his hand, and Hammer stopped behind him. They kept their distance up on a hill overlooking the place. There was movement inside. Two thugs guarded the doors.
“She won’t be expecting us,” said Rodriguez.
A mottled green Humvee pulled up in the parking lot at the front in the farthest space from the house, and then another and another.
“Have you got a radio?” asked Ray Hammer.
Rodriguez shook his head.
“Okai Hatashi is the name of the organization. The woman you saw kidnapped, she was one of the mouthpieces. She went by the name Okai Hatashi, but she wasn’t the only one.”
“So, she is dead?” said Ray. He’d been lied to so often he wasn’t sure he’d recognize the truth when he heard it.
“That’s neither here nor there,” said Rodriguez as some more Humvee’s arrived and parked.
A black Taurus with a DOD license plate stopped right in front of where they perched on the hill, and Whitcombe stepped out of the driver’s seat. He was carried a large radio and spoke into it as he looked up at them and walked in their direction. Hammer unslung the G36 and laid it on the ground and knelt beside it. Whitcombe came up the slope, and looked up from over his double chin, he waved at Hammer and Rodriguez.
“Intelligence says the codes are about to be exchanged. We want to be inside before that happens.”
Ray watched over the parking lot as marines stepped out of the cars and sheltered behind their armored vehicles. There was movement inside, and the guards on the doors had their weapons at the ready. Ray moved along the edge of the ridge, he stayed low. Around the side of the house, a long pink Cadillac was parked, the driver’s hat on the dash. A radio started up somewhere inside the building, Top 40 music. It sounded like cats fighting.
Ray pulled out some earplugs, placed one in one ear, the ear closest to the house, he kept the other one in his free hand and then slid it into his coin pocket next to the .38 Special. He wanted to see and hear what was going on. He turned back to Whitcombe, who was now kneeling, his body supported by his great paunch, and his jowl speaking into the radio. “All units in position?”
There was an affirmative over the radio from several commanders. Whitcombe looked up at him.
“I’m sorry, Ray. Has to be done.”
Hammer didn’t comment, just picked up his field glasses and looked down to where all the troops gathered around the building.
“On my command,” said Whitcombe into the radio.
He shouldn’t have been commanding them. He was a US deputy marshal, not a military commander, and yet here he was, seemingly in control of the Joint Region Marianas command structure.
“There’ll be a human exchange,” said Whitcombe, looking up at Ray. “Intelligence has it that they’re sending a boy with the codes. That’s why we want to be in the house. We don’t want to have to kill him. He’s just a kid.”
“The hacker?” asked Rodriguez.
“Yeah,” said Whitcombe, and he gave the order to go in.
Hammer lifted the field glasses to his eyes again, although he didn’t need them.
The marines moved forward with purpose and direction, their M16s raised, their voices shouting, and the two men guarding the door were down on the ground in a matter of seconds.
It was way too easy.
And then, the windows were flung open, and Ray Hammer grabbed the back of Whitcombe’s shirt and Rodriguez’s pants and pulled them both back down behind the dirt hill so only their faces were sticking over.
A spray of submachine gun fire cut into the bank where they’d just been and mowed down Whitcombe’s troops.
There was screaming in the silence.
Then another burst of fire as the two guards who’d been on the ground stood up, reclaimed their weapons and fired into the few remaining marines.
There were more screams, a couple more gunshots, and then silence.
A perfect ambush.
“Jesus fucking Christ, they were expecting us!” whispered Whitcombe.
“Okai Hatashi?” asked Ray.
“In you go, and find out,” said Whitcombe.
Ray snapped a sharp fist across the big man’s face.
Whitcombe’s neck jerked back and his eyes glazed and refocused.
“What the hell, Ray?” hissed Rodriguezi as Hammer clamped a hand over Whitcombe’s mouth so he didn’t cry out.
“Whoever’s in there just slaughtered a two marine squads,” said Hammer. “There’s no way we’re going in there, not yet, anyway. We wait and we watch, and we see what happens from here.”
He released the pressure on Whitcombe’s mouth.
“You’re under my command,” hissed Whitcombe. “I brought you out here. You’re working for me.”
Ray put two fingers into a pressure point on the back of Whitcombe’s neck, “I don’t work for anyone. I’m retired, if you don’t remember.”
And then, a black Yukon rolled down the road and pulled up a hundred yards from the house. The lights flashed twice, and then the front lights of the house flashed twice in response.
The two men guarding the place stepped to
the side and then out away from the house, moving through the parking lot towards the vehicle.
The Yukon’s rear doors opened. And two suited-up men wearing sunglasses stepped out from the vehicle, guns drawn, leveled at the approaching guards. And then one of the guys in suits and sunglasses hauled a skinny kid out of the backseat.
Ray raised the field glasses. “What’s that on his head?” he said.
Whitcombe snatched the field glasses from Ray.
Ray snatched them back.
It was a bloody mess, but there were numbers tattooed there.
Whitcombe grabbed at Hammer’s arm, “They’re the fucking codes! Shoot him, dammit!”
Rodriguez raised the G36 to his eye and sighted the kid.
Ray put a hand out and pushed the muzzle down. “You’re a terrible shot, Rodriguez.”
The man nodded and handed the G36 over.
“Shoot him, dammit! Shoot him now! If they get those codes, even if they write them down or photograph them, we’re screwed! We’ll be in World War III. I don’t know who they’re working for. Chinese, Russians, fucking North Koreans. I don’t know. Fucking Palestinians; I don’t know,” said Whitcombe. “Just shoot!”
Ray lined the kid up. The tattoo on his forehead bounced in the scope, and he framed the kid’s teary eyes, and noted the acne on his face, the sad expression worn with no attempt to hide it as he trudged forward, held by one of the men.
“He’s just a kid,” said Ray.
“I don’t fucking care. He’s a kid with nuclear codes tattooed to his forehead. Shoot him,” said Whitcombe.
Hammer felt his stomach clench. His jaw set. He fingered the trigger, looked down at the kid’s frowning face, scanned down over to his feet and then back up.
Hammer pulled his eye back from the sight and took in the whole situation. The two men who had guarded the door were almost up to the kid. Ray read their lips.
“How do we know the codes are correct?” said one of the men about to receive the child.
“You have to trust us,” said the guy, pushing the kid along.
Strike (A Ray Hammer Novel Book 3) Page 7
