BAD DEEDS: A Dylan Hunter Thriller (Dylan Hunter Thrillers) (3 page)

Dylan looked up from the menu. “Used to. Deer, mostly. Did I just hear Sherry say you bagged a bear?”

Denny beamed. “I sure did. You know where Yellow Hammer Road goes off 666?

“Sure.”

“You go all the way up Yellow Hammer to 209, then keep going to where it turns into Forest Service Road. You park there and hike on in, and down near Otter Creek you’ll find lots of bear. I nailed a five-hundred pounder a few months back.”

“That must have been a thrill.”

“You better believe. Hell of a thing for us to haul it outta there, though, let me tell you. I had to borrow my brother’s F-350, and bring along—”

He was interrupted by a sudden commotion. At the entrance, a man stood holding the door open for two women, who hurried inside. None wore coats or gloves.

They all looked scared.

Annie noticed that Dylan had already pushed back from the table and was poised to leap to his feet.

The man, in dress shirt and tie over slacks and wing-tip shoes, moved quickly toward the counter. “Sherry, I need you to call the state police.”

She dumped the silverware on the counter with a clatter. “What? You okay?”

Denny slid off his stool and intercepted him. “What the hell happened, Ed?”

“WildJustice,” the man said. “A bunch of them just stormed into our office and started smashing things with clubs. Lucky for us we were in the back on coffee break when they came in. We didn’t have time to grab our cell phones or do anything except run out the back to my car. Lucky I had my keys in my pants pocket. We got out of there fast. But in the mirror I saw one of them run out to the road and watch us drive off.” He glanced back at the door. “I’m afraid they may come after us.”

One of the women, a young redhead in her twenties, hugged her bare arms around her body and stood at the front window. “I don’t see them. Maybe they decided not to follow.”

Annie watched as Dylan got up and approached the man.

“Excuse me. What’s ‘WildJustice’?”

“You know—that environmental gang,” the other woman interjected. A thin brunette in her fifties, she stood trembling, one hand on the back of a chair to steady herself. “The paper calls them ‘ecoterrorists.’”

“Sons of bitches,” Denny said. “They spike our trees, wreck construction equipment. Set fire to sawmills—the one up in Kane last fall. Cost my brother-in-law his job. Tree-hugger bastards are tryin’ to put us all outta work.”

“And now they’re after fracking companies. Like ours,” Ed said. “They cornered a couple of our workers out on a drilling pad a couple of days ago and roughed them up. One of them needed stitches … Helen, please get away from the window! You don’t want them to see you.”

Annie stood and walked over to the older brunette. She put a hand on the woman’s quivering arm. “Why don’t you sit down and tell us what’s going on.”

The trio looked at each other and moved to a table. Dylan, Annie, and Denny pulled up extra chairs; Dylan’s faced the door. As they were settling in, Sherry emerged from the kitchen and came over. Annie saw the worry on her face.

“Cops are all tied up with a big truck accident in Tidioute. Say they’ll be down here soon as they can. It may be half an hour, though.”

“Great,” Ed said. “I hope they don’t spot my car. I parked around the far end of the building.”

“Why don’t we start with some introductions,” Dylan suggested.

They went through the formalities quickly. Ed Gerardi was manager of an Adair Energy clerical office, three miles south. The younger woman, Helen Stutts, and the older one, Corrine Ringwald, were staff. Adair, Ed explained, was a natural gas exploration-and-development company.

“It’s bad enough with the EPA threatening to shut us down with a fracking moratorium,” Ed said. “Now we have to deal with these nutcases, too. Over a hundred of them arrived here last week. From all over the country. A lot of them came in on a chartered bus. They’re camping out in the forest somewhere.”

Sherry frowned. “How can those hippies afford to charter a bus?”

“Buddy of mine manages the doughnut shop up in Warren,” Denny said. “A few days ago, a bunch of ’em wandered in. Says he overheard one of ’em say, ‘Don’t worry, chow down—our sponsor in Washington is picking up the tab.’”

“What? Are you serious?”

“What the man told me, Ed.” Denny rested a gnarly fist on the table. “I figure it’s CarboNot. They’re in Washington, right? They probably paid for them buses, too. I bet they’re all in this together—CarboNot, EPA, WildJustice—all of ’em.

“I’m sorry,” Dylan said. “I haven’t been following the news for a while. What is ‘CarboNot’?” Annie could tell from Dylan’s eyes that his interest was intensifying.

“It’s that big ‘green energy’ outfit that’s working with the EPA to target us and stop fracking. They’ve been—” Ed’s voice trailed off. His eyes widened. “Oh God …”

They followed his gaze to the window. An old, garishly painted VW minibus was slowing on the highway. It lurched into a tight turn and rumbled into the lot, swinging broadside behind the parked cars. Blocking them in.

She heard the chair beside her scrape the floor.

Dylan stood.

Hunter cursed himself silently for leaving his Sig Sauer and boot knife locked up in the cabin. But just for a second. Regret was a distraction.

Distractions got you killed.

The first time he ate here he had inventoried the decorative implements hanging on the wall. Trout net. Fishing rod. Two-man crosscut saw. Broken wagon wheel. Ancient Winchester. Horse bridle. Canoe oar. Kid’s sled. Sledgehammer, but with a visibly cracked handle. Except for the oar, nothing handy in a fight. And all bolted securely to the wall.

The useful items would be in the kitchen.

The side panel of the van bore a big white peace sign against a swirling backdrop of psychedelic flowers. Now it slid open and the occupants began to jump out.

“Okay, everyone, listen up.”

They all looked up at him, fear on their faces. Except for Annie: She rose to her feet, eyes wide and riveted on the front door. She could take care of herself physically—but emotionally? Ed looked like he wouldn’t be worth a damn in a fight, but Denny might be okay. He recalled the beefy young ex-Marine who sometimes served as part-time cook.

“Sherry, is Fred working today?”

“No. Just Amy’s in the kitchen.”

The first two guys out of the van looked to be in their twenties. They separated and moved toward the opposite ends of the building. He knew they’d circle around to block the rear exit.

“All right. Everyone into the kitchen. Sherry, run ahead and lock the back door.” As they all got to their feet, he turned to assist the terrified elderly pair at the next table while he continued to call out instructions. “Corrine, call the cops again; tell them it’s an emergency and to hurry.”

He looked back at the window. A huge bald guy was squeezing out of the van, and the whole thing rocked when he stepped down.

Annie turned to him. He saw what was in her eyes.

“Annie, Denny, Ed—grab the biggest carving knives back there, one in each hand. If they come in, you wave them around”—he held her eyes—“and use them if you have to.”

Hunter turned and gently directed the frail old couple toward the kitchen. Then he strode toward the front door.

He heard steps behind him and glanced over his shoulder.

She was following.

“Annie, get back in the kitchen.”

“Like hell I will,” she said. Her face was pale, but her expression resolute. “I’m not letting you go out there alone.”

He didn’t have time to argue. As he approached the front window he saw that seven more people, five of them males, had piled out of the minibus to join the big guy. Ten in all, counting the two heading behind the building
.
Three brandished ax handles, though not the bald giant. They gathered around a skinny, dark-bearded man who was talking and gesturing.

So he was their leader. Organizing the assault.

Hunter reached the door. Then paused, hand on the knob.

She stepped beside him. “So, how do we play this?”

He looked down at her. She looked small and vulnerable. But from their workouts in the Bethesda
dojo
, he knew better. He saw steely determination in her gray cat’s eyes.

“Rule number one: Never let your enemy attack first. Especially if you’re outnumbered.”

She nodded. “Element of surprise.”

“I’ll take out the big guy and the ones with the ax handles. Can you keep a few of them busy?”

“Got your six, Dylan Hunter.” She hesitated, then added: “Please be careful.”

He smiled, leaned over, and kissed her forehead. “Don’t worry about me. They’re amateurs. Ready?”

She released a breath. “Let’s go.”

In one motion he flung open the door and shot through it, leaping from the porch. He had darted halfway past their own parked Camry before the gang could react to the noise.

His first target of opportunity was a kid in a hooded parka with his back turned to him. The kid held an ax handle resting casually over his shoulder. He just started to turn when Hunter reached him, yanked the handle from his grasp, and kicked the back of the kid’s right knee. Not pausing to watch him fall, he continued to rush right at Baldy.

The man stood at least six-six and had to be close to three hundred pounds. His chest and belly looked like a beer keg; it was covered by a gray sweatshirt the size of a tent that bore the faded image of John Lennon. Above his right eye, an actual
dent
depressed his forehead
—
souvenir of some past battle. Surprised, he took a step back as Hunter closed on him, and began to raise fists the size of dinner plates.

Hunter shifted the ax handle into a double-handed grip. But instead of swinging it like a club, he pivoted right, lunged forward with his left foot, and rammed the end of the handle forward like a bayonet.

Right into John Lennon’s chin.

Which rested on Baldy’s solar plexus.

The wheeze of his escaping breath sounded like a blacksmith’s bellows. The giant’s mouth gaped open and his eyes popped wide. As his hands fell to grab his belly and his body bent in the middle, Hunter stepped forward with his right foot, twisted his hips to add torque, and swept around the trailing end of the ax handle, smashing it into Baldy’s left temple.

The hollow
crack
sounded like a Major League home run. Baldy’s massive head snapped to the side. For a split second he tried to keep his feet as the stunning blow registered. Then his eyes rolled up, his knees buckled, and he toppled to the gravel driveway like a falling tree.

Hunter spun to face the rest of the gang. He saw that another man was down at Annie’s feet, holding his head in his hands and moaning. One of the two women lurched to grab at her; but Annie spun easily, using the woman’s forward momentum to flip her over her hip. The woman landed on her back. Hard.

“
Michael! Jeff!”

The guy in the beard—backing toward the van, looking off toward the side of the building where the first two had gone.

“Get back here! We need help!”
he yelled.

Hunter went for the other two guys holding ax handles. The first—attired like a ninja in black watch cap, sweater, and gloves—swung his like a bat at Hunter’s head. He stepped inside the swing, parrying it easily, then jabbed the opposite end of his own into the guy’s mouth. He heard and felt the crunch of teeth. The ninja staggered backward and fell on his butt, shrieking.

He turned to the other one. Just a long-haired teenaged kid, and he looked terrified. The kid dropped his weapon to clatter on the ground and raised his hands in front of him, palms outward.

“Hey man! Don’t! I give up!” he pleaded, backing away.

Six out of play.

Four to go.

Hunter turned from the kid and headed for the bearded leader. The second woman stood close beside him. The pair backed toward the minibus while Annie snatched up a dropped ax handle and came at them from the other side, hemming them in.

“You’re the leader of these losers, right?” Hunter said as he slowly advanced on them. He dropped one end of his handle to let it trail on the gravel, scraping menacingly.

The guy stopped retreating. He stood there, glaring at him, holding his eyes. Looking wary, but not intimidated. He appeared to be in his late thirties, thin and homely, with an unusually narrow, oblong face. Its apparent length was exaggerated by cold, close-set dark eyes, a pile of thick brown hair at the top, a full brown beard at the bottom.

“We’re
not
losers,” he snapped. “We’re fighting those who rape the Earth.”

“Well, so far, I haven’t seen
you
do any fighting.” He swung the piece of wood in an arc, indicating those scattered on the ground, groaning and wailing. “But I guess that’s what
they
are for. You’re the
intellectual
—right?”

The man’s eyes blazed with fanatical intensity. “I’m not afraid of you.” He stepped forward, balled his small hands into fists, raised them awkwardly.

“Zak! Don’t!” the woman cried out.

Hunter sighed.
Martyr complex. Looks like he’s never been in a fight in his life …
He dropped the handle, walked over to the guy. Lowered his hands and stuck out his chin, presenting an easy target. Let the man flail a wild, looping right at him, which he ducked easily. Then an even more awkward left, which he blocked with his right forearm.

And answered with a left hook that tagged the guy solidly on his right cheekbone. The man staggered sideways, then wobbled on his feet, eyes unfocused. He was starting to sag when Hunter followed with a big right uppercut into the man’s beard that lifted him right onto his tiptoes. He crumpled like a marionette whose strings had been cut.

“Zak!” the woman screamed and rushed to his side.

Hunter heard applause behind him. He turned. On the porch, Denny and Sherry stood at the railing, clapping. Behind them, the others were emerging through the doorway.

“I thought I told you all to stay in the kitchen,” he said.

Denny clambered down the steps first, a big carving knife in his hand. “No way we was going to let you two fight our battles for us, Brad.”