Chicago Assault (14 page)

How long had it been since he'd heard the humming sound of boat engines?

Twenty minutes? Twenty-five minutes?

Had it been long enough for them to send in a skiff?

Hawker swung down out of the tree and ran toward Megan's station. “Megan,” he called to her in a hoarse whisper. “Stay here. I'm going up to the house.”

“But why?” she called back sleepily. “What's wrong?”

“A boat. I heard a boat not far from here. I'm going to check—”

Hawker was interrupted by the sudden, heavy thud of gunfire.

And then more gunfire.

Cursing himself, he ran through the darkness toward the mansion.

fifteen

Hawker sprinted down the hill, legs pounding, arms driving, right fist holding the Colt Commando rifle like a lance.

He could see that more lights were on in the house now. What in the hell did that mean? Had Galway and Phelan made it inside?

If so, it could only mean one thing: Jacob Montgomery Hayes was dead. Or about to die.

And if he died, there was only one person to blame. Hawker. He couldn't have made it easier for those two psychopaths if he had tried. He had told Hayes to issue the challenge. He had told Hayes to keep the guard dogs locked up. And he had told Hayes to turn off all but a few lights so it would look as if everyone was asleep.

He had made bait of Hayes, and now the predators had struck while Hawker's brain slept.

If they live on land …

Why in the hell hadn't he thought of it before?

Hawker didn't stop sprinting when he reached the house. Holding the Colt Commando on his hip, armed and ready, he circled the house at full speed.

And saw nothing.

Cautiously, he approached Hayes's study window. All the lights were on. He could see the high library shelves stacked with books and the red leather furniture and the glass cases filled with mounted insect and marine specimens.

He saw something else, too.

Far off in the corner, from behind Hayes's desk, protruded the shoes and lifeless legs of a dead man.

“Shit!”
Hawker hissed.

He ran to the front of the house and tested the massive double doors. As they swung wide, he ducked through, the automatic rifle scanning the same line as his eyes.

From the hall outside Hayes's study, he heard the indistinct timbre of men's voices.

Quietly, he moved toward them. At the hall entrance, he hugged the wall, then jumped suddenly toward the voices.

“Freeze!” he yelled.

The hall light was on, too. Two men stood before him. At the first sound of his voice, their eyes grew wide with concern and they each swung their hand guns toward him.

Just as quickly, their faces relaxed.

“How nice of you to call,” Hendricks, the butler, said in a deadpan dry voice.

Jacob Montgomery Hayes wasn't smiling. “We got one of them, Hawk. Hendricks planted a little room-to-room listening system, just in case they got past you. They got in through the coal bin and came up through the basement.”

“A simple precaution,” said Hendricks. “But effective. Unfortunately, two of the nasty buggers got away.”

“Two
got away?” said Hawker, surprised.

Through the front door, Megan Parnell came running. The grim look on her face changed immediately to a smile when she saw the three men standing in the hall.

“Ah, I'm so glad,” she said in her soft Irish lilt. “You're not dead, are you?”

“A searing bit of insight, young lady,” observed Hendricks. It was the first time Hawker had ever seen him smile.

She hesitated, then fell into Hawker's arms, hugging him warmly. “They got one of them, Megan. They said two got away. Come on, I want you to take a quick look at the body.”

“And then what, James?”

“And then we go after the other two.”

Hendricks and Hayes had shot the man as he came through the study door. Two clean shots: one in the face; another high and to the right of the breastbone.

There was no doubt he was dead.

A window at the far wall was shattered, and a line of splintered wood at eye level behind the desk told them that fire had been exchanged. But probably fearing an even worse trap, the other two had fled before their job was done.

“Is it Galway or Phelan?” Hawker demanded.

“Neither,” she said. “I've never seen him before.”

Through the broken window came the high buzz of a small outboard being started. Hayes gave Hawker a questioning look.

“They came in by boat,” Hawker said. “A cruiser most of the way, then probably paddled to shore in a skiff. We need a boat, Jacob. Give me anything that will float, and I'll go after them.”

“We'll
go after them,” Megan insisted. She was no longer smiling.

“We keep a crash launch in the boat house,” Hendricks sputtered. “The engine's in proper order, but it's on davits, and I hardly think—”

“Let's go!” Hawker called, already running. “And Jacob—if we're not back in an hour, get some help.”

The “crash launch” was a thirteen-foot Boston Whaler with a forty-horsepower Johnson engine. It was a stubby projectile on davits beneath the roof of the boat house.

A steady northeast wind swept across Lake Michigan. It blew thigh-high breakers into the pilings, then sprayed them over the dock.

Hawker's pants became soaked while he wasted a long minute hunting for a hand crank to lower the boat into the water. Finally, he realized the davits worked off an electric motor. A moment later, he found the switch. The little boat settled itself on the black chop, lifting and rising like a duck.

“Wait until I get her started before you loosen the lines,” Hawker yelled above the noise of the waves.

The Johnson fired to life, sputtered, then stalled. Forcing himself to remain calm, Hawker pumped the fuel-flow ball on the gas line. He pushed the starter key in to choke it, then tried again.

The engine roared and held.

“Jump in!”

Unclamping the bow cable, Megan stepped on as Hawker steered them out of the boat house. Lake Michigan was so rough that waves immediately broke over the bow. Hawker turned and pulled out the two scupper plugs so the boat could drain.

“Megan,” he called, “you'd better sit back here with me. You'll get beaten to death up there. I've got to get her on plane, or we're going to swamp.”

The woman moved nimbly over the center seat and edged in close to Hawker. She was trembling.

“Cold?” he asked.

“No,” she said with a nervous laugh. “Scared.”

Hawker put his arm around her and touched his lips to her smooth cheek. “No matter what happens,” he said into her ear, “I want you to remember something. I love you, Megan.”

Her eyes searched his in the darkness. “And I love you, James,” she whispered. “Someday, you will know how much—I promise.”

As he kissed her lips, she turned quickly away. “Not now,” she said. “Later. Later, we'll talk.”

“More than talk—and I'm going to hold you to it,” said Hawker as he slid the Colt Commando into her arms. “Now, have a look through the night-vision scope. Scan the water. Slowly. What do you see?”

“The boat!” she exclaimed. “No, two boats! A wee tiny one, and a bigger one farther out.”

“Which way?”

She began to wave her free hand, directing him. Hawker caught her arm. “The bow of the boat is at twelve o'clock,” he said. “Just to port is eleven o'clock. Just to starboard is one o'clock. That's the way you're going to have to direct me.”

“Halfway between twelve o'clock and one o'clock!”

“Twelve-thirty it is. Hold on!”

Hawker buried the throttle forward, and the Whaler dolphined out of the water, then settled on plane. Hawker quartered the waves as best he could, but every breaker still slammed against the hull with the impact of a sledgehammer.

“Let me know if we're gaining on them, Megan.”

“I … I can't see anything! We're banging around too much—wait a minute! I just saw them. They're about halfway to the cruiser!”

“We've got to get there before they do. They can't hear us while their outboard is running, and they probably won't be able to see us—unless they have a scope like ours. If they do, we're sitting ducks.”

The woman was still struggling to keep her eye pressed against the scope. “James,
we're going to catch them
. We're getting so close … should we be this close?”

Immediately, Hawker backed off on the throttle. He took the Colt Commando from her and looked through the Star-Tron.

He could see the cruiser, maybe half a mile away. It was a silhouette rolling on black water. Maybe forty feet long. A cabin that swept clear to the stern deck. A fly bridge atop the superstructure. It showed no lights.

It took him longer to find the skiff. He was shocked at how close they were. Another two or three minutes of running, and the Whaler would have run right over them.

The skiff was a tiny painter with a small sea gull-sized kicker. Two hulking figures sat hunched in the boat. They were having a hell of a time fighting their way through the choppy water.

As close as they were, Hawker could just barely hear the droning bee-whine of the engine.

For that, he was glad.

The wind and waves were doing a good job of covering sound.

Quickly, Hawker calculated the best way to get the cruiser between them and the little painter.

He jammed the throttle forward, and the Whaler jumped onto plane, throwing a curtain of water over them.

Hawker ran for about five minutes, taking seas flush off the starboard beam, then cut suddenly northeast. The smacking of hull against waves rattled their teeth as he ran directly into the wind.

When he could see the cruiser directly off the Whaler's beam, he veered southeast toward the anchored yacht. It still showed no lights, but that didn't mean it was unattended. Fifty yards away, Hawker throttled the Whaler back as they idled toward the dark hulk before them.

“Keep your weapon ready,” he ordered Megan as he brought the Whaler alongside. “At the first sign of any movement, don't hesitate. Open fire.”

“With pleasure,” she said in a tone Hawker had never heard from her before.

The seas rolled past the cruiser, doing their best to smash the two fiberglass hulls together. Alternately punching ahead and backing off on the throttle, Hawker finally put them close enough to tie the Whaler's bowline off on the cruiser's beam cleat.

He pulled himself up onto the deck of the boat. He motioned for Megan to wait as he made a quick trip through the cabin, his automatic rifle ready.

When he was sure there was no one else aboard the boat, he helped the woman up and pulled her along into the control station of the deck salon. Hawker found the toggle switches that he hoped would give power to the deck lights.

“When they get here, don't open fire until I say,” Hawker whispered. “I want a chance to talk to them, if I can.”

“They didn't give my sister a chance, James!” she snapped nervously.

Hawker squeezed her arm tenderly. “Relax,” he said. “It's almost over.”

The high-pitched whine of the little outboard drew closer and closer. There was a dull thud as the painter smacked against the stern of the yacht. Hawker's hand grew tight on the Colt Commando as he heard the sound of men's voices.

Then they pulled themselves over the transom: two burly, hulking shapes arguing in thick Irish accents.

In one swift motion, Hawker flipped on the deck lights and charged them with the brutal-looking automatic poised at their heads.

“Freeze!”
he yelled. “Don't move an inch, or you're dead!”

As the two men swung around in surprise, Hawker took one more confident step toward them, then stopped.

The shock moved through him like a cold, cold wind. It roared in his ears, and made him feel strangely dizzy.

The linebacker-sized man with the feral eyes and flaming red hair had to be Thomas Galway, the vicious leader of Bas Gan Sagart.

Hawker didn't have to speculate on the identity of the other man. Although his brain refused to believe it, there was no doubt who it was.

He looked wet and weary and vaguely embarrassed.

“Good evening, James,” said Jimmy O'Neil. “Shall we drop our weapons, James?” He looked at Galway. “Yes, Thomas. I think he wants us to drop our weapons.” His eyes returned to Hawker, and he smiled. “It's just what a good policeman would do, James.”

sixteen

“Jimmy,”
whispered Megan in disbelief. “But you … you were—”

“Dead?” he offered. “Not true, dear Megan. I'm sorry.” His laugh was a mixture of sheepishness and disgust. “And I'm becoming increasingly sorry.”

“But how?” Hawker demanded. “How in the hell did you get out of that fire? Someone damn well died that night, O'Neil—”

“It was the much-deserving Padraic Phelan,” O'Neil said. “You see, my friend Galway here, Phelan, and a vanload of their goons came by the Ennisfree that night. I considered it quite fortunate that only I heard them come to the door. You and Megan were talking, you see.” He looked at the brooding Galway, who stood drenched on the heaving deck. “Going to do a bit of firebombing, weren't you, Thomas?” O'Neil said.

“Shut up, Jimmy!” he barked. “Don't be saying another word to these two, damn it.”

“But it's over, Thomas. Can't you see that?” He turned back to Hawker. “I went out into the street to meet them, James. That's why I hurried away so suddenly. Phelan was the supposed explosives ‘expert' for the job that night, and he had built the bomb inside a briefcase. When I went outside to meet them, Phelan insisted he needed a drink. Against my direct orders, he made a quick trip into the bar for a bottle.” O'Neil smiled. “Through more great good fortune, he carried the briefcase with him. I don't know what happened. None of us knew. Maybe he dropped the damn briefcase. In any case, Phelan was obviously not the explosives expert he pretended to be, because the bomb went off while he was inside. An accident, you see?