Chicago Assault (15 page)

“I quickly saw that it was the perfect opportunity for me to go underground. A ‘dead' Jimmy O'Neil could do a great deal more for the cause then a live, high-profile Jimmy O'Neil—in Chicago, anyway.”

“You were working with Bas Gan Sagart all along!” Megan shouted.

“For the cause, dear Megan. Don't you understand?” O'Neil's fists clenched, and for a moment the old fire Hawker remembered so well returned to his eyes. “For once, I had the chance to make a lot of money for the cause. More money than we ever dreamed of—and damn it, I took that chance!”

“But they tried to kill you, too—that night at your house,” Hawker insisted, still unwilling to believe that his close friend had involved himself with such scum.

O'Neil chuckled wearily. “Those were two of Thomas's goons, James. They followed you from Beckerman's place. My name was on that little note in case they got into trouble and needed a safe house. But the dumb bastards didn't know me from Adam. They were just two more of Thomas's trained killers.” He gave Galway an evil, uneven grin. “Isn't that true, Thomas? Of course. You see, Megan, only my share of the money went to the IRA. But Thomas is a greedy little bastard—aren't you, Thomas?”

O'Neil looked at Hawker. “I've been a fool, James. A fool right along. And I'm glad you've caught us. I deserve whatever sentence the courts choose to give me—and they will, because I'm going to tell them everything.” He winked playfully at Thomas Galway, who was scowling. “Be quite a story, won't it, Thomas, lad? I'll get a long stay in the pen, but you”—O'Neil laughed—“but you'll get the bloody chair!”

“Will I?” Galway yelled with a maniacal gleam in his eye. He touched his back pocket, and the stocky, snub-barreled revolver appeared in his hand so quickly, Hawker didn't have time to move. Galway backhanded O'Neil with the butt of the weapon, then Hawker saw the barrel spout fire.

In the same instant, there was a jarring impact against his right arm. The slug knocked Hawker to the ground and sent his Colt Commando spinning. Through the first wave of pain and shock, Hawker watched Megan launch herself at Galway like a tigress. She landed on his right shoulder, clawing at his face and neck. Her fingers found his left eye.

He gave a tortured scream as she dug his eye away from his face. O'Neil got shakily to his feet and drew back his fist as if to hit Galway.

But the revolver exploded again, and O'Neil tumbled backward, his head spouting blood.

Hawker rolled toward his automatic weapon. He grasped it in his left hand and whirled just in time to see Galway dig the revolver into Megan's chest and fire. She screamed once and collapsed onto the deck.

“You bastard!”
Hawker heard some distant voice yell, a voice that was his own. He fought his way to his feet and brought the Commando to bear on Galway's throat.

Just before Hawker fired, there was a microsecond of great clarity, as if in slow motion. And in that second, it seemed he could see it all, as if from above—the four of them on the heaving cruiser as Lake Michigan swept past, black and cold. Jimmy O'Neil, his best friend who had forfeited that which he held most sacred for the beloved cause—his honor. Megan Parnell, the passionate celibate of haunting beauty, who never lost her curious air of nobility. Even now. As she lay dying.

And Thomas Galway. In that microsecond before Hawker fired, it seemed he could see Galway most clearly of all. The long, matted red hair. The vicious look of the hunted animal on his face. The furrows of blood Megan's nails had plowed through his cheek, and the dangling eyeball she had dug from its socket.

As Galway brought the revolver up to shoot him a second time, Hawker's left fist squeezed the trigger of the Colt Commando.

Galway jolted backward, his body jerking in spasms as the heavy-caliber slugs poured through it.

Still holding the trigger down, Hawker walked toward Galway. The hatred was like a madness in him now. Galway's body was like a receptacle through which to pour his anger.

When the Colt's twenty-round clip was empty, Hawker smashed the weapon down onto the bloodied corpse, then knelt quickly beside Megan Parnell.

He felt her dark sweater soaked with blood as he cradled her in his arms.

“Megan,”
Hawker whispered, his voice a weak sob in the whistle of wind.
Megan …

Her eyes fluttered open and focused slowly on him. Her mouth formed a weak smile. “James? Oh, thank God you're not hurt. I thought he killed you.”

“He's dead, Megan. Galway and—and Jimmy, too. It's just us now, Megan. You've completed your mission.”

Her muscles contracted with a spasm of pain as she reached up and traced the outline of his lips with her index finger. “Am I dying, James?”

“No,” he lied, his voice choking.

Her smile broadened. “It's such a bad liar, you are. But it doesn't matter, for I'm dying with the first peace I've known in a very long time. I'm only sorry to be leaving you.”

Hawker hugged her close. “Don't talk,” he whispered. “The boat has to have a VHF radio. I'm going to call for a Coast Guard helicopter—”

“Don't,” she whispered. “Please don't leave me.” Her breathing was heavier now, and Hawker could see that she had to struggle to keep her eyes open. “I want to spend these last moments with you, for I've loved you for so very long, though you didn't even know it—”

“I knew, Megan. I knew.”

“But you couldn't have known, James. For I've loved you since I heard the stories about your family on me own mother's knee. Direct descendants of Cuchulain, the great warrior legend of Ulster, they said you were.” Her sweet laughter became a choking cough.

“For God's sake, don't talk, Megan,” he pleaded.

“But I must, James,” she whispered. “I must tell you why I feel the way I do. The stories were so lovely to hear, you see. The stories about your handsome, dashing father who broke a hundred hearts, and then took revenge on the Orangemen who murdered his entire family but one. You, James. Don't you see? Don't you understand why my love for you—”

Hawker kissed her lips tenderly, trying to force her to stop talking, to stop wasting precious time—and her own fading energy.

Even so, she continued. “… why my love for you could not be the way you wanted it to be—yes, and the way I wanted it to be?”

Her blue eyes grew alive and warm as she pulled his head toward hers for a final, dry kiss. And the next words she spoke were to echo in Hawker's head for the endless trip back to shore, and the endless years to come.

“James, how can you be so bright and so slow at the same time?” The smile she was to die with returned to her lips as her small hand closed tightly over Hawker's. “Can't you understand, my darling, that my mother was one of the many whose hearts were broken by your father, though he never knew it. James … dear, dear James … I'm your sister.…”

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one

Little Cayman Island, British West Indies

The assassin who had followed James Hawker from New York to Miami, from Miami to this tiny Caribbean island south of Cuba, stood outside the row of seaside cabanas in the darkness.

He pulled back his cotton worsted leisure jacket and drew the .38 Colt Detective from its holster. The two-inch barrel had been machined for a sound arrester. The silencer was cool in his hands as he screwed it into place.

He waited a full minute before he moved again.

A fresh wind drifted off the reef, and the tropic moon was a gaseous orange above the line of coconut palms.

The assassin, whose name was Renard, moved closer to the cabanas. Sand spilled into his Gucci loafers, and mosquitoes began to find him in a whining haze.

Renard cursed softly, thinking to himself as he watched James Hawker's silhouette in the cabana window. Summer was no time to be in the tropics. Too many bugs. Wilting heat. And it was not unlikely there were snakes, too.

Renard shuddered. Snakes revolted him—as did, in fact, this entire island. He couldn't keep a crease in his slacks because of the humidity. There was no such thing as room service, because there wasn't a hotel on the whole irritating chunk of sand. Just stone and wood cabins. A resort camp, they called it. Pirate's Point, Little Cayman Island, British West Indies.

He had spent three days there watching Hawker.

He'd done everything properly, too. Just as he always did. Renard was a fanatic about the proprieties of his craft. After a workmanlike job of tailing Hawker to the tropics, he had bugged his room, along with the rooms of that older fellow named Hayes and his surly British butler.

And he had heard just enough to convince him that his employers in New York were correct. Hayes had plans to stick his nose into the business of Fister Corporation. And that simply couldn't be tolerated—not that Renard cared much about Fister Corporation. It was his employer, nothing more. Just as Dubois Ltd. of London occasionally employed him, as did the Galtchen firm of Munich and, once, even the Union Corse of France. Of course, now he did most of his work for Fister Corporation, or the Unione Siciliano.

It made no difference to Renard who paid him. But the proprieties of the craft required a certain loyalty to one's employer.

So, now they all would die, the three of them.

It was easy. Almost too easy. Except for the heat. And the bugs. And this god-damn island. Nothing to do but scuba dive and fish.

Renard had no interest in such things. He had tried scuba diving once. On the clear reef off Bloody Bay. It had been a group dive, with Hawker, Hayes, the butler, and three or four other guests of the resort. It had amused Renard to think that he would soon be killing the three men he accompanied side by side, underwater.

He could have, in fact, killed them then. But there were all those irritating fish down there to worry about. And, of course, the other guests of the resort might see him.

It wouldn't have been a very professional job.

And no matter how distasteful he found the surroundings, he would still do the very best job he could.

Later, though, his return to Miami would be pleasant, Renard thought as he waited. He liked Miami—in the winter.

Since he had established himself with the organization, he had been able to afford to go to Miami for a few weeks every winter. He always took a lady with him. Something attractive, something to complement his own good looks. Like that blonde last winter. Britta? Yes, Britta. Tall blonde with legs a mile long and spectacular mammary development. She was the one with the fake furs and the bright-red lipstick and enough paste diamonds to open her own five-and-ten. They had had some laughs. Won big on the horses at Hialeah, then blew it all—and more—on the dogs in Biscayne.

But when the money was gone, Britta had started getting bitchy. Whining all the time. Sitting in their hotel room polishing her nails, belting down martinis and chainsmoking. Then she started getting unpleasant about that problem he had in bed, laughing at him. She had made the mistake of turning his inabilities against him like a weapon.

Renard's finger twitched nervously on the trigger of the Colt as he thought about it.

The woman had gotten exactly what she deserved. Who in the hell was she to call him a faggot? He didn't accept that kind of talk from anyone—especially a 42nd Street whore.

So he had killed her. Damn right, he had killed her. He had punched her infuriating face to pulp, then gone to work on her throat until he was sure she would never call him another name. Ever.

As Renard relived the hooker's death, his breathing became shallow and the muscles of his face went slack.

He had a hard, dark, bullfighter's face and a thin moustache.

After a time, his eyes fluttered open and his breathing returned to normal. Deep inside, Renard felt the warm, good glow he always felt after he had killed.

It was a feeling better than any other, better than drugs or booze.

When he was younger, that feeling had frightened him. Like after that cat he had played with … then tortured … then beheaded in secret, way back when he was twelve; just him and the cat in that alleyway near their flat outside Versailles.

Or when he was in his teens and found himself driving alone in his old Fiat, far beyond Paris, and he had seen that horse all by itself in the pasture, looking sleepy in the light of the full moon.

It had frightened him because who in his right mind would butcher a cat or slit a horse's throat just for the hell of it?

It wasn't until much later in his life that he admitted to himself why he did it. It wasn't until he had already eliminated a few people and the organization had hired him and treated him with respect because he was very, very good at what he did.

It was only then that Renard finally admitted to himself that he killed for one reason, and one reason only.