Cobra Strike (12 page)

The time the three Americans had come through the village, everyone had come to their doorways to see them. Mothers had held
up their smaller children and shouted, “Look, look.” The children did not know, of course, what Americans were, except that
they looked different from Afghans and that their parents were happy to see them, unlike the Russians. Now the Soviet planes
were circling overhead, ready to punish them for helping the Americans. They had been warned but had no place else to go.
They had lived all their lives on this mountain slope. This was theirs, not someplace else. They belonged here, no matter
what happened. They had to stay. The two Soviet bombers spiraled overhead, like eagles lazily riding an updraft.

First one plane and then the other broke their circles and pulled away. It seemed like they were leaving, but the Afghans
knew better and rushed from their houses dragging the very old and the very young with them before the planes streaked in
on their bombing run. Some of the old men and women, perhaps too senile to understand what was happening or else too weary
to care anymore, refused to budge from their houses and had to be left behind when their obstructive tactics endangered the
entire family. Some small children managed to get lost in the rush and, frightened, ran back to their homes.

The two jets screamed in, flying low, almost wingtip to wingtip, and tumbled down their load of bombs on the mud-brick houses.
The bombs, specially designed for such
work, were not charged with high explosives like those used to destroy steel-and-concrete structures, since the mud-brick
buildings of Afghan villages were easily knocked down by much less powerful shocks. Thus the bombs could be made into a mixture
of incendiary and anti-personnel devices. The initial shock blew the mud-brick walls apart, the flaming chemicals spread over
a wide area, scorching through living flesh down to the bone, and the anti-personnel shrapnel ripped through the bodies of
those the flames had missed. The Russians had put a lot of thought into some of their dealings with the Afghans.

More than half the houses in the village were demolished, and the burning chemicals lay in glowing trickles and small puddles
on the dusty, unpaved streets. Groans came from those buried out of sight beneath the debris. Burned children screamed for
their mothers. Old semicripples hopped around with an agility they had not been capable of for decades as the combusting liquids
seared slowly through their muscles and nerves. In the street lay one dead baby, cooked through by the heat like a suckling
pig, its eyeballs burst.

The villagers rushed back to tend the wounded and dying, regardless of the possibility of another attack. But the planes did
not come back on a second run. This time the Russians were just sending them a warning.

Joe Nolan gave two of his first cousins their full costs for two years at college, just handed it to them in cash and said,
“You can blow it or start to get yourself educated, whatever you want.” They both picked school. Nolan bought more than a
half dozen tombstones and had them erected over the resting places of cousins. He paid dentist, doctor, and hospital bills
for others and for one wedding reception, two funerals, and a big Thanksgiving Day bash for everyone even vaguely related
to the family, regardless of who was on speaking terms with whom. Car repairs, a leaky house roof, clothes for a kid's First
Holy Communion. Joe Nolan took care of everything for everybody—while the money lasted. Now he was nearly broke again.

Being broke was a common condition for many people these days in the once-booming steel town of Youngstown,
Ohio. No one wanted to buy American steel when the government let them import cheaper foreign steel from places where workers
were paid less than a dollar an hour. Men who had never been idle in their lives now stood bewildered on street corners and
watched yuppies on TV lecture them on “developing new skills” and joining “the service economy.” No one seemed to be asking
Awkward questions about what happens when everyone is part of the communications and service industries and no one is making
anything anymore. If nothing is being manufactured in the U.S., what is being communicated? If all these people are employed
in providing services for other people, where is the cash coming from to provide these services? They saw news footage of
Tennessee factory workers doing Japanese exercises and wondered what was coming over the good ol' boys down South. People
talked first about the Sunbelt, and now they were talking about the Rustbelt, in which Youngstown was prominently featured.
It was almost like one of those mysterious things that killed off ancient civilizations, leaving empty cities intact to slowly
smother under layers of dust. Or like those Western ghost towns, except that there everyone picked up and left for a richer
mine somewhere else while in Youngstown folks stayed on, unwanted in their hometown and unwelcome elsewhere.

Joe Nolan's last paycheck from Mike Campbell had been a hundred grand. It hadn't taken long for the problems of his large
family to eat up even that amount of cash. He hadn't heard from Mike in some time and didn't know how to contact him. He didn't
even know if he ever would hear from Campbell again or maybe tomorrow get two days notice before leaving on a six-week mission.
He didn't begrudge his relatives the money they needed and always knew he had their affection and loyalty to fall back on
if things went bad for him. People still looked out for one another in the old neighborhoods in Youngstown. It was that kind
of place.

Joe's face was long and sad. He was thin, with fast reflexes. He had very bright blue eyes, long teeth that some people said
looked like a dog's, and lifeless brown hair. His father had come north from Kentucky during World War II
to work in the steel plants, and he could get real mad if someone called him a hillbilly. His folk were mountain people, and
he still had their fighting blood in his veins, if anyone was curious enough to test it. Mostly he was peaceful, having seen
enough in Nam for any man's lifetime.

Like Mike Campbell, he had been in the Green Berets, but unlike Mike, he had not been an officer. After coming back he had
gone from job to job, woman to woman, drink to drink… Nothing had quite worked out. Going on missions with Mad Mike had given
him a new purpose in life—he was good for something again. And his newfound wealth gave him status in the community, even
if there were dark rumors as to how he got the cash. It amused Joe that none of the rumors ever approached the reality of
what he did. He was still a badder boy than they even could imagine!

“Fella in here last night is a bail bondsman down at the courts,” the barkeep at the Bunch o' Shamrock told Joe Nolan when
he came in for a beer. “You know what he was saying? It made me think of you, only you weren't here, so I took the guy's number
and said you'd call him for sure.” He handed Joe a crumpled piece of paper with a name and number on it. “This fella is looking
for a bounty hunter. He'll pay twenty percent of the bail skipped plus your expenses if you catch the guy. If you don't catch
him, he pays zip. So if some guy jumped a fifty-thousand-dollar bond and you caught him, you'd collect ten thousand plus what
it cost you.”

Joe grinned. “Soon as I stop being a big spender in this place, you figure it's time I went back to work.”

“Nolan, I don't know what you do for a living, and believe me, I don't ask. But what I'm talking about now is legal work for
big money. It's legal. That means you won't be breaking the law. You heard of the word?”

“I thought it had something to do with having to pay taxes.”

“In a place like Youngstown, that's a good complaint to have.”

And so Joe Nolan became a bounty hunter. The barkeep's judgment was good. Nolan proved to be a natural at the job.
It didn't turn out to be such a big-money job as it first sounded, but then, few jobs ever turn out to be as good as they
first sound. Mostly the bail jumped was much lower than fifty thousand, and the time it took to trace someone could be counted
in weeks instead of days. Also, as a newcomer, Nolan was not given any cushy jobs. There were lots of psychos who had jumped
bail for five thou and no one desperate enough to go after them. Joe soon found what he liked to do best.

“I take an assignment that involves a ten-thousand-dollar bail minimum,” he explained to the barkeep at the Bunch o' Shamrock.
“That gives me two thou plus expenses. So even if it takes me three weeks to find the guy, it's not bad. And I figure I have
to be lucky every now and then and collar the guy in a matter of hours or a day or two, which really pays off.”

“Nolan, are you saying you can assault some bum in the street and drag him against his will down to the local jailhouse?”

“To hell with the local jailhouse. I can do more than any cop can. I can bring him across a state line without extraditing
him. There's a law going back to the last century that permits a bounty hunter to subdue and take his prisoner across state
lines.”

“You can hit him over the head?” the barkeep asked, impressed.

“Only when he won't come quietly,” Joe said.

Nolan didn't talk about the creeps and weirdos he had to go after. The sane ones who jumped bail vanished. Only the loonies
hung around, convinced that once they were no longer behind bars, they were free. The character Nolan was tracking down now
qualified in the mad-dog category. Joe was waiting in the bar for a call from a plainclothesman who had a hot tip that the
fugitive was in a farmhouse just over the Pennsylvania border. The cops were anxious to cooperate on this one because he had
recently evaded capture by kicking the shit out of an off-duty officer in a saloon and stealing his shield and gun. The Youngstown,
Ohio, police had their hands tied on the far side of the state
line, and they saw Nolan as a quick way to bring back the fugitive without weeks or even months of legal bickering.

Errol Nelson was a real asshole, with a sheet that listed everything from assault and wife beating to burglary, car theft,
and extortion. He was out on a twelve-thousand-dollar bail bond on an armed robbery charge. The owner of the store that had
been held up had been murdered since Nelson's release on bail, and now the two other witnesses to the crime, both willing
to testify against Nelson, lived in fear for their lives.

Nolan waited for the call in the Bunch o' Shamrock and sipped on his beers, taking it real easy. He guessed that some of the
Youngstown cops, friends of the one who'd gotten beat up in the bar by Nelson, against regulations were maintaining a watch
for him across the state line. Nolan asked no questions. The call came. Nelson was in the town of Pulaski in Lawrence County,
Pennsylvania, a half-hour drive from where he sat. He was driving a red Toyota, the scrapes on its right side making it look
as if it had sideswiped something. Nolan had seen his mug shots, a fair-haired farm boy with a crazy look and a Neanderthal
brow. He would be armed with the cop's stolen gun, at least. He could also be expected not to want to be taken back to Youngstown.

It was dark by the time Nolan drove into Pulaski. He found the red Toyota in the parking lot of a closed bank, and for a moment
Nolan thought that maybe Nelson was breaking into it, but then he guessed that the car was stolen and that Nelson was putting
it out of plain sight. Nolan parked down the street from the lot. After about an hour he saw a lone man get in the Toyota,
having come in the back way. The car's headlights flicked on and it started moving. Nolan started his engine, and in the few
seconds the Toyota was out of sight behind the bank building, he switched on his lights and drove to meet the Toyota, which
stopped at the parking lot exit to yield him the way. Nolan eased his car to a stop in front of the Toyota and yelled at the
driver if he knew the road to New Wilmington, another town not far off.

The Toyota's driver stuck his head out the side window. It was Errol Nelson, all right, or else his twin brother. He yelled
back, “Outta my way, shithead!”

Nolan let him go and scratched the side of his head so Nelson would not get a good look at his face in case he was suspicious.
If things had gone well, he would have lured Nelson out of his car. Things hadn't worked that way, just as earlier, when he
hadn't seen Nelson approach the car until he was almost to it. Nolan wasn't going to force things—just wait till the right
moment came and then step in fast. He could see the Toyota's taillights ahead of him, nearing the edge of town. Even at this
early hour the whole place seemed deserted. Then he saw the taillights brighten as Nelson braked and pulled over to the side
of the road. The lights went out. Joe waited ten minutes before driving past. The Toyota was outside a tavern. He made a U
turn and drove back, parking behind the Toyota. Should he go in or wait outside? Normally he would have gone in. But Nelson
was probably carrying a piece and would have friends inside to interfere with Nolan and give him time to use it. Joe decided
to wait outside. He got out of the car and walked up and down the roadside.

It was a short wait, no more than ten minutes. By now that seemed like nothing to Nolan. He limped along past his own car,
dragging his left foot. Nelson paid no attention to the handicapped, slightly built man passing him as he dug in his pocket
for his car keys.

Nolan whacked him in the nose with his right fist, blinding him with his tears and pain. He kneed him in the groin and rabbit-punched
him when he bent over double. He took a step back and booted Nelson in the face, which straightened him out and knocked him
flat on his back. Nolan grabbed his right arm in a lock and slapped him down fast for a gun. He wasn't carrying. So Nolan
released his arm and hauled him by the left ankle along the road surface to his own car. He snapped one end of the cuffs on
Nelson's right wrist and the other on his door handle. Then he went back to where Nelson had dropped his car keys.

The cop's gun and shield were in the glove compartment. He left the VCR and stereo amplifier in the car trunk. They were probably
stolen, but he had no proof of that and would risk robbery charges himself if they turned out to be genu
inely owned by the fugitive. But he had the shield and gun—and that was what the Youngstown cops cared about.