Denver Strike (15 page)

Carthay looked offended. “Listen here, you young buck. We spent more time walking these hills than you've spent toyin' with your pecker. We can find our way out in a coal-dust storm at night in the rain when it's foggy. Shit, I guess. Ain't that right, boys?”

“Damn tootin', Bobby.”

“You tell the young fart, Bob-O!”

Hawker motioned to them to keep their voices down. “Then grab your coats and get going. And I mean now. There's going to be some real ugly stuff going on here in about five minutes.”

“We're gonna stay right here and help,” Carthay said stubbornly. “I ain't gonna be happy till I get my hands around the throat of that son of a bitch Bill Nek. Why, I'm going to pull his ears off—”

“Nek's inside?”

“You goddamn right he is! I heard the old bastard yell at somebody not more than an hour ago. It ain't gonna be the last time he yells tonight, either. I'm gonna make that turd beg for his life, after the way he's treated us!”

“Sure, you do that,” Hawker said sharply. “Do that, and you'll get involved in what's going to happen tonight. Give you plenty to tell the cops, won't it? And they'll give you plenty more to tell the judges in Denver. You'll spend all the money you make from the Chicquita Silver Mine on lawyers, and all three of you will probably go to jail.” Hawker shook his finger at them. “You three had a chance to make some money a long time ago, but you let Nek screw it up for you. Are you going to let him screw you up again? Don't be dumb shits. Get the hell out of here while you can. Keep yourselves in the clear.” Hawker looked at old Robert Carthay pointedly. “You've got grandchildren to think about, Mr. Carthay. Are you going to risk their future, too?”

The old man rubbed his grizzled chin, thinking. “I wouldn't want to hurt Lomela or them kids,” he said softly. “They 'bout the only things I care about in this here world.”

Hawker cringed, thinking how badly Carthay was going to take the news of his daughter's murder. But he couldn't be told now. He'd never agree to leave the mountain. Nor would his two friends. “Then get a move on,” Hawker said. “Get the hell out of here, and don't turn back, no matter what you hear. Get your coats on. It's cold as hell out there. Take some of those blankets, and here's some money—”

“Listen to this young fart,” said Jimmy Estes. “Sounds like a damned Jewish mother. Boy, we was hiking these hills long before you pissed your first diaper.”

“Yeah,” Chuck Phillips put in quickly, “but we'll still take some money. Guards took all ours, and we may need it. Thanks, Mister Hawker. Thanks for talking some sense into this old fool beside me.”

The vigilante handed a wad of bills to Phillips, then hurried the three of them out the door and into the woods. He watched them until they disappeared into the darkness, three resolute shapes against the loom of the mountains that had been their homes for so long.

Once they had gone, Hawker sat on the door seal of the cabin, watching the hunting lodge. He sat quietly, letting his body rest, letting the aching ankle take a break from the work he knew it must soon do, letting his mind vector this way and that, seeking a plan. But in truth, he wanted no plan. He knew exactly what he was going to do. Tom Dulles wouldn't have approved. Dulles was a lawman in the best sense of the word. Lomela wouldn't have approved either, though she would probably understand.

But in some strange way, Hawker knew it was what he must do. Nek was an old man. He would undoubtedly die a natural death before long.

But the vigilante knew he could not allow that to happen. The life of William Nek was too fouled by his own deeds to be allowed such a clean exit from life.

No, Dulles wouldn't have approved, and Lomela wouldn't have approved. But they were now cold corpses, thrown into a hogs' shed to be buried later.

They no longer had any say.

Hawker was a master of revenge. And he knew the decision was now all his.

sixteen

When Carthay and the others had a half-hour head start down the mountain, Hawker stood and checked the Ingram to make sure that it was fully loaded and that he had plenty of extra clips. He took the .44 magnum revolver from the holster strapped across his chest, spun the cylinder in the light of the cabin, then slid it easily back into the holster.

In his free right hand, he took two Army TH3 incendiary hand grenades, pulled the pin on each with his teeth, and, still holding the safety spoons in place, walked calmly to the front door and knocked.

He could hear men's voices inside, could hear music. The door swung open wide, and Hawker got a momentary glimpse of one of the Germans he recognized from Nek's Denver estate.

“Special delivery,” the vigilante said sweetly, tossing both grenades into the huge front room of the lodge. In reply to the German's sudden look of terror and confusion, Hawker added, “Don't worry—you don't have to sign.” Then he jumped from the steps, sprint-hobbled toward some trees, and dove behind them as a huge explosion shook the earth.

He turned to see the entire interior front section of the lodge engulfed in gaseous white flames. The heat was withering. Hawker wasn't surprised, nor was he shocked to hear the terrible screams coming from inside. The incendiary grenades were filled with thermate, a lethal chemical developed by the Chemical Warfare Service of the United States. Each thermate grenade would burn for nearly a minute at more than two thousand degrees, setting everything within twenty yards immediately in flames.

William Nek's hunting lodge was now burning as if it were made from Georgia lighter pine.

The vigilante drew the big Smith & Wesson revolver and waited. In a few moments, the front door flew open and men began to sprint out like ants from a damaged anthill. They all seemed to have weapons, and they fired wildly into the night, more concerned with escaping the terrible heat than with killing their attacker.

As they exited, the vigilante aimed and fired carefully. One by one, the .44 magnum blew the first six men backward, knocking two of them right out of their shoes.

Hawker wasn't surprised when the door was suddenly thrown closed. Someone had decided it was safer to face the fire than to face the lone man outside.

Quickly, Hawker lumbered to the side of the house, smashed out a window, and tossed in another thermate grenade. He used his last three incendiary grenades at the back of the house. Four times he opened fire on men as they tried to flee out the back door or windows. Four times men died. The vigilante worked his way to the side of the great house, the only section that now was not in flames. He could see men peeking out the door. When he stepped into view, the men opened fire, and Hawker had to dive toward cover.

Slugs kicked up a line of snow and dirt behind him as he rolled into a ditch.

“Nek! Bill Nek! I want you!” Hawker's cold voice echoed through the night.

More shots rang out, vectoring on the position of his voice. The vigilante turned the Ingram on full automatic and sprayed the side door and windows of the lodge. Inside, a man screamed. Another came crashing through the window, clawing at his bloody face.

“Nek! Get your ass out here, old man!”

The vigilante was standing now, his blazing gray eyes and square chin illuminated by the raging fire that now consumed the lodge.

On the second floor, a window shattered and a man opened fire with a wide-bore shotgun. Snow plumed around Hawker as he immediately held the freshly loaded submachine gun on full fire. A man wearing only underwear came floundering through the jagged glass, shotgun in hand. He landed heavily, kicked wildly for a moment, then lay still.

“If you don't come out now, old man, I'm going to let you burn to death!” Hawker was standing at the corner of the house so that he could see both the front and side exits. How many of the Silver King's men had he killed? At least fifteen. Maybe more with the grenades. Nek couldn't have many more bodyguards left inside. And he sure as hell didn't have much more time. The hunting lodge was a crackling, steaming box of flames now. It crossed the vigilante's mind that Nek might already be dead: burned to death or killed by the percussion of the heavy ordnance.

But then, at the side door, he saw the evil old face, the contorted expression of anger and desperation, the man who had worked hard to ruin the lives of his three partners, the man who had destroyed many men on his climb to the top, the man who had murdered his two friends Tom Dulles and Lomela Carthay, the man he now wanted to kill as badly as he had ever wanted to kill anyone.

Bill Nek came through the door slowly, his eyes wide and glazed with an expression of insane desperation. In his right hand was a revolver. And the barrel of the revolver was jammed into the ear of the blond and beautiful Melissa Nek. “I'll kill her, Hawker. I swear to God I'll kill her if you don't let me pass!”

The vigilante stood his ground, the .44 magnum in his right hand pointed at the ground. “Why should I care if you kill your wife, Nek? She doesn't mean anything to me.”

“Bullshit! You've been sleeping with her, Hawker! She's in love with you. Told me so herself. Now put down that sidearm, and I'll let her live. And I'll let you live, too, though I should have your damned nuts cut off for fucking with something that's mine.”

He had the woman's arm twisted up behind her back, and the woman's face was contorted with pain as she said, “Don't listen to him, James! He's lying! He'll kill you the moment you put down your gun. He'll kill me, too.”

The vigilante paid no attention to the pleas of the woman. His eyes were still focused on Bill Nek, the Silver King. “Okay, Nek,” he said slowly. “I'll let you pass. I'll put down the gun. But first you have to tell me something. Tell me who killed Dulles and the woman. Was it you?”

The old man was less than thirty feet from the vigilante now, trying to slide past him sideways as he replied, “Who killed them? I killed them, that's who. They come up here snooping into things that was none of their business, trying to get involved in my affairs. They had no right. None at all. You goddamn right I killed them. I'm going to kill those three old fools I got locked up out back, too—leastaways, the moment they sign the mine over to me, I am. People got no business messing in my affairs, Hawker. I got more money than them. That gives me more right, doesn't it? I tried to tell Dulles that. Tried to make him beg for his life. Wouldn't do it. Wouldn't admit that I'm the better man and I got the right.”

“You tried to make Dulles beg?” Hawker said in a deadly calm voice.

“And then I shot him.” The old man laughed, showing a row of very black teeth. “But that don't mean nothin' 'cause now you're going to put that gun down, and I'm going to leave you and sweet Melissa here—”

In that instant, the woman suddenly lunged to the side. The vigilante tilted the .44 magnum just over ninety degrees and fired before Nek could finish his sentence. The Smith & Wesson sounded like a cannon going off. Melissa and Bill Nek both dropped in their tracks.

The old man jolted backward, and his face was immediately transformed into a spongy horror of red gore. His hands clawed at the sky, and his legs kicked spasmodically.

The woman got shakily to her feet, staring at the gruesome figure that lay on the white snow. Bill Nek's eyes opened, straining to focus. Hawker stood over him now as the woman leaned against him as if to keep from fainting. The old man's eyes looked at Hawker, then at the woman, as he gasped, “You've killed me, daughter, you've killed me—” Then a gush of blood vomited from his mouth and his eyes froze in the wide exclamation of death.

Hawker looked incredulously at Melissa Nek. “That's the hold he had over you? You were his daughter and he married you?”

The woman pulled away from the vigilante and took a step toward the corpse of the Silver King. After a moment's hesitation, she turned and lifted her hand toward Hawker. “Take me away from here, James,” she said in a tiny voice. “I owe you three hundred thousand dollars. That's all you need to know.”

Turn the page to continue reading from the Hawker series

one

It didn't anger James Hawker that Con Ye Cwong, head of North Vietnam's secret police during the Vietnam war, had become a millionaire drug kingpin and warlord on one of the South Pacific's Solomon Islands.

And it didn't make Hawker angry that Cwong still hated Americans and American soldiers enough to order his drug pushers to single out servicemen on bases around the world, supply them with cheap drugs until they were hooked, then up the price until they were out of dough … or dead.

And if the American servicemen didn't have money, military secrets might be traded for a week's supply of cocaine or, for the really adventurous, heroin or opium—if the military secrets could later be sold to, say, the Soviets.