Terror in D.C. (18 page)

The woman stood there looking catlike, extremely desirable, but then her eyes seemed to focus and her expression changed suddenly to one of shock. “James, you've been hurt! My God, what happened to you?”

Hawker realized that he must look like a bloody mess. He shrugged off the woman's efforts to help him and limped past her to the bathroom. He plugged the sink, ran cold water, and dumped in a bucket of ice from the counter. He buried his right fist in the water, then submerged his face until the pain was too much to stand.

“Hand me a towel, damn it,” he sputtered.

The woman found a towel and began to dab at his face. “Why are you so mad at me? Please, tell me what happened!”

Hawker jerked the towel from her and finished drying his face. “What happened, dear lady, is that the man you had posted outside my room failed. He tried to kill me, tried very damn hard, but tonight just wasn't his night. He left with what I truly hope is a fractured arm”—Hawker motioned to the revolver on the counter—“and without his gun.” Hawker tossed the towel away and glared at the woman. “Now, you can make it very easy on yourself, Laurene, by telling me all about it. Or, if you like, I can make you talk. And don't think for an instant that the fact that you are very obviously a woman bothers me.”

The woman's pale mahogany face turned a slow, deep shade of oiled wood. Anger. Outrage. She whirled away from Hawker, yanked one of his jackets off the hanger, and covered herself. “There! Is that better? You really know how to put a woman out of the mood!”

Hawker couldn't believe what he was hearing. “
Me
? Wellington Curtis tries to have me killed on my first night in Belize and you expect me to come in here, jump into bed with you, tell you any little secrets I might be hiding, and then act as happy as a lark? Come on, lady. I don't know what jungle you crawled out of, but people aren't quite so naive in the real world—”

“Why would Colonel Curtis have you killed?” she shouted, interrupting, her fists planted on her hips. “He honestly hopes you have come to help him!”

“Then who in the hell was that guy waiting for me outside? He knew my name; he knew all about me. He wasn't just one of your run-of-the-mill drugged-out island thieves. He was a pro. A dumb pro, but a pro just the same.”

“James, I told you that I am Wellington Curtis's confidante, and I am. So I won't pretend not to know something of your past. Any number of people could have arranged to have that man waiting for you. But my guess is that it was the CIA—aren't they after you too?”

“It couldn't be the CIA because—” Hawker stopped himself in mid-sentence, realizing that he was about to give away some important information. After a moment he looked at the woman. “Get out,” he said. “Now.”

“But my clothes … I'm not even dressed!”

Hawker had taken her by the arm and was leading her to the door. “I'll call the front desk and have them send a maid with a key to your room—”

“I don't have a room!”

“You will when I get off the phone to the front desk.”

Hawker locked the door against the woman's protestations. He opened one of the Belikin beers he had been keeping in the now empty ice bucket and drank half of it in a gulp as he sat by the phone. First he arranged for another room and then got through to the overseas operator. “That's right, Operator,” he said, almost yelling into the phone, “Jerry Rehfuss, Washington, D.C.” He gave her the private telephone number of his former CIA connection, hung up the phone, and waited.

Hawker was soaking his hand in ice water when the phone rang ten minutes later.

The voice at the other end sounded cautious, reluctant to talk, and a million miles away. “James? James Hawker? Is that really you?”

“It's me, Jer. Alive and well—no thanks to you.”

“Ah, James, a public phone line may not be the place to discuss our business—”

“You keep a voltage meter on your end, Jer. You tell
me
: Should we discuss our business?”

“Well, no, probably not. But it depends, James—”

“Someone tried to exercise a contract on me tonight, Jerry,” Hawker said, cutting in. “He gave it a good try, but he fell a little short.”

Rehfuss's voice became even more cautious, and Hawker guessed that there was either someone in the room with him or the line, indeed, was being tapped. “I'm not surprised that they failed, James. You're a good businessman. Tell me, what did this person look like?”

“A big black guy with a beard. The beard might have been fake. He had an island accent, a deep voice. He knew too much about me. It sounds like one of your free-lancers to me. It's a shame, too, Jer, because I had heard that our companies were going to be friends again. I was looking forward to the negotiations.”

“You said it was a large black man, James?” Rehfuss asked, pressing on. “Please be more exact in your description. And you haven't even told me where you're calling from.”

“You don't really expect me to tell you after what happened tonight, do you, Jer?”

“How can I help, James, if you won't trust me?”

“You can help by telling me if your representatives still have orders to exercise that contract. I have his equipment, by the way, and his prints, too, I assume—not that anyone really gives a damn.”

There was a long silence on the Washington end, and Hawker knew that Rehfuss was talking to someone else. He wondered who. Finally the lanky CIA agent came back to the phone. “I hate to admit it, James, but it could be one of our representatives. Orders went out last week that we were going to deal with you on a more friendly basis—temporarily, at least. We were waiting until we closed the deal with you, and apparently not all the orders got through.”

“Well, Jer, old buddy, tell your buddies at the head office that I will be a lot more amenable to a deal if your sales reps aren't trying to cut my throat.”

“Right away, James—but please do this for me: Promise you'll get back within the next three days. We need to discuss—”

“I'll be in touch, Jer. I'll be in touch.”

Hawker hung up the phone and sat moodily finishing his beer.
To hell with it
, he thought.
To hell with them all. I work best when I work on my own. If Laurene Catocamez
—
or whatever her name is
—
still wants to take me to Curtis, I'll go. But I'll trust no one. And if it looks like Curtis needs a kick in the ass, I'll do it my way, in Masagua or Atlanta or wherever I decide
.

Hawker stripped off his torn and bloody clothes, turned on the shower as hot as he could stand it, and tried to suds one of the all-time shitty days away. When he was finished, he slid the Beretta under his pillow and crawled beneath the sheets.

A few minutes later, just as he was dozing off, there came a light tapping at the door. Hawker was on his feet in an instant, the weapon cool in his big right hand. “Who is it?”

The tumbler of the lock clicked, and the door swung open. Laurene Catocamez stood in the doorway wearing a long, sheer negligee instead of the T-shirt. “I'm sorry, James,” she whispered. “That's what I came to tell you. Please believe that we had nothing to do with it. Let's be friends.”

Hawker switched the Beretta to his left hand and walked naked to the door. He could feel the woman's eyes on him. He pulled the door wider and said coldly, “If you want to fuck, let's cut out all the bullshit and just fuck. But if you've come looking for more information, don't waste your time, lady. I have too many friends as it is. I don't need any more.”

Laurene Catocamez stepped into the room. Hawker noticed that she was shivering slightly. She wrapped her arms around him and rubbed her face against his chest. “Then we have something in common, James, dear,” she said. “Neither of us wants to be friends, but we both have something the other wants.…”

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About the Author

Randy Wayne White was born in Ashland, Ohio, in 1950. Best known for his series featuring retired NSA agent Doc Ford, he has published over twenty crime fiction and nonfiction adventure books. White began writing fiction while working as a fishing guide in Florida, where most of his books are set. His earlier writings include the Hawker series, which he published under the pen name Carl Ramm. White has received several awards for his fiction, and his novels have been featured on the
New York Times
bestseller list. He was a monthly columnist for
Outside
magazine and has contributed to several other publications, as well as lectured throughout the United States and travelled extensively. White currently lives on Pine Island in South Florida, and remains an active member of the community through his involvement with local civic affairs as well as the restaurant Doc Ford's Sanibel Rum Bar and Grill.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 1986 by Dell Publishing Co., Inc.

Cover design by Andy Ross

ISBN: 978-1-5040-2457-0

This edition published in 2015 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

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New York, NY 10014

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