Vegas Vengeance (12 page)

“I may be late, Barbara. Very late.”

“Promise. Please.”

In the light from the table lamp, her eyes looked like dark pools, and her hair was an ebony sheen. “If you like, Barbara. I promise. But don't wait up.”

As Hawker reached for the door, he remembered something. “Barbara, last night—or very early this morning—someone visited me while I was asleep in your massage room. A woman. Did you send one of your girls?”

She shook her head. “No, James. You asked me not to.”

“Was it you, Barbara?”

Her eyes did not change. “I was tempted, James. Very, very damn tempted.”

“Is that an answer?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Maybe it's because I'm a little envious. But you didn't strike me as the type of man who would settle for sleeping with someone he didn't care about.”

“She caught me at a weak moment.”

“Was it enjoyable?”

“The question is indiscreet. And the answer is yes. And underline the
yes.”

“Then I
am
envious. And you have all the more reason to hurry back in good health, James. Your mystery woman may be waiting for you.”

fifteen

Hawker drove west toward the sunset.

It was one of those spectacular desert sunsets. The sky was aflame with iridescent light. Orange rays fanned over a lavender horizon, with stormbursts of clouds backlighted in pink. The clouds were layered like desert buttes, peaking into smoky cobalt explosions of thunderheads.

It looked like a desert world above a desert land.

Hawker drove carefully. He had loaded the car with ordnance from his armaments supply. He couldn't risk being stopped for speeding. Even the most haphazard search would make an honest trooper's eyes bulge.

He had worked too hard to have it all ruined by a trip to some county jail now.

Hawker also kept his eyes open for any kind of tail. If they tried it again, he wouldn't waste time with any
Smoky and the Bandit
chase. It was too dangerous. And too time-consuming.

No, if they came after him now, he would simply pull over and fight it out.

And with the firepower he carried, it would take the National Guard to take him.

A very well-trained National Guard.

Hawker drove with the top down. He wore no suit jacket and tailored slacks now. At his apartment, he had changed into glove-soft jeans, running shoes, a black cotton woven sweater and a Navy issue watch cap.

The Randall was strapped to his calf, and the Smith & Wesson stainless steel .44 magnum he had selected as a handgun was in the custom-built shoulder holster with the spring-retention system. As an added precaution, he carried the little Walther PPK in the DFB ankle holster hidden beneath his jeans.

He would carry other weaponry, of course.

But these were the necessities. Hawker's own brand of life insurance.

Route 160 began to veer north. The mountains were off to his right, a masked darkness in the descending night. The village of Pahrump, he knew, lay ahead. And ten miles east of that, toward the Spring Mountains, was the Nevada Mining and Assay plant.

In the road wind was the delicate acidity of cactus and rank sand. The heat accumulated during the Nevada day boiled off the asphalt, but the desert breeze was dry and cool.

Hawker felt good. Finally this mission had come into sharp focus. After stopping at his suite, Hawker had taken the added precaution of taking the envelopes of rock samples he had found in Stratton's cabin to a Vegas lapidarist. The lapidarist had found most of the samples to be uninteresting.

But a conglomerate crystal glob, heavier than lead and the color of wet tar, had caused him to do a double take. Then a triple take.

It was, indeed, pitchblende.

That was when Hawker knew beyond any shadow of a doubt that Nevada Mining and Assay was behind the brutal attacks on the people associated with the Five-Cs.

Hawker had prodded him for more information about pitchblende. When Hawker was satisfied with the answers, he began to ask questions only a local resident could answer. All the lapidarist could tell him was that Nevada Mining and Assay was a major industrial company that dealt in the processing of precious metal. The lapidarist also told him he had heard there was money from the Middle East involved. But that wasn't uncommon. American business was the favorite investment of Islamic oil money.

Even so, Hawker found it troubling. He tried to telephone Chief Smith to ask if the concern might be one of the “legitimate” businesses controlled by the mob.

For some reason, it would all seem a lot easier if the mob was behind it all.

But Chief Smith was under sedation, soon to enter surgery to have a bullet removed.

So Hawker headed for the western border of Nevada not knowing exactly who his enemy was. Or how prepared they would be to retaliate. All he did know was that they were merciless. And would stop at nothing.

Which was exactly why Hawker now traveled heavily armed.

Pahrump was little more than a collection of houses at an intersection of desert roads. Hawker turned east, toward the mountains.

The lights of the Jaguar bored through the summer darkness. When the road began its serpentine climb toward the mountains, Hawker hit the toggle switch, and the amber halogen fog lamps flooded the narrow road with light.

It crossed his mind that they might have guards watching the road. He kept a sharp eye as he drove, but saw nothing. There was only the wind sculpture of desert mesas and the softer darkness of mountains.

Nevada Mining and Assay Corporation came into view as Hawker topped an ascending series of small hills.

It lay in a valley, a sizable industrial complex enclosed by high chain link fence and illuminated by orange vapor lights. The main building was a corrugated steel structure, four stories high, with two levels of ore elevators angling up its side.

A railroad dump track led from the valley into the complex. Three empty cars sat within the compound. The track was sealed by a massive gate on the southern edge.

Beyond the tracks was an imposing white structure. It was built of cement, two stories high. There was a grim sterility about it, and Hawker guessed it was some kind of laboratory.

There were a few smaller outbuildings in the complex. They looked like they might be office huts and dormitories. At the far and near edge of the area were lighted guard towers. They gave the place a concentration camp flavor. Hawker decided the entire place covered about fifteen acres.

A long asphalt driveway descended to the complex from the main road.

Hawker slowed slightly as he passed the turnoff. The sign at the intersection was brightly lighted:

Nevada Mining and Assay

An Investment in America

Absolutely No Entrance without Credentials

Trespassers will be prosecuted

Friendly place.

Hawker wondered just how they prosecuted trespassers. It reminded him of a sign he had seen once in the window of a college fraternity house:

No girls allowed. Trespassers will be violated
.

A funny threat.

But there was nothing funny about the appearance of Nevada Mining and Assay.

The place had the look of one of those industrial concerns that did top-secret government work. Complex armament manufacture; precious metals; high tolerance machinery. Built far away from the mainstream industrial areas for a reason. All very hush-hush and low profile. And very damn deadly-looking.

If his observation was accurate, Hawker wondered just what government was underwriting the operation.

Not the people of United States, he hoped.

Hawker drove on past, the lights of the Jag tunneling through the darkness.

The air was cooler here, fresh out of the high mountains. Moths and insects veered toward his driving lights, flaming like comets. Hawker took a deep breath as he went over his plan.

An innocent plan, really.

First, he wanted to get evidence against the company. Jason Stratton had mentioned Nevada Mining and Assay in each of the last entries in his journal. Stratton had found the pitchblende but didn't have the instruments to gauge the extent of his find. So he took samples to their labs. In the June 10 entry, Stratton questioned their findings. He thought them inaccurate. It puzzled him. Anyone less innocent would have suspected the company's principals of trying to keep the discovery for themselves.

But not Jason Stratton.

Stratton's last entry mentioned he had questioned the findings by telephone, then had agreed to a meeting with officials from the mining company. The officials had insisted they couldn't make a proper analysis of the pitchblende without testing the area from which it came.

Stratton fell for it. He wrote how delighted he was that they took such pride in their work.

Jason Stratton would never make another entry.

A mile up the mountain road, Hawker turned off onto a gravel jeep trail. He backed the Jag into the brush in case he had to get away quickly.

From the glove compartment he took a little tin of military greasepaint and dabbed it on his face.

He checked the effect in the rearview mirror.

Satisfied, he opened the tiny trunk and chose the equipment he would carry. Since the first priority was getting into the complex, Hawker selected gear a burglar might need. He tried to anticipate every problem and choose the proper tool. If he could get into the file area, he wanted to be able to record any entries referring to Jason Stratton, so he decided to carry the tiny half-inch-frame camera. It was about the size of a pocketknife. He packed the gear carefully into a khaki knapsack. Then he turned his attention to weaponry.

Because he was in a mountainous area, he wanted to travel as light as possible. It's tough to run up a hill with eighty pounds of gear on your back. But he also wanted enough firepower to handle any situation.

For a shoulder gun, Hawker chose the Colt Commando automatic. The Colt was really a cut-down version of the M-16. It had been developed during Vietnam, where a tough, big firepower weapon was needed that could be used in extremely close quarters. The barrel had been shortened and a flash eliminator added. There was also a telescoping stock that, when stored, made the weapon less than thirty inches long.

The Colt fired standard 5.56-millimeter ammunition from twenty-round clips. On full automatic, it fired up to eight hundred rounds per minute—if you could feed it that fast.

Hawker had already preloaded ten clips, plus the one in the weapon.

He stored the clips in the knapsack and held them fast with a Velcro strap.

Fixed atop the Colt was the Star-Tron MK 303a night-vision system. It looked like an expensive telephoto camera lens. The Star-Tron's complex mirror system sucked in all available light—light from stars, the moon—then amplified it fifty thousand times. The resulting image through the scope was sharp and clear and as bright as high noon on a cloudy day.

Hawker switched on the Star-Tron, testing it. He turned the weapon toward the dark mountain, and suddenly it was daylight. It was like looking at each individual tree through a glowing red filter.

Hawker switched off the scope and returned to the business of arming himself.

He took all the explosives he thought he might need—and others he hoped he wouldn't need.

Thinking there was an outside chance he could use it, Hawker had put a free-flight disposable missile launcher into the Jag. It was the M-72, manufactured by the United States Army. The M-72 was a telescoping tube that fired the extremely powerful 66-millimeter HEAT missile. Even fully armed, launcher and missile weighed less than five pounds. And there was a shoulder strap so it could be easily carried.

Hawker hesitated, then whispered, “What the hell.”

After checking his equipment a final time, he urinated into the bushes, then picked up the Colt Commando, threw the rocket launcher over his shoulder and headed down the mountain toward the Nevada Mining and Assay stronghold.

sixteen

Hawker had no illusions about the security system of the mining corporation. He knew it would be tough to get in undetected.

But it never crossed his mind that it might be impossible.

It nearly was.

He left the road and traveled cross-country. He kept low, sticking to the heavy tree cover on the hillside. Hawker knew that if the corporation was serious about keeping intruders out, it might equip its guards with the same state-of-the-art night-vision systems that he carried.

When he got close enough to check through the Star-Tron, he found out he was right.

There were two guards in each tower. Their night-vision systems were mounted on unipods. The guards took turns at the huge binoculars while the others manned what looked to be 50-caliber machine guns. The machine guns were positioned on mobile tripods, no doubt for daylight concealment.

But there was something else about the guards that Hawker found even more disconcerting. They were dressed in uniforms unfamiliar to Hawker. Their jackets had the pleats and drawn blouses usually associated with British officers. But these guards weren't British. They wore white turbans instead of field caps. And they certainly weren't Gurkhas.

It stunned Hawker momentarily. He could make no sense of it.

But then he remembered what the lapidarist had said about the rumor that Nevada Mining and Assay was controlled by Middle Eastern money. Money from the Islamic nations. Iraq or Saudi Arabia, Kuwait or Iran, or one of the other oil nations.

Suddenly all the little pieces fell neatly into place. And the picture the completed puzzle made was frightening as hell.

How could such a thing happen in a country as powerful as the United States? But then, without another moment's thought, Hawker knew. America was controlled by a Congress that was all too soft on outsiders who wanted in; a Congress that insisted the laws of business acquisition be applied to aliens with the same free hand that was extended to Americans. They had, in effect, opened the doors of the vault and ushered the enemies in, bidding them to sit down, relax and take what they wanted.