Chapter Fifty-Nine
Ritter ran back across the hall, Finn behind him still clutching the handgun. Everyone in the other room was on their feet and staring either at the shattered window overlooking the front of the house, or at Mike Corcoran who was standing there with the pump-action levelled towards the broken glass, smoke oozing from its barrel.
‘What happened?’ Ritter said.
Corcoran wet his lips with his tongue, still pointing the shotgun at the window. ‘I saw something. Outside. A movement.’
‘You thought you did.’
Corcoran shook his head. ‘No, man. I saw it. A shape. Just for a moment.’
‘Could’ve been some animal,’ O’Rourke muttered.
Ritter drew his pistol and stepped to the window, carefully drew aside the shredded blind and peered out through the jagged remains of the pane. He could see nothing out there except darkness. Maybe they were just jumping at shadows. Maybe not.
The silence outside was disconcerting. If Hope was here, he could be anywhere around the house.
‘What was the shootin’ in there?’ O’Rourke asked, pointing towards the other room.
‘Forget it,’ Ritter told the chief with a sharp look. ‘And keep your voice down.’ O’Rourke was no longer in command, if he ever had been. Ritter took charge as effortlessly as breathing. ‘Dave, hit the lights. You, you and you’ – pointing at Corcoran, Wylie and Duhame – ‘I want you at the front of the house. Spread out, keep to the shadows, shoot anything that moves. It starts to kick off, do not leave your position.’ He turned to Meagher, Lukas and Strickman. ‘You three cover the rear.’
‘I’ll stay here,’ O’Rourke whispered, taking up position near the window. ‘In case he tries to get inside.’
Meagher switched off the lights. The milky light filtered in through the blinds, the sudden darkness turning them all into dark silhouettes. Ritter liked the dark. It was his element. He turned and gestured to Moon, an unspoken command that was clearer than daylight between them. It meant ‘go check on the woman’, and it was music to Billy Bob.
Moon tapped Coyle on the shoulder. ‘You come with me, copper.’
Corcoran, Wylie and Duhame picked up their weapons and headed outside to guard the front, while Moon led Coyle around to the rear.
Ritter led McCrory aside, speaking low. ‘I can’t stay with you, boss. Is there someplace you can close yourself in?’
‘The old man’s study.’ Finn was shaking with nervous excitement, not even so much because of Hope, but because of the realisation sinking in of what he’d just done. The thought hit him that it was his study now.
‘Show me the way,’ Ritter told him.
Finn led Ritter up the hall to the broad wooden staircase, then up it and through the rambling house to the south-facing study at the far end. The moonlight from the window shone dimly on the old man’s desk, the fireplace behind it and the six-point deer antlers that hung on the wall above.
‘Lock yourself in,’ Ritter told him. ‘You hear shooting, stay put. Anyone comes through that door …’
‘I have this.’ Finn patted the holster on his belt. It was the same gun he’d shot Blaylock with. Ritter knew he wasn’t afraid to pull a trigger.
‘Keep the light off,’ Ritter said, and left.
‘Kill him good,’ Finn called after him.
The ranch house was filled with a silence that could almost be touched. Like a chill, thick mist had descended on the place, shutting it off entirely from the outside world. Ritter was tingling with the thought of what was coming. The seconds counted down like chimes inside his head.
As he reached the bottom of the stairs, the silence finally ended. The triple gunshot came from outside. A pause, then two more blasts.
Front of the house.
Ritter moved fast up the hallway to the door. Outside, he found Wylie and Duhame standing under the shadows of the oak trees, guns waving left and right as if every pocket of darkness held a threat. Ritter saw the Remington 870 pump lying on the ground. Corcoran’s.
‘Mike’s gone,’ Wylie said, breathing hard. ‘He was right there next to me, and then he was gone, just like that.’
‘Didn’t you see anything? You must’ve seen something.’
Wylie’s eyes glistened in the darkness. He swallowed audibly. ‘I didn’t see or hear a goddamned thing. He was there and then he wasn’t.’
‘Like a fuckin’ ghost took him,’ Duhame muttered.
Ritter glanced around him into the deep darkness. The cop wouldn’t be far away, dead in the bushes. Ritter didn’t believe in ghosts. He knew what had taken Corcoran, and Hope was already somewhere else.
Ritter had hunted men all his life. Nobody could escape him.
His eyes narrowed. Was that a movement up along the side of the house? He stared hard, at the darkness. He was certain that part of the shadows had shifted. Black moving on black. Ritter didn’t want to use a flashlight and betray his own position. The dark could work for you as much as against you. That was why he loved it.
Ritter turned back to Wylie, and whispered close in his ear, ‘Behind me. Single file, three yards apart. Not a sound.’
They moved up the side of the house towards where Ritter thought he’d seen the movement. Ritter led the way, light and quiet as a panther, then Wylie, then Duhame. Ritter could almost hear Wylie’s thudding heart a few steps behind.
He flinched as the crunch of a snapping twig came from the rear. All those times he’d led US Special Forces patrols through enemy territory in the total confidence that none of his men would leave the slightest sign of their passing; now he was in charge of a bunch of keystone cops who advertised their presence with a sound trail like a fuckin’ rhino. He glared back in anger, and saw Wylie’s pallid face behind him in the darkness. Ritter put his finger to his lips. Wylie shook his head, as if to say ‘it wasn’t me’.
Ritter’s eyes narrowed. He peered past Wylie’s shoulder, at where Duhame had been tagging along behind them just a moment ago.
Duhame was gone.
Ritter spun back, brushed by Wylie, then stopped after five yards and looked down.
Duhame was lying sprawled out with his face in the dirt. Ritter dropped into a crouch and rolled the cop over. His larynx had been crushed and his neck was broken.
Ritter felt himself go cold. That was a feeling he hadn’t had in a long, long time. He looked into the shadows and felt them looking back at him.
I know you’re there.
Wylie saw the body and drew in a sharp intake of breath. ‘Jesus Christ. What the fuck—?’
‘He’s hunting us,’ Ritter said.
Then the lights came on inside the house.
Ritter ran back to the door, not even caring if Wylie was with him or not. The front hallway was lit up, as was the room with the blown-out window where they’d all been waiting earlier.
O’Rourke had never left it. But it wasn’t him who’d put the lights on. He was sitting in an armchair with a Cherokee tomahawk buried in his skull. The blood pool at his feet was still slowly spreading, catching the lights’ reflection.
Ritter sensed Wylie enter the room behind him, heard the gasp of shock. Wylie just wasn’t used to this kind of stuff. He was going to have to learn fast.
‘Don’t move,’ Ritter told him, and left the cop standing there open-mouthed while he moved quickly back out of the room and up the hallway to the stairs, turning off the light as he went.
He reached the door of the study and rapped with his fist.
‘Who’s that?’ came the nervous voice from inside.
‘Just checkin’, boss. Stay tight.’
Before McCrory could reply, Ritter’s head whipped round at the percussive single boom of the gunshot downstairs. He sprinted back down the staircase, back down the hallway and into the room.
Wylie had moved, but only as far as the shotgun blast had blown him. He was sprawled backwards over the bar with half his head gone. Blood was drip-drip-dripping off the edg
e of the bar and into the spittoon on the floor.
Ritter whirled around at the sound of approaching footsteps in the hall, raised his rifle to point it at the door, then lowered it as Strickman, Lukas and Meagher came into the room.
‘Yeugh,’ Lukas said at the sight of the dead cops.
‘Told you not to leave your positions,’ Ritter said. ‘Where’s Moon?’
Chapter Sixty
The stable block was dark. Billy Bob Moon reached into his pocket for the key McCrory had given him, shone his torch on the tack-room door and popped open the padlock. He undid the top bolt, then the lower, opened the door a crack and shone his torch inside, peering in after it. ‘Li’l pig, li’l pig, let me in,’ he said softly.
Erin was sitting in the corner, her back against the whitewashed wall, her knees drawn up and her arms wrapped around her shins. She looked up in fear and defiance, blinking at the light beam playing on her face, and Moon had a stab of pleasure when he saw she’d been crying.
‘Told ya I’d be back, angel wings.’ He pulled the torch back to hold it under his chin, flashed her a demonic smile, then withdrew his head from the crack in the door and turned to Coyle. ‘I’ll be a couple of minutes. Keep your eyes open and your fuckin’ ears shut. Know what I mean?’
‘Nobody said anything about this, bro,’ Coyle said, getting the message.
‘Ain’t your bro, copper.’ Moon grinned at him. ‘S’matter, you worried you won’t get a piece when I’m done?’ He stepped inside the tack-room and shut the door.
‘Together at last,’ he said, shining the torch in her eyes.
Erin rose blinking to her feet, but before she could make a sound or a move, he rushed her and stunned her with a blow to the neck, then punched her in the face. Her head flopped back and he caught her as she fell. Moon helped himself to a good, long feel as he lowered her to the floor. ‘Oh, yes,’ he breathed. ‘You and me. Sweet baby.’
‘Everything all right in there?’ Coyle’s voice said from outside.
‘Shut it,’ Moon snapped back.
He knelt beside her, unslung his M4 and laid it on the floor, then positioned the torch so that its beam shone across her body. Reaching behind his hip, he drew the black USMC Ka-Bar knife from its leather sheath.
Sitting holding a knife over the yielding body of a woman was such a good feeling. Moon pushed the point of the knife in between the buttons of her blouse and angled it so he could peer inside, giving himself a sneak preview of what was to come. Nice. Very nice.
The knife froze in his hand for an instant as multiple gunshots sounded, muffled by distance and the buildings.
‘Something’s happening,’ Coyle said.
Moon heaved a sigh and twisted his head round to bark, ‘Hear your voice one more time, dude, I swear.’ He’d waited too long for this to be distracted. Ritter could handle things out there.
Moon slashed a strip of cloth from Erin’s shirt with the razor-sharp blade and used it to tie a gag around her mouth. The knife was no longer needed, for now. As he was slipping it back in its sheath, he heard more distant gunfire; a single shot this time, the fat low boom of a twelve-gauge that sounded like it had come from the house. Moon paused, detecting the sound of Coyle moving about nervously behind the tack-room door. This time the cop had the good sense to keep his mouth shut.
‘See, they got’m,’ Moon muttered under his breath. ‘Nothing to get all jacked up about.’
He had better things to do. Oh, so much better. He ran a hand up along the curve of the unconscious woman’s thigh and hip, savouring the moment, taking his time. The hand continued upwards, slithering over her. It reached her shoulder then moved across her throat, lingered there for a second as he wondered what it would be like to strangle her when she was still unconscious, totally yielding and passive. That was something he’d never tried before. Then he could do her when she was dead: which was something he’d only done once before, and enjoyed; but it was hard to decide whether it would be more fun than doing her while she was awake and fighting back, and then strangling her. Or using the knife on her.
So many options. These were the kinds of fundamental questions that generally preoccupied much of his thinking. Whatever he chose, nobody would mind. Why hold on to the bait now that the fish were biting?
He decided to do her while she was still alive, then use the knife. There’d be others. His hand continued moving. Very slowly, he undid one button of her blouse. He ran his tongue over his lips. Undid another button, inserted a finger and drew the soft cotton back a little so he could see the lacy material of her bra. ‘Ooh. Baby. Uncle Moon’s gonna give you some lovin’.’ He moved down to the next button.
‘There’s something—’ Coyle began outside the door, but never finished.
Moon heard a thud. ‘Damn it, I told you to keep quiet!’ he yelled.
Something hammered the door, hard. Moon snapped his body up and away from the woman on the floor, snatched up his torch, stepped furiously to the door and wrenched it open to shine the light in Coyle’s face and aim a punch through it, knocking the fucker’s teeth out for disturbing him.
No Coyle.
Moon stepped out of the tack-room, shone the torch up the aisle that ran alongside the stalls. ‘Hey cop, where’d you go?’
No reply. Coyle must have gone back to join the others.
‘Fuck’m,’ Moon said, only mildly disappointed that he wouldn’t get to kill the guy after he’d done with the woman. He’d been toying with the idea for a couple of hours, for no other particular reason than he didn’t like Coyle’s face. And he was a cop. It had been a while since he’d iced a cop. Somehow it was more fun than killing real people. Killing a bent cop was even better. What could anyone do about it? Call the police? Moon thought that was hilarious.
He turned back inside the tack-room and something hit him a slamming blow to the face. His vision exploded white and he was suddenly on his back, trying to look up through the mist of stars. Blood filled his mouth and nose.
The man standing over him seemed to have appeared from nowhere, as if he’d risen out of the ground.
Chapter Sixty-One
Ben had checked Erin’s pulse and removed the gag. She was unconscious. Her lip was cut from the blow that had knocked her cold. But she was alive. Less could be said for Billy Bob Moon, a few moments from now.
‘Look at me, Moon,’ Ben said. ‘You know who I am, don’t you?’ He pointed the sawn-off shotgun in Moon’s face.
Moon blinked, spat blood, and his teeth bared in a red grin. ‘Sonofabitch.’
‘I knew I’d find you here, Moon,’ Ben said. ‘I smelled you. Stand up.’
Moon was hurt, but not that hurt. He was on his feet quickly, knees slightly bent, every muscle tensed ready to fight. ‘You gonna shoot me, better do it quick.’
Ben tossed the gun down and touched the hilt of the trench knife in his belt, without drawing it. He shook his head. ‘You already know what it feels like to be on the handle end of one of these. Now you’re going to find out what it feels like going in.’
Moon spat again. ‘Think I’ve never been cut before?’
‘This’ll be the last time. That’s a promise.’
‘Takes more than some drunk to get the drop on ol’ Billy Bob.’ Moon grinned bloodily. ‘Hey, stumble fuck. Where’s your bottle? How about I slice your fuckin’ arms and legs off and have you eat your girlfriend’s liver? Wash it down with some nice corn whiskey.’
Ben just looked at him.
Moon began to laugh, then cut the laughter short to whip out the Ka-Bar and lunge forwards in a quick two-step roundhouse slash that would have caught most men off guard, even some well-trained soldiers. He was rattlesnake-fast, but Ben was so far ahead of the curve that he knew what Moon was going to do even before Moon did. He stepped out of the arc of the strike, took Moon’s wrist and mashed the nerves in his hand that made his fingers let go of the knife. At the same time, Ben’s elbow crashed into Moon’s face. Moon staggered, but B
en still had his arm, so he could only stagger in a circle as Ben drew the trench knife from his belt.
Ben gripped the knuckleduster hilt tightly and popped Moon in the face with it. Moon was blinded by pain and didn’t see the strike coming or try to block it with his free arm. The spiked steel handguard hit him full on with all the force Ben could put behind it. Moon’s nose became a bloody bubbled pulp crushed up beneath his left eye. Ben hit him again, just as hard, and smashed his jaw and followed through and felt his teeth give. Then he hit him again, and again. Crack. Cheekbone. Crack. Eye socket.
Moon fell, hitting the floor on his back. Ben still had the arm. He pressed Moon’s elbow against his knee and bent it the way it had never been meant to go, with a crackling and splintering that was drowned out by Moon’s gurgling scream. Ben let go of his broken arm, caught the other and did the same to that one. Moon wasn’t screaming any longer. He was squealing like a pig. Ben pressed the sole of his boot against Moon’s throat, pinning him down hard and choking off the sound. He leaned down and looked into the man’s ruined face.
‘Kristen Hall,’ he said.
Then he pushed the tip of the trench knife into the soft flesh under Moon’s chin and rammed it through his broken jaw, through his tongue and palate and up through bone until it pierced deep inside his brain. Ben watched the eyes roll back and the light in them go out. He jerked and twisted the blade free, wiped it clean on Moon’s ‘I DON’T CALL 911’ T-shirt and slipped it back into its scabbard. He felt nothing as he stepped away from the dead man, no anger, no satisfaction. What was done was done. Ben picked up Moon’s rifle and hung it over his left shoulder from its two-point tactical sling, then grabbed his shotgun and slung it over the other.
Erin was still out cold, but her pulse felt normal and her breathing was regular. He couldn’t leave her here. Ben scooped her gently up in his arms and carried her out of the stable block. He passed the stall where he’d dragged the body of the man who’d been with Moon, paused at the entrance, looked left and right. The enemy were six men down. By Ben’s calculations he still had three more of McCrory’s soldiers to deal with.