Читать книгу Hell Dawn - Don Pendleton - Страница 9

Where the hell were they?

Fox peered through the coffee-shop window again for the fourth time in twenty minutes, eyes scouring the streets for some sign of Kurtzman. This was his third day on the run, and he found himself jumping at shadows. He’d arrived in Leadville two days earlier, after hitching a ride from a trucker. He’d been able to get some clothes from a church, and public rest rooms had given him a place to wash, making him look like just another hiker stopping in town for a shave and warm meal. A dull ache in his back and neck reminded him that he’d spent the last couple of nights sleeping on the ground in a meadow behind the local elementary school.

Setting down his coffee, he reached for the nylon satchel he normally used for carrying his laptop. Unzipping it, he stared at the weapon inside, an Uzi submachine gun. Computer nerds weren’t supposed to know how to use such weapons. But he did, thanks largely to a couple of gang bangers he’d known in his hometown who were given to driving to the country, dropping hits of acid and shredding rabbits and squirrels with well-placed bursts from the Israeli-made subgun. He’d never had the stomach to shoot an animal, but he’d wasted more than one discarded beer can during those trips. So he could shoot straight, if necessary.

Besides, you didn’t need to be Annie Oakley to shoot yourself in the head. Just the proper motivation. He figured losing a wife, being betrayed by his own government and having every creep in the world chasing him gave a guy all the motivation he needed. A crashing realization of what he was about to do struck him, causing his hands and knees to tremor. He shoved the bag aside, leaving it closed, but not zipped, and lit up a cigarette.

“Might as well smoke ’em,” he muttered. “You’ll likely be dead in an hour.”

“Sir?”

The voice caused him to start. Yanking the cigarette from his mouth, he whipped his head around and found the waitress standing next to his table. Brushing aside her kinky brown hair, she gave him a confused smile.

“Sir, did you say something?”

He waved dismissively. “Just yapping to myself,” he said.

She nodded. “Can I get you something else?”

He looked at her face, oval-shaped with pale blue eyes, and felt that heavy sensation settle into his chest again. His wife also had had blue eyes. “Just the check.” The uncertainty still in her eyes, she nodded and headed back toward the counter to tally the bill.

With his left hand, he rubbed his cheeks, now bare because he’d shaved his goatee in an attempt to alter his appearance. Good luck. A man mountain covered in tattoos trying to hide himself by removing a little facial hair, it seemed a vain effort. Like trying to dress up hell with a flower garden.

Kurtzman’s reply to his e-mail had been brief, but comforting. We’re coming, he’d written. Stay cool. So he’d been doing just that for the last several hours, but he’d yet to see any sign of his old friend.

Fox had been operating as a computer nomad of sorts over the past few days, using the machines at the local libraries to check his e-mail account and to scan media Web sites for any word of his appearance or of the shootings at the safehouse. As expected, he’d found nothing. He’d checked his e-mail account about an hour ago, looking for any further communications from Kurtzman, but had found nothing.

The sound of car doors slamming outside pulled him from his thoughts. Maybe it was Aaron, he thought. Glancing through the window, he spotted three men climbing from a black Cadillac Escalade. A fourth already stood by the driver’s-side door, scanning his surroundings. A matching SUV had parked a few spots back and three more men were disgorging. Blood thundered in Fox’s ears and sweat immediately broke out on his forehead. How the hell? When the realization struck, his stomach plummeted. The credit card. He’d used a credit card to pay for the Internet access, and apparently someone had been waiting for him to do just that.

He rocketed to his feet, grabbing his satchel. Turning on a heel to bolt, he nearly collided with the waitress. Her eyes wide, she crossed her arms over her chest protectively and inhaled sharply as she came to a halt. Reaching into his pocket, Gabe grabbed a crumpled ten-dollar bill and held it out to her.

She took it. “It’s going to be a minute on the change.”

“Keep it,” he said, his voice sharp and loud. “A back door. You got one?”

The volume of his voice, his size and his erratic behavior seemed to take her aback. Eyes wide, her lips parted but no sound came out.

“A door!” Without taking her eyes from him, she turned and gestured toward a pair of swing doors at the other end of the counter.

“There. Through there.”

“Thanks,” he said, his voice dropping in volume. He darted for the back of the restaurant. Pushing through the swing doors, he wound his way between a series of tables covered with chopped food and kitchen appliances. A twenty-something man, his hair dyed green and three earrings on his left ear, his skinny torso covered in a stained apron, stepped into Fox’s path, a butcher’s knife clutched in his right hand, but not upraised to strike.

“What’s the—” he said.

Fox’s stiff-armed the cook, planting the open palm of his left hand into the man’s sternum, sending him spinning backward into a wall. The cook yelled, but it only vaguely registered with Fox. He pushed through a wood-framed screen door, which emptied into an alley that ran the length of a row of commercial buildings, most of them stout and more than a century old. Cutting right, he began to move along the alley, his lungs already feeling the exertion from years of smoking combined with the thin mountain air.

Even as he moved, he heard the screen door slam behind him, prompting him to glance over his shoulder. He spotted the cook from the restaurant, knife still in his hand, yelling and cursing at him.

A corridor, little more than the space between two buildings, opened up to his right and Fox darted into it. Footsteps pounded the pavement and he heard a faint thumping in the distance. Flattening himself against the wall, he reached inside the satchel and fisted the Uzi, but kept the bag over it for the moment. Chances were the irate cook or the waitress was already calling 911, summoning the local police. If they showed up, he’d lose the weapon, give himself up and hope to stay alive in custody until Kurtzman arrived. Fox wasn’t in love with the police, and the memory of his betrayal by the CIA was fresh in his mind, but he wasn’t about to draw down on some local cop trying to do his or her job. He’d die before doing that.

The whupping of chopper blades rent the air and the craft passed overhead, the whine of the engine reverberating from the alley walls. Biting off a curse, Fox headed for the mouth of the alley, which led back onto the main street. Chancing a look around the corner, he spotted two of the guys from the SUV moving up the street toward him. Jerking back, he spun on a heel, retraced his steps toward the other end of the alley. The helicopter’s engine grew louder as it returned for another pass. Had they spotted him during their previous pass? He had no reason to think otherwise.

A stout man clad in a black leather bomber jacket and jeans stepped into view, bringing a gun to bear on Fox. With less than ten yards separating them, Fox started to raise his own weapon when he suddenly heard tires screech in the alley, snagging the guy’s attention and causing him to snap his head toward the source of the noise.

Already committed, Fox continued running until he came right up on the man and threw himself into the guy, tackling him, both men crashing to the ground in a pile. Breath whooshed from between the man’s lips as he struck the ground. Fox pressed his advantage, lifting the Uzi, ready to crack the other man in the jaw with the submachine gun.

“Freeze!”

Fox complied, holding both hands aloft. He glanced briefly to his right and saw a police cruiser, a female officer crouched behind it. She gripped her weapon in both hands and laid her arms over the car’s hood, using it to steady her hands.

“Drop the guns!” she yelled. “Now! Both of you.”

Fox set the Uzi on the asphalt and, with a hard shove, sent it sliding toward the cruiser. The other man tossed aside his pistol. She ordered both men to their feet and Fox did as he was told. He hated taking orders, especially from a cop, but he didn’t mind grabbing some distance from the stocky bastard who a few moments earlier had been gunning for him. The woman rose, the weapon still held in front of her, and gestured toward a wall.

“Up against it,” she said.

“Look, Officer—” Fox began.

Her face reddened and her voice gained volume. “The wall. Now!”

He started for the wall, still keeping his distance from the other man. As he moved, he noticed the guy fumbling in his pocket for something while he used Fox’s body to shield his movements from the cop. Before Fox could say anything, the man’s hand came free and Fox caught the glint of something metallic, followed by a gunshot.

EMILIO CORTEZ WATCHED as his men fanned out over the small mountain town’s main drag, looking for Gabriel Fox. Two men disappeared inside the coffee shop across the street, while another slipped into a nearby bookstore. Three more began moving down his side of the street, peering through store windows. With a gesture, he sent the two SUVs inching down the street, the drivers ready to return should he summon them with a call through the throat microphone.

Despite the chill, he opened his knee-length black leather coat, putting his Ithaca 37 stakeout model shotgun within reach. The shotgun hung from his rangy frame in a custom-made rig, and he carried extra shells in his right coat pocket. A Browning Hi-Power handgun, a custom sound suppressor affixed to its barrel, rode in snap-out leather on his hip, opposite the shotgun. Laminated FBI credentials hung from his neck, and he carried a snap-out wallet containing a forged Bureau ID and badge in his coat pocket, in case he encountered the police.

Cortez scanned the street, listening to the radio traffic buzzing in his ear.

The helicopter zoomed by, the rotor wash tousling his black hair. His black eyes squinted even as he followed the craft as it passed him by.

A moment later one of the van drivers spoke. “Picking up a 911 dispatch. A guy matching our rabbit just bolted from inside the coffee shop using the back door. Apparently he got a visual on us.”

“We’ve got two in the coffee shop,” Cortez said.

A moment later the helicopter copilot spoke. “Clear. I’ve got a visual on our guy. He’s running down the alley behind the coffee shop. Ben, you and Alex got that?”

“Right,” said Ben Waters, one of the men searching the coffee shop, “we’re coming out the back now.”

“Clear,” the pilot responded.

Cortez adopted a grim smile as he listened to the chase unfold. He was ready to put this guy under wraps, forever and for good. They’d spent the past couple of days scouring Frisco, Breckenridge, Dillon, Leadville, and any other Rocky Mountain town within a fifty-mile radius, looking for some sign of him. They’d come up empty. Cortez had to admit that, for a computer geek, Fox had done a pretty fair job of covering his tracks. Fortunately for them, he’d gotten sloppy, overconfident and had made a rank amateur mistake, using his own credit card to access a public Internet terminal. The cyberteams in Mexico and Denver had caught the transaction and alerted Cortez. The contents of the e-mail had been encrypted so Cortez couldn’t be certain who the programmer had contacted. The uncertainty just added a measure of urgency to their chase, which the young Mexican didn’t mind at all.

A voice buzzed in his earpiece. “Cortez?”

“Go.”

“Got him in the alley,” Juan Vasconez said. “Tell the chopper to scoot. We don’t need the damn thing hovering overhead and drawing attention.”

“Clear. Warbird, you heard the man. Go!”

“Right.” An instant later the thrumming of helicopter rotors intensified and the craft headed west, likely circling outside the city limits, but staying within earshot of the fighting.

“He just cut between buildings,” Vasconez said. “The boot shop and the antique mall. Can we get a vehicle there to cut him off?”

“You heard the man,” Cortez said.

From a couple of blocks away, one of the SUVs screeched into a U-turn and made its way to the position. Cortez was in motion, closing in on Fox with long, quick strides, his hand inside his coat and yanking the Browning from its holster. Pressing the gun against his side, he let the folds of his coat swallow it.

“Shit, he’s turning back on me,” Vasconez said.

“Let him,” Cortez replied. “Don’t shoot. I repeat, do not shoot.”

“Right.” A pause. “He’s got a gun!”

The sounds of a scuffle filled his earpiece and he cursed under his breath as he crossed the street and came within twenty yards of the SUV, which had rolled to a stop. The driver’s-side door popped open and the guy stepped out. A siren blared from somewhere beyond view. Someone shouted something, and, though he couldn’t make out its content, Cortez knew it was a command of some sort.

“Shit,” Vasconez breathed. “Cop.”

Cortez’s heart pounded as he closed in on the scene. “Do not engage,” he said. “I repeat—”

The crack of a gunshot stopped him in midsentence. Damn, damn, damn.

Even as he continued toward his quarry, the beating of helicopter blades sounded from behind, growing louder, reverberating from the walls of the nearby storefronts, the noise drowning out all else. Rotor wash caught the tails of his coat, whipping them around his legs.

Whipping around, expecting to see his team’s helicopter, he caught sight of another craft, a black helicopter, touching down in the middle of the street. He stopped dead, and a moment later a side door slid open and a big, blond-haired guy stepped onto the pavement. A gray-haired man with the thick chest and shoulders of a bull and a smallish guy with brown hair and a mustache followed. The maelstrom whipped up by the helicopter parted their jackets and Cortez was sure he spotted at least one holstered weapon among the three of them. Apparently they’d missed the gunshot and had no idea they’d just touched down in a hot zone. Good, he thought. He knew how to play this one to his benefit.

He surveyed the craft and felt an unsettled feeling move into his gut. Other than a tail number, the craft carried no identifying markings, and the men wore no uniforms. His weapon still hidden, he spun on a heel and started for the group. Cortez fastened a single button on his coat to keep from revealing the Ithaca, and fumbled for the FBI credentials looped around his neck. Another of his men, the driver of the second SUV, a Chicago killer named Johnny Hung, fell into step behind him.

Cortez knew all his players, of course, meaning he had three interlopers stepping onto his territory. His mind working overtime, he decided on a plan. Take out these bastards, take their helicopter and go home with the big prize.

CARL LYONS HAD a bad feeling about the black-clad guy from the get-go. Forget the credentials hanging around his neck or the smile creasing his thin lips. It was the hand that remained at his side, lost in the folds of a black leather duster that spoke volumes to Lyons, telling him everything he needed to know. Instinct honed first as an L.A. detective and later as a covert commando screamed that the guy was looking for blood, even before Lyons’s eyes confirmed this.

The guy’s eyes narrowed, a harbinger of something bad, and Lyons felt himself tense. A glance left told him that Blancanales, though smiling, was also eyeing the guy warily. With the helicopter’s rotors thumping over-head, the two men couldn’t easily converse, and Lyons had made the mistake of not yet putting on his earpiece and throat microphone.

Three other men had fallen in with the approaching man, their presence only heightening Lyons’s cautiousness.

Schwarz was just behind the other two men, working to set down the wheelchair ramp for Kurtzman. Turning, Lyons motioned for Schwarz to stop and pay attention. Before he could turn back, he saw Kurtzman’s eyes widen and he raised his hand to point. Lyons whipped around, his hand already stabbing under his jacket for the Colt Python.

Things began to happen quickly.

The lead guy’s hand was coming up in a blur. He snapped off two shots in Lyons’s direction, immediately putting him on the move. The rounds burned through the air, missing the big commando by inches before smacking into the Chinook’s hull.

Lyons cleared leather. He brought the Python to bear on the guy, ready to line up a shot. He halted. A young man stood on the curb, frozen by the gunfire. The black-coated shooter squeezed off two more rounds at Lyons. The commando thrust himself to the asphalt. His elbow absorbed the impact, white-hot bolts of pain emanating from the joint. He ground his teeth and rode out the pain. He tried to line up another shot at the guy, but he’d stepped onto the curb. Turning to Lyons, he smiled, then grabbed a handful of the bystander’s jacket and shoved him into the street just as Lyons was trying to get in a shot.

The man disappeared through the front door of a nearby building.

Holstering the Colt, Lyons fisted the .357 Desert Eagle he carried on his right hip in a cross-draw position. He paused long enough to put his earpiece in place before crossing the street with long strides.

A voice buzzed in his ear. “Ace to Ironman.” It was Grimaldi.

“Go.”

“According to the scanner traffic, we’ve got shooters behind the line of buildings ahead of you.”

“Is our package back there?”

“Unknown. But these guys put down a cop.”

Lyons cursed under his breath, but kept moving. An instant later Blancanales fell into step with the Able Team leader and the two men moved onto the sidewalk. At the same time Lyons caught the sound of sirens closing in from the distance, the wail eliciting another oath. Adding more guns, even those wielded by good guys, introduced new variables into this volatile equation. And he knew, again from experience, that these officers would hit the scene with blood in their eyes, wanting to put down the shooters.

And since Able Team had the guns…

Lyons keyed his throat microphone and spoke. “Get the bird in the air. And call the Farm for a cleanup crew on this. Tell Hal, or Barb, or whomever, to start greasing the wheels. Otherwise we’ll be stuck here.”

“Roger that, Ironman,” Grimaldi replied.

From behind, Blancanales had stepped in close to a nearby building, raising his weapon to cover Lyons while he edged along the line of stores, occasionally ducking below the length of a window. Covering another building length, Lyons found an alley opening to his left. Halting, he craned his neck to peer around the corner. Even as he did, another shot rang out, followed by a strangled cry.