Hard as Nails

CHAPTER THIRTY

The Dodger stopped at the edge of the woods and then stepped back under the trees when he heard the familiar sound of the Huey's engine and rotors. The goddamned perimeter sensors again.

He'd stalked the man and the woman through the woods, watched as they entered Cloud Nine, attached the suppressor to his Beretta, and begun moving in on them as they sat on the grass talking. Something was weird between the two; it looked as if the woman with the big tits and the short hair wanted to fuck and the man called Kurtz did not. That was new in the Dodger's book, unless Kurtz was all worn out from his night with the Farino woman the night before.

They'd been to the hut. This irritated the Dodger to the point that he planned to take real pleasure in shooting both of them. He would use more bullets than was necessary. It would disturb the aesthetics of his use for them, but that wasn't as important as getting rid of this unaccustomed anger he felt.

I'll put them at the top, he'd thought as he moved stealthily behind the funhouse, into the Beretta's killing range. He carried the weapon with both hands, his palm under the grip as he'd been taught, ready to lift it and aim down his rigid arm—first the man, then the woman. First the body mass to drop them, but not in the heart. Then the arms and legs. It was nice of them to come here.

Then the wind had blown some damned bit of plywood, making a noise near him, and the Dodger had been forced to freeze, bending low, not even breathing. By the time he was ready to move again, so were they, climbing the hill toward his train tracks.

He'd cut over the hilltop, hurrying ahead to the big oak near the edge of the forest. The bulk of it bid him and when they followed the tracks out into the open, he'd have a clear shot of no more than fifteen meters. As his anger faded, he considered a head shot for the man, saving the multiple slugs for the woman. Not because she was a woman or beautiful—the Dodger was indifferent to that—but because he sensed that the man was the more dangerous of the two. Always eliminate the primary danger first, the Boss had taught him. Always. Don't hesitate.

But he'd hesitated, and now it was too late.

The goddamned helicopter. That same, goddamned old Huey the Major had used for more than thirty years.

The Dodger watched the four Vietnamese men flexcuff Kurtz and the woman and load them into the helicopter. Then he faded back into the woods as the Huey lifted off and flew north, its passing flattening the grass for sixty feet around.

He was glad that he'd hidden the bug truck in the thicket where it couldn't be seen from the air. Removing the silencer, the Dodger slipped the Beretta back in its holster, paused only briefly at the hut, and then walked quickly back to the truck.