Chapter 12

‘Maybe I can answer that.’

At the sound of my voice the two men turned to stare at me. They were the biggest human beings I’d ever seen, and between them they almost blocked out my view of the far wall. I’d thought that Rink was big, but next to these men he’d have looked slight. It made me feel like a child in comparison.

The difference between us was really measured by the fact that I was armed and they weren’t. The SIG made me the top dog in the room.

Both men looked at me, then down at the gun.

‘Either of you fancy your chances?’ I brought up the SIG so that it was aimed directly at the face of the man with the odd eyes. He was the most vocal and likely to be the most irrational.

‘You’re the asshole who was blocking our way,’ he said, pointing a hand at me. He rolled the hand into a fist the size of a Sunday roast. ‘You want to fuck with me because I bawled you out?’

The other man turned fractionally. ‘Trent? It’s the goddamn man from the woods.’

Nodding in confirmation, I moved further into what I now could see was a mechanical workshop. There were tools arranged on the wall, a pit under the parked SUV. Perished oil made dark patches on the floor and had made its way on to the walls and furniture too.

‘I recognise your voice,’ said the man I’d pistol-whipped. ‘What are you? English?’

I didn’t bother answering. Instead, I asked, ‘Why are you after Imogen Ballard?’

Both men exchanged glances. I saw something in their faces that I hadn’t noticed before. It wasn’t obvious face-on, but when they turned in profile I saw that they had the same shaped features. Kind of Neanderthal.

‘You’re brothers, right?’ I said, advancing a step. ‘So who’s the youngest out of you?’

‘We’re twins,’ said the man with the odd eyes. Trent, the other had called him.

‘So you’re the youngest then?’ It was the way he’d answered, as though in defence of his pride, that told me. I turned my attention to the eldest brother. ‘OK, it’s like this: you tell me everything or I shoot your little brother. How does that sound?’

A strange look passed over the man’s face, but it wasn’t fear of my threat. ‘He’s big enough to look after himself. Why’d I care if you shot him?’

Trent scowled at his brother, but it was as if he saw the humour in the words and he started huffing out a laugh.

‘Fair enough,’ I said.

Then I shot the youngest brother.

His left knee buckled where my bullet punched through it, and as big and strong as he appeared, he still went down on the ground screaming.

‘Motherfucker!’ His brother lurched towards me. I brought up the SIG so he had a good look directly down the barrel.

‘See,’ I said. ‘I knew you were bluffing.’

The older brother had come to a halt again. His face was painted with rage. ‘I’m gonna rip your fucking head off for that.’

‘No, big man, what you’re going to do is start talking.’ I moved the SIG so it was once more pointing at his brother. ‘Otherwise I’ll show you what a hollow-point can do to a face already that ugly.’

Some people have decried the effectiveness of the P228 over its predecessor the P226. With the nine mm parabellum ammo having less stopping power than .45 ball, some military and law enforcement officers prefer other sidearms. However, I didn’t see the problem. When loaded with hollow-point ammunition, the P228 has enough power to stop a charging rhinoceros. It would easily blow the man’s face apart, however huge his head was.

Taking another step, I held out my gun with both arms at full stretch in what’s known as a stressfire isosceles stance. It’s one of the stances favoured by Israeli Special Forces, designed for point shooting under extreme duress. It’s also damn intimidating as the stance suggests that you are aiming directly at a specific target and about to discharge your weapon.

The older brother’s hands came up. ‘OK, OK, easy now. I do care about my goddamn brother. What is it you want to know?’

‘Start with your names,’ I told him.

‘Larry. That’s Trent.’

‘Second names.’

‘Don’t fucking tell him,’ Trent groaned from the floor. Some of the shock of having been crippled had dissipated, but none of the agony. I guessed these men were used to pain. So I shot him in the other knee.

‘Aw,’ was all Larry said as he looked down at his screaming brother.

‘Let’s keep this conversation strictly between us from now on,’ I told him.

‘Bolan,’ Larry yelled. ‘It’s fucking Bolan, OK?’

‘Got it. Now you tell me who you work for.’

There was a little reticence in Larry’s posture, so I fired again. This time into the wall behind his head. He must have felt the heat of the bullet passing his ear, it was so close.

‘Robert Huffman.’

‘Is he from here? Little Fork?’

‘Dallas, Texas. He has offices there.’

‘But he also has offices here?’

‘Yeah.’

I fired another round the other side of his head.

‘Let’s speed this up a little, shall we? Give me the address.’

There was murder in Larry Bolan’s eyes but he told me the address. Some office block in the affluent central district. Above a restaurant, he said.

‘Why does he want the woman?’

Larry Bolan must have known the consequences of lying because he told me enough to make a considered guess. I shook my head in disgust: people dying for greed was nothing new.

When he was done, I saw Larry glance down at Trent and there was tenderness in his gaze not normally associated with hard-asses.

‘You going to let us live?’ Larry asked me.

‘Would you let me live if the circumstances were reversed?’

‘Sure, I would.’ A smile crept over his face, and fleetingly I wondered if he’d seen something I was unaware of. Maybe a confederate sneaking up behind me.

But it wasn’t that at all.

It was resignation.

‘I’d keep you alive while I ripped your arms out of your sockets. I’d gut you and make you watch as I stamped your guts all over the floor.’

‘Sounds entertaining.’

I knew it was coming before he even moved. I could see the tightening of his hands, the creases appearing next to his eyes, the slight dip of his body. He was coiling for the attack. Larry had realised he was going to die, but he wasn’t about to give in without a fight.

Squaring my SIG on his chest, I prepared for the tell-tale widening of the eyelids.

Then my peripheral vision caught a flicker of movement. Trent rising up, his hand whipping towards me. A wrench he’d snatched off the floor spinning at my head. Despite myself, I ducked, and the wrench missed me. But it had also pulled my aim a fraction of an inch. As Larry charged and I pulled the trigger, I already knew it wasn’t enough to kill him.

The bullet hit his left shoulder, too high up on the meat to even stop him. He was massive and all the power of his driving legs covered the short distance between us in a little over a second.

He loomed over me like the proverbial barn door. Only barn doors don’t come equipped with piston-like limbs intent on rending you apart. He snatched at my gun with one massive hand and grabbed me round the throat with the other. It would be a waste grappling for the gun because it was a fight I couldn’t hope to win. I drove my knee into his groin instead. Wind huffed out of him but it didn’t stop him.

Larry picked me up, his fingers digging into my throat and wrist and he swung me and slammed me against the roof of the parked SUV.

‘Bastard!’ he snapped into my face. ‘You should have killed me sooner.’

‘Yeah,’ I grunted, my back bent tortuously over the roof of the car. ‘I should have.’

Larry laughed, picked me up and then slammed me down again. My kidneys felt like they’d been mashed and black flickers of non-light span across my vision. His arms were too long for me to strike at his face with my free arm, so I brought down my fingers, digging for the radial nerve in the arm holding my throat. I’d have been as well trying to sink my fingers through oak. To show me the error of my ways, Larry dug his hand into my throat. Luckily for me his hand was so large that it wasn’t putting all his pressure on my trachea. If that had been the case, the cartilage would have easily popped and I’d have choked on my own blood. Still, the pressure was making me black out.

With compressed blood pounding in my skull, I brought up my knees, getting my feet wedged into his pelvic girdle. I strained, trying to push his weight away from me, using my legs to gain distance.

I was aware of Trent’s voice in some recess of my mind. ‘Kill him, Larry! Kill that motherfucker!’

He didn’t know, but his baying was actually my salvation. It made Larry realise that he was going to finish me too soon. He’d told me he wanted me to live while he ripped me apart and eviscerated my body. That wouldn’t be the case if he choked me to death. Larry picked me up so that I was over his shoulder, then he hurled me through space and I landed on the hard concrete. My head smacked the floor, my teeth gnawing a chunk out of my tongue, but that was a small price to pay in exchange for the oxygen I sucked in.

I’d also held on to my SIG.

Larry was coming at me again. I brought up the gun.

Then Trent wanted in on the action.

He threw himself across the floor at me. Grabbing my arms, he hauled me towards him, throwing his weight over my face.

Larry’s feet found my exposed ribs. He got two swift kicks into me before Trent rolled further on top of me, blocking me from his brother’s boots. Not that he was trying to protect me; he wanted me all to himself.

Trent punched me, his knuckles connecting with the top of my head. He had to rear up to get a clearer punch at my face.

I felt like I had a mountain on top of me, but I wasn’t about to give in yet. Freeing one hand, I groped for his face. My thumb found his blue eye, and I pressed with all my might. It doesn’t matter how big a man is, there are still vulnerable points on his body. The eyes are the most vulnerable of all. I felt his eye implode, and jelly-like gore pulsing over my hand. Trent pulled away from me. He was screaming again.

My SIG was now free of him and I brought it between our bodies. I jerked the trigger. Blood danced above him, some of it spattering on the ceiling. Trent groaned, and I heard Larry’s tortured scream of denial. I shot Trent again — just to make sure.

As his weight collapsed over me, I shoved him aside, putting him between me and Larry. He would have to reach over his dead brother to get at me, but before he could do that I’d put a bullet in his body too.

As I searched for him, my view was blocked by the front end of the SUV.

Where the hell is he? I wondered.

Then I was scrambling out from under Trent’s dead weight, looking for the other man, expecting him to be coming at me from the far side of the SUV.

But Larry wasn’t up to avenging his brother instantly. The fucker was making a run for it.

Let him run, I decided. I’d achieved what I came here for. I now knew who my real enemy was and why he wanted Imogen Ballard dead. I could always kill Larry Bolan another time.

When I didn’t feel like a train wreck.

I staggered to my feet.

I half-expected sirens as the local cops responded to the sounds of gunfire. But subconsciously I knew that was unlikely. The twins’ workshop was in a deserted commercial strip. Metallic bangs and angry shouts were probably a regular feature of this place. Maybe screams were too.

Painfully, I made my way to the head of the alley.

My bag of groceries was still there, untouched.

I picked it up and continued my return to the motel. Kate would be wondering what had kept me. She’d probably be angry that I’d been away so long.

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