Deadfall (38 page)

Bad smiled at him triumphantly. “Robin Hood ain't nothin' without his bow, huh?”

Hutch shrugged.

Infuriated, Bad scooped up an arrow. He appeared ready to dismember him with it. He took a step forward and jabbed it at Hutch, striking his shoulder. The broadhead sliced through Hutch's jacket and shirt, skin and muscle. Hutch fell back and the arrow came out, still in Bad's hand. Hutch fell against Kyrill, who pushed him away. He rolled, fell on his knees, then onto his face. He started to slide over the slick grass. Kyrill stomped on his ankle, stopping his descent and sending a bolt of pain up his leg.

Hutch didn't know whether to grab his shoulder or his ankle. Since it was nearest and it worried him the most, he touched his fingers to the shoulder wound. It was bleeding but not profusely. In fact, painful as it was, he believed it was only slightly more than a flesh wound.

“Get up,” Kyrill commanded.

He turned like the hands of a clock until his feet were downslope. Then he rose, standing gingerly on the ankle that now felt tight in his boot, already swollen.

Without the bow, Pruitt had once again become the cameraman. Where his face was supposed to be, a lens caught the light and glinted. He panned from Hutch to Bad, as though expecting a brawl then and there.

Bad noticed and slapped the camera hard. “Get that out of my face,” he said. He turned and began dragging his leg up the slope.

Kyrill jerked his head toward Hutch. “Let's go.”

55

They climbed. Hutch,s ankle
protested every step. His shoulder became tacky with blood. His shirt stuck and pulled away, stuck and pulled away. He was glad Dillon wasn't there.

Bad reached the top of the slope, stood, and glared down. His legs apart, his arms coming away from his body as though muscles prevented them from hanging by his sides, he looked gladiatorial. Pruitt stepped up next to him, and the difference in physique would have been comical in a different situation.

Hutch rose up beside Bad. He half expected the man to shove him back over the edge. Instead Bad reached out, grabbed the front of Hutch's coat, and began pulling him. They were on a large, grassy plateau. On their right, a berm rose another three feet. It arced around, and Hutch recognized the lip of the mine crater.

At the far side of the plateau were the two trucks Declan and his gang had used to pursue the Hummer. One of the SUVs started up. It pulled forward and sped directly for them.

Bad halted.

The Cherokee must have reached sixty miles an hour when Hutch recognized Declan in the passenger seat. His girlfriend was behind the wheel, seeming too small to drive a car. From what Hutch knew of her, he would not be surprised if she plowed into him and Bad and then Kyrill and Pruitt before continuing right over the edge. Of course, he didn't expect any of them to join him on his journey to his final destination, so there would be nobody there to chastise for giving Cort the keys.

Bad released Hutch and leaped out of the way just as the Cherokee locked its brakes. Its front end dipped, and it slid on the grass. Hutch leaped in the opposite direction from Bad.The SUV stopped where he had been standing. As he hit the ground and rolled, fifteen scenarios, all involving his running and escaping, flashed through his mind in three seconds. Getting his feet under him, hunching low, he glanced over to take a bearing on the Jeep. A big-barreled pistol was pointed directly at him. Declan extended the Glock from the open window. His impassive face told Hutch that pulling the trigger or refraining from pulling the trigger made no difference to him. Hutch froze.

Beside Declan, Cortland said, “Wheee! That was fun.”

On the far side of the car, Bad yelled, “Cortland! Look at my leg. It's
pouring
blood.You think that was funny?”

The young boy, Julian, stared at Hutch from the rear passenger window.

Declan opened the door and stepped out. He called, “Kyrill, you got this monkey?”

“'Course.” He stood between the bumper and the edge of the plateau, pointing the big rifle at Hutch.

Declan tucked his pistol into the waistband at the small of his back. He tugged at his smoke-colored Under Armour shirt, smoothing its wrinkles, showing off his sinewy torso. “Stay down,” he commanded.

Hutch sat and leaned back on one arm.

Declan approached him. “You're the caribou hunter,” he said. “You gave us a run for our money.”

“Wasn't difficult,” Hutch replied.

Declan fingered one his necklaces. It appeared to be a string of teeth. He let one eyebrow rise infinitesimally.

Hutch took that as an invitation to continue. “I mean, come on. I've never seen so many idiots in one place.”

Declan looked up at his crew, a thin smile rising on one side. He shook his head. “Why are you provoking me?” He looked into the sky. “I think you're trying to distract me.” He glanced toward the edge of the plateau, toward the hill that Hutch, Pruitt, Bad, and Kyrill had ascended. “That boy you said was dead. Is he really?”

Hutch's mouth went dry. He said, “I just don't like games. Whatever you're gonna do, just do it.”

“You don't like games?” Declan's smile became big and broad, teeth showing.

Kyrill laughed. Even Bad, who had come to stand in front of the Jeep, leaning one hip against its grille, grinned. Pruitt came around the back of the car, his camera-face pointed at Hutch.

“All we do is play games,” Declan pronounced. “I mean, really, that's
all
we do.” He pointed at Pruitt. “Why do you think this man is here? Why do you think any of us are here? If, by some grand miracle, you're around next Christmas, you can buy our game, and you know what you'll see? A big bad satellite laser cannon blowing people away. One of the victims will look suspiciously like that fisherman friend of yours. And I'm thinking right now another one is gonna look an awful lot like you. Which means, of course, you won't be buying the game.”

Declan rolled his head, thinking. “Do me a favor. When you think we got you, look straight up. It's a great effect, looking up before the laser nails you.You'll see a twinkle of light . . . then nothing.” Something occurred to him, and he called out to Kyrill. “Maybe we should have the targets see the actual laser coming at them.That would be cool.”He turned back to Hutch. “In reality, the light you'll see isn't the laser . . . at least not
that
laser. It's a beam of light, part of the adaptive optical system, that analyzes the atmospheric conditions. Then a computer intentionally distorts the real laser in the exact opposite way the atmosphere would have distorted it. So then the atmosphere actually tightens and focuses the laser. They call it reciprocity. Incredible stuff.”

What could Hutch say?
You're mad! You won't get away with it!
Any declaration just seemed pathetic.

Declan's eyes drifted away. He retreated a few steps, then came back. “You got away from us once.”

“Three times,” Hutch corrected.

“Think you can do it again?”

Hutch felt his heart pick up its pace, beating to the rhythm of hope. Unless Declan pulled the trigger at the precise moment he released him, Hutch would indeed do it again.

Declan raised a finger. “But first,” he said, turning away again, “I think Bad has his own score to settle. Don't you, Bad?”

“Wait a minute,” Hutch said as Bad approached. “Are you saying your big bad weapon can't get me unless I'm beat up?”

“Not at all,” Declan said. “I simply don't want to deprive Bad of the opportunity to share his feelings with you.”

“How's it gonna look in your game when the satellite weapon takes out some guy who's already bleeding and broken? That's not sportsmanship.”

“You really don't play games, do you?” Declan asked. “It's a lot of fun whopping muscular army dudes, but no gamer's gonna pass up an opportunity to rain hell down on
anyone
, injured or not.”

Bad circled around, then closed in on Hutch. Apparently finding support in his injured leg, Bad swung his good leg back. It kicked forward, and Hutch grabbed his foot in both hands. The toe shook two inches from his face. Hutch glared into Bad's eyes.

His head exploded in pain. It snapped back on his neck. He released Bad's foot. Kyrill stood over him, lowering his foot from the roundhouse he had just delivered to Hutch's temple.

Bad shifted on his feet, again lifted the foot of his uninjured leg, and stomped down on Hutch's bleeding shoulder. White-hot bolts of lightning flared through his chest.They found his vision, blurring Bad into an indistinct monolith, towering over him.

A strike to his ribs, his kidneys . . . another. A kick to his arm, his leg, his stomach. He wanted to fight, to at least swing his leg around and knock his attackers down. But with the furious pounding coming as fast and steady as a train's steady clicking over the rails, all he could do was curl up to protect the most vital parts of his body. He saw the flash of a boot; under it his biceps compressed with the force of Barry Bonds's bat. He reached out to grab a pant leg or ankle, only to feel the bat-strike in his ribs under his arm. Insanely, a phrase used in medical forensics came to mind, but one he learned from television, so he wasn't sure of its verisimilitude or nuances:
blunt force trauma.
When they autopsied his body, that term would come up with nauseating frequency, and it would again—now!—as a boot came down on his knee. If he survived the beating and Declan had his way, he would leave no body to autopsy. One big blunt force trauma would vanquish Hutch's material being from earth. Some pathologists would be spared the trouble of cataloging all his wounds.

He must have passed out, but only for a second or two; suddenly Bad was standing over him, his left hand holding Hutch in place by the collar of his coat, the other pistoning up and down into Hutch's face, punctuating whatever it was he was yelling.

“Tough guy now, huh?”
Punch
. “No bow, no guts!”
Punch
. “What are you gonna do now, huh?”
Punch
.

It was a curious thing, being beaten senseless. He began hearing sounds that were disconnected from the actions that made them, as though a sound track had jumped out of sync by a few seconds. Or his sense of hearing got jarred and started taking the long way to his brain, causing sounds to reach it seconds after they should have. He heard
thump-thump-thump
and Bad would punch.

Thump-thump-thump-thump

Punch.

Thump-thump

Punch.

Maybe it was his heart he was hearing. At least it was steady.
Thump-thump-thump
.

Bad released him, rose to his full height, straddling Hutch. He looked up. Beyond Bad's head—

Thump-thump-thump

In the sky—

Thump-thump-thump

A helicopter came into view. Hovering. Slowly turning left and right as though taking in the scene.

Thump-thump-thump

It was black and sleek, long and glistening. Infinitely fancier, more expensive than the one he,Terry, Phil, and David had ridden into this defining chapter of their lives.

While he watched, landing gear folded out of the smooth undercarriage.

Shocked into immobility, Bad stood over Hutch, watching the helicopter. Certainly the man would bolt any second now. He would recognize his need to run, to get in a vehicle and drive away.To flee from the authorities, come to take him away. Hallelujah.

Hutch did not want to lose this opportunity. Ignoring his aches and pains, the stiffness and screams of protest from his muscles and bones, with all of his might he brought his fist up into Bad's crotch. The bellowing roar, which for at least a few moments drowned out even the helicopter's
thump-thump-thump
, was immensely satisfying. Bad folded over and fell away.

56

The helicopter loomed larger,
descending. Hutch lifted his head to watch it come down on the plateau forty yards from where the group had gathered to mete out Hutch's punishment.

Declan watched, then glanced over at Hutch as a child would look at a shattered lamp upon his parents' return home.

Yeah, how you gonna explain this?
Hutch thought.
And I'm just the start of it.The smoke from the mine got their attention, but wait till I show them what you did in town, what you did to Dillon's father and to David.

Declan leaned into the window of the Cherokee. Hutch wanted to call out,
He's got a gun!
but Bad's machine gun was right there on the hood and Kyrill was still holding his gun in plain view. Surely the people in the helicopter saw them.They must be even more powerfully armed.

Declan put a black canvas bag on the hood, rummaged through it, then tossed something to Kyrill. The teen slung the rifle over his shoulder and stepped over to Hutch. He slammed Hutch's ankles together and bound them with a long zip-tie.

“Wait a minute,” Hutch said, confused. Then it dawned on him. The people in the helicopter were not rescuers, but accomplices. Declan's gang did not have to run or worry about evidence. In fact, they may take these new arrivals on the tour Hutch thought he would lead—to point out not atrocities, but accomplishments.

Kyrill kicked him onto his side, grabbed his shoulders, and dragged him toward the edge of the plateau. He hoisted Hutch into a sitting position, pushed his back into a tree, wrenched his arms around it, and zip-tied his wrists together. The agony of his shoulders and arms threatened to cloud his ability to reason, to figure a way out of this mess. If there were words convincing enough to negotiate his release, the dizzying distraction of pain rendered them inaccessible to Hutch's consciousness.

Kyrill sauntered back to the Cherokee, haltingly, as though not sure where he should be.

Julian opened the rear door of the SUV and stood to watch the helicopter set down on the grass. The propellers washed a cold wind over them. Leaves, needles, and the little dirt that had dried since the deluge had ended whipped into the air and blew away. The whine of the helicopter's jet engine died. The blades slowed.