Right To Kill - Right to Kill Part 33
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Right to Kill Part 33

Continuing in Spanish, he said, "I could've killed you. I've tracked you since you left the chairlift."

The man didn't move.

Nathan fired again. The bullet exploded the snow between the man's feet.

"This is your last chance. Is Bustamonte worth dying for?"

That seemed to get through. The man unslung his rifle, let it fall into the snow, and raised his hands. Nathan suddenly realized, this guy could be Bustamonte.

"Hands on top of your head."

The man complied.

"If you make any sudden moves, I'll drop you where you stand. Clear?"

"Yeah."

Keeping his laser painted on the guy, Nathan slowly worked his way farther up the slope and stopped twenty feet short. "Drop to your knees."

Nathan closed the distance and shoved the guy's face into the snow. He put a knee on the man's back, yanked one of his wrists behind his back, and held it there while he removed a pair of disposable cuffs from his waist pack. He used his penlight to look at the man's face. Definitely not Tomas. He searched the man's pockets and found a wallet, some keys, and a box of .30-06 ammo. Yep. It would've punched through his vest.

"Who are you?"

"I'm the guy asking the questions."

"Are you a cop?"

Nathan torqued the man's arms to the dislocation point and received a grunt of pain. He heard LG's radio traffic but didn't respond.

"What did I just say?"

"I heard you. You're the guy asking the questions."

"Where's Bustamonte?"

Harvey kept his runner in sight and kept closing the distance by cutting toward the building. His prey kept looking in the wrong direction. He was well out in front of the guy now. If the runner didn't change direction, he'd be able to tackle him in the next ten seconds.

That's it . . . keep coming.

The man continued to slog through the snow, looking over his shoulder.

Harv got behind a large tree and waited. Although he could see his own footprints, his prey couldn't. The near absence of light remained a huge advantage.

Timing his move perfectly, he swung his arm like a baseball bat and clotheslined the guy across the chest.

The man yelped in fear and landed flat on his ass.

Harvey pounced and clocked the man's jaw with an open hand. It wasn't hard enough to knock him out, but it stunned him. Before the guy could recover, Harvey had him rolled and pinned.

Two shots rang out from across the valley. He heard the pistol reports through his earpiece a full second before the actual sounds reached his position.

While Harvey handcuffed his man, he listened to Nate's exchange with the sniper.

Keeping his voice low, he asked his man if he spoke English.

The answer was no.

In Spanish, Harvey said he had no reason to kill the man as long as he cooperated.

"LG, I've got the rabbit in custody. Drive down to the entrance of the west loop. We'll be there shortly."

Nathan's sniper didn't have the physical address, but he knew where Bustamonte was. Yes, Ursula was there, along with a personal bodyguard.

He hauled the man upright and began marching him down the slope toward the highway. He'd heard Harv's exchange with the rabbit and formulated a plan. Right now, they needed to clear the immediate area and find a secluded spot along the highway.

They'd conduct quick field interrogations to be sure their stories matched.

Nathan thought about testing the man's assertion that he didn't speak English, but decided it wasn't necessary. He picked up the guy's rifle and slung it next to his.

"Harv, I'm giving you a line of sight to me. I'm about fifty yards west of the chairlift. Can you see my penlight?"

"Hang on, I'm relocating a bit . . . I've got you."

"I'm walking my man downslope toward the highway."

"The registration is a bust," LG said. "Hertz rental. I took the contract. There's a garage door opener on the visor, though."

"Good work," Nathan said. "Here's what I have in mind, but we need to work quickly."

Linda hadn't interrogated anyone in a long time, but Nathan admired how quickly she peeled their prisoners. She hadn't gotten overly rough, but the two men had discovered how sensitive some of their nerve clusters were. As it turned out, they had no stomach for pain. After verifying their stories matched, Nathan secured the bigger of the two prisoners to a pine tree using a pair of disposable cuffs. The man was far enough from the highway that no one would see him and the gag in his mouth would prevent him from calling out for help. Nathan had, however, allowed the man he'd tied to the tree to wear a winter coat-which they'd found in the SUV. The other prisoner would accompany them to the cabin in the SUV.

They assured the handcuffed man that as long as everything checked out, they'd come back for him. If he'd lied about the twins' whereabouts, they'd execute the man coming with them and the cuffed man's decomposed body would go undiscovered until summer. As it turned out, the two men were cousins so they had a strong motivation to tell the truth. Perhaps it was Nathan's offhand comment about hungry bears wandering the woods that sealed the deal.

Nathan drove the SUV out to the highway while Harv followed them in his Lincoln. No cops yet, which was a blessing. They'd successfully forced their prisoner to call Bustamonte with an update. Bustamonte had sounded irritated at the foot chase, hence the delay, but pleased at the news that his men had killed everyone in the taxi.

Since they had no idea if Tomas could see the highway or surrounding roads from the cabin, they dropped Nathan's car off at a mom-and-pop gas station. Driving up to the cabin in two vehicles wasn't an option. The men they'd interrogated said they'd only brought the SUV. Before resuming their drive, all three of them quickly stripped off their ski clothing.

This was their first real chance to update Cantrell since the action at the ski resort, so Nathan asked Harv to do it. Nathan gathered from hearing Harv's end that Cantrell had changed her mind and decided to keep Delta active, in an emergency capacity only, but its ETA was twenty minutes at best. By his estimate, they were already a few minutes behind schedule. If they didn't arrive at the cabin within the next two or three minutes, Tomas would be gone, or waiting to ambush them.

He followed their prisoner's directions along a narrow street lined with pines and small, cabin-like homes with fenced yards. This tiny mountain community of Wrightwood looked like it could be anywhere in the country. The farther south they went, the more sparse the houses became.

The man told Nathan to turn left into the next driveway.

He noticed something right away: no tire tracks in the fresh snow.

It was obvious no vehicle had come out of here since the latest snowfall.

He hit the brakes and threw the SUV into park.

In English Nathan said, "Cut this idiot's balls off before we shoot him. They fed us a story; there're no tire tracks in the driveway."

"Wait!" the guy cried. "There's two driveways going up there. I took the shorter way down."

"I thought you didn't speak English."

The man pursed his lips.

"Why should we believe anything you've told us?"

"I was scared."

"Okay, I'll buy that. What else are you lying about?"

"Nothing, I swear."

Nathan was skeptical. "Where's the other driveway?"

"It's farther up the road, maybe two hundred meters."

He narrowed his eyes.

"It's the truth."

Nathan kept going, passing two driveways on the right that led to small cabins.

"How much farther?"

"It's the next one on the left."

"I really hope he's lying," LG said.

"I'm not lying!"

Nathan saw several tire tracks coming out of the driveway, but there was no sign of any cabin. The driveway sloped upward, but not too steeply. The SUV ought to make it without losing traction. To be certain this was the right place, he pulled to a stop and asked Harv to get out and check the SUV's treads against the tire tracks.

His friend issued a thumbs-up and got back in.

"See, I told you."

"Make the call," Nathan said.

Harv jammed his suppressed Sig under the man's chin. "This isn't our car. We don't care if your blood, brains, and skull fragments decorate it. Are you the person who normally talks to Tomas?"

"No, we all do."

"You sure you got your lines straight?"

"I know what to say," the man said.

Nathan turned in his seat. "If you go off script, it will be the last thing you ever do. Do you normally put it on speaker?"

"No, I mean, yes, when I'm driving. I didn't try to connect to the Bluetooth."

"Do you speak Spanish with Tomas?"

"Yes."

"Okay, make the call."

Nathan watched the man closely. Since he was nervous, he'd be acting a little different from normal, but Nathan could usually tell when someone was cooking up a story.

"I'm at the driveway."

"Ursy needs a haircut," Tomas said over the phone's speaker.

He mouthed two words to Harv: code phrase.

His friend jammed the silencer harder and squinted in pure malevolence.

The message got through.

The man said, "She looks fine to me."

There was a long pause, then Tomas said, "Get your asses up here. We're leaving before the cops put up roadblocks."

The call went dark.

Nathan nodded to Harv.

Without warning, Harv swung his pistol like a Frisbee and clocked the man in the forehead. The guy went limp.

"How do you know how hard to do that?" LG asked.

Harv shrugged. "Just a guess."

She smiled. "Let's get up there."

The driveway curved around to the left in a gentle slope but Nathan couldn't yet see the cabin. There were too many trees obstructing his line of sight.

"We'll pull up to the cabin like we belong there. I'll use the garage door opener on the visor and pull in. I'll enter the cabin while you two flank the exterior."

"My NV is picking up a substantial amount of glow up there," Harv said. "Probably exterior lights of some kind."

After twenty seconds or so, the trees thinned, and an open expanse of snow-covered driveway greeted them. Beyond it, a log cabin loomed in the twilight. Its orange exterior bulbs created a harsh contrast to the twilight background. No cars were present, but the tire tracks indicated the garage had recently been used.

The structure consisted of three levels, the entire lower level serving as a garage and basement. On both sides of the cabin, the ground sloped up to the ground-floor level. Above the basement, a huge window wall overlooked the canyon to the west. No one could get down from there without a ten-foot vertical drop to the driveway area. Despite the exterior lights, the cabin looked dimly lit inside.

"There's probably a rear door," Harv said. "I'll get back there and cover it."