When the Killing Starts Read online

  "Motion them to land," I said. "And sit down before we're all swimming."

  He sat, and as the plane roared past us, waggling its wings, we all three made the instinctive motion of flattening our hands and lowering them toward the water.

  The aircraft passed out of our sight into the smoke, flying straight and true. "He's checking his landing run," I said. "He's coming down for us."

  "I sure's hell hope so," Michaels said. "I don't need any more of this."

  George grinned at me, but we said nothing. We waited, and after a minute the aircraft came back again, lower still but farther to the west. The pilot was waving to us now, pointing back behind him, closer to the north shore. I waved with my paddle and dug in hard, jolting us ahead into the teeth of his slipstream that made the smoke curl around us in a long spiral.

  Michaels was laughing now, an excited hee-hee-hee sound, like a teenager responding to his first dirty joke. I had a guy like him in my platoon once. He never stopped giggling until he tripped a booby trap.

  About a hundred yards farther the smoke started to thin. And then the visibility cleared right up so we could see the north shore, a rocky section, the narrow area I had noted on the map.

  "We're too close to land," Michaels said shakily. "They could see us."

  "We won't be here long." George had laid down the sleeping bag and picked up his rifle. He eased the bolt back a quarter inch and checked the chamber, then recocked and pushed the safety on. I did the same with mine. Michaels looked at us both and licked his lips.

  I heard the plane reach the end of its southward leg and turn back toward us, the note beginning to rise in pitch as it approached. And then the motors slowed, and the big gull-shaped boat bounced down over the chop on the lake off to the west of us about thirty yards. It slowed at once and bobbed to a stop about fifty yards past us.

  "The other side," George shouted. "The door's there." I laid my rifle across my knees and struck out for the rear of the boat, bringing us around the end of the hull, close enough that George had to reach up and push the bow away from it.

  There's a big blister on the side, but it was closed, and George reached out his rifle and caught us against the float. "They've gotta cut the motor."

  He was right. The port motor stopped, flicking over slower and slower, the tips of the prop blades passing within a foot of the door that clicked open at the bow. George pushed off strongly from the float and grabbed at the opening. Then he ducked out of sight into the hull. Next Michaels pulled us farther ahead and climbed out, shoving off so hard from the canoe that I had to stroke back with the paddle to reach the hull. I got closer to the door and called, "George, get Sam in first."

  George's head stuck out of the doorway, and he reached down for Sam's chest as I hissed and Sam straightened and poised to jump in. Sam gave a little kick and disappeared inside, into George's arms. Then I pulled ahead again and held the doorway, walking the canoe backward under me until I could reach George's pack and shove it through the door. I stuck my rifle ahead of me and climbed aboard, pushing the canoe behind us along the hull and clear of the propeller.

  The interior was tight. Cansos were designed in the thirties, when engineers relied on angle iron to hold things together, and there was barely room to squeeze in behind the pilot. He was craning around to me. "What's happening? We figured you had an emergency." He was lean and old enough to have flown his aircraft on antisubmarine patrols in the Second World War. He seemed irritated that we didn't have any walking wounded.

  "Police," I said. "There's a gang of guys with guns after us. Thanks for picking us up. Can you get off as quickly as possible."

  "Guns?" He looked across at the copilot, a guy my age. "Guns? We don't want any part of this."

  "I'm sorry. This is a real emergency. Please get us airborne and I'll explain."

  I was digging in my back pocket for my billfold, and I flipped out my Murphy's Harbour ID. "I'm Reid Bennett; the young guy who got in first is my deputy, George Horn."

  The pilot still didn't move. "That's fine an' dandy, but I'm not here to get shot at."

  "Let's do it, Jack." The copilot was grinning. He wanted a real war story of his own. "If they're for real, let's swing around and take off downwind."

  "It's not procedure," the pilot said. And then George shouted to me from the rear compartment, where he was looking out of the starboard blister.

  "Boat coming. Six guys, all armed."

  "Shut the hatch," the pilot said, and he poured power onto the starboard engine and we swung back downwind. I fastened the door clamps and leaned over him, peering out of his window. A rubber boat filled with mercenaries was about a hundred yards off, just coming into view through the smoke, and as I watched, one of them stopped paddling and pointed at our canoe. Then five of them turned as if on command and aimed their rifles at us.

  The bullets sprayed through the fuselage behind the wing, and as the aircraft swung around, they started striking the stern, flicking and tumbling through the fuselage. "Get flat," I roared, and George and Michaels hit the deck.

  The pilot was swearing, but he was still cool, struggling to start the port motor. It coughed and caught, but before he could kick the power on, we had swung right around and were heading toward the rubber dinghy, with the bullets coming right through the windshield, punching starred holes in the ancient Perspex.

  I crouched and unclipped the side door, sticking my left hand out a few inches into the slipstream and loosing off three shots from my Colt. I heard the copilot give a whoop of delight, and then the port motor picked up power, and we swung south, bringing the rubber boat into my view. It was the far side of the blur of the propeller blade, so I held my fire until we were passing them at thirty yards range. The tangle of support wires on the float was in my sight line, but I chanced it, snapping off two more shots, aiming behind them to allow for our speed. I missed, but close enough that the shooters ducked and their aim was off. One of them was down already. I'd been luckier with my wild shots. None of them was paddling, and that was saving us. The recoil of the rifles was sinking their boat, throwing their aim off by the inches that stopped them from hitting me or the pilot, but most of the shots were plunking into the fuselage and wings.

  "Shut the door," the pilot shouted. "I gotta get us up."

  I swung it to and clamped it as the noise of the motors picked up, and we bounded forward, skipping over the waves like a pebble on a pond. I stretched as tall as I could in the confined space and saw we were heading back into thick smoke and then through it, a hundred and fifty yards on, I saw the bulk of an island with trees rising sixty feet high.

  "Through the gate," the pilot shouted, and the copilot flipped open a flap in front of the throttles. The pilot shoved the throttles all the way forward, pressing them grimly as if he could force us off the water physically. And still we bounced, and the trees got taller and taller ahead of us. And then seconds before we reached the trees, the bounces stopped. We climbed agonizingly slowly, still staring up at the treetops, and the pilot dipped one wing to raise the other, matching the rise of the trees that straggled back from the shoreline up the rocks. The propeller chopped through the tops, sending a shower of greenery back over the starboard float.

  The copilot let out a yelp, but the pilot said nothing, bringing the wing down again and climbing for thirty seconds before he eased the throttles back. Then he looked around at me. "I'm taking you right down to North Bay, and I'll have the police waiting," he said grimly.

  "Good." I bumped him lightly on the shoulder. "And thanks for a nice piece of flying."

  "Yeah," he said, but I could see his satisfaction. "Now what the hell's happening?"

  I told him, keeping it as brief as I could, "I'd like to alert the Quebec police right away, make sure they get up here and pull these guys in. They'll need military reinforcements. These guys are professionals."

  "Okay. I'll get you patched in," he said. "If we act right away, we've got them bottled up."

&
nbsp; I blew out a long sigh of relief. My job was done. Jason was on board, and Freedom for Hire was on the endangered species list. Great. Then the copilot interrupted. "Trouble," he said. "The oil pressure on the port engine's dropped right off the clock."

  TWELVE

  "Feather it," the pilot said crisply. The copilot did something, and the port engine slowed and stopped, the propeller blades revolving forward, edges into the wind. The pilot increased the power on the starboard engine and changed the trim on the controls, acting automatically, completely calm. "How's the other motor? Any sign of damage?" he asked.

  The copilot opened his side window and stared out for an age, then slapped the window shut and turned back. "Looks fine," he said. "But we could have a gas leak. They hit us a lot of times."

  The pilot cocked his head back toward me. "This means no North Bay. We'd make it okay, but it would take us the biggest part of four hours. I'm heading for Arrow Lake. We've got an emergency depot there with spares."

  I nodded, and he spoke to the copilot. "Call base."

  The copilot worked the radio and then nodded to the pilot, who took over. "Yeah, Madelaine. George Foster on Able. Two miles south of that fire at Laroche. We've got an engine problem. I'm making for Arrow Lake with the port motor dead. Alert the guys and patch me through to the OPP, can you? Over."

  He sat silently for about thirty seconds, then spoke again. "Yeah, Corporal. This here is George Foster of Flameout. I'm just south of Lac Laroche. There's a big fire there, about a thousand hectares, an' more important, there's a buncha guys with automatic rifles. They fired on my aircraft, knocked out one motor and other damage." He paused, then said, "I have a policeman on board, name of Bennett. Talk to him."

  He gestured to the copilot, who pulled off his headset and handed it to me. I put it on, and he indicated the microphone switch. I nodded and spoke. "Reid Bennett, police chief from Murphy's Harbour. Who is this? Over."

  "Corporal Hicks, Kincardine detachment. Over." I asked him to get his tape recorder going and then gave him a quick summary of what had happened, including the fact that we had brought Jason Michaels out. I also advised him to bring in military reinforcements wearing the heaviest protection they had. Flak jackets would be no use if the Freedom for Hire people were using the new armor-piercing rounds designed for their bullpup rifles.

  It took about ten minutes, and by the time I'd finished, they had a superintendent patched in, and I had to run through some of it again at his speed. He told me there would be an investigating team at Arrow Lake when we arrived. I would be debriefed by experts. I was glad George Horn was with me. As a law student, he would know how to handle the trickier questions, like why we had returned fire. Unless we were careful, the press would try to turn this into a gang fight. The best thing to do would be to make mileage out of the fact that the Freedom outfit were mercenaries. Even to the liberal press that's a dirtier word than police.

  When I was through talking, I went back and checked on the others. Jason was sitting with his back to a bulkhead, in shock. George was calm. He was lifting out a bilge plate, checking for holes below the waterline. He looked up when I moved in behind him. "We took about fifteen hits, couple down where they'll be trouble," he said.

  "I'll tell the pilot. You two okay?"

  He grinned. "Apart from I've never been shot at except by some fool I was guiding on a moose hunt, yeah. The kid's shook up, though."

  "I'll smooth him down. We want him on our side. The OPP is going to have a couple of detectives waiting when we land. We have to get our stories straight."

  "D'we lose an engine?" He jerked his head toward the port side.

  "Yeah, lost oil pressure. Bullet through the line, I guess. We were lucky. They were out to get us."

  "Nice guys." He laughed and this time it was a touch shaky. I bumped him on the shoulder.

  "Thanks for everything, George. I'd have been in a lot of trouble by now if you hadn't shown."

  "You would have been dead," he said. "That guy Wallace is meaner'n a snake. Glad I was there."

  We shook hands, and I turned to Michaels, patting him on the shoulder and crouching to his eye level. "Nice going," I said. "You stayed cool under fire. Not many guys do."

  He raised his head and looked at me. For a long moment he said nothing; then he grinned weakly. "Yeah, I did, didn't I."

  "You did fine. But it's a bad business you were in. The detectives are going to be waiting for us when we land. They'll want to know all about what happened. Just tell it like it was."

  He frowned. "It was like I said. Wallace found your pack and waited. I wasn't really part of it at all. Oh, he leaned on me, but he would've been waiting for you, anyway."

  "Mention the fact that he leaned on you. This man is bad news, and we want him locked up. He's done enough that he's going inside for a couple of years. He deserves it."

  "All right," he said uncertainly. "He's gonna be mad."

  "By the time he gets out, you'll be off in Europe or somewhere. It's me he's going to threaten. It happens all the time. Comes with the uniform." That was true. If all the people who have threatened me over the years ever keep their word, they'll have to form a line.

  I reported back to the pilot about the bullet holes in the hull, and he nodded. "There's a slipway at Arrow Lake. I'll land and taxi right out. This thing's got wheels as well, you know."

  He didn't want to talk, and I took the hint and went back to join the others. I sat and patted Sam for a while, rubbing his coat until all the singed hair had broken away. His fur had saved him. His nose was dry, and he was panting heavily, but apart from losing a quarter inch of hair all over his coat, he was unharmed. Then I flopped out on the deck, remembering other flights in and out of combat zones in 'Nam, and soon I was asleep.

  The change in engine note woke me with a start, and I looked up to see George staring out of the starboard blister. "Must be Arrow Lake," he said. "There's a big wide slipway down there."

  I stood up and joined him, stretching the stiffness out of my joints. There were a dozen or so cars clustered around the hut at the top of the slip. "Looks like word's got out," I said. "We'll have reporters to contend with."

  "Say nothing," George told me. I turned and looked at him. He was just a kid, the age of the guys in my platoon eighteen years earlier. His eyebrows were singed off, and his face and lips were blistered, and all his brand-new legal wisdom was in his eyes. "We could be in a mess of trouble. Guys like those can afford the best defense lawyers in the business."

  "I'll have a word with Jason," I said, and turned away. Michaels was still sitting against his bulkhead, looking as if he hadn't moved in two hours. I crouched next to him and repeated George's warning, and he nodded. It should have been reassuring, but it wasn't. He was weak and spoiled, and his grandfather's money was going to protect him.

  We landed smoothly; then Foster lowered the wheels and taxied right up the slipway, skewing his angle of approach sharply to compensate for the missing power on the port side. He and the copilot got out first. Then George, carrying his pack and rifle, then Michaels, then me, with my Remington, then Sam. I'd been right. There were four newspaper people there, snapping photographs of us, and a man with a TV camera. There was also a uniformed OPP man and a couple of guys who looked like cops. They nodded at me, and I steered the others toward them, ignoring the press people.

  The OPP man took over, quietly discouraging the reporters. He couldn't keep them away. They thrive on drama, and we all three had cameras jammed into our faces, but we followed the detectives into the hut at the top of the slipway, and then the uniformed man shut the door from outside, raising a hubbub from the press. "You're Bennett?" one of the detectives asked me. He was a big man, soft-spoken, dressed in a suit that looked as if it had cost him ninety-nine dollars with two pairs of pants. I nodded, and he stuck out his hand. "Sergeant Tracy. Forget the gags, I've heard 'em."

  "Hi. Reid Bennett. This is George Horn, and this is Jason Michaels."


  He nodded at both of them but concentrated on me.

  His partner stood there, chewing gum quietly, watching me.

  "What the hell's goin' on?" he asked.

  I told him, making it like an official report, explaining who the mercenaries were, how I'd come to follow them up, what had happened at the lake, what weapons they were using, and the degree of discipline I'd observed among them. Then I took out my map and pinpointed the location of their camp.

  "At the moment there must be twelve of them still fit and in action," I said. "George here put a couple of them down with arm and leg wounds. I lucked out with my revolver. There were sixteen, that's four out, counting Jason. And don't forget they've got those new Enfield assault rifles, and they're hard-noses."

  "We've got a combat group from Petawawa Armed Forces base and a chopper full of Sûreté Québec tactical guys heading up there," he said. He turned to the other man. "Get in touch, tell them what Mr. Bennett had to say."

  The other one nodded without speaking and went out, through the clamor of the reporters at the door. They all craned up, flashing quick shots inside the building.

  The detectives waved to a bench that was most of the furniture in the hut. The rest was a work area filled with tools and drums of oil. "Take a load off," he said.

  We sat gratefully, and he asked each of the others to go over their own stories. He asked a few questions, solid questions, breaking out extra details they had overlooked, then turned back to me. "This is a hell of a case," he said. "I'll call the Crown in North Bay to prepare charges. I've never handled anything like this before."

  "It's a war," I said. "I can understand them shooting at me, but blazing away at an aircraft is nuts."

  "Yeah." He nodded me away from the others, and I walked with him to one side where we could speak quietly without being overheard. He stood there a moment, staring at me sightlessly while he got his thoughts in line. "Seems to me there's two things to do. First is get them bottled up. Second is to negotiate. No way I want any guys in there trying to fight it out with them. What do you think?"