Diabolical (2 page)

As much as Hatcher would have loved to hear what the guy had to say, he knew that was an option he had to dismiss outright. This was no simple messenger. The wording of the note clearly meant the sender was military. Ex-military, most likely, but definitely a soldier. And he wanted Hatcher to know it.
Chief
referred to Hatcher's highest attained rank, chief warrant officer second class.
Four balls
was army jargon for midnight, when the twenty-four-hour clock was all zeros.

But it was the way the note seemed designed to bait him that was most bothersome. Like the author was determined not to give him a chance to ignore it. Like he wanted to make sure his quarry showed up outside in an enclosed area looking for a fight at a specific time.
Roses are Yellow, Falcons are Blue
. Operation Rose Garden had comprised three phases—white, yellow, and red. It was during
Yellow
that Davis, moronic fucker that he was, screwed the pooch and nearly got the entire team killed. The guy was such an egomaniac, his nickname was “Mister I.” Only a child would entertain the possibility of that being a coincidence.

Falcons are Blue
was the clincher, though, the reference that really stuck out. Blue Falcon was phonetic slang for BF, which stood for
buddy fucker
. It was a moniker slapped on someone who ratted out a teammate.

And in Spec Ops, if you called someone a BF out in the field you were as good as marking them for death.

Hatcher sensed heavy footfalls approach. Heard the familiar labored breathing behind him before he felt the weight of a hand on his shoulder.

“Hey, Jake. What do you think of small and lethal?”

It was the owner, Dennis, standing next to him with his usual jowly half smile. He was a flabby guy with a red waft of hair and an equally red beard, like a cross between Santa and Satan. He always seemed to be winded. And he always seemed to have some new toy to share.

He held his hand up, dangling something in front of Hatcher's face.

Hatcher drew back a bit, saw it was a tiny holster with a little gun handle sticking out, swinging on the end of a chain. He shifted his gaze over the man's shoulder to the flat-screen TV suspended in the corner. A cable sports channel was running down scores, with a headline ticker across the bottom. The time on the ticker read 2:53 EST. Seven till midnight, Pacific.

“Wait till you see how cool this is,” Denny said. “C'mon back to the office.”

“I'm about to go on break. There's something I need to take care of.”

“Well, come back there when you're done, okay?”

“Sure, Den. Give me a few minutes.”

“Not gonna forget, are you? Make me sit back there waiting? I've got a new DVD to show you. Better than the last one.”

Early on Hatcher had pegged Dennis as a guy who was more or less full of shit. Harmless, though. Geeky. Always wore the same jeans and an XXL shirt with the name of the bar plastered across the front of it. The Liar's Den. One of the bartenders had intimated Dennis didn't actually own the place, but had a small percentage of the company that did and ran it for his brother-inlaw, who owned the other 95 percent. Denny did his best to create a different impression. Referred to himself as the owner in practically every conversation, same way he was always mentioning some new injury he'd sustained playing a sport. Pretty active for a guy who couldn't lift an eyebrow without sounding like he was on life support and who spent his days practicing magic tricks and playing on his computer. But he paid Hatcher under the table and didn't ask a lot of questions, so Hatcher liked him, even if the big goof seemed to have some sort of weird man-crush on him.

Liked the bar's name, too. It fit.

“I won't forget.”

Dennis lifted his hand off Hatcher's shoulder and dropped it again with a convivial slap before heading off, each breath still crying out for some WD-40. “Darn good man.”

Hatcher glanced over at the guy who'd passed him the note, thinking,
Not really.

The vibe he was getting from the guy at the bar really bothered him. The fella was just so pissant scrawny. A guy who, for all appearances, Hatcher was inclined to think he could snap like a number two pencil. Yet considering the implications of the message he'd sent, the shrimp wasn't showing the slightest bit of nerves.

Big men, at least the pugnacious ones, were used to pushing people around. Even if they didn't have big mouths—and the dangerous ones usually didn't—they knew how to use their size to win the psychological battle, how to project it, to get inside the other guy's head. They were all about intimidation. If a fighter can persuade the other guy he's going to lose, chances are it will become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Small guys learn that early from the bullies, naturally attempt to imitate it when dealing with others, try to act bigger than they are. But in wanting to come across as tough they tend to overcompensate, act louder, more obnoxious. Little man's disease, they call it.

A small guy who acts as cool as the other side of the pillow, though, that's different. Truth was, it didn't matter what this one wanted. No way Hatcher could afford to take any chances. Guy like this has danger writ large over every inch of him. Obvious, but only if you knew what to look for. Like a coral snake: all venom, no hood.

There were three possibilities, not mutually exclusive. One was that his little friend was armed. That was less of an option than a certainty, the more Hatcher thought about it. Armed, and the type who knew how to use whatever he was carrying. An expert. He'd have to be. A gun or knife in the hand of a small guy might make him cocky, but it wouldn't make him calm unless he knew how to use it and
knew
he knew how to use it. This guy was the definition of calm.

Possibility number two was that he was an extremely skilled fighter, the world-class kind. Hatcher doubted it. Nose was straight, lips were thin and delicate, face was free of scars. Skilled fighters get their skills from fighting. Nobody escapes every fight unscathed. Add to that the fact this guy obviously knew something about Hatcher's background, and it became even less likely. A fighter good enough to be that confident would be smart enough not to take an opponent with Hatcher's training for granted. Wouldn't be letting his attention drift so freely to flirt with another barmaid, like he was now. Not after passing a note as provocative as the one in Hatcher's pocket.

That left a third possibility. Hatcher checked the time once more, then gestured to the waitress who had passed him the note. New gal with blonde hair, been there less than a month. Always smiling at him. Had a way of filling a T-shirt and cutoffs that made her look like sex was her business. She so resembled the woman he'd moved out to L.A. for—only to have her take off on him a couple of months ago—that he had to struggle not to call her the wrong name.

“Lori, if Denny comes looking for me, tell him something came up and I'll see him tomorrow.”

Or not, he told himself, thinking about how the bar's name really did nail it.

The woman flashed him an okay sign, nodding as she wiped down a table.

Hatcher walked out through the patio and crossed the strand. He stopped a few feet past the pavement, angling himself to peer into the alley next to the bar.

Most of the buildings along the beachfront were adjacent to one another—side walls touching if not outright shared—due to square footage being such a premium on the strip. Even so, gaps popped up here and there, and one of them was along the north side of the bar. The neighboring building was a long, flat structure divided into a T-shirt mart and a smoothie shop. There was a narrow alleyway between it and the bar. The space was blocked off by a wrought-iron gate. Other than some garbage cans, it looked empty.

Hatcher moved in closer, checked the chain. It was wrapped around the gate, fastening the edge to an iron post attached to the wall. A large steel lock connected two of the links. A twisting loop of barbed wire sagged along the gate's top like a thorned slinky.

The alley was used for trash. The entry on the opposite side was blocked by a wooden fence. The fence, like the gate, was high and barbed so vagrants and drifters couldn't climb over and camp out after-hours; at least, not without expending serious effort. Unless someone was going to scale one of them and negotiate the wire, the only way in was through the bar itself. And the side door always remained locked.

An ambush was beginning to look unlikely. Unless he was missing something.

Hatcher stared at the neighboring building. Unlike the bar, it was only one story, with a flat roof surrounded by a parapet. A bit too high to see over from where Hatcher stood, and he doubted improving his angle would help. If he backed farther out onto the beach, the row of palm trees bordering the path would block his line of sight. And the section of wall extending above the roofline provided plenty of concealment even if it turned out the trees didn't. He would need a higher vantage point.

There were two second-story windows on the bar's alley wall that were useless, covered by a giant banner advertising medical marijuana for a place three or four blocks up, earning Denny a few hundred extra bucks a week. The bar did have a balcony facing the beach, but the alley side of it was jammed with busted patio tables and beach umbrellas. It would take a bit of noisy effort to make room for a view. And it was getting close to midnight. Four balls.

If someone was up there, using the parapet for concealment, they'd be expecting Hatcher to come into the alley, so their attention would be directed there. They were likely to be hunched down right behind the wall adjacent to it, waiting to hear the door open, checking their watch. That alley would command their attention.

Hatcher scanned the twin storefronts, sliding his gaze to his left. There was no alley on the opposite side of the adjacent building, but near that end somebody had parked a motorcycle. Even in the wan moonlight, he could see the words Harley-Davidson written across the large gas tank in stylish lettering. Jet-black paint, with red-and-white script and striping. California license plate.

The promenade was relatively clear. To the north, he could just make out the large geometric shapes representing a bodybuilder poised to dead lift, an abstract landmark forming the gate to Muscle Beach. A few pedestrians were loitering in the distance beyond that, but with the shops closed and the sun long down, the walkway was all but deserted. Hatcher wasn't sure who the motorcycle belonged to, but it almost had to be someone in the bar. Maybe even
GQ
Danger Mouse himself, a possibility that made the decision about what to do next easier.

The seat of the bike looked just high enough. A glance in each direction, and Hatcher starting moving swiftly toward it, adjusting his trajectory along the way, checking the bar and rooftop one more time. He broke into a trot for the last few feet, took two running steps and used the third to launch himself off the bike's seat. Stretching his hands out as far and high as they would go, he managed to hook his fingers over the edge of the cement parapet and hang on. He pulled himself up the rest of the way with his arms until he could lean his chest across the top, was forced to reach his arm down the other side of the wall to get a better grip and swing his leg up.

But something reached for him instead, grabbing him by the throat.

“Well, I'll be damned,” said a cartoonlike voice, high and squeaky.

Hatcher felt himself get dragged over the edge of the parapet onto the roof, head jammed forward, unable to look up. His neck was being crushed and he couldn't breathe. The gravelly surface of the roof passed beneath him, the tips of his shoes scraping behind him as he tried to get footing. A gargantuan forearm blocked most of his view. He clawed and punched at it feebly, the unexpected constriction of his arteries and windpipe sapping his strength.

“They said you'd be here, few minutes before midnight, and whatd'ya know? Here you are! Un-fuckin'-believable.”

The pressure was building in his eye sockets, and the stranglehold around his neck made his head seem on the verge of popping right off. Thinking about anything other than getting air to his lungs and oxygen to his brain was next to impossible. But despite the chaos in his skull, he remembered feeling arms this steely on him once before, remembered being in the grip of something similarly massive, similarly strong. And that voice, taunting him. Even with his thoughts scrambled, there was no mistaking it.

“Heard you got out . . . Took a while to track you to Cali. Knew I'd find you eventually. You didn't think I'd forget our little score, did ya?”

Hatcher couldn't speak, had no desire to. Getting air was all that mattered. His head was swimming, the tension in his skull unbearable. His chest felt ready to split open.

“Read all the papers, saw you'd managed to get away from those crazy broads and mess Valentine's shit all up. Realized you took care of that cop Maloney, too, when I saw he turned up on a slab. But didn't see one mention about ol' Lucas Sherman anywhere. So I shook Valentine's mouthpiece down for a couple grand and got outta Dodge.”

Sherman raised him by the throat, clasping his other hand around Hatcher's neck. He managed to lift Hatcher completely off the ground, so that his feet weren't even touching.

“I have to think of you every friggin' time I look in the mirror, you know that? I got three different rips on my scalp cause a' you. And I have to see them every goddamn morning. That's why I decided I was going to have to get some payback. And you know what they say. Paybacks are a bitch.
Bitch
.”

Consciousness seemed to be drifting away, floating across a growing chasm, barely maintaining contact with his mind. A survival instinct was telling him he had to do something, and that he had to do it within seconds or he'd pass out. Passing out meant dying. It was as simple as that.