Sitting in the Land Rover next to John Bradford Horn, the man holding the radio was looking at it, frowning. Slowly he turned to look at his employer.
"That didn't sound like Simmons," he said.
"No," said Horn. "It was Stringfellow Hawke." He leaned forward to speak to the driver.
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Airwolf cleared the top of the mountain and headed west. Hawke had decided the best thing to do was to head straight for Knightsbridge and its medical facility. It wasn't the closest place but the extra time it would take to get there would be cancelled out by the speed with which Knightsbridge could react and the fact that he wouldn't have to waste time with explanations. He hit the radio buttons to make the call.
"String, the infrared scanners are showing two vehicles heading south by southwest at high speed, distance ten miles."
"Dom, you're supposed to be resting, not running scans!" snapped Hawke.
"Doesn't take much to press a coupla buttons. We going after them?"
Hawke opened his mouth to tell Dom once and for all that they were headed to a hospital by the quickest possible route, but what came out was, "We have any ordnance left at all?"
"A few rounds for the guns, that's it."
He could go after the two vehicles, hope they stayed conveniently close together so he could take both of them out with the minimum of time and bullets, hope he had enough bullets to inflict the necesary damage, hope he got lucky. If he didn't, Dom might bleed to death and Horn might still survive. Too many variables, too much risk. He'd have taken the gamble with his own life, but he couldn't do it with Dom's. "To hell with it," he said out loud. "We're going to Knightsbridge. Hold on."
He refused to listen to the little voice in his head that wanted him to hit the turbos and break all the speed records. With that injury Dom couldn't take Mach 1 or anything like it. He proceeded on his course at a relatively sedate 300 knots, and reached up for the radio buttons again to contact Knightsbridge.
"String!" said Dominic suddenly, in what would normally have been a shout but was now hardly more than an urgent wheeze. "Got another contact, heading of 140 degrees. Looks like a man. No, wait, he's gone. No, there he is! Must be tryin' to hide in the rocks. Think it's Horn?"
Hawke thought it very likely was. If he hadn't been convincing enough on the radio back in the Lair, Horn would probably have figured out right away that Hawke had regained control of Airwolf. He would be willing to bet a great deal that the man had bailed, leaving the jeep and the Land Rover to take the road and make targets of themselves while he went cross country and hoped Hawke would be satisfied after he destroyed the two vehicles.
"C'mon, String. You can't leave it like this."
"The hell I can't."
"You don't do this and I croak anyway, so help me God I'll come back and haunt you for the rest of your life. Don't you see, this is something that's got to be done? How much more misery are you gonna let that guy cause?"
Hawke snapped the visor back up, turned around and looked as closely as he could at Dominic's face. It was still that frightening shade of gray, but he didn't think the older man looked any worse, at least, than he had when they left the Lair. His eyes were bright and challenging as he met Hawke's gaze.
"You talk an awful lot for somebody who looks like he's trying to bleed to death," growled Hawke.
"I ain't dyin' for a while yet. Well?"
He sighed heavily. "All right. Give me that heading again."
"Attaboy." Dominic read off the numbers, and Hawke turned Airwolf around, dropping speed and altitude.
"Must be in those rocks," said Dom. Half a mile away from them was an immense jumble of sandstone boulders. It looked to be the only spot in the area that could provide much cover. Hawke dropped down low enough to practically scrape Airwolf's undercarriage on the highest part of the pile, flicked on the searchlight and made a few slow passes, but he couldn't see anything that might be a human figure.
"For sure he's in there," said Dom. It sounded as though he were starting to struggle for breath.
"How much ammo we got for the guns?"
"Enough for ten seconds, maybe."
It was possible to do a lot of damage in ten seconds. Hawke took them even lower and brought up the guns. For good measure he deployed the ADF pod as well. Airwolf hovered in front of the rock formation, the turbines making their characteristic snarl, all her teeth showing. Hawke just hoped Horn wouldn't realize they were false teeth. He flipped the switch for the external speaker.
"Horn, you coming out of there the easy way or the hard way?"
No answer. Hawke's finger tightened on the trigger. Stupid goddamned fool for not re-loading everything when you had the chance. You think Horn was going to wait till you hung out a sign saying you were ready for him? You could've easily blasted all these rocks to hell and Horn along with them.
He tried a short burst, just five seconds, to see if that would be enough to make Horn think he meant business. "He's on the move," reported Dominic. "Two o'clock. Looks like he's trying to get out the far side."
He re-aimed and fired a second round. This time he didn't even get five seconds' worth before the guns fell silent. Without taking his eyes off the rocks, he leaned forward and popped open a small storage bin in front of his right knee, groped around in it one-handed and pulled out a small Browning Hi-Power pistol.
Airwolf shot up and forward, skimming over the top of the rock formation. He set her down hard and fast on the other side, pulled off the helmet and got out, Browning in hand. Using the open starboard hatch as a shield, he scanned the rocks, gun sweeping from side to side. The rising quarter moon, reflecting off the snow, provided fairly good illumination; of course Horn probably had night vision goggles, which gave him the advantage.
A hint of movement above and to his right caught his eye. He squeezed off a shot in that direction and was rewarded with the sound of a minor cascade of stones as someone scrambled away. "Give it up, Horn," he yelled. "You know I can blow this whole place to dust." Yeah, right. I just hope he doesn't know a bluff when he hears one.
"Hawke, if you had the ammunition to do that, you'd have already done it," taunted a voice from the rocks.
So much for bluffing. At least it gave him a partial fix on Horn's location. "Maybe I just want to see your face when I pull the trigger," he called.
No response. This was getting him nowhere. Horn could probably see him and would have no intention of wasting bullets while Hawke stayed where he was. The man might be trapped like a rat in a cage, but with Dom in such poor shape, time was all on his side. Hawke couldn't force him out and he couldn't wait him out. He had to go in after him.
He closed Airwolf's hatch, dropping into a crouch at the same time, and scurried the twenty feet to the base of the rocks while keeping as close to the ground as possible. He found a foothold and began to work his way into the jumble of boulders as cautiously as he could.
Caution went to hell ten seconds later, when a pistol shot was fired down at him from somewhere slightly above and ahead of him, blazing across the knuckles of his left hand. He let out a yelp and shook out his hand. Good thing it hadn't been his right, or he would have lost his gun for sure. Another shot sent up chips of rock a foot away from his face. He scrambled as fast as he could into a spot underneath another rock that leaned over at a precarious angle. He slithered forward another few feet, trying to figure out a way to get to a higher level. The next boulder was angled so as to present what looked like a temptingly easy climb, but it was out in the open. He risked a quick peek upwards from the edge of his shelter and saw movement above him, hardly more than a shivering of the darkness, as Horn abandoned his position and tried to make his way back the way he had come.
Hawke flung himself at the rock face in front of him and scrambled upwards. Panting, he hauled himself over the top, gun clenched firmly in hand. There was no one in sight. He ran forward and hurdled the gap between one boulder and the next.
A shot from the darkness below him sent a searing track up the side of his left leg.
He spun around, nearly falling, and looked down at a figure three feet below him, wedged into the gap he had just jumped. It was nearly invisible in the shadows. He could just make out the head, misshapen with the bulky night vision goggles, and the gun poised to make another shot.
He was close enough to see the face. He brought up his own gun and pulled the trigger.
Horn fell sideways, and Hawke heard the clatter of the gun falling. He dropped to his stomach and peered cautiously over the edge. In a lighter patch of shadow, he could see a black stain on the rock behind where Horn's head had been. He reached cautiously down with his left hand, while his right still held the Browning at the ready. Straining, he could just reach the goggles. He pulled them off and saw what was left of John Bradford Horn's face, the eyes glaring upwards through a bloody mask.
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Twenty minutes later, Airwolf landed at Knightsbridge in what was almost a replay of events when Hawke himself had come home. A group of people in white, probably the same crew that had attended to Hawke, loaded Dominic onto a stretcher with the same efficiency and bore him off inside the building.
Hawke felt completely sucked dry, and was literally too tired to move. He shut down the engines and slumped forward over the stick, resting on his forearms on top of the panel, as the blades slowly cycled down.
"This is a no parking zone, you know," said a voice in his ear. "You better move this thing before you get towed."
"Huh?" Hawke looked up, blinking, and was surprised to see Marella leaning into Airwolf's cockpit through the open port hatch.
"You've been sitting here for half an hour," she said gently. "Did you fall asleep, or are you just meditating?"
"Half an – how's Dom?"
"Still alive. They'll be taking him to surgery in a few minutes."
"Oh." He sat up and scrubbed at his face with one hand. He couldn't believe he'd been so idiotic as to fall asleep in Airwolf on the Firm's roof – with the door wide open, no less. He'd just been lucky somebody hadn't already whisked the machine away from him, no doubt leaving him sitting on his ass in the middle of the pad. In spite of that thought, he was ready to drop off again in a heartbeat.
Marella was looking at him in concern. "I think you'd better come inside too. You don't look so healthy either. Looks like somebody tried to scalp you."
"I'm okay," he replied automatically. Marella gave an un-ladylike snort.
"That's what I thought you'd say, so I brought you this." She held out an extra-large cup of coffee.
He wanted to tell her she was an angel, but didn't have the energy, so he settled for mumbling his thanks and taking the cup. With half its contents inside of him, he said, "Do me another favour and call Cait, would you? Somebody should be with him, and I've got to . . . " He gestured vaguely at the cockpit.
"Hide Airwolf somewhere safe?" Marella finished, smiling. "Anybody ever told you you have a one-track mind?"
"Yeah. It's just that sometimes it runs off the rails."
"You said it. Not me."
"Yeah, but you thought it."
She smiled again, sphinx-like.
He looked at his watch and was surprised to see that the time was only just after midnight. With everything that had happened, it felt like it should be almost dawn. But in any case it was still well after office hours. "What are you doing here in the middle of the night, anyway?"
"Horn hunting. Going through all recorded sightings of him, hoping to find some kind of pattern."
"Wait till tomorrow, and you can have a sighting of his dead body."
"Oh?"
"I just have to go back and collect it."
"Hawke, just tell us where – "
"No. I'll bring it in." He could hardly let a bunch of Firm agents go poking around the countryside within sight of the Lair.
"So it's over?"
"Yup. It's over."
She leaned in further and squeezed his shoulder. He winced. At some point in the evening that shoulder had taken some abuse. He couldn't even remember what had happened to make it so sore.
Marella straightened up. "Well, if you're determined not to do the sensible thing and get yourself checked over, you'd better get Airwolf out of here before I'm tempted to hijack her."
"Right." He could still barely move.
"I'm not going to say don't worry about Dominic. But you know he's in good hands."
He nodded. Marella closed the hatch and walked away. Hawke's finger hovered over the Start E-1 button, undecided.
He should take Airwolf back to the Lair, do something about the two men who were presumably still tied up there, and retrieve Horn's body. With Dom's jeep undriveable, it would mean spending the night in a cold cave. He was too tired to give a damn about where he slept, just so long as he could fall asleep somewhere and stay that way for about twenty four hours. But he couldn't spend any more time napping on Knightsbridge's roof, and Eagle Lake was a lot closer than the Lair.
There was just enough room to set Airwolf down behind the cabin. He thought he might have lopped off a few tree branches in the process, but decided he'd worry about that in the morning. Moving like an automaton, he got the camouflage netting over her, then staggered to the cabin. He had just enough strength to make it in the door before he passed out.
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Hawke came back to consciousness around sunrise to find himself on the floor with Tet licking his hair. He trudged back to Airwolf, called Knightsbridge and was told that Dominic was out of surgery and in stable condition. He left a message for Caitlin, then went back to the cabin and to bed, not waking until Caitlin's arrival in the early afternoon. Shocked at how rough he still looked, she insisted on him taking the time to shower and shave while she made coffee and sandwiches before they left for the Lair.
He decided that Airwolf was safe enough where she was under the camouflage netting. Besides, he really needed to check the blades after that rough landing last night – this morning – whenever. Sitting in the left seat of the Jet Ranger, munching on a sandwich, he was surprised at how much better he felt – almost ready to tackle the job of finding Horn's body.
Horn's two pilots were right where Hawke had left them, definitely the worse for wear and the fear that they would never be found alive. Hawke really didn't give a damn what happened to them, but given their condition Caitlin was slightly more sympathetic, giving them the bottled water she'd brought along for herself and Hawke.
"What are we going to do with them?" she asked in a low voice. "We can't just take them back to the Firm. They know about the Lair."
Hawke shrugged. "Push 'em out at ten thousand feet."
"Hawke!"
He refused to retract the statement. "I'm gonna go take a look at the jeep."
The back end of it was crumpled, as well as the two rear tires being shredded by bullets, but the spare tire was still intact and Caitlin had brought another one as per Hawke's request. He replaced both tires and found the vehicle was still driveable, just. Then they took the Jet Ranger to retrieve Horn's body.
He didn't really want Caitlin coming with him, but she pointed out that he would need her help, which was true; and also that the sight of the remains couldn't be any worse than the MVA's she'd sometimes had to deal with on highway patrol, which was also true. As they scrambled through the jumble of rocks, Hawke shook his head. He couldn't believe he'd let Dominic talk him into coming into this mess, which looked as if it'd been created specifically to twist and break human ankles, in the dark, with an armed and very dangerous opponent lurking somewhere inside. This must have been one of those times that, as Marella had carefully not said, his mind had run off the rails.
The exact spot was easy to find; all they had to do was follow the cluster of wheeling, squabbling birds. Hawke's shot from above had taken away most of the top of Horn's head, and the crows and a few other scavengers had already been busy. Caitlin gulped at the sight, her face turning pale, but after Hawke jumped down beside the corpse and tied a rope around it she steadfastly hauled on it while he pushed from below. When he reached the limit of his arms, he jumped up beside Caitlin and took over the rope, bringing the body bumping over the edge of the rock they were standing on, to stop at his feet.
They wrapped it in a couple of blankets and put it on the back seat of the helicopter, then headed back to the Lair. Hawke intended to have Caitlin head back to Knightsbridge with the body, while he took the two pilots in the jeep – they were the more dangerous cargo, if less unpleasant. However, the cave was empty when they got back. Extra footsteps in the dust, leading outside, were the only sign of their prisoners.
Hawke crooked an eyebrow at Caitlin, who went red. "Guess I didn't tie them up again as well as I thought. They probably thought you meant what you said about pushing them out at ten thousand feet."
"Who says I didn't mean it?"
Caitlin blinked. She'd assumed he hadn't. But with Hawke, you never knew. "Well, anyhow, at least they went out on foot and didn't bother trying to steal the jeep. They must have figured we could spot it too easily."
Hawke considered trying to go after them, but then shrugged mentally. To hell with them. He went back out and drove the jeep into the cave, leaving it parked next to Airwolf, then he and Caitlin set out once again in the Jet Ranger.