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Stix looked at her blankly, Sam gave her a glance, shook his
head, and concentrated on the road.
 Well, shit! You two aren t that young. Are you?
 Back to Kingston.
 Just hold on to your steering wheel, I m getting to it. She
took another drag,  You sure you don t remember? They both
sighed,  Okay! What else should you know? He likes the ladies
and doesn t drink much. Works out all the fucking time. He even
had a gym in his office in Colombia. Really we don t know too
much about him. It s believed that he may use disguises. He was
sent to Colombia about twelve years ago, and against policy was
left there. CIA brass is looking into why, maybe payoffs or it
might be that he was getting results. Most of his people were on
230 DAVE MEAD
their second, and in some cases third, consecutive tour down
there, too. At his request.
 What s he like up close and personal?
 You ll have to ask Stix that.
 I really didn t get to see him that well. I was forced to lie face
down, except when he took me by the hair and pulled my head
back, the second time until I passed out. She shuddered,  He s
the closest thing to pure evil that I ve ever been around.
 Can you expand on that? Jane asked.
Stix thought for a few seconds and started to say something,
stopped, swallowed, and started again.  I was with my father at
the Washington County Fair one time when we decided to go into
the reptile exhibit. They had an albino python there. The snake
handler had an assistant who took the python out of its cage and
was carrying it around. Without warning, she said,  Here, Honey,
hold it, and draped it over my shoulder and laid its head in my
hands. I ve never forgotten the smell, but mostly I remember
that it didn t give off any heat and the way it looked at me . . .
Like it would eat me if it wanted. She shook herself out of the
memory and said,  That s Kingston. That s what he s like. He has
no regard for life as we know it. He s a user of people. For
pleasure. And I think that, for him, this is like a chess game.
 That s a good analogy of a psychopathic killer, Jane said.
 So where do we look for him? Sam asked.
They rode in silence for a while until Jane said,  We either play
chess with him, or we bait him. Or both.  She lit a smoke off of
the end of the one she had just finished and said,  I m hoping
that we can jump him and keep him moving; if we can, he ll
probably die from his wounds. At the least, he won t be able to
hole up and heal up.
 It doesn t sound to me like you think we will capture him.
 He s about as good as they come at hiding, waiting, and
striking when it suits him, sometimes under the noses of well-
trained armies. We aren t sure how he s managed to do it. Up
until recently we didn t know that he was the one who was pulling
the trigger on some high-profile targets in the mid-east and South
STIX 231
America. We thought it was a Russian para-military group, not
one of our own. If you call the CIA  our own. 
 We have an immediate problem, Sam said,  Cell phones
won t transmit from Cherry Grove. There s a hill in the way.
 Why doesn t that surprise me? Jane asked.  So, after Stix
 finds the murdered girl, then what? She crutches up to the
nearest cabin and gets eaten by one of those creatures that look
like a cross between a wolf and a tiger?
 Yeah. Or else I could tell her which house to go to.
 Oh, I like that option better. Stix said, nodding and pointing
at Sam.
Sam went on,  We don t need to worry about anyone having
seen us all out there earlier. In Cherry Grove, no one sees
anything. About half the town is made up of retired Hells Angels
and their old ladies. He grinned,  If you want to get your ass
kicked real good, then mess with one of the ladies.
 I imagine their husbands would tear someone a new asshole.
 No, for the most part, they appear to care less. But their old
ladies can handle just about anything. They will disembowel you.
And that s just to get warmed up. But if they can t handle it, look-
the-fuck-out. He passed a car on the four lane just before they
got to Hillsboro and added,  Too bad the Lou Ann wasn t a biker s
ride. Kingston wouldn t have lived five minutes. Course, we d
never find him. And then someone would always be looking for
him.
 Are you saying that there are unmarked graves up there?
Jane asked, wondering if, after the Kingston thing was done, she
needed to consider a search for the graves of several people who
had disappeared and had been known to have ties to the Hell s
Angels.
 No, but I will give you a piece of advice.
 I m listening.
 Never eat pork grown in Cherry Grove.
Jane leaned forward and looked across at Sam in disbelief,
then shifted her gaze to Stix. She grinned, shrugged, and said,
 Ever see what a full-grown hog can do to a bone?
232 DAVE MEAD
 You ve got to be kidding!
 No, we aren t. Hogs are carnivores by nature.
 They feed their enemies to the hogs?
Sam nodded,  Cuts down on the amount of feed a guy has to
buy, and you don t have to dig a hole.
 Though you understand, it s just hearsay. Stix added.
Jane lit another smoke, and tried not to think of being eaten by
a hog. Stix s voice had a touch of humor to it. Sam seemed
serious. Too damn serious.
Chapter Five
Every media outlet in the  free world tried to find a different
angle on the young female detective on crutches who was
determined to capture or kill the  most ruthless killer in a decade.
Many sources referred to her as  the best of best and compared
her skill to anyone who might even remotely be considered a
hero.
Chapter Six
At noon that day, in accordance with his new routine, Dan
Kingston pulled himself upright on the cot he used as a bed, and
tried not to groan as he swung his right leg off the cot onto the
floor.  Stinking bitch! he said through clenched teeth. His vest
had deflected the three slugs he d taken in his torso. Though
being shot twice in the left shoulder was bad enough (one of the
slugs had tunneled in under his vest and lodged just below his
throat), the one he d taken in his right leg was by far the worst.
It had entered on the inside of his leg just inches below his groin,
lodging against the bone.
He had gone over it a hundred times, wondering why any one
of the slugs hadn t killed him. The only thing he could think of
was that maybe the ammunition was either old or else they were
hand-loads meant for target practice. It wouldn t matter next
time; she d been lucky once, but would have no second chance.
It was just in the last week that he was beginning to notice
some improvement. Another week, two at the most, and he
thought he could probably begin to walk a little. He had a routine
planned. The first week he would walk to the tree that stood next
to the pump house and back, four times a day. The next week he
would begin longer walks, totally dependent on his condition. He
was in no hurry. His little crippled bitch wasn t going any place.
She d be there when he was ready for her. The longer he waited
before he took her the easier it would be. It was always the
same. Even after his people had botched an assassination, for the [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]