Matt Hilton - Slash and burn

The Cadillac burst through the smoke into clear air. Here the road sloped up to where Nixon and the others had launched their ineffective ambush. Larry used the slope to swing the vehicle on, and he turned back towards the house, giving the big car throttle.

He blasted through the smoke, relying on its cover to put another.357 round through the Japanese dude. Sparks billowed around him and the smoke brought tears to his eyes, but he didn't stop. He didn't see the figure spilling out of the remains of the house. The man was on fire, hair and clothing burning. The man was screaming, but he looked senseless, as though he was merely screaming at the world in general. At the last second he stumbled, turning directly in the path of the Cadillac.

It was too late for Larry to swerve. He just blasted right on into the man. Larry had never liked that coward, Rourke, anyway.

The huge car was more than a match for the fragile human being. It smashed Rourke into the air and his body caromed off the windshield. If the car had had a hard roof, that would have been that, but the soft top was down. Rourke's flailing body spun over the shattered windshield and landed directly in Larry's lap.

Rourke was a fair-sized man, and his body slammed Larry like a battering ram. The shock of the collision, spattering blood and flames, all conspired against Larry and there was nothing he could do to hang on to the Cadillac's steering wheel. The car veered to the left and hit the raised walkway at the front of the house, punching out a couple of support beams to the balcony above. Then, in the next second, the car bounced outwards, flipping in a roll that hurled Larry and Rourke out of the car and on to the rocky earth.

Cognisance left Larry. His mind was full of flashing images and explosions of pain as his body rolled across the floor. Stones dug at him, dust filled his eyes and mouth, something gave in his ribcage with a pop. Then he was lying on his back and the world was spinning and dipping in his vision. Everything was eerily silent.

He lay there for mere seconds.

Then he sat up, blinking and spitting crud from his mouth.

Smoke wreathed across his vision.

Larry groaned, felt for the abnormal shape in his chest and realised that he'd broken a rib. The pain was only one of many similar pains; nothing serious like a shattered spine or crushed skull plagued him.

His hearing came back with a jolt. Trent was screaming at him to get his ass in gear.

He rolled on to his knees, head swimming, then got to his feet where he swayed like a tower in the face of a hurricane.

Superheated wind tore the smoke away from him.

Shit.

Standing directly in front of him was the Jap dude. Blood was apparent only by its absence. Larry had missed the shot and the man was holding a goddamn Mossberg aimed at his gut.

'You have a beef with Joe Hunter,' said the man, 'you have a beef with me.'

'Drop the gun, Huffman.'

It's the power a beautiful face has over a man. For the last few days I could have been accused of being led by my heart instead of by my brain. Pretty much everything I'd done had been driven by the rage I felt at Huffman because he'd threatened a woman that I was attracted to. But now I'd hit melting point. Considering everything, my actions weren't the most rational. I'd tried to validate them by telling myself that to defeat Huffman he had to believe that I was a rabid lone wolf who was unmindful of the consequences. My plan seemed to have worked.

But now the madness had to stop.

Here on in I had to get a grip on what I was doing.

'Son of a bitch,' Huffman said under his breath. Then a smile crept on to his lips. It looked too forced to be genuine. 'So you made it by everyone and now it's down to just you and me?'

'Drop the gun, Huffman,' I repeated. 'Or I swear to God I'll kill you now.'

'Then what happens? You shoot me anyway?'

'Maybe you'd prefer to burn to death.' Without taking my gun from his skull, I nodded backwards at the flames behind us. The heat was stinging the exposed flesh on the back of my neck.

'I'd prefer to talk.' Huffman gave me a patronising smile that made me wish I could kill in cold blood.

'We've gone way past talking. Now drop the goddamn gun.'

Huffman allowed the gun to fall from his fingers. I dragged it away from him with my foot and then back-heeled it into the flames.

'I'm worth millions of dollars, Hunter. Name your price.'

'No, Huffman, this wasn't ever about money.'

He twisted his smile. 'You're pissed at me because of the women. OK, I get that. But it wasn't personal. I'm a businessman; I was simply looking after my interests.'

'That's not the way I see it.'

'People have died, yes! But they were all greedy men with their own agendas.'

'You played them as much as you tried to play me, Huffman. It was all a game to you. One you wanted to win. I bet you're the one that's pissed now.'

He gave a shrug as though the destruction of his empire meant nothing. 'You win some, you lose some. That's business.'

Just then I heard the roar of an engine. Larry Bolan drove past us in his Cadillac, firing his gun at Rink. I knew by the way that Rink spun to the ground, then bounced back up again, that he was unhurt. We shared a brief glance before I had to return my attention to a more pressing task.

'Your business partner has the right idea,' I pointed out. 'Looks like Larry's making a run for it.'

'Bolan wasn't my partner,' Huffman sneered, as if such a thing was beneath him. 'Even he has his own agenda.'

'Yeah, I know that. But you were playing him too.'

'You seem to have got my number.' Huffman laughed. 'Yeah, and you've got me. So what now?'

I indicated that he stand, transferring the gun to a point under his jaw.

'We're going to get it on. That was always the idea of your little game.'

'And when I kill you, what's to stop your friends shooting me?'

'Who says you're going to kill me?' I pressed the SIG tightly enough to put pressure on the nerves. He stoically took the pain, but it was all a bluff. I could see it in the way his smile faltered.

Sometimes men are at their most dangerous when they see no way out.

He spun quickly, and I caught the glint of steel flashing from under his sleeve. He pulled away from the gun even as he turned to slash at my exposed throat. He was a second away from opening it right up.

He should have waited, because, unlike the others he'd murdered by this sneak attack, I'd anticipated his move. It's the way to win any game: not by cheating, but by always being one step ahead of your opponent.

I knew that he'd try to cut me. I let him think he was going to. I even let him pull away from my gun because an instantaneous death courtesy of a bullet through his brain was too good for him. Instead I rammed my KA-BAR through the meat of his upper right arm.

Huffman's mouth went wide in a shout of incredulity. His fingers opened reflexively and I saw four inches of gleaming steel hanging useless from a leather strip attached to his wrist. I ripped the KA-BAR out of his bicep, angled it towards his gut.

Then the world tilted.

There was an incredibly loud bang from below us, coupled with the screech of tortured metal; the balcony lurched upwards, and dropped from beneath my feet. In reaction I grabbed at the door frame, dropping my knife, and held on tightly. Out in the open, Huffman skidded away from me across the planks, hit the rail and toppled over. My first thought was that the fire had eaten away at the foundations of the building much sooner than I'd anticipated, but then I recognised the sound as the impact of a vehicle and knew that Larry had never been running away. Whether or not he'd intended to, Larry had just saved Huffman's life.