Matt Hilton - Dead_s men dust

"Drop it now or I blow your goddamn head off."

"I'm surprised you're still alive," Cain said, as if he genuinely cared. "I really thought that I'd opened you up back there." Cain sucked air through his teeth, noting that Rink's throat was fully intact. "I didn't realize that you got your arm in the way. I only cut your chin, eh? Suppose that'll teach me for rushing the job."

"Don't try messing with me," Rink warned. He looked unsteady on his feet. Loss of blood and what looked like a knock on the head were making him weak. "I know what you're trying to do. Do you think you can get me with that pigsticker before I blow a hole in you?"

Cain glanced my way. I could see a smile begin across his face. "You know something, Rington, I believe I could."

I knew it. Cain knew. Even Rink knew it. The gun was empty.

"Shoot him, Rink," I shouted.

Rink pulled the trigger.

A click as the hammer fell on an empty chamber.

But it was enough. Cain almost swaggered as he advanced on Rink. As he did so, I was already moving. I snatched at the clutter on the?oor, came up with the?rst thing my grasping?ngers found, and with all my might I forced the broken end of a human rib into the soft?esh in the hollow of his throat.

The result was instantaneous. Cain shuddered, his knees gave way. He stumbled toward Rink, who was already coming at him. I snatched at his left arm even as Rink grappled with his right, pulling the knife from Cain's listless grasp. Cain twisted toward me. His eyes were wide, as though caught in an epiphany of insight. His mouth was wide, too, but nothing issued forth but a gurgle. My own face was?at, emotionless, as I plucked my KA-BAR from his?esh.

We could have done it then. A frenzy of stabbing and slashing. Doling out as much torment as Cain had subjected his victims to. But neither of us succumbed to our base instincts. We did something immeasurably crueler. We allowed Cain to suffer the ignominy of a slow and painful death. If he hadn't reveled in displaying the trophies taken from his victims, I would have been left weaponless. No doubt about it… he'd have won the day.

Instead, he had to suffer his last few minutes of life in the knowledge that he'd messed up.

He collapsed to his knees. He searched our faces. We both grinned at him. Miraculously he found a laugh. But it was lost on us. He was simply pathetic. And he knew it.

He sobbed. Lifted a beseeching hand to me. I shook my head. He lifted faltering?ngers to the half-inch stub of bone protruding from his throat.

His eyes said it all.

"You reap what you sow," I told him.

Cain laughed a final time at the irony of it.

Just as I suspected, Walter arrived like a celebrity at a Hollywood bash. There's no show without Punch. He entered the chamber only after the storm troopers had given him the all clear. Medics were in the throes of strapping John to a gurney-belly down, of course-hooking up IV bags and inserting all manner of hypodermic contraptions into his failing system.

Sitting in the dust, clutching at a dressing on my chest, I watched it all with a strange sense of distraction.

Medics fussed over Rink, but I gave them as little notice as I did those working to save John. I was only concerned with Walter. I wasn't worried that any of us would end up buried under the dirt as I once contemplated. Walter was seeing this through the right way. Showing his gratitude. Otherwise, the armed strike force wouldn't have given ground to the medical team; they'd have simply shot us where we sat.

"What kept you?" I asked.

Walter came to stand beside me. He even gave me a fatherly pat on the shoulder. But his eyes were on Cain. We had left him where he'd come to rest, slouched on his knees, hands folded in his lap, head tilted forward on his chest. Apart from the blood dripping on his breast, he looked like a supplicant at prayer.

"I didn't want to step on your toes," Walter said. "This was your gig, Hunter."

I spat phlegm and dust and God knows what else on the?oor.

"You could've come sooner. You were monitoring us all along. Why didn't you send in your team before now?"

"And would you have thanked me if I had?"

"No," I answered truthfully. "I suppose not."

"Then all's well that ends well."

I gripped the dressing a paramedic had placed on my chest wound. Thought about how close Cain had come to?nishing me. All's well that ends well? "Yeah."

Walter walked away from me then. It wasn't that he didn't care for my well-being, only that Cain held a more immediate fascination for him. He went and stood over Cain, stared down at him for a long time.

"He's dead."

"As disco," I said.

"You know," Walter said, "there's many a pro?ler up at Quantico would've given their eyeteeth to speak to him before he died."

"My heart bleeds for them," I muttered. In hindsight, considering how close Cain's knife had come to?nishing me, they weren't the most appropriate words. Even Walter glanced at me to see if I was serious. I slowly blinked.

Returning his attention to Cain, Walter went on, "Don't know how he managed to elude us all this time."

"Maybe you didn't look hard enough."

Walter nodded. Then, totally out of character for a man who'd ordered plenty of wet work but never gotten his own hands dirty, he gripped Cain's hair and pulled back his head. A shadow crossed Walter's face. He looked to the medics.

"See to this man," he ordered.

I jerked. Walter stepped in front of me, pressing me down as Cain was loaded onto a gurney. "Don't worry, Hunter. I'm going to bury him."

"He is dead?" My words were more question than fact.

"We don't bury the living," he pointed out.

That wasn't necessarily true, but I wasn't of a mind to argue. Walter never talked straight.

As Cain was rushed away, Walter and I watched him go. Walter sighed, and I should have guessed what was coming. "We were looking in the wrong place."

I squinted at him.

"It's not him."

"What?"

"It's not him," Walter repeated.

I experienced a moment's panic. "What do you mean it's not him? It's de?nitely Cain." To emphasize the point, I threw out a hand, inviting Walter to take in the sheer horror of his surroundings. Walter lifted a palm, a calming gesture, but I struggled up from the?oor to stand beside him. My nose was inches from his. "Can't you see what the son of a bitch did here?"

"Easy now, son," Walter said. "It's Cain all right. No doubt about it."

"So what the hell are you talking about?"

"It's not Martin Maxwell."

"What?" I stared into Walter's face. Searching for the lie. Not that it helped. I didn't know Martin Maxwell from Mickey Mouse. Only thing I was sure of was that I'd stopped the Harvestman.

"It's the brother," Walter explained.

"The brother? You mean…?"

"Uh-huh. Robert Swan. The musician."

I got it then.

"You need a name to give to the press, Walter?" I said. "And you want Swan to take the blame for this. To protect the good name of the

Secret Service."

"Yes."

Thing is, at the end of the day, it didn't much matter to me. Whoever Tubal Cain ended up being, it didn't matter in the large scale of things. He was a demented killer regardless. One that I'd put down like a rabid dog. And for that I was thankful. If Walter needed to spin the world a line of bullshit, then so be it.

I grunted, looked Walter dead in the eye. He stood there expressionless. Then I nodded. "The musician? If you say so, Walter."

Walter winked. "I say so."

I turned my back on him and clutching my chest I limped toward the exit door. The bullet graze on my calf hurt worse than the chest wound. It was still night out, but the sky was ablaze with searchlights from the helicopters coming and going. As I reached the stairs, Rink joined me. He placed a hand on my shoulder. I couldn't determine whether it was to support his weight or mine. It didn't matter. As always, we'd support each other.