“You’re right, the girl …” McKay nodded, but his eyes lost their amusement. “That does complicate things a bit.”
Behind Hauck, flames rose into the sky; the barn was about to break apart. The fire flew up in waves with a bellowing whoosh. Hauck felt the heat press against his skin. The siren continued to wail.
“People are gonna hear that. They’re going to be coming here,” he said to McKay. “Let him go. He’s already lost enough. It’s me you want anyway.”
“Do what we’re here to do,” Watkins seethed, trying to wrangle out of McKay’s grasp.
“We both know what this is about now. And it’s not the water. Not anymore. Let him go.”
“Well, you’re right about that.” McKay dug the tip of the muzzle into the back of Watkins’s skull. “So I’m giving you to the count of five … Then things start. We see where they fall.”
Hauck looked at Watkins, the farmer’s worried but steady look saying that somehow this was okay. This was right. Kill the sonovabitch who killed his son. Hauck shifted with Robertson. He decided the better odds were to shield himself with him from McKay and go for the Alpha man behind him first.
Suddenly he heard a rumble. His gaze shot toward the road. Three or four cars were coming up it toward the farm. Maybe neighbors, seeing the flames. Or Watkins’s friends, the ones who had left, hearing the siren.
“Take a look,” Hauck said. “It’s over, McKay. What are you going to do, shoot him in front of everyone? Maybe kill them, too, to cover it all up? And then me? Robertson? The guy behind me? We’re all gonna die for this?”
The vehicles stopped about a hundred yards from the house. A few people stepped out. Hauck saw Milt and Don. And Watkins’s farmhands came back from the fields.
“It’s over,” Hauck said again. “No way to keep this quiet now. Put the gun down.”
The Alpha man looked at the people arriving at the scene. “Oh, it ain’t over …” He shook his head, gritting his jaw. Beams and planks collapsed into the fireball. Three of his men were lying dead somewhere in the fields and the barn.
“Get out of here,” the Alpha man hissed, giving Watkins a kick with his boot. “You just hit the jackpot, Chuck. Get lost.”
Watkins looked at Hauck and wouldn’t leave him behind. “No.”
“Get going, I said. And you do one thing to interfere, everything we talked about goes away. For all of them. You hear …? So get along. Now!”
“Go.” Hauck nodded. “Warn Dani.” He was about to say, call the Aspen police, but then he stopped himself as not to give it away.
“Count of three …” McKay tensed on the trigger. “You want to die so bad, old man, stick around. But I don’t see how that helps the rest of you in any way. So get everyone out of here now.”
The farmer looked at Hauck with futility in his eyes and pulled his arms away. He started to walk toward the cars, looked back at Hauck again, then picked up his pace into a labored trot. Ahead, people were gathered, watching, waiting. It looked like his friend Milt had come back for him. And Don. Everyone just stood there watching.
“So what’re you going to do now, McKay?” Hauck grabbed Robertson by the collar and jerked him backward. He tried to keep the Alpha man who was circling behind him in his line of sight. His arm felt useless. It took everything he had just to keep the gun level now. He felt his legs weakening, too. Blood came down his side.
“Look at you, soldier,” McKay said laughing. “I think it’s over for you.” He stepped away from the cover of the hay bales, narrowing the distance between them. The other Alpha man crept in closer behind Hauck. “You want to start shooting, shoot. Truth is, though, I really don’t see any way you get out of here alive.”
Hauck heard a crash and the barn imploded in flame. With a blast of heat, beams and planks and burning embers collapsed onto themselves with a freight-train-like roar.
Startled, Hauck turned, his strength ebbing. McKay seemed to nod, and the Alpha man behind Hauck closed in. Hauck backed away, grabbing on to Robertson, but Robertson managed to wrap his foot behind Hauck’s leg and spun him backward, Hauck stumbling.
There was a tussle for the gun, but Hauck had no strength left to fight him. It fell out of his hands. He stood there, barely able to keep himself up, staring at Robertson, whose smirk had a lot more life in it now.
“Shoulda done it while you had the chance …” Robertson said, grinning. “My turn now.”
The rifle stock came up, clubbing Hauck on the side of the head, his legs buckling and darkness rushing in.
“That’s what you fucking get for messing around in my mailbox, asshole,” was all Hauck heard before he blacked out.
CHAPTER SEVENTY
Hauck blinked his eyes open. He had no idea how much time had passed. The vehicle he was riding in drove through a chain link fence gate, which closed behind him. He struggled to get a sense of where he was. The car continued up the darkened road, then swung around. He saw a hut, two large round tanker trucks, lights canting into the car from a tall trestle. His head throbbed, and as he went to rub it, he found that his hands were bound in front. Across from him, Robertson was at the wheel, across from him. Hauck pushed himself up and heard a click in his ears from behind. The muzzle of a gun pressed against the back of his head.
“Welcome back. One wrong move and it’s lights out,” McKay said, behind him. “Just so we understand.”
Hauck nodded. He realized he was riding in one of the black SUVs he’d seen around. In spite of the circumstances, which were about as dire as they got, there was enough irony to still make him chuckle. “Always wanted a ride in one of these,” he said.