Deadly in New York Read Free

want to leave it too far from the body. Everything else has been taken care of, right?”
    â€œRight, James. Hendricks found the tapes in Renard’s room. He took those and nothing else. I’ve told Samuel McCoy, the manager, we’ll be flying out tonight. From here, we’ll be flying to Grand Cayman where you’ll let me off.”
    â€œWhy Grand Cayman?”
    â€œThere were two reasons for my coming to the islands—” A light smile crossed his lips. “—aside from the bonefishing, I mean. One, I wanted to show you just how professional and how thorough the Fister Corporation is. I think Renard amply demonstrated that. He tailed you from the moment I put you on the case—and I have no idea how they found out we were interested in their New York scam.
    â€œTwo, since the late sixties, Grand Cayman has become one of the great tax havens of the western world. There are four hundred nineteen banks on Grand Cayman, and all just as tight-lipped as any bank Switzerland has to offer. If you want to hide illegal earnings, or set up dupe corporations, Grand Cayman is the place to do it. Fister Corporation is both registered and licensed in Grand Cayman, so if I’m to do my job—”
    â€œI’ll still not even sure what my job is,” Hawker interrupted.
    Hayes smiled. “You will, Hawk. I’ll tell you all about it tonight on the plane. Believe me, I didn’t call you down here just to fly fish for bones.”
    Renard had settled into a series of convulsions, followed by a moaning catatonia. Hawker dragged him through the sand and dropped him facedown into the water. The assassin choked violently, then looked up through a haze of pain. His eyes seemed to focus, then refocus on Hawker’s face.
    â€œBut you are … you are dead,” Renard hissed.
    James Hawker turned and didn’t look back.
    â€œLet’s not spread it around, Renard,” he said. “You’re the only one who knows.”

three
    The plane Jacob Hayes kept in the Caymans was a three-engine Trislander he had outfitted with bunks and a tiny kitchenette for long trips. The flight from Little Cayman to Grand Cayman, however, took less than an hour, so the three men sat forward.
    Hendricks flew the plane, so his boss, Hayes, could be free to explain the mission to Hawker.
    It was Hawker’s fourth mission under the alliance he and Hayes had formed. The premise of the alliance was that crime in the United States was raging out of control. Conventional police forces had their hands tied by ridiculous laws that protected the criminal and said, in effect, to hell with the victims. Hayes looked upon the law enforcement/judicial system as a symptom of social softness. And, as a biologist, he knew that when any species lost the instinct to justly protect itself, that species condemned itself to extinction.
    Hawker, who had been Chicago’s most decorated cop before he resigned out of disgust, had seen too many good arrests thrown out of court on legal technicalities not to agree.
    So, the alliance had been formed. Hayes, a multibillionaire, would provide the funding. Hawker would provide the skills and firepower. Their goal: to go wherever they were needed to teach people how to fight for themselves.
    Under the alliance, Hawker had collided head on with revolutionaries in Florida, savage street gangs in L.A., and I.R.A. renegades in Chicago.
    Now he was ready for his fourth mission.
    More than ready.
    As they flew over the Mar Caribe —the Caribbean Sea—Hawker reflected on the months of inactivity he had suffered beneath the winter skies of Chicago. He had stayed in shape all right. His daily workout of calisthenics and running would have tested a Spartan, and he maintained his boyhood habit of boxing at the old Bridgeport gym. To improve his computer pirating skills, he had even taken an advanced programing course at the Chicago campus of the University of