Chicago Assault Read online

  “Going on another fishing trip, Jacob?” Hawker asked as they shook hands.

  “James,” he said warmly. “It’s good to see you—and convenient, too.”

  “Oh?”

  Hayes waved Hawker into a leather chair beside the fireplace, then sat down across from him. “Yes, it’s convenient because I was going to send you a message tonight, anyway.”

  It was one of Hayes’s idiosyncrasies. He never called. He always sent a messenger, as if it were the 1890s and the telephone was just a passing fancy.

  “What about?” Hawker asked.

  Hayes smiled and shook his head. “No, we’ll save that for later. You’ve come to see me, and Hendricks said it was important. How can I help, James?”

  Hawker shrugged. “I’m not sure you can. There’s a small terrorist organization operating in Chicago, and I’m going to hit them. It’s my problem, and I think I can handle it. But since you are the closest thing I have to an employer—as well as being a friend—I thought you should know about it.”

  Hawker grinned, trying to make light of what he said next. “Besides, you never know—these guys might get lucky and put me out of commission before the job is done. If that happens, someone should know what’s going on. It would take the police a year to run them down legally, and another year to put them away. But, if I fail, the next logical step is to let the authorities know about it. And someone needs to know enough about this terrorist group to talk sensibly to the police.”

  Hayes nodded and lighted his pipe. “I see. By all means, tell me about it. It sounds serious.”

  So Hawker told him about Beckerman and O’Neil, and about Bas Gan Sagart. Leaving out his own emotional involvement, he even told Hayes about how the Irish Republican Army had sent Megan Parnell after the three renegades.

  As Hawker talked, he noticed Hayes grow increasingly interested. He no longer toyed with his pipe, or the deer-hair streamer he had been attaching to a hook. He sat hunched toward Hawker, listening intently, asking only for an occasional clarification about something he didn’t understand.

  When Hawker had finished, Hayes restuffed his pipe with tobacco from the walnut humidor on his broad desk. He lighted the pipe and exhaled smoke that smelled of maple trees. “Your story interests me more than you might think,” he said. “And I assure you, if there’s any way I can help, I will. We will treat it as a joint venture. All of my resources are at your disposal. I will assign Hendricks to get whatever information he can on these people”—his smile was thin and knowing—“not that you require much help when it comes to collecting important data. In fact, on this particular campaign, your sources may be better than ours, and you certainly have more mobility.”

  Hawker nodded. “Hendricks didn’t say it, but I got the impression someone had a tap on your telephone. Is that why you suddenly lack mobility?”

  Hayes looked amused. “Until you stopped by, I didn’t know why I lacked mobility. Now it’s suddenly very clear to me.”

  “I don’t follow you, Jacob. What do you mean? Does it have something to do with why you wanted to see me?”

  Without answering him, Hayes pulled open a desk drawer and handed Hawker a neatly folded note. It was written in plain, block letters to disguise the handwriting. Hawker read it, shocked.

  “They came to the chairman of my corporation,” Hayes explained. “They wanted to see me, but I’m necessarily hard to reach—on a business basis, anyway. When the chairman passed on news of their visit to me, I saw it for what it was: an attempt at extortion thinly disguised as a business offer. We refused them, of course. Hendricks found the note tacked to the front door today. How they got through the security system, not to mention the attack dogs which roam the grounds at night, I’ll never know. That’s why I wanted to see you, James. I wanted to see if you had any ideas on how to deal with these people.”

  “I have plenty of ideas on how to deal with them,” Hawker said between clenched teeth as he read the note for a second time:

  Chicago can be a dangerous place for a rich man. No fence can keep out a murderer. You should reconsider our offer. Bas Gan Sagart.

  eleven

  That night, Hawker carried the same weapons he had taken from the secret cache in the back room of the Ennisfree.

  The Colt military .45 was a good weight in the holster on his belt. The Uzi submachine gun, freshly oiled and armed, was behind the seat. From his own small arsenal, he had added two AM-M14 TH3 incendiary hand grenades.

  Hawker wore a black Aran Island sweater to keep out the cold, and a black wool watch cap.

  Megan Parnell rode beside him, surprisingly calm considering they were about to break into Bas Gan Sagart’s heavily armed headquarters. He had warned her more than once that, if they were caught, the chances were slim of them having enough firepower to fight their way out.

  Not if Bas Gan Sagart’s twenty-man army happened to stumble on them, they wouldn’t.

  She had acted like she hadn’t heard the warning. “I still think it’s too early to attack them,” she had said flatly.

  “We’re not attacking them, damn it, Megan,” Hawker argued. “I just want to get into their headquarters and plant some eavesdropping devices. Hell, I hope we don’t have to fire a single shot. Not tonight, anyway. But we need more information. We need to know the specifics about Thomas Galway and Padraic Phelan, the two leaders. Where do they live, by what routes do they travel? And I’d like to hear how their men talk when the two leaders aren’t around. If the men aren’t happy with Galway and Phelan, Bas Gan Sagart should be an easy nut to crack.”

  “It doesn’t matter if they’re happy,” Megan insisted. “They’re all getting rich. That’s all they care about—money. And they’ll fight to the death for it.”

  Hawker had to force himself not to reply. She had a way of infuriating him, and the most infuriating thing of all was, he knew he reacted to her barbs all out of proportion to their intent because he was falling more deeply in love with her.

  But more than that, he owed her a great debt.

  During her month in Chicago, she had done a professional job of gathering information on the terrorist group. Without drawing any attention to herself, she had uncovered a wealth of valuable data.

  She had found out several names and addresses of group members. She had compiled a list of twenty-five businessmen who had been pressured into making payoffs. She had connected four murders and seven fire bombings directly to Bas Gan Sagart.

  But the prize of all her work was locating the group’s headquarters: a grim, abandoned factory building off Joliet Road on the polluted Des Plaines River.

  The one thing she hadn’t been able to discover was where the two leaders, Galway and Phelan, lived. She had tried everything, she said, including covering almost every likely street in Chicago by car or on foot.

  Their residence remained a mystery.

  Hawker couldn’t fault her initiative. But that didn’t make their relationship any less antagonistic—on Hawker’s part, anyway. For Megan seemed to refuse to allow herself to be tricked into any meeting of emotions. Aside from a few tender looks Hawker caught her giving him (her eyes darted away the moment she realized he was observing her), she remained professionally aloof.

  Hawker drove in silence. He turned north on Ninety-sixth Avenue, and followed it over the river. The sooty foundry lights reflected dully off the water, as the smokestacks spouted smog.

  They rode in Jimmy O’Neil’s Mercedes. Hawker had carefully dabbed the license plates with mud so they were unreadable.

  There wasn’t much chance the police would be looking for O’Neil’s car—not this soon, anyway.

  But Hawker didn’t want to take any chances.

  The Bas Gan Sagart headquarters was part of a short chain of deserted steel mills, the corpses of big city industry.

  The factories loomed over the narrow side street like canyon walls. In the sweep of headlights, Hawker could see there had been a feeble effort to board the door
s. NO TRESPASSING signs had been posted, then partially ripped away by vandals. The windows had been broken out on the first two floors of most of the buildings.

  “It’s that one,” Megan said, pointing toward the last building in the line. It was set apart from the others, looking like some gigantic abandoned car on its lot of weeds, raw earth, and rusted junk.

  “You’ve been past it before?”

  Hawker could see her face in the green glow of the dashboard lights. She nodded. “Twice.”

  “In this car?”

  “And would I be letting you drive by it again if I had?” She indulged in a private smile. “I’m not dumb, James. Each time, I hired a taxi. The drivers both thought I was quite mad. I had them driving all over this part of Chicago, pretending to be looking for the house of a long-lost relative whose address I’d lost.”

  Hawker chuckled. “I’ve got to stop second-guessing you, Megan. I’m beginning to think you know more about this business than I do.”

  “Do you mean you doubted it?” she asked wryly.

  Hawker drove past the abandoned factory, noting there was one dim light burning on the second floor. He circled back on Joliet and backed the Mercedes into a quick-sell car lot on a side street.

  “When we walk back to the factory, just act like you own the city,” Hawker said to her as he locked the car. “Nothing draws attention faster than someone trying to look innocuous.”

  “I think I can handle that.”

  “And if a squad car patrols past us, press the Uzi against your hip, so it blends in with your legs as you walk. And if the squad car slows, pretend like we’re—”

  “Really, James,” she sputtered, “I’ve been through this sort of thing before.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes. And I’m beginning to resent your—”

  At that very moment, a police car idled around the block on patrol. Just before its lights swept across them, Hawker grabbed Megan by the shoulders and pulled her roughly to him. He held her in a long, soft kiss until the car had passed by. For a moment—a brief, brief moment—the kiss became real as Megan began to react, her lips growing hot and moist.

  When he released her, she exhaled deeply. “My, oh, my,” she said.

  “I was about to say pretend we were lovers.”

  “The demonstration was adequate.”

  “I think you could be a pretty good kisser, if you’d just let yourself go for a moment. Honestly, Megan, you’re so tight most of the time, a blacksmith couldn’t drive a pin up your ass with a hammer.”

  “Is that sort of talk really necessary?” she said primly as they walked on.

  “I just don’t understand you, that’s all.”

  Her voice became even and businesslike. “You don’t have to understand me, James. And I don’t have to understand you. All we have to do is find a way to destroy Bas Gan Sagart.”

  “Ah. I keep forgetting. You’re a soldier.”

  “That is correct.”

  “In that case, soldier, get behind me. And keep that weapon lower.”

  She obeyed without comment.

  They made their way straight to banks of the Des Plaines River, then followed it west to the factory.

  The riverbanks were littered with trash and abandoned junk. There was an acid stink to the water. Beyond the darkness of the river was the eerie glow of downtown Chicago; a sulphur yellow glow, like fire through a fog.

  The grounds of the factory were encircled by a chain-link fence topped with barbed wire. One corner of the fence had been beaten halfway down by neighborhood kids, and Hawker helped Megan over it.

  He pressed his hand against her ear and whispered, “They might have a guard out. Or a dog. Be ready.”

  She nodded and followed him toward the back of the building.

  Hawker tested a massive set of double doors, probably built so the factory could take on ore from river barges.

  They were locked, as were the two other back doors.

  “We could blow the locks,” Megan suggested in a whisper.

  “Blow the locks? Why don’t we just call them and tell them we’re coming? No, we’ll have to crawl through a window.”

  The windows were about seven feet off the ground. Hawker searched until he found one almost completely broken out. He took off his sweater and wrapped it around his hands, then jumped up and pulled himself through. He dropped down onto the cement floor of the factory’s interior. When he was sure there were no guards around, he opened a side door for Megan.

  Hawker took out a small Tekna pocket flashlight and twisted the cap until the bulb flared on. “You stay just behind my right shoulder,” Hawker whispered. “Keep your weapon ready.”

  She nodded and walked after him through the darkness.

  Most of the machinery had been removed from the factory, so it was like walking through some massive, deserted gymnasium—except for the stink of foundry dust.

  There seemed to be no signs of recent occupation, and Hawker began to wonder if it really was the rallying place for the terrorist army of Bas Gan Sagart.

  Maybe Megan was wrong.

  He decided to have a thorough look around before saying anything to her. After all, she hadn’t been wrong yet.

  Hawker made his way across the center of the steel mill. The small flashlight panned back and forth, showing inoperative machinery. Some of the machinery was covered with tarps.

  In the far corner of the room were the dim shapes of more tarps. But something about the shapes was different. Hawker lifted a chunk of canvas and searched underneath with his light.

  Car tires. He lifted the tarp higher and saw the side of a white van—the same kind of van they had destroyed.

  Megan’s sharp intake of breath told him that she, too, had made the association.

  There were three more vans beneath tarps.

  Hawker checked the doors. They were locked.

  “They must meet upstairs,” Hawker whispered.

  She nodded. “There was a wee, dim light on as we went past.”

  “I know. Keep your weapon ready.”

  Along the west wall was a heavy freight elevator. Hawker followed the edge of the wall until he found a set of steel stairs.

  He lifted his Uzi submachine gun and slowly made his way up the steps.

  At the top of the stairs was a steel fire door. Hawker knew that if it was locked, their mission would have been in vain. He would have to be satisfied with bugging the ground floor—and, from the looks of things, that wouldn’t produce much.

  Carefully, he lifted the big lever that sealed the door. It caught, then gave way.

  Hawker exhaled with relief as he swung the door open just wide enough for them to get through.

  The second floor comprised a wide hall that seemed to open into three main rooms. A weak light showed through the doorway of the room on the north side of the building.

  Hawker held up his hand. Megan stopped behind him as they both strained to listen.

  From the room came the blurred rumble of men’s voices. There was the occasional gust of soft laughter, followed by an increase in voice volume. Only then could Hawker hear well enough to understand what they were saying.

  Two words stood out above all others.

  It was a name. A name that made Hawker’s hand grow tight on the submachine gun.

  Jimmy O’Neil.

  Apparently, they found his horrible death humorous. The name was followed by more laughter.

  Death by fire, Hawker thought grimly. He vowed then and there that many of them now laughing would live just long enough to experience the horror of such a death.

  The other two massive rooms were dark. With Megan following him, Hawker made his way into each of them.

  The first room appeared to be a combination office and kitchen. There were desks, a stove, two long tables, and some chairs.

  There were telephones on each desk. Hawker didn’t expect their numbers to be printed on the dials, and they weren’t.

 
He unscrewed the transmitter cap off each phone as Megan held the light. Using a tiny screwdriver, Hawker connected the red, green, and yellow wires to the candy-colored listening devices he had brought.

  He replaced the transmitter caps and put the phones back as he had found them.

  From his pocket he took three single-sensory transmitters. They were the size of a quarter, nearly flat. He stripped the adhesive open at the base of the bugs and put one beneath each desk, and the third beneath the table where they ate.

  Finally, he tested the file cabinet doors.

  As he expected, they were locked.

  Hawker made a motion for the woman to follow and peered out into the hall. He could still hear the faint conversation from the lighted room.

  They slid down the hall and ducked into the next opening.

  The second room was a type of dormitory. Hawker guessed it had been the worker’s shower room when the factory was still in operation.

  Bunks lined two walls. Only a couple of them were made. More blankets were stacked in the corner.

  Hawker took two more of the single-sensory bugs. He hid one beneath the water closet of the toilet. He had just placed the other beneath a table in the middle of the room when Megan suddenly grabbed his shoulder.

  “Listen!” she whispered.

  At first, he didn’t know what she was talking about. But then he heard them, too.

  Footsteps.

  Footsteps coming their way.

  Both of them moved quickly across the room and pressed themselves against the wall beside the door. Hawker could feel the barrel of the Uzi, cold against his cheek.

  The footsteps came progressively closer. The man was humming to himself. A quick, Latin tune.

  Hawker hoped the man would walk right on past them into the lounge area. He hoped their good luck would continue to hold.

  It didn’t.

  twelve

  Still humming, the man came into the dormitory and flicked the switch on the wall.

  When the lights came on, he was standing face-to-face with Hawker. Hawker saw his face contort with shock and surprise. It was a thin, feral face: black greasy hair; sly, mean eyes; skin pocked with acne.