Hunt at World's End

Hunt At World’s End

Gabriel Hunt

AS TOLD TO NICHOLAS KAUFMANN

LEISURE BOOKS      NEW YORK CITY

Strapping the shotgun fully across his back, Gabriel began climbing the statue’s leg, pulling his way up by hooking his fingers and toes into fissures in the stone. Another bullet struck near him. He forced himself to ignore it and keep climbing.

Moments later he heard Grissom’s voice directly below. “Leave them to me. You get up there and stop him—and bring me those gemstones!”

DeVoe stuffed the Colt into his belt and started scaling the statue’s other leg. And damn it, the man was fast. Gabriel kept climbing, as quickly as he dared. He was approaching the statue’s outstretched hand, which stood palm-up forty feet off the ground. If he could get to it—

He reached out for it, but it was still too far. He climbed another few feet and tried again, straining across the gap. He could feel the stone under his fingers…but could he get a solid grip? He clamped down with one hand and prepared to bring the other over—and as he did, his left foot slipped out of the fissure he’d braced it in. Desperately he swung his other arm across, biting down on the rough stone with his fingertips. His other foot slipped from its hold as momentum carried him across, and he found himself dangling from the statue’s hand, the jewel-filled vest pulling heavily on his arm. He tried to swing his legs up. His first try failed—not high enough. As he tried again, he glanced to the side and saw that DeVoe had reached the statue’s hip and was starting to inch his way over toward him…

Chapter 1

Gabriel Hunt had taken a lot of punches to the face over the years. He’d come to think of it as an occupational hazard, dealing as he often did with criminals, pirates, gangsters, brawlers and all kinds of thugs who let their fists do the talking, and he usually gave as good as he got. But this time was different. This was the first time the guy throwing the punches was wearing a big, sharp silver ring in the shape of a horned stag’s head.

The punch stunned him, knocked him back into one of the large elephant tusks flanking the fireplace of the Discoverers League lounge. The tusk wobbled on its base, and Gabriel, feeling wobbly himself, dropped to his knees. Blood trickled along his cheek where the stag’s horns had cut him. He looked up at the slender blond man standing over him in a gray houndstooth blazer and gray slacks. He was wearing a crooked sneer. Glancing at his hand, he wiped a spot of blood off his ring.

“We can continue this as long as you wish, Mr. Hunt,” he said. “I have nowhere else I need to be. But you see my friends back there? They don’t have as much patience as I do.”

Behind the blond man, three men clad all in black stood with guns in their hands. One revolver was trained on Wade Boland, the weekend bartender, where he stood behind the bar. The second was pointed at Clyde Harris, a retired cartographer in his seventies who came to the League every Saturday to partake of his two favorite pastimes, drinking and swapping tall tales. He sat on his usual barstool at the end of the counter and stared at the gun unblinking. Neither Wade nor Clyde looked particularly frightened by this turn of events, though they kept their hands dutifully raised above their heads.

But the third revolver was leveled at Katherine Dunlap, and she was a different story. The willowy redhead sat trembling at the table she’d been sharing with Gabriel before the blond man and his cohorts had stormed in and started waving their guns around. Her fingernails dug into the plush arms of the red leather chair, and her pale green eyes were as wide as soup bowls. It was obvious she’d never had a gun pointed at her before. Gabriel had only met her that morning, on his flight back from Brazil to New York City. Seated next to her in first class, he’d passed the hours answering her questions about his just-completed expedition along the banks of the Amazon, and once they’d landed he’d invited her back to the Discoverers League for a drink. She clearly hadn’t expected their date to end in violence. Of course, neither had he.

The blond man reached into the inside pocket of his blazer, pulled out a large, well-polished chrome handgun and leveled it at Gabriel. Gabriel eyed the gun unhappily. The three bouncer types he figured he could take even though they were armed. But this man was another matter. Compared to the other three he looked almost scrawny, but he punched like someone had taught him how, and he was holding his gun with a professional’s grip.

“I don’t have what you’re looking for,” Gabriel said, rubbing his jaw.

“I want you to think very carefully about what you do next, Mr. Hunt. I’d hate to have to tell my men to start shooting.” The man gestured around the lounge at the bookshelves filled with antique volumes and the display cases of artifacts, many of them fragile, all of them irreplaceable. “These beautiful things might get damaged. Bloodstains, you know. So difficult to wash off.”

“Gabriel,” Katherine pleaded, her voice shaking.

The man smiled. “You see? Your friend has a good head on her shoulders. I’m sure she would like it to remain there.”

Gabriel rose slowly to his feet.

“No more heroics, Mr. Hunt,” the man cautioned. “And no more lies. I know you were in the Amazon until this morning, and I know you brought the Death’s Head Key back with you. Just hand it over and we’ll go quietly.” He smiled slightly. “Its name notwithstanding, no one has to die over the thing.”

“Why should I give it to you?” Gabriel asked.

The blond man cocked his head and knit his brow. “Why? Because I am the man with the gun, Mr. Hunt.”

“Why do you want it?” Gabriel said. “It’s not that valuable. It’ll fetch maybe five, six grand on the black market, if you’re lucky. It hardly seems worth your time.”

The blond man stepped nearer. This close, Gabriel got a good look at the man’s eyes and could see the brutality he concealed beneath his veneer of civility. The man opened his mouth to answer, then changed his mind and swung his Magnum, slamming the heavy butt into Gabriel’s jaw. Gabriel’s head snapped back. At least this time he managed to stay on his feet.

“The key,” the blond man repeated.

Gabriel narrowed his eyes. He tasted blood and spat red-tinged saliva onto the carpet. “You better hope I never see you again.”

The man cocked the Magnum. “You will never see anyone again, Mr. Hunt, if you don’t hand over the key.” And when Gabriel failed to do so: “For heaven’s sake, Hunt, what difference does it make to you? What were you planning to do with it, stick it in one of these cases? Photograph it for National Geographic? Give it to the Metropolitan? What a colossal waste. You don’t even know what the key unlocks.”

“And you do?”

The blond man leveled the barrel of the Magnum at Gabriel’s forehead and said, “Five.”

“Tell me,” Gabriel said. “Tell me what the key opens.”

“Four.”

“Gabriel, for God’s sake,” Clyde muttered from his barstool. “My ice is melting. Just give the man whatever he’s looking for, and I’ll buy you and the lady a round.”

“Three.”

The blond man swung the gun to point it at Katherine. Her hands shot up as though they might be able to deflect a bullet. “Two.”

“Gabriel!”

“One—”

“All right,” Gabriel said. “All right. Just…put that thing away.”

The blond man took the gun off of Katherine and swung it to face Gabriel instead.