He sighted in on Sammy through the infrared scope, then raised it up to the balcony. The lights in the house were out. He lowered the rifle back down, aiming at Sammy’s throat, and waited for the signal from the street.
On the roof of the house, Cohen’s man watched through binoculars as a car picked up the man near the Botanical Gardens. He whispered into his walkie-talkie, ‘They have picked up the man on the hill. There appear to be three others in the car.’
In the darkened house, Hatcher swore vehemently. ‘That’s it. That son of a bitch, Varney, turned me up to Joe Lung. He’s in on it.’
Varney and his assistant, a young Oriental corporal named Henry Dow, reached the top of the mountain. Corporal Dow knew few details about the job. They were taking a man into protective custody, that was all he needed to know. The beefy young corporal had been a cop for four years and never asked questions.
Varney approached the gates of Cohen’s estate slowly through the rain. He saw the triad mobster’s car turn in behind him, its lights out. The corporal, distracted by the rain, was peering intently through the windshield and did not notice the car. As they neared the gate Varney flicked his lights, then picked up the radio phone, got the police operator and asked for a patch through to Cohen’s phone number.
‘Their play will be to follow Varney’s car through the gates while they’re open,’ Hatcher whispered.
Cohen relayed the message to the other men. He had a Smith & Wesson .357 and an old Army Colt .45 stuck in a web belt he had strapped on for the occasion. Hatcher laughed at him. ‘China,’ he said, ‘you look ridiculous.’
Cohen smiled grimly. ‘Don’t underestimate me, Occhi di Sassi,’ he said. ‘I know how to handle these things.’
‘That’s a relief to know,’ growled Hatcher. He opened the glass door to the balcony. ‘I’ll check the back.’
He eased out the back door in a crouch and crept to the railing of the balcony. Rain was coming down steadily now and the visibility was poor. Below him, he saw the guard, Sammy, crouched near one of the support posts, his Mac 10 protected by a poncho. Hatcher went back inside to get out of the rain.
Down below, crouching in the wet grass, Lung checked his watch. Varney would be making his move anytime now. Once the action started in front of the house there would be enough distraction for his men to go up the support posts, over the balcony and hit the house from the rear.
‘Here they come,’ Cohen’s man on the roof said into his walkie-talkie.
In the car behind Varney, one of the assassins saw Varney’s lights flick. ‘Go!’ he said into his walkie-talkie.
Behind the house, Lung heard the order and squeezed off the tranquilizer, watching through the night scope as the dart smacked Sammy in the throat. He saw the Cohen guard fall back against the support post. His eyes rolled up and he dropped against the post in a sitting position. His shoulders drooped and his weapon fell to the ground.
Lung pressed the beeper twice, and the two mobsters in the rear charged rapidly through the grass and rain to the balcony support posts. Lung drew a stiletto from his sleeve, then, grabbing Sammy’s hair, pulled back his head and slit his throat.
‘This is Sergeant Varney,’ the British sergeant said into his phone when he heard Cohen answer his call. ‘Open the gates, will you?’ He slowed to a stop.
‘Here we go,’ said Cohen, pressing the gate switch.
As the two big iron grille gates swung slowly open, Varney slammed down the gas pedal. His car lurched forward and roared into Cohen’s driveway. His headlights caught one of Cohen’s men before the Cohen gunman leaped into the protection of the rose garden.
Behind him, the assassins’ car, its tires screaming, roared through the closing gates behind Varney. Varney’s car skidded to a stop near the front of the house, jumped a small curb and crashed into the garden. He and Corporal Dow tumbled out opposite doors of the car. Behind them, Lung’s killers rolled out of their car into the flower gardens, and as Dow stood up, the driverless car slammed into Varney’s machine. It hit the rear fender, glanced off and screeched down the side of the police car. The sturdy policeman shrieked as he was crushed to death between the two cars. Varney, dazed, tumbled from his car only to be cut down immediately by the assassins.
Inside, Sing and Cohen ducked behind a sofa as the door was shattered by a dozen bullets. Glass and lamps exploded in the room. Hatcher, watching from the door of the bedroom, whispered, ‘Everybody okay?’
‘So far, so good,’ was Cohen’s quick reply.
They could hear the rattle of the Uzis used by Lung’s men quickly answered by the deeper roar of the Mac 10’s. The night was ripped by gunfire and an occasional scream. Flashes of gunfire reflected through the windows like distant lightning. Cohen and Sing concentrated on the front door, in case Lung’s men broke through.
In the rear of the house, Lung and his two men quickly attached leather straps with spik.es on the inside to their ankles. They slung belts — like those used by telephone linemen — around the posts, jammed the spikes into them and started up.
Inside, Hatcher saw the first of Lung’s killers reach the top of the balcony, leap over the railing and charge toward the bedroom. Hatcher dived behind the bed. In the dark and the rain, the killer saw only movement in the room and fired a blast from his Uzi. The bullets ripped into the mirrored wall, and Hatcher’s reflection erupted in shattering glass. Hatcher dropped both lands on the bed and fired a short burst from his Aug. Half a dozen shots stitched the gunman from chin to belly. The shocked gangster was thrown backward as the bullets tore into him. He flipped over the balcony railing and dropped from view.
From the other room Hatcher heard another burst of Uzi gunfire. He ran in a crouch to the doorway of the living room in time to see a second triad gangster zigzag into the darkened room, firing from the hip. Bookcases, vases, flowers and paintings exploded a moment before Cohen stood up from behind the sofa and fired his .357 once. It hit the gunman in the chest, spinning him around, his gun still chattering. Blossoms of down feathers erupted from the sofa. Cohen felt a tug at his side, a sharp pain like a bee-sting. He looked down. My God, he thought, I’m shot!
The assassin felt the hot bullet burn deep into his chest and rupture his heart while his lungs flooded with blood. His body jackknifed and he fell forward on his face, like a man praying before Buddha.
As Hatcher rolled back into the bedroom he saw Lung vault the balcony. The mobster w-as silhouetted in the doorway, his face drenched with rain, his eyes glazed with hatred. An instant later he saw Hatcher but not before Hatcher fired a burst at him. Lung jumped to one side but a round clipped his ear, which vanished in a spray of blood and flesh. Hatcher leaped across the bed and dived through the doorway, swinging the Aug as he did.
He punched Lung across the jaw, shattering it, and knocked him back against the railing. But the Oriental was tougher than Hatcher thought. He lashed out with his knife and nicked Hatcher’s sleeve. Hatcher grabbed Lung’s wrist, shoved it up, twisting it away from him, and the knife dropped from his hands. Lung flipped backward he grabbed Hatcher, and they both landed on top of the railing. Hatcher hooked his elbow over the wooden crossbar and caught himself. He still had Lung by the wrist, but the falling gangster snapped loose and dropped, twisting as he fell, trying to get his feet under him. He landed sideways, the heavy fall slamming the air out of him and smashing two ribs, Lung bounced down the slope to the edge of the grass.
He rolled painfully over on his face, his broken ribs searing with pain, the side of his face ripped by Hatcher’s gunshots. He pulled his knees up under him and staggered in a crouch, down the hill toward darkness.