“Agreed.”
“So come on now,” Devlin said, rolling up his sleeves. “Let the dog see the rabbit!”
“When I give the order,” Hawke said.
But the Irishman was gone. He clambered to his feet, climbed up over the low wall and moved across the villa’s lawn.
“Danny!” Hawke moved to pull him back but Lexi grabbed his arm.
“He’s not an idiot, Joe!” she said. “Give him a break — Lea says he’s as brave as they come.”
“Maybe, it’s just that…”
Before he could finish the sentence, they both heard Devlin shouting through the trees. “I’ll knock your pan in, you silly twat!”
“Oh, shit,” Lexi said.
Hawke frowned. “You were saying?”
They climbed the wall and ran along the lawn toward the truck just in time to see Danny Devlin ramming his fist forward into one of the men’s chops. He knocked him hard to the ground but the other men were now making a break for it up the villa’s narrow drive, and one had a phone in his hand.
“Oh, this is just fantastic!” Hawke said.
“Don’t lose your lunch, young man,” Devlin said cheerily. “He’s not going anywhere.”
And with that Devlin took off after the fleeing men.
Hawke looked at Lexi and sighed, but there was no time to discuss Lea’s former commandant. They watched as another four men tumbled out the back of the truck and headed over to them.
“This is just great,” Hawke said. “We’re outnumbered three to one.”
“Is that all?” Lexi said.
Zito’s men bundled in from every angle, taking them all by surprise. If they’d been able to watch the truck for longer they could have counted how many men were in the back but thanks to Devlin they were now in the thick of it and fighting hard to keep a lid on things. If just one of them made a call to Zito the whole operation would be blown and Lea’s life put in greater jeopardy.
Hawke took a punch to the jaw and tumbled backwards toward the cliff. His fall to an early and painful death was stopped by the trunk of a large umbrella pine. The man punched him again, aiming right for the nose, but this time Hawke was ready. He dodged his head to the right and the man’s fist smashed into the hard tree trunk, splitting his knuckles open and breaking some of his fingers.
Hawke punched the wounded man hard in the face and knocked him down in the gravel. As the man propped himself up on his elbows Hawke booted him in the face and knocked him out. Before he knew what was happening he was pulled sharply backward by another one of the men who had grabbed him by his collar.
He spun around fast and smashed a hefty left-hook into the man’s jaw, sending him tumbling over toward the cliff edge. He tottered on the edge of the cliff, eyes wide with fear. Straining to keep himself from falling off, he flailed wildly with his arms, but then a typhoon tore past him.
And its name was Lexi Zhang.
Still fighting with another man, she took a few steps back and spun around to deliver a mighty, spinning hook kick into the middle of his terrified face. Her boot heel slashed across his cheek and powered his head hard to the side, knocking him back off the cliff. He screamed all the way down to the rocks below, but Lexi never heard because she was once again focussing on the fight with the other man.
“Thanks for that, Lex,” Hawke said.
“Welcome,” she said, smashing a hammer punch into her opponent’s nose and knocking him out. He collapsed to the floor beside the man Hawke had belted. “We’re starting to get a little collection of scumbags here.”
“Where’s Danny?” Hawke said.
Hearing a grunt of pain, they looked up to see Devlin appear from behind the truck. He was fighting with the last of the men.
“Question asked, question answered,” Lexi said.
They rushed over to help him as he brawled with the men and as Lexi kicked one of them in the back, Hawke launched himself at the other. Grabbing him by the shoulders, he hauled him away from Devlin and spun him around so he could plant a hefty smack in his face.
That was the plan, but the reality was different: the man was much faster than Hawke had anticipated and was prepared for the attack. He fired a punch at Hawke and struck him hard in the jaw.
The blow sent Hawke reeling toward the edge of the cliff and before he knew what had happened he felt himself going over, tumbling back in the night with nothing below him but a two hundred foot fall to the rocks below.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
He reached out and grabbed anything he could find to save his life. His hands found a wild array of root complex pushing out the side of the cliff-edge from one of the umbrella pines above him. He wrapped his fingers around them as hard as he could to stop his fall, but he was still dangling hundreds of feet above the rocks.
He took a second to get his breath back and realized both Lexi and Devlin were still fighting for their own lives and unaware of his plight. He felt the wind blowing through his hair as he swung off the root complex. His mind raced to come up with anything that would get himself out of the situation.
He was too far from the top of the cliff to attempt to climb back over to safety without help, but he was way too high up to consider leaping and aiming for the sea. He’s done enough tomb-stoning in his youth to know he was too far away from the water to guarantee hitting it, and if he landed on the rocks they’d be taking him home in a bucket.
The roots started to break way from the crumbling rocks above his head — slow at first and then more rapidly. He felt something snap and then he slid rapidly down another half-meter. Releasing the handful of dead, broken roots he realized there was now nothing more than half a dozen of them keeping him alive.
He looked up to see a boot flying down toward his hands. The man he had been fighting was now intent on finishing the job and kicking his hands away from the crumbling roots.
The blows rained down, smashing into his fingers. He cried out in pain and every instinct told him to move his hands out of the way, but that meant certain death so he had no choice but to hang on and let the man break his fingers and hands.
But then the kicking stopped and a second later he saw his assailant fly over his head in the night sky and fall down into the rocks with a distant crunching sound.
A cloud of root dust and rock chips fell into his face and he blinked his eyes to clear them. “What the..?”
“Give me your hand!”
It was Devlin, leaning dangerously over the cliff to save Hawke’s life.
“Don’t be an idiot, Danny!” Hawke yelled out.
“It’s fine,” Devlin said, panting. “I’ve got me a good hold on one of the boulders.”
“You’ll kill yourself!” He looked down for a second to relieve the tremendous tension in his neck and saw the smashed bodies of the men down on the rocks.
“Just give me your hand.”
Hawke stared up through what was left of the root complex to see the Irishman had wriggled even further forward now. His entire upper body was hanging off the cliff as he strained to extend his arm down to reach him. He knew he had to let go of the roots with one of his hands to reach up to Devlin, and if the roots in his other hand should snap in that second…
He let go of the roots with his weaker, left hand and thrust it up as far as he could toward the Irishman’s hand. The two men used all their strength and after a few seconds of struggling Hawke clambered up over the edge of the cliff and took a deep breath.
“I owe you,” Hawke said.
“Think nothing of it,” Devlin said, dusting his hands off.
“I said I owe you,” Hawke said. “And I mean it.”
“Next time we’re in Flynn’s you can buy me a pint.”