The Last of the Dog Team, page 1
part #1 of The Last of the Dog Team Series
THE KILLING
“You got any money boy? Empty your pockets — now!”
“No way!” Terry replied. He knew with horrifying clarity what was coming and just exactly what he was going to do.
The man reached into his pocket, producing a pistol. “I’m going to kill you and just watch you bleed and holler.” Before the words had left his tongue, Terry was moving, running through the snow, darting and zig-zagging, heading for cover.
Ed followed him, and when they were two steps apart the man made his first move. But he was too anxious; it was the wrong move. He lunged at Terry, but Terry sidestepped him, then buried the blade of his knife in Ed’s chest. He jerked it out and stabbed him again, this time in the belly. Ed was still standing when Terry pulled the knife out of his stomach. Ed slowly sank to his knees, blood staining his shirt and jacket. Pink froth formed in bubbles on his lips. Then he slowly collapsed on the snow, face down.
Terry walked up to him, but did not feel sick or numb or guilty. Ed had tried to rob him, beat him, and kill him. Terry had defended himself — that was that.
Terry was sixteen years old that day and he had just murdered a man. How did he feel? He wasn’t sure. But somehow he knew the killing would not be his last …
BOOK YOUR PLACE ON OUR WEBSITE AND MAKE THE READING CONNECTION!
We’ve created a customized website just for our very special readers, where you can get the inside scoop on everything that’s going on with Zebra, Pinnacle and Kensington books.
When you come online, you’ll have the exciting opportunity to:
View covers of upcoming books
Read sample chapters
Learn about our future publishing schedule (listed by publication month and author)
Find out when your favorite authors will be visiting a city near you
Search for and order backlist books from our online catalog
Check out author bios and background information
Send e-mail to your favorite authors
Meet the Kensington staff online
Join us in weekly chats with authors, readers and other guests
Get writing guidelines
AND MUCH MORE!
Visit our website at
http://www.kensingtonbooks.com
THE LAST
OF THE
DOG TEAM
William W. Johnstone
PINNACLE BOOKS are published by
Kensington Publishing Corp.
850 Third Avenue
New York, NY 10022
Copyright © 1981 by William W. Johnstone
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.
If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the Publisher and neither the Author nor the Publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”
This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or events is entirely coincidental.
All Kensington Titles, Imprints, and Distributed Lines are available at special quantity discounts for bulk purchases for sales promotions, premiums, fund-raising, and educational or institutional use. Special book excerpts or customized printings can also be created to fit specific needs. For details, write or phone the office of the Kensington special sales manager: Kensington Publishing Corp., 850 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10022, attn: Special Sales Department, Phone: 1-800-221-2647.
Pinnacle and the P logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.
First Zebra Printing: March 1981 First Pinnacle Printing: August 1997 Second Pinnacle Printing: June 2003
10 987654321
Printed in the United States of America
Contents
Prologue
BOOK ONE
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
BOOK TWO
Six
Seven
Eight
BOOK THREE
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
BOOK FOUR
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Epilogue
But what am I?
An infant crying in the night:
An infant crying for the light:
And with no language but a cry.
— Tennyson
Prologue
The white mercenary died hard, but he died bravely, enduring hours of torture. Not one scream passed his lips. Not when the skin was stripped from his arms and legs; not when he was castrated; not when his hands were cut off.
He suffered silently; alone. Asking no help from anyone. Just as he had lived for most of his life. Alone.
The Communist-backed black guerrillas left him under a tree on a flat plain. They hated the mercenary, what he stood for, fighting for a white minority government, but the guerrillas admired his bravery under torture.
The mercenary watched them go, waiting until the band of rebels had disappeared, then he croaked out his agony.
Above him, African vultures circled and waited.
Hard-driven Land Rovers kicked up dust, sliding to a halt in the veldt. “My God!” the Red Cross representative yelled. “This man’s still alive.”
The mercenary heard the voice, but could not reply. His bloody mouth held no tongue.
“Damn this war!” a medic cursed, virtually helpless to do anything for the dying mercenary.
The Red Cross representative looked down at the mere. “Dear God in Heaven,” he sent a prayer to his Maker. “The man is trying to laugh!”
BOOK ONE
One
Terrance Samuel Kovak stalked the rabbit with all the patience of a born hunter — which he was. The boy imagined he was in Korea, stalking a North Korean soldier through the heavy snow. He held an M-l in his hands instead of the seven-shot, clip-fed .22 caliber rifle. The North Korean soldier (the rabbit) jumped out of the snow a few yards in front of Terry and the boy let him run for a few seconds, following him through the fixed iron sights. He took up slack on the trigger, let the rabbit ran for a few more yards, then shot it, sending the animal tumbling and somersaulting, jerking out its life, staining the snow.
“Gotcha!” Terry whispered to the cold Georgia wind. The wind ruffled his blond hair and colored his Slavic features, tinting his cheeks a pale red. He picked up the rabbit, checked to make certain the animal was dead, then placed it in his homemade game bag. Five rabbits — enough. He would clean them when he got home and his mother would fry them up for supper, or maybe make a stew. If she fried them there would be biscuits and gravy and fried potatoes, too. Terry’s stomach rumbled, reminding him he hadn’t eaten since breakfast.
He looked up at the weak sun trying valiantly but unsuccessfully to shove its rays through the clouds. He guessed the time to be two-thirty. Best be heading home. It was a good five miles back to the house on the outskirts of Bishop, where his Poppa worked at the mill during the summer, spring, and early fall. Nobody hauled much timber during the winter — not in this part of Georgia — so Mr. Kovak took whatever jobs he could find during the slack time, with all the kids pitching in to help out in whatever way they could. Terry worked at many odd jobs, and hunted for food after school and on the weekends. During the winter months the Kovaks ate a lot of rabbit, squirrel, and sometimes venison. His Momma canned during the summer, out of their large garden, and they had a potato bin, so no one ever went hungry, but the menu didn’t vary that much.
Terry’s older brothers, Robert and Danny, were both in the service, in Korea. Robert was a retread, called back into the Marine Corps, and Danny was in the Army; both sent money home whenever they could. It wasn’t much, but it helped. Their wives, Mavis and Vera, lived in the Kovak home, along with their two babies. It was a houseful, but it was, for the most part, a happy house, full of love and laughter and joking.
When one is poor, there are two choices: give up, or cope.
Mavis and Vera both worked as waitresses downtown, and they brought home (Vera did) packages of sugar and salt and things like that. Mother Kovak did fuss about it, saying it was sort of like stealing, but she never told Vera to quit it. Everything was put to some use around the Kovak home.
As Terry trudged along through the snow, conscious of the rifle slung over his shoulder and the game bag hanging by his side, bumping his hip with every step, he was suddenly saddened. The war in Korea was over, and he would never get there in time to shoot any Gooks, to fight with his brothers. But there would be another war, in another country — there always was — and Terry would join the Army and fight in that war.
Terry wanted to be a soldier. He imagined combat to be glamorous, adventurous; killing and dying to be clean and brave. The serving of one’s country something to be proud of; something the public would be only too glad to honor and never forget.
He’d been reading a lot lately — not school books, for he hated school — but adventure books, books about Soldiers of Fortune. Mercenaries. Men who
It was Saturday, and soon it would be Saturday night, and there would be Clarissa with the long brown hair and dark serious eyes and big boobs. He would take Clarissa to the movies and they would sit in the balcony. Thinking of Clarissa made him walk a little bit faster in the snow, and he stumbled when he hit a slick spot, coming to the gravel road that would take him to town. Terry flailed his arms, caught his balance, and looked around to see if anyone had seen him. He felt foolish.
Clarissa! She had allowed him to feel her breasts last Saturday night and it had almost driven him crazy, the way she kissed him and moaned and wiggled. He must have French-kissed her for an hour, fondling her breasts through her blouse, slip, and bra. He wanted to put his hand up her skirt, but just thinking about that scared him so badly he trembled. What was he supposed to do when he got his hand Up There? He couldn’t screw her in the balcony of the Bishop Theater, although he was certain no one else would notice, there was so much moaning and groaning and panting and sighing among the other teenagers. Usually one or two guys would start bitching about the stone-aches, and having to go out-side to pick up the back end of a ‘40 Ford for relief. Terry had experienced the stone-aches, but damned if he’d ever pick up the back end of a car for relief.
But tonight, now, this was going to be something special, Vera had promised him he could use her car, a jazzy-looking ‘46 Ford. And Vera — who was only twenty herself — had winked at him and said to be careful in the back seat, don’t get it all messy. Thinking of Vera made Terry feel a little messy — and guilty. Thinking of Vera made him feel all gooey inside. Thinking of his brother’s wife got him a hard-on, too.
He knew Vera was stepping out on his brother, Danny, every now and then. Not regularly, just every now and then. But he supposed Danny was getting some Korean pussy, too, so that pretty well evened things up.
But not Robert’s wife, Mavis. She was some kind of religious nut. She prayed all the time and wore clothes that were out of fashion and too big for her and took ice-cold baths two and three times a day. Mavis was weird!
But Vera, she knew what he was thinking when he looked at her. She had such a terrific body and such great-looking tits. Sometimes she got him to zip up her dress when she was going out and she would tell him off-color jokes and run her smooth, cool hand over his leg. Stuff like that got Terry so excited he felt he would blow up. Once, when everybody was asleep in the house, Vera had climbed the stairs to his room and stood in the doorway with the light behind her. She stood for a long time, looking at him in his bed, the light pushing through her thin gown, showing him everything she had. He could even see the outline of her Thing. Terry had pretended he was asleep, watching her through slitted eyes, but his heart was pounding so furiously he was certain she could hear it hammering. Finally, Vera had closed the door, leaving the boy with his palpitations, dry mouth, and rock-hard erection. But Terry knew what it was she wanted. He knew it was going to happen pretty soon, too — if Danny didn’t come home.
Part of Terry wanted to see his brother; the other part wanted to see more of Vera.
Problem was, Terry had never been with a woman, sexually. He had seen pictures of men and women … doing it. There was a gas station across from the high school that sold dirty books and pictures from under the counter, but he had never done or seen or felt the real thing. But maybe tonight … ?
It was snowing again when he reached the huge old Kovak house. Two-and-a-half stories of run-down frame house, full of adults and kids and dreams and almost-but-not-quite poverty during the hard winter months. Terry cleaned and thoroughly bled the rabbits in the shed out back. He removed his boots on the porch of the house before entering the kitchen. He stored his rifle in the small room off the kitchen, carefully checking the weapon and removing the cartridges, putting them in a tin can.
“Momma,” he said, kissing his mother on the cheek, all the while savoring the smells of home-baked bread. Saturday, Mother Kovak always baked bread to last the week. He put the cleaned rabbits in a dish.
“Fat rabbits, Terry,” his mother smiled at him. “They’ll cook good in a stew. We’ll have them tomorrow for supper, maybe.”
She covered the rabbits and put them in the ancient refrigerator.
Terry peeked into the living room and was surprised when he did not see his father listening to the huge old console radio. “Where’s Poppa?”
“Working,” she answered proudly. “Old Mr. Service down at the power plant twisted his ankle and your Poppa is taking his place for a week — started this morning. Forty-five dollars a week, and I can tell you the money will come in handily.”
Terry laughed at her accent and speech. “Come in handy, Momma. That’s the way to say it.”
The old clock in the hall chimed its message. Terry poured a cup of coffee from the ever-present pot on the stove, sugared and creamed it, then sat down at the table, his back to the wall, warm and secure and comfortable in the kitchen, his Momma’s favorite place in the house. He had walked fifteen or twenty miles this day, but he was young, and was not tired.
“Something special for supper, Momma?”
“A roast,” she smiled, proud she was going to please her son and family. “With carrots and potatoes and onions and gravy.”
“And biscuits, too, Momma?”
She left the sink to pat her son’s cheek. “And biscuits, Terry. When you marry, Terry, be sure to marry a girl who can bake you biscuits.” She clucked her tongue. “So many girls nowadays don’t know from nothing about cooking. Popping open cans and stuff. It’s not healthy.”
Terry sat in silence, listening to his mother talk of this and that, busy all the while, peeling potatoes and scraping carrots. He sipped his coffee, thinking how much he loved his family — although Terry could never bring himself to say the words. He was not an emotional young man. He watched his mother fumble in the back of the pantry and bring out an old jar. She counted out a dollar and a half in dimes and nickels and put the change in front of her son.
“I know you got a little money, Terry, but it’s Saturday and you got a date with Clarissa and your Poppa’s working at the plant and he don’t ever need to know I give you any money.” She pushed the money toward him. “Take it, and have a good time at the movies.”
It made Terry feel a little bit guilty, because he was thinking of Clarissa’s boobs and body at just that moment. He pushed thoughts of her from him and smiled at his mother. “Thank you, Momma. We’ll have a good time, I’m sure.”
The front door slammed and the mood was broken. Terry was relieved it was. Clarissa slid smiling and wiggling back into his thoughts.
“It’s me, Mother Kovak,” Vera called from the stairs. “Let me change this stupid uniform and I’ll be down to help you. I smell like fried potatoes and stale coffee.” She was gone up the stairs in a run.
Clarissa slid out of Terry’s thoughts and Vera slipped in. He thought of her changing clothes and hoped his sudden flush was not evident. Had he stood up at that moment, something else would have been most evident.
“A woman could smell worse,” Mother Kovak muttered, not really unkindly. She knew her daughter-in-law was restless, getting more so as the months rolled by and Danny stayed away. “A man needs a woman and a woman needs a man,” she mumbled under her breath.
“What’s that, Momma?”
She flashed her son a broad smile. “Nothing, Terry-boy. I’m getting old, is all. Talking to myself. Pretty soon I’ll be answering myself; then you got to worry.”
“You’re not getting old, Momma,” Terry drained his coffee cup and got up from the table. “You’re the youngest one in this house.”
She laughed, blushing at the unexpected compliment. “Get yourself out of here and out of my way. Get cleaned up. Save your sweet talk for your giggling girlfriend.” But she was pleased. Terry could be so charming when he wanted to be.
But — she watched him leave the kitchen — there is a mean streak in him. He can be cruel when he wants to be. Poppa had said it the other night, lying in bed.
“The boy worries me, Momma. He’s growing up too quick.”
