In the Company of Killers by Bryan Christy (ebook reader for pc and android .txt) 📕

Botha turned a few pages. “And here. And there. And then another round. Attaboy, Tots.”

Krieger scribbled without reading. His lawyers were going to tear these documents to pieces. No contract in Zimbabwe would stand up to his money. Botha knew that, too, surely.

“That it?” Krieger asked.

“That’s it, Tots,” Botha said.

The teenager slipped from the driver seat and joined the other tracker in the back of the Land Rover. Zoeller climbed behind the wheel.

“Going to shoot me now? Hunting accident?”

“No,” Botha said. He fired two shots from Krieger’s rifle, each shot deafening, with a recoil powerful enough to put an unsuspecting man on his back. But Botha handled the rifle like it was a pellet gun. “Fuckin’ Pommies,” he said, admiring the engraved rifle. “Am I right, Tots?”

Botha took the rifle by the barrel and flung it high and into the grass, then climbed into the passenger seat, leaving Krieger standing beside the road. Zoeller tossed Krieger’s pistol into the grass and started the truck.

“You know who wins from this?” Krieger said. “Yurchenko. You think he won’t be worse than me?”

“Ya. I told the man that,” Botha said. “You know what he said?”

“What?”

“He said, ‘We bury them one at a time.’ Crazy motherfucker.”

Botha gestured over his shoulder to the trackers. “That’s Isaac’s brothers in the back. One’s John on the left. Other’s Isaiah. Say hallo, boys.”

Krieger barely looked in the boys’ direction, and the boys showed no sign of hearing Botha. They stared at Krieger with hate-filled eyes. Botha pointed. “That’s the father, Njovu, coming up the hill now. You might remember him.”

This time Krieger did look. An old man was walking slowly up the track toward them, carrying a rifle.

“An elephant never forgets,” Botha said.

Krieger tilted his head.

“Did you forget your Chichewa, Tots? ‘Njovu’ means elephant.”

Krieger watched the older man.

“I’m sure he remembers you,” Botha said.

Zoeller put the Land Rover in gear and drove Botha and the sons away.

Krieger remained focused on Njovu. “Njovu!” he called. “Njovu! We have an opportunity now. Just you and me. You have a family. I can make you very—”

Njovu took a knee. He chambered a round, pushed the bolt forward, and took aim at Terry Krieger.

Krieger began to run.

The first shot took Krieger behind the left knee and he went down. He cried out, but after a moment he gathered himself, got up, and limped hurriedly for the tall grass. Njovu opened the bolt, ejected the cartridge, and reloaded. The second shot took Krieger’s right knee and he understood. He lay at the edge of the grass looking up as Njovu approached. The father of the boy Krieger had killed knelt down to him, pulled up Krieger’s shirt and bulletproof undershirt so that Krieger’s arms were extended over his head, withdrew a fixed-blade knife, and began to gut him like a zebra.

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Catskill Mountains, New York

A golden vibration followed by an explosion, violent and white. Klay wet his hands in the cool water, reached down and removed the fly from the trout’s lip. He watched the fish swim off. It was enough for the day. He waded toward shore, sliding his feet carefully over loose river stones. As he approached the river’s edge, he gave a short whistle. A rustle began deep in a grove of rhododendron and then a missile sailed off the embankment, touched a fallen tree, and kept coming.

Klay had named the dog Rocket. Rocket was not the purebred Chesapeake Bay retriever he had always dreamed of, but he was definitely the incorrigible mutt he loved.

Barrow had come through. Jack Klay had been released. Klay offered to bring his father up to the Catskills, but the old man had refused. “You got your own life up there now, champ,” he said. “That clean mountain air will make me sick.” It was his way, they both knew. His father had decided to move to Florida, a community called the Villages. “Some FBI guys down there I might want to talk old times with,” he said.

Trout fishing in the Catskill Mountains was to die for, the brochures all agreed. He’d found a quiet stretch of river, a remote piece accessible only by walking through an old cemetery and then climbing carefully down a cliff of fallen pines and sturdy white oaks. At the bottom was a quiet pool below a riffling fall. The climb back up was the hard part. He wouldn’t be able to enjoy this spot forever, but for now it was more than worth the trouble.

He’d bought a cabin. It was a half an hour away. Everything was a half hour away in the Catskills. Out of milk? Half an hour. Mail a package? Half an hour. GPS reading 6.1 miles? That was still a half an hour. He liked it that way. The victory of time over distance.

He lowered the Land Cruiser’s tailgate, broke his rod down, and laid it in the bed. He took off his waders, folded them, and set them in a milk crate. Rocket jumped on the tailgate and made his way to the front of the vehicle, where he took his place in the passenger seat, waiting. It was his vehicle now, Klay just lucky to be the dog’s chauffeur.

Klay drove to Van Guilder’s Mercantile for fuel. As usual, Norman Van Guilder was sitting in a rocking chair on the front porch as Klay pulled up to a pump, the old man dressed in the same flannel shirt, torn carpenter pants, and work boots he’d been born in. Not playing chess this afternoon, though often he was, completing the picture. The old man nodded hello.

Norman’s usual chess partner, Russell, the town fire chief, owned a farm a half hour away, a nice property on either side of a rural county road where he raised beef cattle, hogs, and chickens. A few years back, traffic on the road got heavy enough that the township decided to improve Russell’s road for him. They repaved the whole thing “smooth as a