Headhunter

checking for his car. The Fox told him on the phone not to go near the place.'

'Well then Weasel doesn't listen. What are you going to do?'

'Enter the place. I got the warrant.' ' 'You better do it fast, Rick, if Hardy's coming home.' 'Yeah. And listen, I've got a walkie-talkie, so for Christ sake keep us informed. I want to know if Hardy's coming in the door.'

'You'll know,' Tipple said, and they both signed off. 'Okay,' Scarlett said to Spann. 'Let's get the tools.' The woman moved forward to her car and removed a large box from the trunk. Both cars were one hundred yards past the shack and well hidden by bushes. When Hardy arrived, he wouldn't see the cars. But if he did drive on Tipple was on his tail.

'Pretty run-down,' Katherine Spann said, 'for a ski chalet.' 'I don't think it's been used for that for at least a dozen years.'

They were skirting along one side of the structure to enter it from the back. The building was made of rotting boards with one window in each side. It was heated by a wood stove, if the pipe they passed by was an accurate indication. The place did not have electricity. It looked like an abandoned hermit's shack.

Once they were hidden around back, the woman opened the tool box and shone a flashlight inside. Scarlett selected a crowbar and began to jimmy the window but it slid up easily. 'This place has probably already been B & E'd a hundred times by cold-assed skiers,' he said. He put his hand up. 'Yeah, I can feel other jimmy marks. Give me a boost.'

Spann locked her fingers together and made them into a step. Scarlett grabbed hold of the sill with both hands, put one foot into her palms and hoisted himself inside. Leaning back out through the window he grasped Katherine Spann by the wrist and hauled her through the opening.

'Okay, let's spread out. You stay here and do this room, I'll do the one in front.'

The woman nodded as Tipple's voice came over the walkie-talkie clipped to Scarlett's belt. 'We're starting up the mountain. We're less than ten minutes away.'

The male cop crossed to a closed door and entered the front room. Spann remained behind. Four minutes later, Scarlett was down on his hands and knees working his way clockwise around the walls when the woman called out to him: 'Hey, Rick. You better come here.' The man went back to the rear.

As he came through the door, Spann was sitting on the floorboards with four voodoo masks at her feet. He saw she had found two planks nailed together that swiveled on a hinge. The small door now stood open revealing a hole in the floor. Katherine Spann had pried one mask apart and powder had spilled in her lap. As he watched she wet her index finger and dipped it into the mess, then she raised her hand to her lips and touched the end of her tongue.

'Is it coke?' Scarlett asked.

'Eureka,' she said. 'The tip of my tongue's frozen solid.'

'How much is in the mask?'

'At least eight ounces.'

'We're five away.' It was Tipple's voice. 'You better make it snappy.'

'You keep going here. I'll keep going out front.' Quickly Scarlett rushed back out the door and began to tap the floor. And then he saw the blood. There was one small drop of it off to his right. Reaching out he touched it and found that it was fresh.

'We're three away. Maybe less. Hardy's driving fast.'

Scarlett rapidly tapped the floor around the drop of blood in an ever-widening circle. He pushed at each and every join of the boards. He still had the crowbar so he began to poke and pry. Then two of the floorboards gave.

'Rick, I can see the place. I'm going to have to drop back cause Hardy's pulling up outside.'

'Kathy!' Scarlett whispered sharply. 'Get in here quick!'

As he turned the volume of the radio down, she came up beside him crawling on hands and knees. 'Look,' he said, and swiveled open the boards. They both heard the car pull up outside. Both had killed their lights.

Reaching into the hole in the floor Rick Scarlett could feel two plastic bags hanging from nails in the underside of the planks. The shack was built up on stilts because of the mountain runoff. Both bags would have been hanging above the ground but, as the supports were boarded around, well hidden from sight.

Scarlett removed the first of the bags and tossed it quickly to Spann. At that moment beyond the window there was a flash of firelight. Footsteps approached the front door.

Katherine Spann reached inside and removed four half-pound plastic bags of cocaine.

A key slipped into the lock of the front door. Orange light danced at the window.

Scarlett pulled out the second bag and reached for his gun. The.38 just cleared leather as Hardy opened the door.

'Freeze!' Scarlett ordered. 'We're the police!'

In shock the man in the doorway stopped in his tracks. He held a coal-oil lamp out in his right hand, the light of the flame that licked within the glass chimney cavorting about the blank walls of the room.

Hardy looked at the.38 in Rick Scarlett's hand.

He glanced at Katherine Spann and his eyes took in the bags of cocaine.

'So you found the blow,' he said.

'We found more than that,' Scarlett replied. 'Now put down the lamp. Easy. On the floor.'

Hardy followed the order. Then as he was straightening up Scarlett put his gun on the floor, reached into the second bag, and from it removed a bowie knife and a Polaroid camera wrapped in another plastic bag. The knife was a foot long with a shallow crescent dipping from the back of the blade down to form a point. Except for a tiny nick in the steel, the cutting edge was honed sharp.

Hardy shook his head. 'I never seen them things before,' he said, looking straight at Scarlett.

'Then how 'bout this,' the cop said. And he reached back into the bag and by the hair pulled out a human head.

'Jesus!' Hardy exclaimed.

His mouth dropped open and with a wild panic his eyes flicked from the head to the hole in the floor, from Rick Scarlett to Katherine Spann. Then he savagely kicked the lamp.

Spinning and spewing its oil, which became a pinwheel of squirting flame, the lamp flew across the room in Rick Scarlett's direction. With a scream the man covered his face and the severed head dropped to the floor. It rolled toward Katherine Spann who was trying to draw her gun.

With a whoosh the floor ignited along with Scarlett's arm. 'I'm on fire!' the cop screamed, madly beating his flaming arm against his chest trying to fan out the blaze. At last in desperation he threw himself on to the floor, landing on top of both his gun and his arm where the floorboards had yet to ignite. His body smothered the fire.

Hardy lunged for the bowie knife now lying on the floor. Clutching it in one hand he took a swipe at Spann. Throwing herself away from him, the woman went sprawling back on the floorboards. With a crack she hit her head.

Scarlett was scrambling to his feet when Hardy swung again. This time the knife connected, slashing through the uniform and opening the flesh of the policeman's arm from the elbow to the wrist. Scarlett went down on his knees and Hardy was upon him.

'Don't!' Tipple yelled from the door, reaching for his gun but knowing he wouldn't make it in time.

With a full-arm slash, John Lincoln Hardy went for Rick Scarlett's throat just as Katherine Spann fired. She was now up on her knees. Her gun was in both hands.

The explosion was shocking within the small confines of the room.

As the muzzle flashed, the first bullet struck Hardy's neck, blowing out an exit wound the size of a golfball. The force of the slug sent him spinning and the knife slash missed by inches. Then Katherine Spann fired again and Hardy's head erupted. The lead took him just behind the left ear, ripping through his brain to blow out the front of his forehead in a shower of blood and gristle and bone. A third shot from the.38 hit him in the spine. His body crashed to the floor.

'Rick, grab the light stuff and get outside,' Tipple ordered, as he came leaping through the flames. 'Spann, get that head and the drugs and get the knife from that man. I'll take the body.'

One minute later they were all outside as the fire consumed the cabin. Like a beacon, those flames on the