Second Nature

Chapter 47

47

Weston Fairchild hung up a phone on the bamboo desk in his penthouse den, and heaved a sigh.  

"Problem, boss?" Eddie Helco said. 

He nodded. "That was the man I hired to tail Cade and his sister. They've been to Tallahassee, to the state historic archives. We've got to assume they know about the land, the ship, everything." 

"Oops," Eddie said, "they just screwed the pooch." A partial smile crept to his lips. "What do you want me to do?" 

Weston twisted his mouth in thought. Then he stood and crossed the thick carpet to a floor-to-ceiling bookshelf. He pulled out a slim volume. "Ever read this?" He held out the cover to his bodyguard. "Sun Tzu's The Art of War." 

Eddie said nothing, but his eyes glazed over at the threat of reading a book. 

"No, I don't suppose you ever have." He cracked the book open. "Sun Tzu's first principle is, "Know your enemy." 

"Can't argue there." 

"I know Cade. I know his weakness." 

The man-mattress shrugged, bunching the large suit at his impossibly broad shoulders. He had a big head, but on his oversized frame, it looked smallish.  

"The hero mentality," Weston went on. "He's stuck with it. When you want to hurt a hero, you don't attack him straight on. The utmost you can do then is kill him, and he'll go down fighting in a blaze of glory." 

"I thought that's the idea, boss. Take him out." 

"Yes, but this...hero has gotten stuck in my throat like a fishbone. I despise him, a Negro with my blood in his veins. He called me grandfather! Sickening. My traitorous daughter deprived me of true heirs," he said. "Now those mongrels want to steal my land, which my forefathers wrought from this island when it was nothing but mosquito-infested wilderness. And all because some Yankee captain gave away our plantation to a slave." His nostrils flared. "A slave! He gave New Ireland to a slave." 

Weston pressed his lips into a thin line. "The Fairchild family, tracing back to Irish nobility from Carrick-on-Shannon, will be buried with me." He stared into space for such a long moment Eddie began to fidget. "No, I don't just want to kill Cade Seaborne," he said at last. "I want to hurt him. To accomplish that, one must hurt the people he feels he was born to defend." 

Eddie looked confused. 

"I want you to kill his little girl, Haven. And Lana. Before you kill him." 

"Whatever you say." 

"And the dog. Kill the dog." 

"How 'bout I waste everything that moves in that inn? I do Cade last. Then I burn it all to the ground." 

"Yes, yes, I believe that would do nicely." Weston replaced the book on the shelf. 

Eddie drew a .25-caliber Beretta Tomcat semi-automatic handgun from a pocket holster in the pants of his linen suit. The toy-sized gun fit easily into his pocket and was ideal for close-up hits. A screw-on suppressor stifled some of the flash and noise, and pressing the barrel hard against the victim's temple smothered the rest-reducing the muzzle blast to a sharp spitting sound. He retracted the slide partway and checked the chamber was loaded; dropped the magazine into his palm, counted eight hollow-point rounds, and snapped it back inside the grip. He checked another eight-round clip in his other pocket. Then he turned to go. 

"Eddie." 

"Yeah, boss?" 

"Don't underestimate Cade Seaborne. He was a Navy SEAL, and he's one tough bastard." 

Eddie laughed. "Like you said, Mr. Fairchild. A real hero." 

"That makes you laugh?" 

"It's just that I was an Army Ranger for eight years, see. Lot of guys used to argue-Who's tougher, a Ranger or a SEAL? 'Course, all my Ranger buddies claimed Rangers are toughest. But I always said, 'Ranger, SEAL, Russian, or Chinese, it don't make a damn bit of difference how tough they are." 

"Why is that?" 

He cracked the quarter-sized knuckles on one meaty fist. "'Cause ain't no sonofabitch alive is tougher than me."