Legacies

18.

Fighting panic, Kemel crouched by the flat rear tire of the rusting truck in the front yard and watched the house. The mercenary he'd followed here huddled beside him.

How could so many things go wrong in one evening? How was it possible?

Earlier he had been upset, especially after learning that two of the guards had been killed. Two corpses could lead the police directly to Kemel, and thus to Iswid Nahr. He would be humiliated before Khalid Nazer. Baker had said he would make the corpses "disappear," but how much of that was bravado?

Perhaps none. Kemel had to admit that he had been quite impressed with the way Baker handled his men. They seemed well trained and responded with military precision to his commands. And he'd had the foresight to plant a tracer on the Clayton woman.

Baker was rising in his estimation. If only he weren't so headstrong…

But then the situation had rapidly deteriorated. One dead, another pinned in the house like an animal in a trap, and the house ready to explode in a few seconds.

And where was Baker now? Why was he still in the house? Was he trying to defuse the bomb?

Suddenly the mercenary who had been trapped, the one they called Briggs, burst through the front doorway closely followed by Baker and a redheaded mercenary.

Briggs ran toward the pickup while Baker and the other flattened themselves in the grass. Kemel ducked and held his ears.

A second later he faintly heard a retort—sharp, quick, like a shot.

After waiting a few more heartbeats and hearing no explosion, Kemel cautiously raised his head enough to see over the pickup's rear cargo bed. He saw Briggs standing on the far side, holding his bloody arm.

"You sons of bitches!" Briggs shouted. "You lousy fucking bastards! You left me in there to be blown to hell and the only thing that exploded was a firecracker!"

"What?" said the mercenary beside Kemel as he rose to his feet.

"That's right, Toro!" Briggs screamed as he staggered toward them. "A fucking M-80! And look at you assholes hiding behind that truck like the yellow-bellied rats you are!"

One of the mercenaries who had been guarding the rear of the house ran up to the truck.

"What the hell's going on?" He stared at Briggs's bloody arm. "What happened to you?"

"You want to know?" Briggs said. "Toro, tell DeMartini how you—"

"Run!"

Kemel glanced toward the house and saw Baker on his feet, backpedaling and pulling the redheaded mercenary around to the side of the house.

"Get away from the truck!"

The other three mercenaries weren't paying attention, but Kemel decided if Baker was running, so would he—as fast as he could.

"Yeah!" Briggs shouted behind him as Kemel turned and sprinted away. "Run! You yellow-bellied Arab rat! Run before I—"

The explosion caught Kemel by surprise. One moment he was running, the next he was flying, as if a giant hand had slammed against his back and hurled him through the air. The night was full of sound and light and flying metal.

Kemel landed and rolled and stayed down, lying flat with his arms over his head, pressing himself into the cold hard earth.

And then it was over.

Kemel shook his head as he rolled over and rose to his knees. He could barely hear through the high-pitched hum that filled his head. He looked around and saw burning bits of wreckage strewn about the yard. The mercenary who had been behind the truck with him was a still dark form on the lawn. He was sure the wounded Briggs and the one called DeMartini were in a similar state on the other side of the smoking hulk.

But someone was moving. Baker… returning from the side of the house, shaking his fists at the night. Kemel could see the rage in his face, and knew from his wide-open mouth and the bulging cords in his neck that he was screaming into the night.

But Kemel could not hear him. And he was glad of it.

He looked back to the road and noticed that the white car they'd followed here was gone.

Kemel lowered his head and prayed. It was that or burst into tears.