The Sniper and the Wolf

61

Crosswhite stood watching out the window from Paolina’s bedroom as the CIA assassins pulled up in front of the house in their own car. There were three instead of two, and that immediately complicated matters because Crosswhite knew one of them would remain outside to watch the street. As they dismounted the vehicle, it became immediately obvious they were ex-military. All three were of Cuban descent, muscular, confident, and alert, with their hair cut high and tight.

Crosswhite looked at the .45 revolver in his hand. It was far better than nothing, but every round would have to count.

Two of the men stepped up to the house and knocked. Crosswhite went to watch through a crack in the bedroom door as Paolina’s father got up from the table.

“Who is it?” he asked in Spanish.

“The police. Open the door.”

Duardo opened the door, and the men stepped inside without waiting to be invited. “We need to speak with Paolina,” the driver said, his Miami accent obvious.

“May I see some identification?”

The driver lifted his shirt to reveal the butt of a Beretta pistol. “We don’t want to hurt her. We need to know about the American she was fucking earlier tonight.”

“I’ll get her,” Duardo said, holding his temper as he turned to leave the kitchen.

One of the men followed him into the other room, and Crosswhite pulled back the hammer on the .45. He stepped into the kitchen and blew the driver’s brains all over the wall.

The other man ducked into the bathroom and started firing into the kitchen, sending Crosswhite diving into the corner for cover. The third man, who’d been left outside to watch the street, kicked open the door a second later, and Crosswhite shot him in the chest. He flew backward but did not go down. Crosswhite shot him again, and still he didn’t go down.

The man fired a shot and hit Crosswhite inside the left thigh.

Crosswhite fired a third time, hitting him in the base of the throat, and this time the man crumpled to the floor.

“Duardo!” Crosswhite shouted. “You okay?”

“I’m okay!”

Crosswhite grabbed the Beretta from the driver’s pants and checked to be sure there was a round in the chamber. “Hey, asshole!” he shouted in English at the man in the bathroom.

“What the fuck you want?”

“Cops are comin’!”

“That’s a bigger problem for you than me,” the Cuban called back in perfect English. “I got friends inside. You won’t last twenty-four hours, white boy.”

Crosswhite knew that was probably true. He looked at the floor where the blood was pooling on the tile between his legs. “Throw out your gun, and I’ll let you go.”

“Fuck you! Throw me your gun, and I’ll blow your fuckin’ brains out with it!”

Crosswhite laughed. “You’re a funny motherfucker! I’ll remember that when I take a piss on your dead fuckin’ body!” He glanced out the open door, knowing he should take off in the car, but he couldn’t bring himself to abandon Duardo.

“Hey, where’s the little whore?” the Cuban called out.

“Your mama? Last I heard she was still takin’ it in the ass for five bucks a carload.”

The Cuban laughed. “Stick around, asshole. You’ll be takin’ it in the ass pretty soon yourself!”

“Listen, I got an idea,” Crosswhite said in Spanish. “How about you let my man pass? That way we can all get the fuck outta here before the fuzz shows up.”

The Cuban was quiet for a moment. Then he answered in Spanish, “Okay. He can pass.”

“Duardo, what do you think?”

“I don’t know,” Duardo answered. “What do you think?”

“He knows if he kills you, I’ll never let him out of here, and we’ll both go to prison. That’s all I can promise.”

“Get the fuck outta here!” the Cuban said. “I’ll catch up to you two pendejos another time!”

“Okay, I’m coming out,” Duardo said a few seconds later.

As he was passing the bathroom, the Cuban grabbed him from behind, screwing the pistol into his ear. “Ni una palabra!” he whispered, using Duardo as a human shield as they approached the kitchen. Not a word!

Duardo opened his hand and let the bayonet slide down out of his shirt sleeve. As they neared the kitchen doorway, he jerked his head away from the pistol and stabbed the blade deep into the Cuban’s thigh, striking bone.

The Cuban howled, and Duardo spun around, knocking the gun from his hand and kicking him in the groin. The stricken assassin dropped to his knees, and Crosswhite bound into the room, shooting him in the head with the last round from the .45.

“Well done!” Crosswhite said, patting the older man on the shoulder. He then grew dizzy and dropped down on the couch. “Rum?” he said in English. “Shock.”

Duardo didn’t speak much English, but he understood “rum,” and he understood “shock,” because they were essentially the same words in Spanish. He helped Crosswhite back to his feet and grabbed the bottle from the kitchen table on their way to the car.

A few minutes later, they arrived at his sister-in-law’s house five blocks away.

“My God!” Olivia cried, seeing the blood as her husband sat Crosswhite down at the kitchen table.

“What happened?” asked Duardo’s sister-in-law Carmen.

Duardo began to explain, and Paolina went into the bathroom, coming back out with a box of sanitary napkins.

“Good idea,” Crosswhite said, shrugging his trousers down to his knees. “Here, let me grab a couple of those things.”

A short time later, he was lying on a bed in the back of the house. The bleeding had stopped, and Paolina sat beside him on the mattress.

Duardo and Olivia were in the kitchen trying to calm Carmen. “What the hell are you going to do with him?” Carmen demanded. “He can’t stay here.”

“He has to,” Duardo said. “We can’t give him to the police. He’s CIA.”

Her eyebrows soared. “I can’t have CIA in my house!”

Olivia was concerned too. “Won’t the police look for him here?”

“They may,” Duardo admitted. “But we have to think of something, because in jail he’ll be killed.”

Paolina appeared and stood leaning in the kitchen doorway. “Go back to the house, Papi. Tell the police the man you stabbed was with me when the others came to kill him. No one has to know an American was ever there.”

Carmen looked at her. “You’re going to lie to the police for a stranger? For the CIA?”

Paolina looked at her aunt with her soft brown eyes, innocent and guileless. “His name is Daniel.”