Dead Six

Chapter 26:

Qagmire

VALENTINE

Quagmire, Nevada

June 28

0500

The sun wouldn’t be up for a while, but the little diner where Jill worked opened at five. The place opened at oh-dark-thirty so the local ranchers could get their breakfast and coffee. She was on early shift today and was probably getting ready for the early birds. At this hour, she’d be the only one there, doing both the cooking and the serving. The regular cooks and waitresses came in later in the morning.

I hadn’t planned on being up that early, but I still had terrible nightmares sometimes. Once I woke up from one of those, I was up for the day. Hell, I didn’t want to go back to sleep anyway. I was hungry, too, so off I went to the only place in town where I could get breakfast at that hour without cooking it myself.

A few days earlier, Hawk and I had pulled my Mustang out of his shed and dusted it off. He’d taken very good care of it. The oil had been changed, the tank was full, and the registration fee had been paid for me. I’d missed my car, and it was nice to have it back.

The diner Jill worked at was called Shifty’s, which I thought was hilarious. The place had been a staple of Quagmire life for forty years. The food was good, too. I’d eaten here every time I’d returned to Quagmire over the past few years. It was a decent place for Jill to work while she tried to figure out how to start her life all over again.

Really, I was in the same situation. After being gone for months, I was back in the United States, home sweet home. Nothing had changed. The fall of Zubara had been pretty big news while it was happening, but the press had no idea there was direct American involvement. The only ones that even suspected that were conspiracy nuts like Roger Geonoy and the kooky guests on From Sea to Shining Sea. I began to wonder if any of their other stuff about aliens, ghosts, and demons was true, too.

Anyway, I was in an interesting situation. It was as if the last six of months of my life had never happened. Save for the scars on my body and the ache in my heart, it would’ve been easy to pretend that all was well and that everything was normal.

And let me tell you, it was tempting. Back at the Exodus base I had been so filled with rage that I was ready to track Gordon Willis down and murder him. That had been my primary motivation for returning home, after all. But now that I was here . . . well, let’s just say that reality had sunk in a little bit.

Having a quiet life and working on Hawk’s ranch had done me a lot of good. My mom used to say that taking care of animals, especially horses, was good for the soul. She was onto something, I think. Hawk wouldn’t come out and say it, but I think he really enjoyed having Jill and me around. He was old enough to be our father, and had lived alone since his wife, Elaine, died.

Seeing Jill every day had been nice, too. The girl was an absolute sweetheart, and she was beautiful too. After losing Sarah, I was completely disinterested in any kind of romantic pursuits, but . . . well, Jill was easy on the eyes, especially in the little cutoffs and tank top she wore when working in the garden. If things had been different . . . But they weren’t.

In any case, I wasn’t ready for anything like that, and Jill was still going on and on about how dreamy Lorenzo was. I felt bad for the girl. She was young and, despite everything she’d been through, naïve. Lorenzo wasn’t coming back for her, period, end of story. I don’t care if he did save my life; it was plain to see what was going on. I just didn’t have the heart to tell her. She’d figure it out eventually. Probably better that she came to the realization on her own.

The question remained, though: What in the hell was I supposed to do? Aside from Hawk and Jill, I didn’t really have any friends. I had nowhere else to go. And what was I going to do, go find a job? I didn’t have a fake ID or alternate passport or anything. For all I knew, the moment I popped up on the radar, Gordon Willis’s organization would come swooping down in their stealthy helicopters and make me disappear into the night. I was scared to drive my own car anywhere beyond the bounds of Quagmire.

I had thousands of dollars stashed away, so I wasn’t hurting for money at the moment. I wasn’t about to try to access my old Las Vegas Federal Credit Union account, and I doubted I’d ever been paid a dime for my service in Zubara. But I still had access to my old offshore account with the Bank of Grand Cayman. As far as I knew, my former employers had never found out about it. They probably didn’t look real hard, considering they were planning on killing me anyway.

But I couldn’t stay in Quagmire forever. It was a small town in the middle of nowhere, which seems like a good place to hide, but it’s really not. People noticed a new face in Quagmire, especially one as scarred up as mine. Sooner or later somebody would notice me, and being noticed could get me killed. Not just me, either, but Hawk and Jill also.

Besides, I wasn’t about to just stay in Hawk’s spare bedroom, mooching off his hospitality until my savings ran out. I was determined not to be a burden on him or put him at risk. I had to leave Quagmire, and soon. But where would I go? My original plan of hunting down Gordon Willis seemed, as Ling suggested it would, silly now. The injustice of what that man had done still burned a pit in my stomach, and I hated him all the more for being powerless to change it, but what could I do? Even if I could get to him without getting picked up, would killing him change anything?

Sighing, I shook my head. Five o’clock in the morning was no time to be making big life decisions, especially not on an empty stomach. I pulled into the empty parking lot of Shifty’s and parked my Mustang. Jill liked to walk to work. It appeared I’d be her first customer.

The place was dark. Weird, I thought. Where is she? Jill should’ve been there for at least half an hour already, but the diner was still locked up. No one had been in.

Suddenly worried, I looked around the parking lot. Jill had left Hawk’s house an hour ago. It didn’t take that long to walk to the diner. I hadn’t seen her anywhere along the way. It’s hard to miss the hottest girl in town in a pink miniskirt jumper and white sneakers, after all.

I couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary. I was so upset I was on the verge of panic. If somebody had just driven up and grabbed her on the way to work, how would we ever know? Oh, God. Oh, God, no . . .

Something caught my eye then. A faint glow in the darkness, coming from the weeds across the parking lot. It was only there for a moment, then disappeared. I broke out into a run, pulling a small flashlight out of my pocket as I did so. It had come from near the entrance to the parking lot. There were some scrubby little weeds near the edge of the sidewalk.

There. On the ground was Jill’s cell phone. The screen had illuminated for a moment and I was lucky to have seen it. Nearby was her purse, its contents spilled out onto the ground. A little bit farther away from the sidewalk I found Jill’s gun.

Picking up the little S&W compact, I checked the chamber and magazine. It hadn’t been fired. She’d either drawn it and been disarmed or it had been found and tossed. Jill had been taken. There was no doubt about it. They’d snatched her off the side of the road. I lifted her phone, intending to call the sheriff. Jill had been kidnapped, and there wasn’t any time to worry about that.

It hit me then. What if they were looking for me? What if they took her because they thought she could lead them to me? A knot formed in my stomach. It didn’t make any sense, but what else could it be? Why would anyone kidnap a waitress in Quagmire freaking Nevada? It couldn’t be a coincidence. I couldn’t call the sheriff. They’d be waiting for me. But if I didn’t call, how would I ever find Jill? I had to do something. They were going to hurt her, or kill her. Damn it! What do I do?

I noticed the screen on her phone then. It was open to her address book. There were only two entries, and one of them was Hawk. The other . . . well, holy shit.

The phone rang six times before it was answered. On the other end of the phone was a voice I’d not heard in a long time.

“Jill?” he said.

“Guess again, Lorenzo.”

LORENZO

Somewhere in Arizona

June 28

I had just hung up on the Fat Man. The meeting had been arranged for a few days from now.

Reaper’s snooping had shown that Eddie, like all good international playboys, had a penthouse in Vegas. I had arranged the handoff for some innocuous shopping center with plenty of eyewitnesses, just like they would have expected. My gut told me that though Eddie wouldn’t dare show his face at the handoff, he wouldn’t be able to wait to see his treasure. So it seemed logical that he would be staying at his local residence.

And the night before the handoff, I was going to break in and take care of business. The place wasn’t in his name, rather owned by one of the Montalban family’s shell corporations. Reaper, more dedicated than I had ever seen him, had been doing a lot of digging and had compiled quite the list of properties, from private islands to penthouse suites spanning the globe; Big Eddie certainly got around.

The Fat Man had sounded suspicious. They’d probably thought I would have still been somewhere in the eastern hemisphere. Screw them. Las Vegas seemed like as reasonable a place for a drop as any. I could have picked a hundred other cities in twenty countries and Eddie probably had a place there, too.

He wouldn’t be expecting me to take the fight right to him. Reaper was en route, and the plan seemed to be coming together. Plotting revenge gave me a feeling of smug satisfaction.

I would be in Vegas before lunch, leaving me with plenty of time to scout the place, take care of some business, catch up on some sleep, and get some Thai food. There was this one little hole-in-the-wall place off the strip . . . My phone rang. I was expecting Reaper, but the caller ID was a surprise. I stared at it for a moment. I had arranged for the drop to be in Nevada once I had figured out that was the prefix from Jill’s phone, but now with the handoff arranged . . . She sure has lousy timing.

I flipped the phone open. “Jill?” I asked.

“Guess again, Lorenzo.”

It definitely wasn’t Jill. The voice was familiar . . . from Zubara. It can’t be. “Valentine?”

“Yeah.”

It took me a long moment to wrap my brain around this. How had Dead Six found her? Valentine, the killer with the .44 Magnum, and he was only alive because of my stupidity. I should have killed him when I had the chance. “If you hurt her, I swear I’ll—”

He cut me off. “Shut up. Listen to me.”

“No, you listen to me! I’ll cut your eyes out if you don’t put her on,” I shouted into the phone.

“Goddamn it, if you want that girl to live, listen to me.”

“What did you do with her?” I asked before he could say anything else.

“For Christ sakes, I didn’t do anything with her. Somebody else did. They took her.”

“Who did? Where?”

“I don’t know. Who else have you pissed off?”

Answering that accurately would require a lot of time and thought. “Where was she taken?”

“Quagmire. It’s in Nevada.”

“I’ve never been there, but I know where it’s at. I’m a few hours away,” I said, stomping on the gas. The terrorists’ Ford wasn’t built for speed, but I would make it work. “What happened?”

“They grabbed her on the way to work. I was going to stop in and say hi, get some breakfast, but she never made it. I found her stuff on the ground in the parking lot.”

“Wait, what are you talking about? What’s Jill doing hanging around with you?” My hand tightened on the phone so hard I thought it was going to break.

“She was in Quagmire when I got there.”

“Then what are you doing in Quagmire?”

“None of your goddamn business,” Valentine said. “Try to keep up. I was in Quagmire. I met the girl there, your little sidekick that shot me in the back in the Zoob. Something happened. She was taken. I don’t know who did it. I found her phone. I called you. Still with me?”

“Yes,” I said, trying not to let my frustration bubble over into anger. “Could it have been Gordon? Jill told me about a run-in at the embassy with somebody named Gordon Willis.” There was no response. “Valentine?” I wondered for a moment if the line had gone dead.

“Yeah, you’re right. I thought they were looking for me. But I think they were looking for her. They’re good at cleaning up the loose ends.”

“You know this Gordon Willis?”

“Long story. Look, if they have her, they’re going to make her disappear. We don’t have any time.”

“That’s not going to happen. I’ll be there in a few hours,” I repeated.

“Can I ask you something?” Valentine said after a long pause.

“What? Go ahead.”

“Is it true that you pulled me out after I went down? In the fort, I mean.”

“Yeah, I did.”

“Why did you do that?” he asked.

“I . . . I don’t know. You don’t sound very grateful.”

“I’m not,” he said harshly. “Call me when you get here.”

The line went dead.

LORENZO

Quagmire, Nevada

Quagmire was a typical, pissant desert town. The only things that looked new were the McDonald’s and the slot machines. Nothing interesting ever happened in towns like this. It wasn’t the kind of place that attracted rogue government operators, that was for sure. This should have been a great place to disappear.

You would think.

Valentine had given me directions to a small ranch on the outskirts of town. Even in the middle of the day, the roads were mostly deserted. If this was a setup, I was walking right into it.

The house was far enough out of town and away from any neighbors that there could be a ton of gunfire and nobody would notice. It was rather isolated on its own gravel road, surrounded by barbed wire and trees. Some horses studied me stupidly. I hate horses.

The weight of the STI on my belt was comforting, but if this was a professional trap, it wouldn’t do me a bit of good. Somebody would snipe me from the trees or a SWAT team would toss flash-bangs and then swarm around every corner. I walked up the porch, knocked, and waited. If I was the hitter in this situation, this is when I would just shoot them through the door.

There was a noise as the door was unlocked. Then it creaked open.

Valentine.

This was the first time I’d seen him in person without immediate violence. He was just over six foot. Dark hair, a face that made him look too young, muscular, but he really didn’t look like much. Yet I had already gotten my ass kicked once by this guy, so I knew that looks could be deceiving. His face was still healing from where I had cut him, and that wasn’t the only scar visible. Valentine looked older now than when I had met him before, tired and run down. Zubara had taken a lot from him. His eyes were different colors. I’d never noticed that before. It was weird. It made it a little unsettling to look him in the eye. It kind of pissed me off.

“Hey.”

“Hey.” He leaned his head out of the doorway and looked around the gravel driveway. I don’t know what he was expecting to see. It wasn’t like I would need to bring friends if I was going to waste him. Valentine regarded me warily, like most people would look at an unfamiliar dog. Finally he turned into the entry, nodding his head for me to follow.

The living room was vaguely rustic, with antlers mounted on the walls and a few pictures over the fireplace. It didn’t feel like his place. It was an awkward moment. Neither one of us offered to shake hands. I stepped inside and he gestured toward a chair.

“No thanks. I’ll stand.” It was slower to draw from a hip holster while seated and I didn’t trust him as far as I could throw him.

“Suit yourself.” He closed the door.

“Anything new on Jill?”

“Nothing. There’s not much to Quagmire, so she’s probably not here. I don’t know where they’ve taken her. We didn’t get the authorities involved. Hawk called her boss at the diner and said she had to leave for a family emergency, so no one in town is suspicious.”

“The cops can’t do anything I can’t,” I said. The FBI handles all kidnapping cases, and I really didn’t want them involved in this. Especially not my brother.

“Like I said, they must’ve grabbed her on the way to work. I found her purse, her phone, and her gun lying on the ground. She didn’t get a shot off or anything. I have no idea who would’ve taken her.”

“Maybe they were looking for you,” I snapped. “What the hell are you doing here anyway?” It infuriated me that Jill might’ve gotten caught up in Valentine’s mess. I swear this kid destroys and ruins everything he comes into contact with. He was the bane of my existence, and it was all I could do to not punch him in his stupid face then shoot him between his stupid mismatched eyes.

“Maybe they were looking for you,” he retorted. “Or did it never occur to you that hanging out with a guy like you could be bad for your friends’ health?”

My muscles tightened. My fists clenched. A vein bulged in my forehead. Valentine didn’t know about Carl or Train, but that was about the worst possible thing he could’ve said to me. I was very close to pulling out my STI and putting a bullet in this asshole.

He must’ve read my body language. The expression on his face subtly changed. “Go ahead,” he said, staring me down. “Pull it. You better be quick, motherfucker.”

“You don’t know when to quit, do you?” I growled, tensing up.

“Because you know what will really help you find Jill? Shooting me. Assuming you’re faster than me, which you’re not. And then if you do get her back alive, you can explain to her how you murdered me in a tantrum because I said something that made you mad. After she’s spent days telling me what a great guy you are, I’m sure she’ll understand.”

I grudgingly had to admit to myself that he had a point. This pissing contest was getting us nowhere. Jill’s life was in our hands. I exhaled heavily and tried to force myself to relax. Valentine did the same. “Sorry . . . I’ve been driving all day.” I relented and sat in down in a chair. “Why did you call me, Valentine?”

“Jill’s a nice girl. She told me her story, you know. She was doing fine until she got caught up in the crap that we got caught up in. You and I, and the people we associate with, came into that girl’s life and screwed it up royally. And now, either because she knows me or because she knows you, her life is in danger. Again. She deserves better than that. I don’t want to see anything happen to her. And I didn’t know who else to call. What are the cops gonna do? The people that might be after us are more than the sheriff can handle. Also . . .” Valentine trailed off for a moment. “Jill told me you saved my life. There’ve been times when I wish you’d have just left me there, too. But debts have to be repaid all the same. We owe her a debt, too. We brought this on her. So you and I, we need to make this right.” He was quiet for a moment. What he’d just told me had obviously been hard for him to say. “You know, I honestly don’t know what she sees in you.”

“Hell, me either,” I said, but really I was just trying to be agreeable. I happen to think I’m a pretty amazing guy.

In all of my life, no matter how bad things got, I never once wished I was dead. My survival instinct is too strong. I know I’m not going to live forever, but damn if I’m not going to try. I don’t give up. I don’t quit. And I’d kind of assumed Valentine was much the same. I’d seen him in action, after all. He was a hardened killer, the man that had thwarted me at every turn, my nemesis, but all I saw was a broken young man who’d watched his girlfriend get shot to death right before his eyes. He couldn’t have been much more than twenty-five, and he acted as if his life was over. They’d taken everything from him. That’s when it hit me, slapped me right in the face. I finally understood why I had dragged him out of Fort Saradia.

I’d felt sorry for him.

I hadn’t known that I was capable of pity. I shook my head, and then it was gone. Men like us didn’t need pity, just a balancing of the scales. As far as I could see, what Valentine needed was a cleansing vengeance, but there wasn’t time to ponder on his questionable mental state. We had work to do. “Do you know how they found her?

“I don’t know. She’s been here longer than me. She works at a little diner in town called Shifty’s, but lives under an assumed name, Peaches.”

“Right.”

“It seems we have a mutual friend here. Everyone in town thinks . . . well, thinks Jill is Hawk’s illegitimate daughter that he was reunited with. Hawk didn’t try to dispel the rumors. Thinking she was Hawk’s daughter kept horny ranch hands from sniffing around, and it was better than the town thinking he’d shacked up with a woman young enough to be his daughter, I guess. Hawk’s been letting me crash here, too.”

Hawk? I looked around the living room. Suddenly everything seemed to fit. I knew this wasn’t Valentine’s house. It was Hawk’s. I knew that Hawk would take care of her when I sent her to him. I never imagined she’d end up living in his house.

“How do you know Hawk?” I asked. “And what are you doing living over his garage like the Fonz?”

“You making a scrapbook?” Valentine retorted. “That’s none of your business. And no, he wouldn’t tell me anything about you, either.”

Of course. Hawk was a professional. “Let’s keep it that way. Where is he?”

“He’s out in town talking to some people, trying to find out if anyone saw anything. He’ll be back soon. But money says she’s long gone by now. I wish I had more to tell you.”

“I’ve called in some help. My associates will be here soon.” It sounded more important to say associates rather than lone techno-geek. “They’re good at shaking the trees and seeing what falls out. Right now your buddy Gordon Willis is the only lead we’ve got. He’s a federal employee of some kind, right? It’s a start.” There was the outside chance that Bob might know of him, too, but I didn’t say that.

My phone rang. “Hang on.” I was hoping that it would be Bob with good news about how he’d arranged to get the family to safety, but I didn’t recognize the number.

“Mr. Lorenzo.” The voice was electronically distorted, drastically deep.

“Yes?” My frown must have indicated to Valentine that something was up. He stood, looking nervous, and peeked through the blinds.

“We have your friend, Jill Del Toro. If you ever want to see her alive again, you will do exactly what I say.”

“I’m listening,” I replied calmly. Inside I was raging, wanting to kill, to murder, to drive my knife through someone’s trachea and shower in the arterial spray. “What do you want?”

“You have two videos of Americans in Zubara. One video of two Americans executing a man. A second aerial video of a gun battle between Americans and the Zubaran army. You will deliver those to us. You will do so in person. If you do not, Miss Del Toro will die.”

Videos? I hadn’t even thought of those since getting the key back. As far as I was aware, Reaper had them on his laptop. Jill must have told Gordon’s men about them while being interrogated. “Let me speak to Jill so I can know she’s okay.”

The line was silent for a few seconds. Then Jill’s voice, desperate, “Lorenzo! It’s a tra—” Then she was gone.

Of course it was a trap. Why else would they want me in person? I could easily have made copies. The videos were just an excuse. They wanted the witnesses dead. Back to the distorted voice; the speaker sounded vaguely demonic. “Where are you now?”

“Maine.” My cell phone was untraceable.

“You have twenty-four hours to get to Nevada. We will contact you then.”

“I want to see her in person or you don’t get the videos.”

“Of course.” The line went dead. I resisted the urge to chuck the phone across the room.

Valentine scowled at me. “They’ll be waiting for you. You know it’s a trap, right?”

I nodded. “They won’t expect you, though. Feel like making some trouble?”

Valentine actually grinned. It was an unpleasant, predatory expression, like a wolf eyeballing a rabbit. “I need to break in my rifle anyway.”

“We need to make a plan.”

“How about we drive there and shoot everybody?”

“Except for Jill,” I corrected. “But that’ll do.” We were going to need a little more finesse than that, probably, but that was pretty much what it amounted to. Valentine held out one hand. I didn’t trust him. I didn’t like him. But I knew he could fight, and he was the best option Jill or I had right now.

We shook on it.