Dead Six

Chapter 29:

Dropped Call

VALENTINE

Gordon. I was so close now I could taste it. I could sense his presence. I can’t remember ever being more focused, more intense, yet so detached. The Calm had never been this overwhelming before. My survival instinct had been turned off. This was it. I only had to live long enough to kill Gordon. After that it didn’t matter.

I entered the darkened barracks, stepping over the bodies of Gordon’s men. It was a mess in there; Lorenzo’s grenade had done the trick. The rest of the building was virtually empty, with little more than old frames for bunk beds. At the far end was another door. That’s where I was going. Gordon was hiding in this camp, somewhere, and I was going to find him.

I slowed to a fast walk as I approached the far door, my rifle up and at the ready. There were no windows on the ends of the buildings, just narrow ones along the walls. Moving to the right side of the door frame, I pulled the door open and peeked out. It was about twenty feet to the next barracks building, and its door was closed. There could be shooters on the buildings across the road, so I’d have to be careful. I looked back at Lorenzo, and with hand signals told him to cover that direction. He shifted his carbine to his left shoulder and stacked behind the doorway.

I dashed across the gap between the barracks. On the other side, I pressed myself against the wall and crouched down. At the same time, Lorenzo was leaning out of the door, his weapon covering across the road.

Flipping around, I pointed the muzzle of my rifle at the door and reached for the handle. It was locked and made of metal. It looked too solid to kick down.

“Reaper!” I hissed, trying not to make too much noise. “Get up here with that room broom! I need you to bust a lock!” The kid came running out of the barracks in a crouched jog, weapon in hand. He didn’t even stop to look at the buildings across the way. He obviously had complete confidence that Lorenzo would cover him. The kid pressed himself against the wall on the left side of the door frame, opposite me.

“Use that shotgun to blow the lock on this door so we can keep moving!” Reaper pointed the stubby muzzle of his weapon at the door’s handle and flinched as he pulled the trigger. The shotgun roared, and the door handle exploded.

There was no time to pause. Reaper turned away, and I booted the door in. A man was crouched about halfway through the building. I snapped off two shots at him, then ducked back out of the doorway, crouching down in case he fired through the wall. He fired two more shots through the doorway, then it was quiet. I leaned in and saw him, slightly magnified through my rifle’s scope. One of my rounds had gone through his abdomen, and he was now slowly crawling toward the far door, leaving a thick trail of blood in his wake.

I walked up quickly and stomped down on his back. He shrieked in agony. “Where’s Gordon?”

“I don’t know who that is!” he cried, blood pouring out of the exit wound beneath my boot. I shot him in the back of the head, shattering his skull like a watermelon with a blasting cap in it.

“Clear!” I shouted. The room was suddenly quiet. The air stank of burnt powder and dust. We crossed the room and opened the door at the far end. The doorway to the next barracks was closed, and again we had to contend with the gap between the buildings.

I peeked outside and nearly lost my head. The shots were coming from the barracks building across the way. I fell back inside the doorway just in time to avoid being hit. The shooter then began to pepper the wall with rifle fire. Bullets tore through and snapped angrily overhead.

“Everybody down!” Hawk shouted. Lorenzo furiously started low-crawling toward the back of the building. I crawled forward and got as close to the door as I could.

The shooter was still firing through the wall, about one shot every second. He was focusing on our end of the building, though. Looking back, I saw Lorenzo pop up and fire off a long burst from his carbine. The suppressed weapon sounded like a rapid series of hissing pops as it fired.

Still in the prone, leaning out of the doorway, I began to fire at the building across the road. Lorenzo’s bursts of fire had shattered the windows and stitched the wall, but the shooter was nowhere to be seen. We both paused for a moment and waited. A second later, he popped up again in the exact same spot. Both Lorenzo and I lit him up. I don’t know how many rounds the shooter took, but he fell from sight and didn’t appear again.

“Keep moving,” I ordered, scrambling to my feet and heading for the next building. I took up position on one side of the door, and Lorenzo was on the other a second later. Hawk wasn’t looking so good.

“You okay?” I asked.

“I’m too old for this shit,” he answered.

“Do you have any more frags?” I asked. Lorenzo shook his head. Damn it. We were going to have to do this the hard way. I reached down and opened the door. We were answered with weapons fire, only this time there were multiple shooters. Lorenzo and I both leaned in and returned fire. Lorenzo mashed himself up against the fence that connected the buildings as one of the shooters inside returned fire through the wall. There was no way we were getting through that door without getting killed.

I decided to take a chance and flank them. I took off at a run up the right side of the building. Gunfire echoed through the camp as I made my way along the wall. I stopped about three-quarters of the way down and began to fire through the wall into the barracks. This way, my companions wouldn’t be in the line of fire and there was a chance I’d actually hit one of the bad guys. If nothing else, it’d distract them long enough for the others to make a move. I burned off the rest of my magazine as fast as I could pull the trigger.

My rifle’s bolt locked open. I began to jog back to the rear of the building, reloading as I went. A tiny bit of movement in the periphery of my vision alerted me. I spun around, seeing a man in a dirty suit, limping badly, blood pouring from wounds on his arms and legs. He raised a handgun. I turned toward him, reaching down for the revolver on my thigh. I felt a thump as a round smacked me in the chest plate. I lost my balance and fell.

The shooter aimed unsteadily, pistol wobbling in one bloody hand, just as my .44 cleared its holster. I took a bead on him and fired between my knees. His head snapped around in a pink cloud. Rolling back to my hands and knees, I scrambled ahead, heading back to the others.

The others were behind cover in the entrance of the final barracks. Lorenzo was nowhere to be seen. Rifle still slung across my chest, revolver held at the ready, I jogged down the length of the barracks, passing Reaper and Jill and stepping over dead bodies. It looked like I had managed to plug somebody through the wall after all.

“Everybody okay?” I got a chorus of nods in response.

I looked out a window just in time to see Lorenzo enter the mess hall building.

“Where’s he going?”

“I don’t know,” Reaper said. “He just took off.”

“Let’s go!” Jill said, a fire in her eyes.

Holstering my Smith & Wesson, I pulled a fresh twenty-round magazine from my vest and locked it into my FAL’s magazine well. I looked back at my companions and was out the door.

LORENZO

Valentine was a killing machine.

The last of Gordon’s SWAT team were gone, shot to death through the barracks walls. Bodies twisted into unnatural positions, hands curled into claws, staring blankly at the beams overhead. I stepped quickly through the mess, shell casings spinning away underfoot. Hawk had been firing from the window, hammering his Para FAL at someone in the northern buildings. Reaper and Jill were back toward the entrance.

I crouched near the rear door and scanned the last building. There was no visible movement, but there had been earlier, and none of the men that we had killed were Eddie or Gordon. Process of elimination left that one.

Elimination. Sometimes I make myself smile.

There was a noise, high pitched and repetitive over the ringing in my ears. It was coming from the cafeteria. The noise seemed out of place in the ghost town.

Barking. It was Eddie’s poodle.

I’m by nature a cautious man. You do not live long in my business by charging into situations, but caution went out the window when I heard that sound. Eddie’s presence here tonight was like a gift from heaven, and I wasn’t going to leave without sending him to hell.

“I’m going in,” I said into my radio, took a quick look, didn’t see any obvious threats, then sprinted for the cafeteria, realizing halfway across that I didn’t have a working radio. Too late to turn back. I covered the last bit of distance and slid to a stop in the gravel next to the open doorway.

The old mess hall was a huge building. I rounded the corner and activated my flashlight. The interior was a mass of old tables, most of them broken and sticking up at odd angles. The light created horrific shadows dancing on the walls. Nothing moved, but you could have hid an elephant in here and I wouldn’t have seen it.

That annoying barking came again, a high-pitched yipping, louder now, off to the side. My light illuminated another door, probably to the kitchen. I moved through, using what cover was available, ready to shoot at any second. The kitchen was empty also, just some dust-coated countertops, old bottles, and a rusting industrial-sized stove. There was another door, and the barking was coming from inside.

I kicked the door open, the old bolt tearing right through the age-softened wood. Rickety stairs descended into the darkness.

Man. What I’d give for another grenade.

The yippy dog was really freaking out now. I cracked the vertebra in my neck. This was it.

I swept around the corner, light stabbing into the darkness. Below was a small pantry, filled with empty shelves, probably sunk into the ground to keep the food from the desert heat. Eddie’s poodle was in the center of the room, its leash tied around a beam.

The dog was snarling at me. I moved the light around, but there was nobody else in the room. There was a dusty tarp hanging in one corner, big enough to conceal a man.

I started down the steps, gun up, finger on the trigger, Aimpoint dot floating on that tarp. My heart was pounding. Was that Eddie behind there? I took aim and stitched a line of shots up it. The AR moved slightly under recoil as something shattered and fell behind the tarp. The poodle yelped in surprise and whimpered.

If Eddie was hiding in there, he wasn’t happy.

The first gunshot struck me low in the back. I stumbled forward, accidentally discharging my weapon as another round tore down my arm. I tried to turn back toward the kitchen, but as my boot landed on the next step, the ancient stairs broke and gave way under my weight. Windmilling, off balance, another shot sparked off my AR’s receiver and I crashed halfway through the stairs, legs dangling over the pantry, jagged wood stabbing into my arms. The door to the giant stove was open now and a hand with a pistol extended out of it. I saw the muzzle flash, and something tore along the side of my scalp, snapping my head back. Another shot thudded into my armor as the rest of the staircase collapsed around me.

The air exploded from my lungs as I landed hard in a pile of dust and wood. I lay there for a split second, lights exploding behind my eyes. I had walked right into it, focused on the noise, and waltzed right past Eddie’s ambush.

Choking, gasping, I pushed myself deeper into the corner under the broken stairs as I drew my pistol. My body was on fire with pain, and blood was running out of my hair and into my eyes. My protesting lungs wouldn’t fill with air at first, but I forced back the rising tide of panic. The bag containing the prince’s treasure had somehow spilled free and was resting on the floor a few feet away, just out of reach.

“Lorenzo, I thought you were supposed to be good at this,” Eddie said from above. He peered over the edge at me, smiling, H&K P7 in one hand, his silk shirt filthy with old rust, puffy hair matted with cobwebs. He moved back over the threshold as I raised my gun and fired. The bullet smashed into the ceiling.

I kept the shaking front sight aimed at that doorway and tried to breathe. The basement was dark. My AR was smashed on the ground beside me. I had no cover. At least that dog had shut up. I glanced over at the Precious’s last position. It looked like I’d accidently shot the poodle before the stairs had fallen on it. Ouch.

“You know you’re not the first one to come after me. Did you really think it would be that easy? You probably did. I try to cultivate a certain manner. It tends to cause men like you to underestimate me.” Eddie’s effeminate voice was safely out of sight above. “Where’s the scarab, Lorenzo?”

“Sorry about your dog.” I coughed and used my sleeve to wipe the blood out of my eyes. If Eddie was going to finish me, he needed to stick his gun over the edge. So I only had one shot. The STI slowly quit shaking. Blood trickled down my lacerated arm and pooled inside my armor.

“I’ll buy a new dog. The scarab is irreplaceable.”

Come on, Eddie. Just a peek. “It must be worth a fortune.”

“It’s not the money. It’s the sentimental value. The man that wants that thing is far more dangerous than me. He’d crush the prince like a bug. But if I have it, he’ll do anything I ask. You have no idea how important that bloody thing is. This is your last chance, Lorenzo. Where is it?”

It was sitting right there in the dust, but I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. “Someplace you’ll never find it,” I answered, and it wasn’t a stretch of my acting ability to sound injured. “So let’s get this over with.”

Eddie was quiet for a moment. “You realize, of course, that I’m still going to kill your family. It’s a matter of principle now.”

“Of course,” I answered as I blocked out the pain, the throbbing in my head, the ringing in my ears, the blood in my eyes, and focused on that glowing front sight. One shot. Just one shot.

Then there was a gunshot, not from a handgun, but the thunder of a .308 round, followed by several other deep booms from Reaper’s Benelli. They were close.

“Sounds like your mates are here. I’m afraid our time together has come to an end.”

“Yeah, that’s too bad.” Front sight. Front sight. Come on.

“Farewell, Lorenzo.”

I was waiting for it. Please, God, just one shot. But Eddie didn’t appear at the edge. Rather, there was a scratchy clicking noise. A lighter? Then a glass bottle with a flaming rag stuck in the top flew through the doorway. I watched in horror as the Molotov cocktail sailed across the room and shattered against the far wall. The liquid inside spread across the walls and wooden shelves, ignited, and bathed the tiny room in heat and flames.

I pushed myself to my feet, scrambling, searching for handholds to get out of the deathtrap. The fire was spreading, eating up the dry wood, leaping up the walls, licking at me, singeing my clothes. The heat sucked the moisture from my eyes, and the poison smoke billowed into my lungs.

Eduard Montalban chortled like a deranged schoolgirl as he fled the kitchen. I screamed as the flames tore at me.

VALENTINE

The smell of smoke hit my nostrils as I reached the mess hall. The door was already open. I crouched and studied the darkened interior. Hawk crouched across from me and shined his flashlight into the room. Smoke was drifting up through the floorboards, obscuring everything.

Hawk killed the light and glanced at me. “What do you want to do?”

Jill and Reaper were still shadowed in the safety of the barracks. I keyed my radio. “I don’t see Lorenzo, I—” I froze. Something moved quickly at the far end of the room, headed for the door. I flashed my weapon light, and there he was.

Gordon.

My former employer flinched in the blinding light, his normally expensive suit covered in dirt and rust. He had a handkerchief pressed to his mouth because of the rising smoke and had just reached the back door. He looked back at us for an instant, then dove through the doorway. I opened fire, rattling off half a magazine at where Gordon had been, then firing through the wall at where he might be. Before Hawk could stop me, I took off in pursuit and disappeared into the smoke.

LORENZO

The world was engulfed in flames. Fire moved like a living creature, consuming everything around me. I reached for the scarab, but the fire drove me back. There was no time to retrieve it, and I stumbled away. The heat was unbearable, my exposed skin was burning. My mind swam through incoherent thoughts as my lungs pumped poison gases into my brain.

Not like this. I can’t go down like this.

The fingernails of one hand tore off trying to pull myself up the wall to reach the doorway. It was only about a dozen feet, but it seemed a million miles away.

Calm down. Hold your breath and fucking climb.

I unsheathed my Greco knife and stabbed it into the planks high above my head. Driven with the strength of desperation, the blade stuck deep. I only had one chance. With my clothing burning, driven by adrenaline, I pulled on the knife while I jumped, boots scrambling for purchase, bloody fingers tearing at the boards above. The remaining cartridges in my AR began to cook off, sounding like firecrackers inside the conflagration.

Somehow I found purchase, dangling by my fingertips. I was halfway there. Shit, it hurts. I jerked the knife out, raised it overhead as I began to slip, and slammed it home again. The next few seconds were a blur of pain, tearing muscles, and fire, always the fire. Finding fingerholds when there were none, I reached the jagged broken top step, got one hand onto it, and pulled myself upward. By a miracle, it held.

I crawled onto the kitchen floor. Black smoke billowed through the doorway over me, filling the room. Face on the ground, I opened my mouth and inhaled. I immediately began to cough, violent spasms that were like vomiting pain.

“Lorenzo!” someone shouted. Hands grabbed me by the straps on my armor and pulled me across the kitchen. Black combat boots stomped ahead of me. Reaper. “Holy shit! You’re on fire!” He whipped off his giant coat and covered me with it, beating at my back and legs.

Finally I rolled over and gasped, precious air filling my lungs. He was pulling me outside the burning mess hall. It took a moment for my head to quit spinning. Jill was staring down at me, her hands on the side of my face. She was saying something.

“I’m okay,” I rasped, trying to sit up. Pain like electric current moved through my limbs.

“You know fuck-all about okay.” She pushed me back down. “Hold still. You’re hurt.”

Pain was replaced with anger. Anger was replaced with rage. I grabbed her arm. “Where’s Eddie?” I snapped.

“I don’t know,” she cried. “You’re hurting me.”

I immediately let go. “Sorry.” I left a soot-black, bloodstained handprint on her arm. “Help me up,” I ordered. Jill and Reaper both took an elbow and helped me stand. Reaper pushed me a small bottle of water, and I sucked at it greedily. It burned going down my parched throat. After a few seconds, I had to stop and puke the water and a bunch of soot up, then I went back to drinking. They both wore looks of shock as they studied me. I had to look pretty bad.

“Screw it. I’ll live,” I wheezed as I tossed the bottle, sounding like a ten-pack-a-day smoker. “Status?”

“Bob’s pinned down. Somebody got back on that machine gun. Valentine saw Gordon. He and Hawk went that way.” Reaper pointed toward the garage. “We haven’t seen Eddie.”

The scarab was still down there, lost in the flames, probably melted. Whoever wanted that thing so badly was probably going to be pissed. I patted my side. At least I had stuck with my training and reholstered my pistol even while standing inside a fireball. I pulled the gun now and let it dangle at my side.

“Quit staring. Let’s go help my brother.”

VALENTINE

Gordon was not going to get away. The Calm was failing, replaced with rage. I was hunting him like an animal, and I’d never felt more alive. I think I actually had a smile on my face.

“Val! Wait!” Hawk shouted, struggling to keep up.

It was dark. The air was filled with smoke. My eyes welled with tears, and my lungs ached. My focus was on the back doorway and the pitch-black space that Gordon had escaped into.

Bob was saying something over the radio, sounding scared, but I couldn’t understand him over the beating pulse in my head. Gordon had to die first; then I could care about everyone else’s business. I reached the doorway. I pulled up against the frame and flashed my weapon light before stepping through. Clear.

I stepped forward and was immediately cracked across the chest with a 2x4. I lurched back, disoriented, and fell to the ground. The man was on top of me in an instant. I raised my hands to protect my head as began to bludgeon me with the board.

My attacker swung again. The board struck my arm, and shocking pain flooded all the way to my shoulder. My arm went numb. I struggled for my pistol, but he slammed the board down on me again. The man raised the 2x4 over his head, meaning to swing it down on me like a sledgehammer. He left an opening. I planted a size-twelve boot right in his nutsack.

He stumbled back, giving me a moment of respite. Before he could recover, someone jumped over me and dove into my attacker. I was dazed. My head was swimming, and it felt like my skull had been split open. I was too dizzy to rise.

I could barely see what was going on. Two men fought viciously in front of me, moving so fast in the dark I couldn’t tell who was who. I then heard Hawk grunt in pain as the two shapes moved apart. There was sudden flash of steel as a knife darted between them. I raised my gun as one of the shapes tottered forward, went to his knees, and fell face-first to the floor.

“Hawk?” I asked. “You okay?”

It took him a second to respond. “Fine,” he grunted as he emerged from the shadows, holding his old Randall knife in one hand. His other hand was clamped against his side. “He stabbed me. Not too bad, though.” Despite his injury, Hawk helped me to my feet. I wobbled but was able to stand.

Is it Gordon? My deceased attacker was wearing a suit and was about the right size. I swung my rifle around and thumbed on my flashlight. I don’t know who the man was, but it wasn’t Gordon Willis. Probably one of his flunkies. The side of his neck had been split open from his collarbone to his ear. Damn. Hawk spat.

Gunfire echoed from the direction of the garage. Beyond that I could hear the noise of an engine turning over.

Gordon was getting away.

LORENZO

Reaper was in front now as we hurried back toward the garage, trying to stay in the shadows as much as possible. We could see a stream of tracers flying from the side of the garage up into the hillside where we had left Bob. I stumbled along, one arm over Jill’s shoulder as she kept me upright. The mess hall was burning bright, and the flames had spread to the surrounding buildings. The camp was coming down.

I avoided taking a mental inventory of my injuries. Nothing seemed to be bleeding very fast.

We all instinctively ducked as we were suddenly illuminated by car headlights. Somebody had made it back to the vehicles. There was a sudden roar from a powerful engine, and one of the Suburbans sprayed gravel as it turned around and tore away from us.

That’s when I saw Valentine emerge from one of the buildings on the other side of the horseshoe. “Gordon!” he screamed, running right into the middle of the road, oblivious to danger. He snapped his FAL to his shoulder and fired at the Suburban. Several holes were punched in the back of the SUV before Valentine’s bolt locked back. He rapidly reloaded, once again flinging the empty magazine away and rocking in a new one, but it was too late. By the time he dropped the bolt on a live round, the Suburban had dipped into a gully and disappeared from view.

Valentine slowly lowered his rifle. He stood there quietly, seething, staring at the horizon as if he could will the Suburban to come back. Hawk appeared behind him, limping badly. His rifle was slung, his .44 dangled from one hand, and his other hand was pressed against a wound on his side.

Hawk caught my look. “Keep moving! I’m fine.” Another burst of machine gun fire tore into the hillside. All of us flinched in that direction. Bob. I was running now, the others right behind me. Valentine saw us and followed. My 9mm was at the ready as I moved around the corner of the garage.

The MG3 was braced over the hood of a sedan. A giant white shape was manning the gun, firing short bursts onto a patch of darkened mountain where my brother had gotten pinned down. It was the Fat Man. The back of his white suit was shredded from my grenade. Blood ran from dozens of injuries. Maybe he had on some kind of body armor, or maybe he was just that tough, but somehow the son of a bitch was still alive. I could feel the others behind me, five of us in a row now. I settled my front sight on him and fired, still walking forward.

He grunted, raising the machine gun off the hood of the sedan. I fired again. Valentine’s rifle bucked off to the side. The Fat Man began to turn, surprisingly enough, a strange smile on his face even as our bullets struck home. Jill was shooting her pistol now, cranking off shots as fast as she could pull the trigger. I kept shooting, but impossibly the Fat Man stayed on his feet as bullets puckered into his bloated frame, tearing him apart. Reaper’s buckshot rocked him slightly, sending the MG3’s muzzle into the dirt. I kept firing, front sight tracking back down; now I was shooting for his head. One of Hawk’s .44 slugs erupted through his cheek, and he spit teeth but stayed upright. Still closing, Reaper hit him again, the buckshot in a tighter pattern now, taking the Fat Man’s kneecap off.

His ponderous weight hit the hood, sliding inevitably toward the earth, leaving a trail behind him. He was reaching into his coat, somehow finding the strength to go for his gun. Jill fired her last shots into his neck. He was still smiling a toothless death’s head grin, one eye missing now, as he hit the ground.

“Fucking die already!” Reaper shouted, stepping on the Fat Man’s arm, pinning the gun, extending the stubby 12 gauge toward that nebulous smile. BOOM BOOM! Point-blank range. It wasn’t pretty. Reaper stepped back and wiped his arm across his blood-splattered face. “You ain’t coming back now!”

I shoved a fresh magazine into my STI. “Get Bob on the radio.”

“He says he’s okay,” Reaper answered. “And—”

“Down!” Valentine shouted. He was closest to Jill and shoved her aside. I hit the deck as another sedan tore past us, muzzle flashes strobing out the open window, bullets whizzing past. Eddie’s maniacally grinning face was illuminated for a brief instant. He must have gotten into the car while we were distracted by the Fat Man. Hawk fired his .44 one-handed at the speeding car as it bounced down the road. The concussions were deafening, but then the car was around the hillside and out of sight.

“Everybody okay?”

“I think so,” Jill answered from the ground.

“Reaper?” No answer. I scrambled over to my friend. He was on his back next to the headless body of the Fat Man. “Reaper? Reaper!”

A bullet had smashed his chest plate. He was bleeding badly from the side of his head. I shook him. He opened his eyes, looked around in confusion, then grimaced. “Ow, shit, that hurts.” He rolled over and put his hands on his skull. “He shot me, and I hit my head on the car. So quit yelling at me! Oh, man, he shot me in the arm too.” Sure enough, there was a wound on his bicep. Jill knelt by his side and put pressure on it. “I hate getting shot!”

“You’ll live,” Jill said.

I could be relieved later. I pulled Reaper’s radio off his vest. “Bob. Can you hear me?”

“Yeah, bro. I’m good. That was close.”

Somehow we had all survived. “If you see another car moving down the road, kill the driver.”

“He’s already around the hill. I can’t acquire.”

I swore as I keyed the radio again. “Get down to the road as fast as you can. We’ll pick you up in a minute.”

“I’m on my way,” he answered.

I stuffed the radio in my pocket. Valentine had picked up the big MG3 and taken up a defensive position. I started for the closest sedan. The door was unlocked. No keys of course. I whipped out my multitool and cracked open the cover beneath the steering wheel. It took all of thirty seconds to get the car hot-wired, and that was between bouts of violent coughing and blood trickling down my arms and making my hands slippery. The engine turned over as I struck the wires together.

The others were already cramming into the sedan. Valentine had to maneuver the German machine gun to make it fit. The entire prison camp was burning bright now, and we needed to get out of here before the authorities showed up. I slammed the car into gear and floored it as soon as everyone was inside.

The car was dying. Something must have been hit as we were unloading on the Fat Man. All the warning lights were on. The engine was coughing almost as badly as I was. Jill was squished against me, with Bob and his body armor taking up most of the front seat. All of us were filthy, sweating, and half of us were bleeding. Bob’s shocked reaction to seeing me under the car’s interior lights when we had picked him up told me about how horrible I looked.

“We’re almost where we left the vehicles,” Bob stated calmly. He was covered in desert dust. His rifle was between his knees. The fire from the work camp was just a visible glow over the hill behind us.

“Status back there?” I asked. “Hawk? Reaper?”

“It’s a shallow cut.” Hawk had his shirt open and had shoved a pressure bandage on his side. “Nothing bad.”

“The kid’s going to be okay. Bullet grazed his bicep, missed the brachial artery. I’ve got the bleeding under control,” Valentine said from the backseat.

“I suck at this stuff,” Reaper whined. “I keep getting shot.”

“You’ll be fine,” Valentine said flatly.

“Bob, I need you to get these guys out of here before the cops show up. They need medical attention. Think you can handle it?”

“No problem,” my brother answered. I knew that he’d been some sort of medic in the National Guard, an 18 Delta he’d called it. “But I think you need a hospital.”

“It’s better than it looks,” I lied. There were deep lacerations on my face, scalp, and down my arms. My hands were a blood soaked mess. I had first degree burns on much of my body, and from the throbbing nerves down my back and legs I knew that there were some spots that were much worse. I couldn’t stop coughing.

But there was no way in hell Eddie was going to get away.

“Holy shit!” Reaper suddenly freaked out. “Look at this! Look at this!”

“Crap. What?”

“I think it’s Eddie’s tablet!” he exclaimed.

“So?”

“He’s logged in!” Reaper cackled in glee. I was too out of it to see the significance. Gunshot wound forgotten, Reaper madly started fiddling with the little gizmo. “Oh, now this, I am good at!”

The car died as we rolled into the rest stop. I jumped out and started toward the stolen Explorer. “Where do you think you’re going?” Jill asked.

“After Eddie.” I opened the door. “He told Gordon that he’d flown into a nearby airport.”

Valentine spoke up. “There’s only one around here. It’s not far.”

“You’re injured! You need medical attention!” Jill insisted. She was right, of course. I was running on nothing but adrenaline and anger now.

“I’ll be fine,” I said. “I’ll hook up with you later.” I didn’t want them with me. Gordon had probably notified the authorities, and surely word would reach the cops in Quagmire about the massacre at the old work camp. I grabbed the wheel. My vision was blurred and my head was swimming. Bob was helping Reaper into the back of the G-ride Suburban.

Valentine tossed the keys to his Mustang to Jill. “Follow Bob,” he told her. “And take good care of my car.”

“Lorenzo . . .” Jill trailed off. She was filthy, stupid pink outfit splattered with blood, her hair tangled with dirt, hanging like a dark shadow over half her face, a stolen handgun dangling from one hand.

She was beautiful.

“I know,” I rasped.

Valentine opened the passenger-side door and slid in, maneuvering the big German machine gun to fit between us.

“What the hell are you doing?”

“Just drive.” He slammed the door.

I pushed the Ford up to a hundred and five. It wouldn’t go any faster. The highway was virtually deserted, and I had the gas pedal floored. I wasn’t worried about being pulled over. God help the stray Highway Patrolman that got between me and Eddie.

Valentine held onto the oh, shit! handle as we barreled down the road. I passed a slow-moving semi truck like it was standing still, pulling back into the right-hand lane just in time to avoid hitting another car head on. The Explorer was vibrating like hell.

“We’re almost there,” Valentine said. “This airport has been closed for years. Your guy must’ve had his boys come pick him up. There’s nothing there but a few run-down buildings.”

In the back of my mind, I wondered why Valentine came with me. I doubted he’d tell me if I asked. Just then, my cell phone vibrated, disrupting my thoughts. I pulled it out of my pocket and hit the talk button.

It was Eddie, sounding as shrill and oily as ever. “Ah, Lorenzo. Just checking. I thought that was you I saw standing on the side of the road back there. Did I kill any more of your friends with my little drive-by? It was so invigorating! Like one of your American rap-music videos!” The psychopath giggled.

“No, Eddie, you’re a lousy fucking shot.” The sound of his voice made me push the gas pedal that much harder.

“You certainly are hard to kill.”

“You won’t be,” I promised. “What do you want?”

He laughed, somehow managing to sound girly and sadistic at the same time. “To taunt you, of course. My plane is taking off as we speak. I imagine that you’re trying to catch up with me, but you will be too late. As soon as I hang up, I’m going to ring one of my associates, and then the fun will begin. I’m not just going to have your loved ones killed, I’m going to have them tortured first. I’m going to take your little nieces and nephews, and I’m going to have them raped in front of their parents. I’m going to make them watch. I will—”

I ignored Eddie’s ranting. “Where do we turn?”

“Right here, right here!” Valentine said, pointing.

“Hang on!” I’d nearly missed the turnoff. Hitting the brake, I cranked the Explorer to the right, nearly putting it up on two wheels.

“Ow! Damn it!” Valentine snarled as the heavy machine gun slid over and struck him. We sped down a narrow. deserted road. The airport wasn’t far. After a minute or two we shot through an open gate on a rusted chain-link fence and careened onto a wide-open paved area. I smashed the brake, making a tight turn as we crossed a parking area, passed the dilapidated remains of a hanger, and sped onto the tarmac. The airport obviously hadn’t been used in years. The runway and taxiways were cracked and faded, with weeds springing through splits in the pavement. Eddie’s car, now empty, was parked off to the side.

“There!” Valentine shouted, pointing down the runway. At the far end was a speeding Gulfstream jet. Its engines screamed as it built up speed.

Eddie was still going on, screeching like a lunatic. “—you hear me? Nobody crosses Big Eddie! Nobody! I’ve got to make an example out of you, Lorenzo. Everyone needs to know the consequences of my displeasure!”

The Explorer skidded to a stop, leaving a trail of rubber. Valentine leapt out, pulling the machine gun with him as the jet jumped into the air. He set the barrel over the junction of the door and frame, crouched down, and squeezed the trigger.

The MG3 roared, sending a stream of tracers down the runway after the climbing jet. He hosed the rest of the belt, at least fifty rounds, at the target. Bullets streamed into the air, but fell short. The jet was just too far away. The MG3’s bolt flew forward on an empty chamber. That was it.

“That’s the best you’ve got, Lorenzo?” Eddie cackled. “Not a scratch on me!” I stuck the phone in the front of my armor.

“Shit!” Valentine shouted. “I’m out! He’s gonna get away!”

“No,” I stated calmly. While he was shooting, I had limped around to the back door. I opened it, ripped the concealing blanket aside, and pulled out the portable surface to air missile that I had stolen from the Chechen border jumpers. “He’s not.”

“What the . . .” Valentine said, observing my weapon in awe.

I set the heavy tube on my shoulder, took one step around the Explorer and looked through the scope. I had read the instructions earlier, and it seemed relatively straightforward. I found the red and green flashing lights of Eddie’s jet, centered them in the circle, and hit the lock button. It took a few seconds for the sensor to read. It made a noise like a microwave oven saying that the hotdogs were done.

I pulled the heavy trigger.

FOOOOOM!

The concussion was horrendous. The initial charge threw the missile straight out. A split second later the rocket engine ignited in a massive gout of flame and soared after the jet with a shrieking noise like some obscene bird of prey. The impact staggered me. I pulled the phone out of my armor with my shaking left hand.

“—should have just given me the scarab. I’ll—”

I cut him off. “Hey, Eddie . . .”

“What is it, Lorenzo?”

“See you in hell.”

“What are you . . . evade! Evade!” I could hear him screaming at the pilot while an alarm went off in the background. Eddie was rich enough to afford a missile detection system for his private jet.

Not that it did him any good. A fireball blossomed in the night sky. The entire jet was illuminated for a brief moment as one of the rear engines was engulfed, sparks drifting toward the ground like a demented fireworks display. A wing broke off just as the sound of the first impact reached us. The plane rolled over, trailing smoke, and crumpled into the desert floor in a ball of fire.

I looked down at the phone.

Call Disconnected

Elapsed Time: 4:33

The wreckage continued to burn. It was over. Big Eddie was dead.

My body began to shake, to tremble. All of the pain that I had forced aside came rushing back, staggering me, sending me to my knees. A year of doing the impossible, my loved ones held hostage, my friends in danger, some hurt, some killed, all had come down to this.

It was over.

“We better get out of here before the cops show up,” Valentine said. “I don’t want to try to explain to them where you got a Stinger missile from.”

I was leaning against the SUV, shaking. I couldn’t believe it. I was in shock.

“How about I drive?” Valentine suggested, “Since you’re having, um, a moment?”

I jerkily nodded and climbed into the passenger seat. I closed my eyes. The pillar of fire that had been Eddie’s plane burned onto the inside of my eyelids. “It’s over,” I said.

Valentine put the Explorer in gear. “Sure, whatever.” He thought for a moment. “So. Who was that on the plane?”

I let the pain carry me into the dark.

. . . over . . .