by K R Hill
“You did the smart thing. The cartels never forget. It was your testimony that put what, ten of them in prison? That case got the DOJ a couple of feathers in their cap. And by ‘cap,’ I mean budget. We worked hard to get you this identity. I think we can make you disappear one more time. But no more after that.”
“Thank you, sir. How’s your son?”
“He’s ready to graduate from university. That leg of his is doing just fine because you carried him out of that jungle hot zone.”
“He was just a soldier under my command, Sir.”
“You’re just a soldier under my command, Dalton. You’re staying at the Ritz Carlton tonight, and the Army is footing the bill, whether they like it or not.”
“Are you feeling guilty for recommending me to Sophie Devonshire?”
“She told you?”
“Yes.”
“I just wiped that debt clean.”
“Hell yes!”
Chapter 24
Dalton rolled over, fluffed up the down pillow, and dropped his head back onto it. He stretched a couple times beneath the satin sheets, and wondered why the army never had beds like this when he was active. That moment of relaxation vanished quickly, thought, when he realized where he was and remembered everything that was happening around him.
It was still an old habit that he’d developed during boot camp, the way he jumped out of bed and slapped his pillow flat, ironed out the wrinkles with his hand, and placed it perfectly back into position and straightened the covers. But he had to stop himself when he lifted the mattress and tucked the comforter between it and the box springs. This was not boot camp.
He was about to step into the shower when he heard a knock on the front door. Dalton jumped and searched the room for his 9-mm. At the dresser, he lifted his weapon and carefully pulled back the action to make sure that it was ready to fire. He walked in bare feet to the door.
Dalton squinted and looked through the spy glass. All he saw was an empty corridor and the room across the hall.
“What is it?” he called, pressing his back to the wall, breathing onto the barrel.
“It is eleven minutes past seven in the morning. I have been waiting in this hall for thirty-five minutes. It is time for you to get up. We need to get going, Mr. Dalton. It is going to be a busy day for you. Now, please open this door for your friend Singh, so that we can prepare everything that needs to be done to get rid of this nasty thing that has come into our lives.”
Dalton opened the door. “I knew it was you the moment you opened your mouth. Nobody speaks like you, Singh.”
“That is because I am so intelligent.”
“Right.” Dalton picked up the telephone and flipped through the menu that was laying on the side table. He ordered a large breakfast and hung up the phone.
“I got a call from Ted in the hospital. He is doing fine. He even told me where to find the key for his automobile.” Singh held up a set of keys and shook them.
“Oh, my God, don’t tell me that Ted is letting you drive his car.”
“And why not? I learned to drive in Mumbai, with rickshaws and horse-drawn carriages and carts selling mangoes and taxis made out of bicycles and millions of beggars crossing the street in loin-cloths and turbans in between cows looking for food. If I can drive in that, I can drive anywhere.”
They sat on the terrace and ate breakfast and discussed how exactly they were going to get rid of the Key.
“There’s only one way this is going to work.” Dalton sliced off a piece of a cantaloupe wedge, picked it up in his fingers, and took a bite. “The Vatican guys and the crazy Israelis have to believe that the Key is out of our possession.”
Singh finished his eggs, set his knife and fork down beside his plate, took a bite out of a piece of toast, and jumped to his feet and began pushing things about the table as though he had lost something.
“What are you looking for?”
“Fresh chilies or spices, or something to sprinkle on this food to make it taste. How can people in America eat like this? There is no taste!”
“As soon as we get out of here, I’ll buy you a bottle of curry powder that you can keep in your shirt pocket and sprinkle to your heart’s content.”
Singh shook his finger. “You are making fun of me, Mr. Dalton.”
“Just Dalton; not ‘Mr. Dalton.’ I wouldn’t make fun of you.”
Air squished out of Singh’s chair when he sat back down. After a moment he picked up a couple of the papers that Dalton had drawn a map on, along with notes. “And this is how we’re going to get rid of the Key?”
“I’ve been planning it out in my head for a couple of days. Do you still have that shotgun?”
“I was hoping you were going to ask that, my friend. Yes, I have it, and I’m looking very much forward to blowing something up.”
***
At the checkout counter in the lobby, the pretty young woman told Dalton that everything had already been taken care of.
“Give me the keys,” said Dalton, holding out his hand as they crossed the lobby.
“Oh, no. Now it is Singh’s turn to drive. This car that Mr. Ted has, it is a real car, a real American muscle car, not like that little skateboard rickshaw thing that the redheaded Nick drives. I just need to get used to this thing they call the clutch. I watched the video on YouTube about how to use it, but there’s still this grinding sound when I change gears.”
Dalton stopped. “You’re kidding. Please, don’t torture me like this. Just give me the keys.”
Even before the car came around the corner with the valet behind the wheel, Dalton could hear it coming, that low rumble of a V-8 Chevy with glass packs and a mild cam. It was what cars were supposed to sound like.
The valet revved the engine before he turned off the ignition.
Singh flipped the valet five dollars. The engine started easy enough with Singh behind the wheel, but then came the hard part, shifting into gear, getting the car to pull away from the curb. There was a bit of grinding, and the car lunged forward and stalled twice before he got rolling. By the time they made it to the freeway, Singh was managing to shift gears well. When he accelerated up the on-ramp, the car rose up off the pavement like a racehorse wanting to run.
“This isn’t like driving a Toyota, Singh. If you step on the gas she’s going to get up and take off. So be ready, and that means two hands on the fricking wheel.”
“You are not my boss. What was it that Mr. Nick said to you? Oh, yes: if you don’t like my car, you can take a taxi. I like that. That is a very American thing to say.”
“Do you remember the way to Jax’s apartment? You followed me there once.”
Singh turned on his blinker and looked over his shoulder to change lanes, reached down and shoved the gear shift from fourth to third gear, and stomped on the gas. The Malibu shivered, and climbed up on its own wheels, and took off as Singh laughed.
“Look at me, Singh. Now this is really California cruising.”
“This is embarrassing.”
They drove slowly once they got off the freeway, through the side streets, turning this way and that, and finally made it onto Jax’s street. They had only gone about twenty feet along the road when Dalton sat up straight and took off his seat belt and looked about.
“That’s gunpowder I smell.”
Up ahead there was a black Lincoln Town Car double-parked in the street with its emergency flashers blinking. The unmistakable sound of gunfire popped through the air. Dalton felt the repercussion of the shots on his face.
They were almost there when the front door of Jax’s apartment crashed open. A man rushed out, turned and fired twice back into the building, and jumped out of the doorway. He cleared the door just-in-time. The loud, deep boom of shotgun fire came from within the building. The buckshot burst a hole through the door. The second shot blew off the top hinge and threw splinters of wood and paint into the street. The man ran to the Town Car, shouting, and jumped inside.
; “Gregory,” shouted Dalton, climbing halfway out of his window and firing four rounds into the back of the other car as it sped down the street.
“That was Jax’s house,” he shouted.
“Should I stop?” Singh glanced over.
“If I know my woman, she’s good. Catch that bastard.”
The big Lincoln ahead took the corner too fast and crashed into an old Datsun on milk crates. The crates shot out, and the Datsun fell. The Lincoln burned rubber in the street and sent a cloud of smoke behind it as it sped away.
“Hit that car, Singh. Crash into them.” Dalton slapped the dashboard. “You got the power; use it!”
Singh downshifted and pressed the gas. Soon they were gaining on the car ahead. “But this is Mr. Ted’s car. I don’t want to hurt it.”
“That was Jax’s house. Ted would be the first one to use his car like a rocket and smash that guy off the road.”
Singh nodded and whispered a little prayer. He let off the gas and shoved the transmission down into second gear, revved the engine until it sounded as though it was going to explode right out of the hood, and dumped the clutch. The back wheels spun on the pavement, and the car turned sideways as it raced up the road at forty miles an hour. That’s when Singh started screaming at the top of his lungs, as though he was scared out of his mind. But he wouldn’t let off the throttle. He was almost right behind that black Town Car, shifting up and shifting down, from one gear to another, banging the shifts and stomping on the accelerator when he needed to, turning into the slide and whipping the wheel around every time the tires broke loose from the pavement.
Dalton shoved his hands against the ceiling, pressed his legs hard on the floorboard, grabbed his seatbelt and pulled it tight around his waist.
“My shotgun! Please get my little shotgun underneath the seat. I so badly want to shoot this brute.”
Their quarry ran a stop sign and turned onto a main boulevard. Several cars locked up their brakes and skidded. One of the cars spun and jumped the curb into the glass doors of a shop. People screamed and ran down the sidewalk and hid behind parked cars.
Just as the Town Car turned a corner, Singh stopped stomped on the accelerator and crashed into its rear quarter panel, pushing the back of the car sideways and making it spin around.
For a split second the car stopped, dead even with the Malibu.
Dalton climbed up on his door with the shotgun and fired over the top of Ted’s car, blowing out the window of the Lincoln. The glass shattered and fell into the street, and he got a clear view of Gregory whipping around with his weapon to fire. But the Malibu jumped forward and drove up the street until Singh locked up the brakes, shoved it into reverse, did a burnout up a driveway. Then he slammed the shifter back into first, and came after the Lincoln.
Dalton flipped open the shotgun and pulled out the spent shells, grabbed new ones from the glove compartment, and shoved them into the chambers. They were moving at sixty miles an hour down the boulevard, and Dalton had just finished loading the weapon, when a car came out of a side street and T-boned them. The Malibu hopped sideways about twenty feet and came to a stop in the road.
Singh shook his head and looked around.
In the second that they sat there motionless, Dalton looked over at the vehicle that hit them.
In the driver’s seat sat Uri Dent.
He didn’t even try to open his door but climbed out the window and ran across the street. When he reached the other car, Dalton jumped up on the hood and fired two rounds straight through the windshield and into the driver. After firing the rounds, he wondered whether the guy was wearing a bulletproof vest, and fired another round through the driver’s forehead.
When shots are fired in an urban area, a few moments of silence follow. It’s when the residents, the people out walking, doing their shopping, those who slam on their brakes and flop down onto the passenger seat for safety, all pause and wonder if there is going to be more gunfire. The city fell silent.
Dalton thought about Jax. The Town Car was heading toward Jax’s place. He had to stop it. Dalton ran back to the Malibu and climbed in.
“Catch him again, Singh. I’m going to end this.”
“It is a big car, that Lincoln.” Singh twisted his hands on the steering wheel and leaned forward. “But my Malibu is faster.” He dumped the clutch and smoked the tires; they raced down the road.
They slowed down at several small intersections so they could peer up and down the streets, looking for the car. Five or six streets up the boulevard, they spotted it.
“Get back to Jax’s place! We’re never going to catch him.”
Chapter 25
Dalton jumped out of the car and ran down the street beside the parked cars. His lungs drew air in and out with hoarse gasps as he struggled to run faster, his arms pumping hard, feet hardly touching the asphalt. He heard that voice inside him that had so often come to him during missions in foreign countries, saying to run, get out of the way, go further, do more, fire back and save the men fighting beside him.
But now it was different. Jax was his every thought; he had to get to her. Gregory had come running out of her house. And he was sure something terrible had happened. For two years now, he had kept these memories of her laughing, touching him softly as they exchanged pillow talk. Was that gone? Was she lying in a pool of red, moving boxes piled around the floor, stacked up in the corner? Somehow, he realized, this was all for her. His hiding, changing his identity, going to her at night on the computer, looking through the yearbook to drum up memories, trying to make her real enough in his mind so he could touch her. All the cases he’d worked; it was all for Jax. Who would he be without her?
A woman opened her car door and Dalton slammed into it and shouted an apology as he spun around and rolled off the door. He sprinted away with the gun in his hand. Cars skidded to a halt around him. He kept pushing himself to go faster, ignoring the pain in his chest, and the burning in his throat.
The car came around the corner just as he was sprinting across the sidewalk and over the curb. Dalton couldn’t avoid it. He jumped and slid right across the hood, to land headfirst in the street. He rolled a couple times, and then he was up again, his elbows bleeding, a scrape on the side of his face.
The front door of Jax’s house stood open. Dalton stopped outside, breathing loudly, panting, and did a rapid-fire look into the house, thrusting his head forward and pulling it back quickly before he got shot. Before he moved into the doorway, he pulled the door so that it closed slightly before him, and then he called in a loud, concerned voice: “Jax, are you in there? Are you okay?”
Gunfire erupted inside the house. The door exploded almost in his face. The shot blew off the doorknob. Woodchips flew into the air, landing in his hair and peppering his face. The doorknob flew across the sidewalk, out into the street, and spun a few times before it stopped.
His ears rang. He looked at the door with disbelief. A big half circle was missing where a shotgun blast had hit. He didn’t want to be anywhere near it when that cannon discharged again.
“It’s Dalton! Jax, are you okay? It’s me, don’t shoot.”
“Dalton!” she screamed.
A second later she was at the door and smashed it open. Her blonde hair was sticking out around her face. Bits of drywall and paint and woodchips thrown up by the gunfire clung to her hair and eyelashes. She was dressed like a painter in worn-out overalls and a man’s checkered shirt with cut-off sleeves; the frayed threads hung down her arms.
She screamed and cried, and it was hard to understand what she was saying as she wrapped her arms around him and pulled him tight. But it wasn’t all her pressed against him. Between them was the hard steel of the shotgun.
“Whoa, okay, okay. Here, let me take that.” Dalton pushed her away and took the shotgun out of her hand; he leaned it against the wall.
“Oh, my God, I was painting the back room and that Samoan man grabbed me. I bit his arm and tore a piece of meat out of it
and stopped on his foot like you taught me to do.” She panted and cried and hit him on the shoulder.
“It’s okay, babe. I’m here. We’re going to stay together. No more running away to protect you.”
“I didn’t know what to do, Dalton. They were in my house! That ugly Samoan screamed when I bit him. Then I remembered that shotgun you bought.”
Dalton pulled her out of the doorway. “Are there any more in there?”
“I killed that big man. I think I killed him, Dalton. And then I just started shooting, and Gregory started shooting back at me, and I shot and shot until he ran out the front door and I almost got him as he was running away.” She burst into tears.
Dalton held her tightly against him as he walked through the apartment, the gun held out in front of him. Furniture had been knocked over. A table sat upside down on the floor with bits of drywall and dirt strewn across it. Round holes decorated the walls where the shotgun blasts had hit. He moved slowly through the living room, peeked into the kitchen, and started down the hall toward the bedroom. That’s where he saw blood splatter on the wall.
“You stay out here, okay. I’m just gunna take a look. I’ll be right back.”
Jax nodded and pressed her back to the wall. She slid down onto the floor, where she sat all balled up, her face pressed against her knees as she cried.
It was there in the bedroom, the floor covered with a plastic drop cloth and taped to the baseboards, another drop cloth over the bed, the paint roller, ladder, and a pan full of paint sitting on the floor, that he found the driver. He lay on top of the paint can, his blood mixing with the paint as it flowed over the plastic, leaving red swirls that almost looked like they were supposed to be part of the color scheme. On his right forearm, the Samoan was missing a chunk of flesh.
Dalton put his gun away. He went and found Jax, sat beside her, and held her close. “It’s all going to be okay.”
In the distance he heard sirens. At the front door, a neighbor woman stepped into the house and looked around. “Oh, my God, what happened?”