Out of Exile: Hard Boiled: 2

by Jack Quaid

  The car slammed into the steel barrier on the side of the road. Sparks trailed behind it in the darkness. The front end crumpled into the concrete wall, and the wreck stopped after eating shit for fifty feet, with water pissing out of the radiator, and some part of the engine still thinking it was alive and ticking over.

  Sullivan pulled the cab over. He let the engine pant for a moment before prying his fingers from the wheel.

  Jones climbed out and circled the wreck. He paused at the driver’s side and put his head through what was left of the window. Blood drenched God’s face; he was out cold.

  ‘Is he alive?’ Sullivan asked.

  Two fingers on the neck.

  ‘Yeah.’

  Sullivan cut around the car. ‘Let’s get him out.’

  The door was twisted into the frame. They each got a firm hold and yanked at it until it bent enough for Sullivan to pull God out. Groggy as fuck, he was starting to come to. Between them, Jones and Sullivan pulled him up, an arm under each pit, and shuffled him along the asphalt.

  Cars pulled over, hazard lights flashed, concerned drivers rushed to the wreck. Three girls huddled together, in nightclubbing clothes, makeup ruined by tears.

  One of them stuttered, ‘Is he all right?’

  ‘There’s nothing to worry about,’ Jones said. ‘I’m a police officer; this man is a dangerous criminal.’ Hearing the word criminal seemed to make everyone less concerned about God.

  Sullivan opened the back door of the cab and slid God into the back seat.

  ‘Thank you for your concern,’ Jones said to the onlookers.

  The cab peeled down the freeway and, a moment later, was lost in the night.

  Chapter Seventy One

  God woke up facedown in the dirt with a chain wrapped around his ankles. A country road, a pitch-black night, and everything quiet. He followed the chain through the dirt and up to the chassis at the rear of the taxi.

  Sullivan sat on the trunk. The taillights lit his face red. ‘Morning, sunshine.’

  Jones stepped out of the darkness and stood over God. ‘Considering your current situation, we were thinking that maybe you had something you wanted to tell us?’

  God’s eyes bounced from Jones to Sullivan and back again. ‘Go fuck yourself. Both of you.’

  Sullivan gave Jones a shrug, slid off the trunk, and climbed behind the wheel of the cab. Jones rode shotgun, while Sullivan floored it. Tires kicked dirt into God’s face. Sullivan kept the cab in first gear, a steady fifteen miles an hour. Headlights lit up the mosquitoes, the empty road ahead and the darkness beyond it.

  Despite the speed and the gravel road, they didn’t hear one scream.

  After a couple of hundred meters, Jones said, ‘That’s enough.’

  Sullivan slowed the cab to a stop, climbed out, and walked around to the rear. God coughed up dirt. Debris and rocks had nicked his face; the backs of his arms and head were scratched bloody.

  ‘You don’t look so good,’ Sullivan said.

  Jones crouched down to God’s level. ‘How’s Mackler getting out of the country?’

  God looked away.

  Sullivan took a knee. ‘Don’t make me find a parking lot and take this bastard over speed bumps.’

  God pushed his lips together, smirked through them. ‘Didn’t I tell you to go fuck yourself?’

  Sullivan and Campbell shared a glance. ‘All right,’ Sullivan said, and they both climbed back into the taxi.

  This time, Sullivan picked up the speed. Bugs hit the windscreen, their bodies pushed up the glass and over the roof.

  20

  25

  30

  Sullivan looked at Jones out of the corner of his eye, waited for him to give the order to stop. He didn’t.

  God screamed.

  ‘Faster,’ Jones said.

  Sullivan eased off the gas. The cab stopped. ‘Push him too far and he’ll confess to anything.’

  The gravel had cut through God’s jeans and jacket and tore at his skin. His ass and back took the brunt of it. Shock was settling in, his breaths short and sharp. The gravel behind him, red.

  Jones stood over him. ‘Do you feel like talking yet?’

  God shook his head. ‘Nah.’

  Out of nowhere, Jones kicked God in the guts.

  ‘What the fuck are you doing?’ Sullivan yelled.

  Jones stepped back for a second kick.

  Sullivan pushed him aside before his boot could hit. ‘HEY! CHILL THE FUCK OUT!’

  God coughed, laughed and pointed with a bloody finger to Jones. ‘Look at you. You think you’re all so high and mighty. You’re just as bad as we are.’

  Jones took a breath, and when the air left his lungs, his whole body slumped forward. ‘I’m just trying to get my daughter.’ He stepped back into the darkness. Sullivan could hear him crying.

  There was a first-aid kit in the back of the cab. Sullivan pulled half-a-dozen loose rocks out of God’s back and patched up the deeper gashes. He was no use to them dead.

  ‘You’ll live,’ he said when he was finished.

  God pointed to the silhouette pacing in the dark. ‘He’s not like us. This will destroy him.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Sullivan said. ‘But he’ll destroy all of us doing it.’

  Sullivan cuffed God to the door handle and made his way over to Jones. The tears had stopped. ‘He’s a tough bastard,’ Sullivan said. ‘I think he knows where Mackler is, but he won’t talk.’

  Jones stepped into the headlights. His eyes were black. ‘I found these in his wallet.’

  He pushed two items into the light.

  A motel-room key.

  A photograph of God’s wife and child.

  Chapter Seventy Two

  The key belonged to a shitty two-story motel by the airport. At 4 a.m., the car park was nearly empty.

  God was a good solider; tough and tight-lipped with a don’t-give-a-fuck attitude. That was until he recognized the motel. Then he crumbled, broke, and begged.

  Jones ignored him, climbed out of the vehicle, and entered the motel. Sullivan watched him talk to the duty manager. His badge came out. They didn’t want any trouble, so Jones got the room number he wanted.

  They used God’s key to get into room 2D, and Sullivan flicked the switch. One bed, a television, and cheap furniture bolted to the floor. The woman in there matched the photograph in God’s wallet of his wife, Kay. She was a bit heavier and her hair had been dyed blond, but it was her. The light woke her, and it took a moment for the reality of the situation to sink in. When she saw the gun, that reality hit her fast. She grabbed the child lying next to her, held him close. Sullivan figured him for about five years old.

  Kay looked over at Sullivan and Jones before her gaze settled on her beaten-up husband.

  ‘Don’t worry, babe,’ God said. ‘This’ll be all over soon.’

  ‘Where’s Mackler?’ Jones asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ God said.

  Jones pushed the barrel into his temple. Kay shrieked and caught herself, put a hand over her mouth.

  ‘Shoot me!’ Spit flew from God’s lips. ‘Go ahead and fucking shoot me in front of my fuckin’ kid!’

  The boy cried. Kay held him even closer and cried along with him.

  ‘Go on! Fucking do it!’

  Jones lowered the weapon. ‘Hurting you is not why we’re here.’ He turned to Sullivan. ‘Hit the wife.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You heard.’

  Sullivan tilted his head; Jones was serious.

  ‘Hit her!’

  Sullivan shook his head. ‘No.’

  ‘What?’ Jones snapped. ‘You do this kind of thing all the time.’

  ‘Not like this.’

  ‘Fine.’ Jones jabbed the heel of his boot into the back of God’s knee. He hit the ground. He yanked the blankets off Kay, the boy, and the bed.

  ‘Don’t you fucking hurt them!’ God yelled. ‘Don’t you fucking hurt them!’

  Jones’s fingers wrap
ped around the boy’s pajama top and pulled. Kay wouldn’t let go of him. His weapon turned on her. She froze. Loosened her grip, and Jones had the boy and the gun to the top of his head.

  Sullivan took half a step and stopped. He didn’t want Jones spooked and doing something hideous. He spoke in the calmest tone he could muster. ‘What the fuck are you doing, Jim?’

  ‘Take that gun away from my son! TAKE IT AWAY!’

  ‘Tell me where she is, and this will all be over.’

  Kay was in tears, hyperventilating.

  Jones pointed to her with his weapon. ‘Is that how my wife cried when you kidnapped her? Is that how my daughter cried?’

  ‘Tell him!’ Key yelled. ‘Jesus Christ, fucking tell him.’

  ‘He won’t do it!’ God cried. ‘He’s still a cop. HE’S STILL A COP!’

  ‘Put the gun down,’ Sullivan said.

  ‘Where is Mackler?’

  ‘Tell him!’

  ‘Where is she?’

  ‘TELL HIM!’

  ‘DON’T YOU FUCKING DO IT!’

  ‘WHERE IS SHE?’

  Jones stepped back; got a clear aim on the kid.

  ‘WAIT! WAIT! WAIT!’ God yelled. ‘I don’t know where she is, but I know where the two hundred and fifty million dollars is.’

  Chapter Seventy Three

  Jones made it as far as the car park before doubling over and vomiting. He leaned on the hood of the cab, and when there was nothing left in his stomach but cramps, he fell to the ground and cried.

  The motel door snapped open. Sullivan, fists balled, headed straight for him. A hand wrapped around Jones’s shirt front, pulled him to his feet.

  ‘Give me the gun.’

  Jones palmed the unholstered Glock to Sullivan. He wanted to yell, lecture, and punch him, but after looking at the tears in Jones’s face, knew there was no need. Sullivan slid the weapon down the back of his jeans.

  ‘This is not the way things are done.’

  ‘I know,’ Jones said. ‘I know. Are they all right?’

  ‘They’ll live.’ Sullivan watched a car cruise past. Nothing out of the ordinary, early morning traffic starting to hit the road. He shifted his gaze back to Jones. ‘For the last three years, the cash has been growing in a long-term storage facility in Windsor. A truck driver picked it up earlier tonight, and he’s meant to meet with God in twenty minutes.’

  ‘Does the driver know what he has?’

  Sullivan shook his head. ‘Thinks he’s transporting stolen PlayStations.’

  ‘And he’s alone?’

  Sullivan lit a cigarette, nodded. ‘Just another truck on the road. We follow the money, we find Mackler. We find Monique.’

  Jones leaned against the cab again and, for the first time in hours, smiled. ‘Oh, thank Christ.’

  ‘I need you to be cool out there,’ Sullivan said. ‘Don’t go losing your shit. That’s how people get hurt.’

  Jones nodded. ‘What did you do with them? God and his family?’

  ‘Tied them up with the power cable from the lamp. They’ll wriggle out of it in about thirty minutes.’

  Jones placed an anonymous call to 911: a bullshit story about domestic abuse in room 2D. Just enough to get a couple of badges to approach with caution.

  ‘How long?’ Sullivan asked Jones when he ended the call.

  ‘Maybe an hour?’

  Sullivan aimed the weapon into the dark sky, unleashed two rounds. A car alarm screamed. ‘That’ll speed things up.’

  Chapter Seventy Four

  Joe Silveno had never done anything illegal in his life. He had his own furniture removal business, which kept a roof over his head, but at fifty-three years old, there wasn’t a day his back didn’t ache or his wife didn’t nag him. His daughter was getting married, so why wouldn’t he pick up a few boxes of stolen goods and drive them across town for five grand?

  He made a detour before his final delivery. It was a passenger pickup from a gas station; Joe hoped he wouldn’t be a hard-ass. He pulled the three-ton truck into an empty space by the side of the building and climbed down. He did his usual lower-back stretch; it didn’t help.

  There were footsteps behind him.

  ‘Hey, fella, I got here a little early,’ Joe said as he turned. ‘I was gonna grab a coffee. Do you—’ His words stopped short when he saw two men. One had a limp and a suit that looked about as clean as the sheets in a whorehouse. The other was a big bastard, with a shaved head and an AC/DC T-shirt.

  ‘I thought there was only meant to be one of you?’

  The suit badged him. ‘Plans changed.’

  Joe’s heart sank, and all of a sudden, the five grand didn’t look so appealing. He pointed his crooked finger at the big man. ‘He doesn’t look like a cop.’

  ‘I’m something else,’ he said.

  The suit put his badge away. ‘We’re going to take your truck, sir.’

  Joe nodded. ‘Okay.’

  ‘Can you open the back, please?’

  Joe pulled the two doors open. ‘They’re in there,’ he said.

  The hard man climbed into the back, unhooked the flashlight Joe kept at the side of the truck, and hit the switch. The ten boxes pushed against the back wall made the truck look empty. Sullivan ripped one open, shone the flashlight.

  ‘Is it there?’ Jones called.

  Sullivan tilted the box, angled the flashlight. ‘Oh yeah, it’s here.’

  The box was filled with neatly stacked hundred-dollar notes.

  Joe stepped back. ‘Is that . . . how much is there?’

  ‘Around a quarter of a billion dollars.’

  ‘You mean—’ Joe’s eyes widened. ‘I’ve been driving around with all that?’

  Sullivan climbed out of the back of the truck. ‘Where were you taking it?’

  Joe was still in shock.

  ‘Hey!’

  ‘Am I going to get in trouble for this?’

  ‘That depends on what you say next.’

  ‘Wilderness Airport in Kent City. Hangar fourteen.’

  ‘What time?’

  ‘5:30.’

  Jones glanced at his wristwatch. ‘Kent City isn’t far.’

  Sullivan closed the doors to the truck and climbed behind the wheel.

  ‘Hey!’ Joe called. ‘What about my truck?’

  Sullivan pushed his dinted skull out the window. ‘Go home, old man.’

  And then the truck was gone.

  Chapter Seventy Five

  Wilderness airport had two runways and twenty hangars, and was reserved solely for biplanes and private charters. The freeway ran alongside the second runway. Jones watched a jet take off as the morning sun broke the night.

  ‘Do you have a cigarette?’

  Sullivan pulled a crushed pack from the pocket of his jeans and handed it to him. ‘Enjoy it,’ he said. ‘It’s my last one.’

  Jones lit it up, coughed, pushed through, and dragged in another lungful of smoke.

  ‘You never used to smoke.’

  ‘I never used to do a lot of things.’

  The truck rolled to a stop at the main entrance; Sullivan let it idle. They had one weapon between them: a Glock. Sullivan ejected the clip, counted the rounds; eight. Slid the clip back in and looked into Jones’s eyes. ‘They will hurt her,’ he said.

  Jones nodded gravely.

  ‘Just keep that in mind when the shooting starts.’ Sullivan climbed out of the truck, looked back to Jones, eyed the cigarette, and smiled. ‘Those things will kill you, you know?’ And then he was gone.

  Jones slid behind the wheel, crunched the gears, and pulled down the street. The hangars had twenty-foot-high numbers painted in bright yellow on the sides of their walls. He followed the numbers until he reached hangar fourteen. There was nothing out of the ordinary about it, just another hangar in an airport full of them. He pulled the truck up to the sliding door and hit the horn. There was a rattle on the other side, and the heavy door started to move. Deacon, MP5 slung over his shoulder, put his
back into rolling it open. When there was enough space to clear the truck, he waved it through.

  The runway side of the hangar was open. An eight-seater biplane sat on the runway, while a pilot, who was maybe in his mid-twenties, made last-minute checks to the aircraft. He was sweaty and pale. Jones took him for a drug addict and flying the plane to pay off a debt. Campbell and Goldsberry, both rocking MP5s, stood by the tail, reading from an iPad in Campbell’s hand. Apart from a Nissan Skyline and some gym bags for luggage, the hangar was empty.

  No Mackler.

  No Monique.

  He scanned the area again.

  Shit.

  The hangar door slammed behind him, and a moment later, Deacon was in front of the truck, motioning for it to stop.

  ‘Hop out,’ Deacon called.

  Shit.

  Shit.

  Shit.

  Deacon kicked the bumper. ‘Come on! Jump out,’

  Campbell pushed the iPad into Goldsberry’s hands, stepped forward, and fingered his MP5. ‘What’s the holdup?’

  ‘He won’t get out.’

  ‘Then drag him out.’

  Shit.

  Shit.

  Shit.

  Jones wrapped his hand around the door handle and jumped out of the truck. His bad leg almost collapsed under him. Their confusion at seeing Jones stalled them, as he’d expected. He had a tire iron in his hand; he swung it and punched the fuel tank. Diesel gushed onto the hangar floor.

  Campbell, Deacon, and Goldsberry all woke the fuck up at the same time. MP5s swung up on Jones, took aim, ready to turn him into a grease spot.

  ‘WAIT!’ he yelled. The Zippo in his hand clicked open; he sparked it. A lighter and fuel; not most people’s favorite combination. ‘If you shoot, the money is gone.’

  ‘How do we know it’s in there?’

  ‘How do you know it’s not?’

  Campbell thought, lowered his weapon, and waved for the other two to do the same. ‘You don’t look so good, Jim. Had a rough day?’

  ‘The money in exchange for Monique,’ Jones said.

  ‘That’s not my call to make.’