by Roze, Robyn
“You’re a ghost now,” Sean said matter-of-factly, scanning the landscape with military grade binoculars.
Marcus nodded at Sean’s sober assessment, grim acceptance lining the planes of his worn face, drawing tight the dried blood from the earlier execution in the car.
“It’s better than the alternative. And I’m good at it.” He paused with a slight wince. “Except for the one time I wasn’t.”
Sean’s stance relaxed. He angled toward the agent, with an intense scrutiny that would make lesser men buckle under its pressure.
“You are good. That’s why you’re working for me now.”
Marcus dragged his eyes away from the flaming car disposed in the isolated, vacant lot. He was as good as dead if Dix found out he was still alive. And if he survived the mercenary in front of him a second time, the senator would know he had been played. Safer to go underground and pretend to be dead, for now.
“I’ll get you everything you need. You help me bring him down, and you’ll be free to do whatever the hell you want after that.” Sean stepped closer, his demeanor threatening, his finger pointed in a steely warning. “But you fuck me over, and I will personally hunt you down, soak you in juice, and light your nark ass up.”
The two men stared each other down for a few tense moments before Marcus ceded with the tip of his head and a hard swallow.
“Did he get a girl here?”
Wariness tightened Marcus’ lean frame. “Why?”
“I ask the questions.” Sean leaned closer to the agent’s face. “If you can’t handle that, this arrangement ends right now.” A dangerous dare lifted one corner of Sean’s mouth.
“Yes, he has a girl.”
In serious concentration, Sean walked a circle around Marcus, holding binoculars tucked under one bent arm, and tapping a finger above his lip with the other hand. “Is this one legal?”
“I don’t know. They’re always young.”
Sean stopped in front of him with an unforgiving, accusatory stare. “You know I’m talking about more than her age.”
Marcus’ face paled with a flash of revulsion. “I’ve heard talk,” he said, wetting his lips, his composure returning, “about the auctions.”
The old guilt clawed at Sean. The things he had done that had enabled the furtherance of a global evil. A sickness as old as time, with no cure, and no end in sight. All he could do was remove one rotting link from the festering chain. That would have to be good enough. Because he knew that taking down Senator Graham Dixon and his dirty network would only make room for the next group of wealthy, socially insulated bastards and their obscene perversions.
Sean lifted the binoculars and returned his focus to the area surrounding the burning car. “You’re going to get her out.”
“Kidnap her for leverage?”
Sean whipped around to confront Marcus, his anger a palpable force. “It’s a fucking rescue mission,” he spat out. “Don’t insult me by pretending you don’t know how the men you worked for make their money. How those sick fucks spend their free time. You’ve been a part of it all. Your hands are dirty too. Even indirectly, you’re guilty.”
Marcus flinched from the sharp censure.
A silent understanding passed between them, a pact of sorts, lessening the stranglehold of fury and retribution thick in the air.
Sean returned to his surveillance.
“Then what?” Marcus asked.
In the prism of the binoculars clenched in his hands, past faces and jaded memories filled the lenses. Girls with no families. Girls abused by family. Girls with families who didn’t want them back. Girls whose families had sold them.
“If she wants to go back to her family, we take her. If not, I know places. People who will help.”
Marcus looked puzzled and shifted on his feet to better assess the enigmatic mercenary who could just as easily pump a bullet in his head as let him live. A killer for hire who wanted to rescue a girl with no contract to do so. For what reason? Some personal sense of justice? A guilty conscience?
“You’ve done this before.” Marcus took an instinctual step back from the hostile glare targeted at him.
“Don’t mistake it for weakness, Black. It’ll get you killed.”
His hands raised in quick concession.
Sean signaled to Beck and Rivera. “Let’s move out. Changi Fire just arrived.”
Their ‘anonymous’ tip had served its purpose to get the fire crew on site before Dix could cover it up.
“Rivera, get me a tie.”
The stocky man complied, retrieving a cable tie he handed over to his commander.
“You can’t be seen alive. You’re riding in the back of his truck,” Sean said, nodding to Rivera. “Turn around.”
Marcus’ eyes widened at the order and the cable tie.
“It’s triple digits in the back of that hotbox! What happened to working for you now?”
Sean jerked Marcus around with brute force, wrenching back his arms, zipping the tie around his wrists, and then bent near his shoulder. “Doesn’t mean I trust you. You have to earn that.”
Chapter 9
“Keep eyeballing the bling in the window,” Mick whispered in Shayna’s ear with the simulated intimacy of a lover. “We’ve got company.”
She nodded and linked her arm around his waist as they stood outside an upmarket jeweler in the Tower 3 lobby at Marina Bay Sands.
His callused palm gripped her shoulder, pulling her tighter. Lips pressed to her ear, he added, “We’re going to the taxi stand outside. We’ll have a ride waiting.” He pressed a thick finger to the glass and pointed at a weighty sparkler like he was interested in buying it. “I’ll ride shotgun. You’ll get in the back and stay down.”
“Got it,” she answered, feigning curiosity in the display.
“We need to window shop just a little longer until our ride gets here.”
She shook her head at the necklace shimmering in the showcase, the one he had pointed out, then motioned to the next store on their treacherous path to freedom.
“This ride is one of your men?”
“Nah, I just used my Uber app.”
His wisecrack elicited an anxious giggle from her. In this scary time, the juxtaposition of levity and danger bolstered her confidence that they would get out of this intact. It also kept the gnawing panic at arm’s length.
“Are you certain we’ve been made?”
The tilt of his head suggested amusement at her question, or her word choice.
Mick tapped his aviators down a notch and eyed her with unflinching assurance, cockiness tipping up one corner of his mouth.
“You’re probably right. It’s harder to hide you than it is me.” She inched down her own sunglasses and flung a doubtful glance to the ball cap casting shade on his face.
“It’s the best I could do on short notice.”
She tapped her dark glasses back in place. “It wouldn’t matter. You can cover a mountain in snow. Everyone still knows it’s a mountain.”
He laughed in agreement, pulling her closer, his chuckle rippling along her body.
“We’re going to turn around, so I can take this S.O.B. out.” He issued the pronouncement with the mask of humor, but she heard the malice loud and clear.
Fabric from his loose fitting tropical-style shirt bunched in her hand as panic edged closer. “That’s not funny.”
“Neither were the hypodermics we found on those two guys on the roof.”
Her breathing stopped for a moment, along with her feet. But Mick kept them ambling forward, not missing a beat.
A cold sweat broke across her skin. “What was in them?”
“We’re gonna find out.” He patted his shirt pocket, and the cylindrical objects tucked inside.
Adrenaline raced through her veins, skipping along her skin like a rogue electrical current.
They stopped to linger outside a busy dessert restaurant with its soot
hing aromas of earthy espressos, handcrafted pastries, and artisanal breads. Shayna’s stomach answered the culinary invitation with a wave of nausea.
Mick hunched over the glass case, pretending to inspect the gourmet treats, and lowered next to Shayna. “I don’t want him to know he’s been spotted. So, we’re gonna turn around, all smiles, and walk right toward him. He’ll keep his nose in that city map he finds so interesting, and you’ll stay beside me. I’m gonna bump into him, and I’ll put you behind me right before I do. You grab onto the back of my shirt, so I know you’re there. Then I’ll take care of him as we walk by.”
She dialed the shock down to a whisper-yell. “In front of all these people?”
“The crowd is perfect cover.” He rubbed her shoulder in reassurance and leaned closer. “Take a deep breath, Shayna, and get ready to follow my lead. This is happening.”
She dipped her head at his encouraging reflection mirrored in the candy case, her heart pounding like a jackhammer, her ears perceiving the bustling noises echoing around them in maddening, ratcheting decibels.
As he guided her away from the hectic restaurant, her focus shifted to the diverse sea of bobbing heads. The fact that Mick could pick out an enemy from the swarm of tourists in this busy lobby was impressive.
He tugged her toward the hallway leading to the public restrooms, then scooped her behind him without warning. “Now,” he ordered over his shoulder.
She no more than clutched the back of his shirt when she smacked into the immovable wall that was Mick Torres and then heard the muffled grunt of his target sandwiched against the wall.
“My bad. Didn’t see you standing there,” Mick said, sounding anything but apologetic.
Shayna dared a peek around the shield of Mick’s bulk and saw what passing vacationers and surveillance cameras were missing: a needle sunk into the side of the man’s neck, the plunger depressed, blue eyes bulging, hands grasping for something that Mick had already beat him to.
He risked a quick look back to Shayna. “Put this in your bag. Carefully,” he said out the corner of his mouth, sneaking a handgun to her. She placed the heavy, cold steel in her tote, while casually checking the throng of people flowing by, unaware or indifferent to the man’s plight.
When Mick yanked out the hypodermic, he also ripped out the man’s earpiece and corresponding radio device. “The restrooms are that way.” He pointed, and then ‘helped’ the man around the corner and into the hallway, wedging him up against the wall and a large potted tree, eyes glazed, legs buckling. “You have a pleasant day now, motherfucker.”
The entire scene had played out like a slow-motion reel to Shayna.
He clasped her hand and shouldered them around the other guests at an unhurried pace. Once they stood outside a popular clothing storefront on the other side of the lobby, he answered his cell.
She peered through the ebb and flow of foot traffic, watching choppy, split frames of the man as he slid down the wall to the floor, head in hands, slumped over, and then toppled to his side.
Was he dead?
Right now, she didn’t care. She was just damn glad it wasn’t her. And it could have been.
An involuntary shudder from the not-so-long-ago rooftop escape rippled through her body.
“Our ride’s here,” Mick said, tucking his phone back into his shirt pocket.
His mouth had moved, but she didn’t hear the words. Not with the deafening cascade of adrenaline spotlighting the sobering knowledge of having cheated death, or something worse.
A wave of gratitude and tears stayed blessedly hidden behind sunglasses and the rim of her hat. “Thank you, Mick, for everything.”
“You’re not out of danger yet.”
“Then get me the hell out of here.”
He signaled to the doors leading outside. “Let’s do it.”
Their pace sped up to a jog along the marbled corridor, spurred by the anxious shouts echoing in the wide space behind them, and then punctuated by a shrill scream ricocheting inside the mammoth, vaulted tower.
“Location check. Over.” Mick’s command transmitted along the handheld receiver’s encrypted frequency.
Shayna strained to make out the response and unfamiliar lingo, her body jolting and rocking. She braced herself on the floor of the third row in the careening Escalade, jammed between the leather backs of the second-row captain’s seats and the padded third row bench. Her attention fixed on the scene unfolding around them of sharp turns and squealing tires, increasing speeds, yelping pedestrians jumping out of harm’s way, and buildings hurtling by.
Mick adjusted the squelch and held down the talk button. “Copy that. Sweep the shore. We’re covered down here. Over.”
A few miles back, Mick and the driver had sniffed out a tail.
“Roger that,” the disembodied voice answered, then cut out.
Mick jerked his head toward the back of the SUV. “Extraction’s gonna take a little longer than we planned. These sons-of-bitches are determined to get what they came for so we’ve gotta make goddamn sure they don’t know where we’re headed.” He turned back around and said something to the driver, his finger pointing to a dashboard navigation map.
“This is a wild goose chase then,” Shayna said.
“Something like that.” He gripped the gun resting on his thigh tighter. “Hold on!” He slammed his free hand above him for stabilization as the SUV bucked and lurched across curbs, uneven greenways, and shrubbery to catch traction on an on-ramp. There, the black beast weaved around unsuspecting motorists to race onto the Ayer Rajah Expressway, their hunters in close pursuit.
“Get us ahead of that hauler up there and stay put,” he ordered the driver. “Time to flip this fuckin’ table.”
Once they pushed their way into position, Mick focused on his side mirror, waiting to see what their pursuers would do next. They seemed to be holding back for the moment, their front grill barely visible.
“Okay, Higgs,” he said to the driver, while watching the reflection in his side mirror, “shoulder and roll.”
The man’s head bobbed. “One of my specialties.” His booming voice resonated with pride, and Shayna’s expression widened in surprise at the unexpected response. Until now, the driver had been mute, only nodding and grunting.
“Get ready back there. And stay down,” Mick warned over his shoulder, “It’s about to get bumpy.”
About to get bumpy. That word described the entire last twenty minutes. In fact, it described every second since those two men had chased her on the rooftop. Except that ‘bumpy’ was a laughable understatement.
She tented her knees between the second-row captain’s seats, dug her heels into the floorboards, pressed her back against the rear seat, and held on tight to the upright armrests in front of her. Then she closed her eyes tight, held her breath, and visualized the people she loved most in the world.
Their vehicle jerked hard to the right, keeping pace beside the big rig, concealed from view next to its large container. Then Higgs slammed to a stop along the narrow shoulder, allowing the rig to pass before gunning the engine forward and swerving back into traffic. Now in position several car lengths behind their pursuers, Mick and Higgs had become the hunters, cutting across lanes to chase their prey at increasing speeds. The front passenger window now down, humid air blasted into the cabin, bringing the telltale scent and magnetic charge of a threatening tropical storm.
“Dump ‘em up there.” Mick pointed to steel beams and mammoth concrete drainage tiles stockpiled up ahead on a grassy easement marked off with orange safety cones for an upcoming road project.
Higgs grunted in agreement and punched the gas. Speeding closer, Mick aimed and shattered the black tinted rear and side windows in an unrelenting barrage of automatic firepower. Before any shots were returned, Higgs muscled against the bullet-riddled vehicle, the roar of engines and clash of metal earsplitting. A decisive jerk of the wheel by Higgs propelled the other vehi
cle onto the rough stretch of craggy rocks and grass, launching the battered metal monster out of control at high speed. It flipped and crashed into the pile of concrete and steel.
As Shayna watched the smoking wreckage recede from view through the rear window, the laid-back voice of the man in charge of her safety drew her attention back to the front. She found herself riveted by his calm tone, so at odds with the churning chaos around them.
“How far behind?” He held the cell loose at his ear. “Good job. We need to trade. Folkestone Road. Then you’ll ride with Higgs to Tuas.” Mick ended the call and switched to the handheld receiver. “Location check. Over.” The radio response had him nodding. “Pick up in twenty. Out.” Then one broad hand gripped the side of Higgs’ seat, and Mick twisted around to check on Shayna. “You okay back there?”
She managed a speechless, stunned nod.
‘Okay’? Compared to what? Because in this bizarre new world she had wormholed into, her brain and body buzzed with both chilling terror and profound clarity of the world around her. It was as if she were watching a movie, privy to everything all at once while living inside the story. For a striking moment, time’s dimension became nonlinear. The charged exhilaration of feeling fiercely alive, of being singularly awake and connected to everything, no distractions of yesterday or tomorrow, amplified the significance of right now.
The paradox both rattled and settled her soul.
“Just keep doing what you’ve been doing. It makes our jobs a whole lot easier,” Mick said, jerking his thumb toward his silent partner before squaring himself back around in his seat. Higgs agreed with a quick tip of his bald head, eyes on the road.
Higgs exited off the AYE, taking turns until he guided the dented and marred SUV down a tree-lined, residential street unlikely to have CCTV cameras, or anyone else looking for them.
Mick’s muscled arm stretched across the dash. “Up ahead. On the left.”
They pulled within a couple car lengths behind a red sportster.
Mick glanced back to Shayna crouched on the floor. “Stay put for a minute. I’ll be back to get you.” Both men exited the vehicle, allowing her an unhurried moment to check out the surroundings.