“I am,” Wortham said. “I knew you was the two I was supposed to meet when I saw this big fella here.” He offered his hand to Boxers as well. “The nice lady on the phone told me to look for him and I’d find you. That was your wife, was it? The lady, I mean.”
“A colleague,” Jonathan said. “That truck’s in good working order, right?” He started walking that direction. The longer they stood in one spot, the more likely a security camera would pick them up. Not that they were doing anything particularly camera-worthy, but he didn’t like to dawdle.
“I’d say it works pretty good, yeah,” Wortham said. “I’m the only owner, got all the scheduled maintenance done on time, and never missed an oil change. I got the receipts in the glove box if you want to see them.”
“Your word is good enough for me,” Jonathan said.
“Me, too,” Boxers growled in his deepest, scariest tone. Translation: You don’t want us to find out you sold us a lemon.
“It’s just exactly as I say,” Wortham said. He darted around them to get to the back lift gate. “I’ll open this up for you,” he said. “All that stuff will fit in there with room to spare.”
They laid the bags on the bed and proved him to be right.
“Now I believe I owe you some money,” Jonathan said. In addition to duffels with weaponry, Jonathan also carried a soft briefcase with cash. Hundred-dollar bills were often even more persuasive than a firearm. For convenience, the bills were banded in stacks of $1,000, and Jonathan pulled out first four packs, and then another four. “There you go,” Jonathan said. “Eight thousand dollars.”
Wortham’s eyes flashed. As he accepted the cash, he said, “You know, I’ve been on this earth for quite a few years, but I don’t know that I’ve ever seen eighty hundred-dollar bills all at one time. But I got to tell you, the actual price was only seventy-eight hundred.” He thumbed through a stack, isolated two bills, then peeled them off and handed them back.
Jonathan reminded himself where he was. In this part of the world, honest people took their honesty very seriously. Venice had told him that the negotiated price was exactly what Wortham said it was, but for Jonathan, that was a rounding error. To present it as such to a man who made his living the hard way could have been a huge insult.
“Thank you,” Jonathan said, accepting the two Franklins.
“Don’t you want the title?” Wortham asked.
Actually, he didn’t. Just as he didn’t want a receipt, a bill of sale, or any other paperwork. Still, he understood that some states took the transfer of personal property more seriously than others. “Sure,” he said. “I was just getting to that. Do you have it with you?”
Wortham pulled it out of an inside pocket of his jacket, and as he did, Jonathan caught a glimpse of the pistol he’d suspected was on the man’s hip. In Ohio, this was not necessarily a source of concern. “You just fill out your name and address right here,” he explained, pointing to the appropriate blocks on the title.
Jonathan made stuff up to fill in the blanks, random numbers and names for the street, but concluded with the real city, Coronado, California, 92118. The only way he was able to pull that zip code out of his ass was because of a Navy SEAL buddy who lived there. He listed his name as John Smith and signed accordingly.
As Jonathan handed the title back to Wortham, the other man hesitated. “I don’t believe you’re who you say you are,” the old guy said.
Jonathan felt a tug of something uncomfortable. “Is that so? Who do you think I am?”
“I think you’re a man who doesn’t ask nearly enough questions before handing over this kind of money.”
Jonathan shrugged. “What can I say? You look like a trustworthy guy.”
“Bullshit,” Wortham said. He looked at the title. “John Smith? Really? You don’t even have more imagination than that?”
Jonathan felt Boxers shifting behind him, growing uncomfortable. “Maybe you need to count that money again, Mr. Wortham. Those bills are all real. It’s more than anyone else will pay you, and I’ve filled out the form. You’ve done everything that the law requires. I think we should leave it at that.”
Wortham hesitated. “I don’t like this,” he said. “I think you two are heading for trouble. That doesn’t bother me so much, but if you get in trouble, that might pull me into trouble. I don’t need none of that.”
“You know what, Mr. Wortham?” Jonathan said. “I haven’t been navigating the planet for as long as you have, but I’ll share one of my big lessons with you. Sometimes, the best information comes from the questions that go unasked.”
Wortham thought about that.
Jonathan continued, “At this point, everything is completely legal. You’ve done what you need to do, and I’ve done what I need to do. If, hypothetically, I have lied in my paperwork, then that is my problem, not yours. Are you catching my drift?”
Wortham took a long time answering. “Where did you two serve?” he said, at length.
“Excuse me?” Jonathan asked. It was mostly a stall for time.
“You both have a military bearing about you,” Wortham said. “An awareness and a look in your eye. I know that sounds like romantic bullshit, but there you go. I trust romantic bullshit. Where did you serve?”
Jonathan cast a look back at Big Guy. How much dared they share?
“I only ask because I’m a vet myself,” Wortham continued. “Back-to-back gunship tours in Vietnam. Got the shrapnel to prove it.”
“Thank you for your service,” Jonathan said, and he cringed at his own words. “Jesus, that sounds clichéd and simple, but I really mean it. Thank you.”
Wortham smiled. “You’re welcome, Mr. John Smith of Coronado, California. Those are nice words. But you still haven’t answered my question. Where did you serve?”
Before he could say anything, Jonathan heard Boxers make a growling sound again. It was Big Guy’s way of warning him not to engage. Wortham could be the nicest guy in the world, but he still had no need to know.
“Let me put it this way,” Jonathan hedged. “You had the military part right. Now, think about every hot spot in the last thirty years or so, and there’s a really good chance that we were there.”
“Are you guys Special Forces or something?” Wortham asked. The facial reactions he saw confirmed it. “Ah. Okay.” Wortham rubbed the back of his head for a few seconds, and then when he looked back up at them, his face was frozen in a place between pain and curiosity. “One thing,” he said. “Just promise me that if I knew what you were doing, I’d be proud to tell people that I’d sold you my car.”
Jonathan smiled. He held out his hand, as if to seal a bet. “That’s a deal, so long as you promise never to tell your friends anything like what you just said you’d be proud to tell them.”
Wortham shook on it. “I miss it, you know,” he said. “It’s terrible to be a man my age and think back and realize that my life was most exciting when I was twenty-two years old.”
Something tugged at Jonathan’s gut when he heard that. It was the secret that civilians could never grasp: As hellish and bloody and deadly and overall awful as war was, nothing outside the battlefield could come within 10 percent of the adrenaline rush.
“Either way,” Jonathan said. “I promise on a stack of Bibles that my friend and I are on the side of the angels.”
Wortham slapped Jonathan’s shoulder. “In that case, I wish a quick trip to Hell for whoever’s on Satan’s side.” With that, he started walking back toward the terminal.
Jonathan felt a flash of guilt. He had the old guy’s car, which meant that the old guy had no wheels. “Hey!” he called. “Mr. Wortham!”
The older man turned.
“Can we drop you somewhere?”
He flashed two rows of perfectly aligned teeth. If they were natural, they were an anomaly for his generation. “Are you shittin’ me? I’m at an airport and I got a pocket full of money. I figure the world is mine, at least for the next month or so. Plus, I won�
�t have to answer phone calls about where my truck might have ended up. Whatever you’re doin’, good luck to you.”
The old guy disappeared into the executive terminal as Jonathan grabbed the cash bag and brought it up front with him. The Expedition was an Eddie Bauer model, complete with beige leather and beige everything else on the interior. “Nice guy,” Jonathan said.
“Don’t you ever just grunt and ignore people?” Boxers asked. “I mean, Jesus. You flash money like it’s friggin’ manure, and then you tell him we were part of the Unit. Christ, why don’t you just give him a business card with a lipstick print? I wanted to put a friggin’ sock in your mouth.”
Jonathan granted bragging rights to Boxers as the man who’d saved his ass more times than anyone else on earth, and as such granted a huge margin for stepping out of line. This was an unusual break.
“I sense you have a problem,” he said.
Boxers laughed. “How very intuitive of you,” he said. “It’s not a big deal, Dig, but you just need to start taking OpSec more seriously. You’re getting chatty in your old age.”
That was a double shot—old age and flouting security—and Jonathan opted to ignore both of them. They had stuff to do, and they didn’t need the pall of an argument.
Jonathan pulled two radios out of the cash duffel. He handed one to Big Guy and kept the other for himself. Not much bigger than a pack of cigarettes, the radio represented the best in satellite and encryption technology. He hooked it onto his belt at the small of his back and slipped a wireless transceiver into his right ear. He pressed the tiny transmit button on the earpiece and said, “Mother Hen, Scorpion. You there?”
It took a few seconds before Venice’s voice crackled, “Right here. You’re loud and clear.”
“Just so you know, we’re on the ground and on our way,” Jonathan said over the air. “I’ll reestablish contact when we’re close.”
“Got it,” Venice said. “I’ll be standing by.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“I made the phone call,” Graham said. He’d changed into the new clothes and everything fit. He thought she needed to know.
Her face turned pale. “Tell me you’re kidding. Are you talking about the panic call?”
Graham nodded. He knew she was pissed. No, she was beyond pissed.
“Why would you do that?” she shouted. In all the months they’d been together, he’d never heard her raise her voice before.
“Because I promised my mom,” he said. His voice caught in his throat as he spoke, and tears burned his eyes. “You said yourself that she’s probably dead. How could I not?”
“But you didn’t know—” Jolaine stopped herself. She held her hands in front of her, palms out, as if to tell someone to stop. Or maybe to tell the anger to stop. “Okay,” she said. He wasn’t sure to whom. “Okay, what’s done is done. Tell me about it. Tell me what happened.”
“I really didn’t mean any harm,” Graham said. He didn’t think he could handle anyone being angry with him right now. He needed friends. He had enough enemies.
“Please just tell me what happened on the phone call.”
Graham told her about the conversation with the mysterious man on the phone. He tried to be as complete in the details as possible, and he didn’t intentionally leave anything out. The deeper he got into the story, the darker Jolaine’s expression became.
“So, did you or did you not give him the code?”
“I did not.” Not only was that the truth, but he also sensed that it was the right answer. That made him feel less shitty.
Jolaine fell quiet as she thought through the details. Something passed through her brain that made her eyes light up. “Wait a minute,” she said. “What phone did you use?”
Graham pointed to the phone on the nightstand. “That one.”
Jolaine shot to her feet. “Oh, shit. Oh, Christ, now they know where we are.”
“I don’t think I talked long enough for them to trace the call,” Graham said.
“Really? I mean, really? This is the twenty-first century, Graham. This is the age of caller I.D. and instant recognition. They knew where you were the instant they answered the phone.” She looked around, clearly on the edge of panic. She was scanning the room for something. She darted into the bathroom and looked there, too.
Graham felt a surge of panic in his gut. “What?” he said. “What is it? What’s wrong? Why are—”
“Do you have anything important in here?” Jolaine asked. She reappeared from the bathroom with the toothbrush she’d bought for him. She tossed it and the toothpaste into one of the shopping bags.
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Then get to the car,” she said. “We have to get out of here.”
“Where are we going?”
“Anywhere,” she said. “We can’t stay here. They’re coming for us.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know!” she shouted. “The same people who came for us last night, Graham. The same people I told you not to call, but you decided to call anyway.” She slapped the lamp that sat atop the dresser and sent it to the end of its electrical cord tether. From there, it crashed to the floor.
“Jesus, Jolaine.” Graham retreated between the beds. He’d never seen her like this.
“You don’t get it, do you?” she shouted, taking a step closer. “I mean, you really, truly, deep in your heart of hearts don’t get it. We are at war, Graham. And we don’t know who the hell the enemy is! People are trying to kill us.”
She spun and moved to the door, the shopping bag dangling from her hand. “Come on,” she said. “Right now. We’re out of here.” She beckoned him with a vast, circular motion of her entire arm.
“What is it?” Graham moved as he spoke. “You’re scared.”
“Damn right I’m scared,” she said. “The bad guys are close. We didn’t drive that far last night. Maybe, what, an hour? Hour and a half max? When did you make your phone call?”
Graham glanced at the clock. It was past checkout time. “I hung up about twenty minutes ago.”
“Shit.” Her beckoning motion grew even larger. “Now. We’re gone.”
Casting a final glance around the tiny space to make sure that he hadn’t left anything—how could he when he hadn’t brought anything?—he darted over to join Jolaine at the door.
She hesitated before opening it. Almost as an afterthought, it seemed, she looked through the peephole.
“Anybody out there?” Graham asked.
“No,” she said. She pressed the button on the car key fob to unlock the doors, then spun around. She planted her back against the door, and reached out to place both her hands on his shoulders. She squeezed tightly enough to hurt. “You have to listen to me, Graham. And you have to do exactly what I say or I swear to God I’ll shoot you myself and be done with this shit. Do you understand me?”
Even after the pep talk of a few minutes ago, he halfway believed that she really would shoot him. “Yes,” he said. “I promise.”
“We’re going to go straight to the car,” Jolaine explained. The intensity in her eyes could have lit a fire. “We’re not going to run, but we’re going to walk with purpose. I will have my hand on your back, and you will not fight me. We are both going to get in on the driver’s side, and you are going to crawl across to the passenger side, then we’re going to get out of here. If anything happens—I mean, if anything happens—if there’s shooting or God knows what else, I want you on the floor and I want you to stay there. I know what I’m doing, and you don’t. Are we clear?”
Under any other circumstance, Graham would have launched to the stratosphere if anyone had spoken to him like that—especially if that someone was Jolaine. As it was, he knew he’d screwed up, and now he’d agree to anything. “We’re clear,” he said.
“All right,” Jolaine said. “Let’s do this.” She moved him to the side of the door, but kept one hand on his shoulder. She drew her pistol with her other hand. “When I tell you
to open the door, I want you to open it all the way. Just leave it open, and we’ll head to the car.”
Graham pointed to the shopping bags. “What about our stuff?”
“I’ll buy you another goddamn toothbrush, okay?”
It was a stupid question.
She nodded. Just once, a single twitch of her head. “Open the door.”
Just as she’d told him, he pulled on the door, but it stuck. After three tries, it pulled away from the jamb and opened all the way. The door hadn’t even stopped moving before Jolaine was pushing him out the door and into the parking lot.
He heard the SUVs turning the corner into the lot before he saw them. There were two of them and they screamed past the little front office building where the clerk had decided that Jolaine was a pedophile and headed right for them, moving fast enough that Graham didn’t think they’d be able to stop before ramming them.
Graham didn’t have a chance to react before Jolaine bent him at the waist and pushed him to the far side of the vehicle—the passenger side. Just seconds into this, and already they were breaking the rules.
The SUVs screeched to a halt and the doors flew open. The first man Graham saw was the driver of the first vehicle. He stepped out with a rifle in his hands and even before his feet hit the ground, Jolaine fired her pistol twice. Blood flew from the guy’s forehead and he dropped in a heap.
“Get in the car!” Jolaine commanded, opening the door for him. She fired twice more, but he couldn’t see the result.
The world erupted in more gunfire. Bullets tore into their Mercedes, launching puffs of glass, and making the entire chassis vibrate with the individual impacts. Graham cowered on the ground as Jolaine returned fire.
“Where’s your machine gun?” he yelled.
“In the trunk!” She fired again. Again, again, and again.
Graham rose to his knees to peer through the shattered windows to see what was going on. What he saw both surprised and terrified him. Three men lay on the ground near the first vehicle. Two of them lay still, and the third was writhing on the pavement, screaming for help. Others hid behind open doors, firing blindly, exposing only their rifles. Their bullets raked the front of the motel and probably the sky, but precious few impacted the car.
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