May 12, 2008
The light streaming through the window was blindingly bright. Cringing as the bandages around my chest tightened, I raised one hand to block the sun from stabbing through my eye sockets.
“So, you’re awake.” Jill Del Toro smiled as she opened the curtains. “How do you feel?”
That was a stupid question. “Ever take a contact shot to the chest with a .44 Mag?” I asked rhetorically. My voice sounded funny. Sadly, I already knew that as bad as my ear was ringing, I had done some serious damage. When that ring went away, I’d have lost a range of hearing forever.
“Uh . . . nope. Can’t say that I have.”
“What time is it? How long have I been out?” After getting patched and stitched from the Dead Six gig, I had gone right into a fuzzy, painkiller-induced sleep.
“It’s five in the afternoon. Don’t feel bad. You looked like hell.”
I studied my left hand. Carl had taped all the fingers together. He was a decent doctor. He had certainly gotten enough practice on me over the years. “Well, I got pistol whipped with a ten-thousand-dollar Korth. Funny, it felt the same as getting pistol whipped with a Ruger. Who would have thought?” I looked under the sheets. I wasn’t wearing any pants. “Please tell me Carl’s got the key? Really intricate antique thing?” Jill nodded. “Oh, thank you.”
I’d done it. After all that, we’d gotten the key.
The gloating almost made up for the physical suffering. Good thing painkillers tipped the scale in gloating’s favor. “Has there been any backlash from our little escapade?”
“It’s all over the news. The police are saying it was a terrorist group and that they’ve been eliminated. The emir was murdered last night. General Al Sabah is getting all the credit for tracking the assassins back to Fort Saradia and eliminating them.”
I nodded. So, just like that, the bad guys had won.
She slowly sat on the edge of the bed, her manner serious, her voice somber. “I watched the video from Little Bird. I saw them die. I saw them all die.”
“Those kinds of things happen in this world.”
“Dead Six ruined my life. They murdered my friends. I didn’t think I would mind seeing them all killed, but that . . . I just don’t know.” She trailed off. “That just seemed so wrong.”
I could tell she was really upset, just trying not to let it show. “Well, it wasn’t really the trigger pullers’ fault. They were probably kept in the dark and just given orders. It was that one guy from the embassy that wanted you dead.”
“Gordon,” she sighed.
“I don’t think he was there,” I said. “Sorry.”
“Now him, when he gets his, I want a front-row seat. That last girl, though, when she got shot, and he tried to protect her? That was the girl from the radio, wasn’t it?”
I nodded. “His name is Valentine. Her name is . . . was . . . Sarah.”
Jill bit her lip. “That was the saddest thing I think I’ve ever seen. But I have to know. Why did you go back for him?”
I’d gone back for the key, but I’d taken him with me, and I didn’t even know why. The bedroom door opened. “Because Lorenzo’s an idiot,” Carl said as he entered the room with a sandwich on a plate.
“Hey, you brought me some dinner. Thanks.”
“Get your own,” he responded as he took a bite. “Why the hell did you save him anyway? That just complicated everything. Lucky you didn’t get shot. You just can’t stick to a plan, can you? Why do you keep screwing up simple things?”
Jill gave him a look that would have killed most men with a soul. “I thought it was brave, and if it wasn’t for Lorenzo screwing up I’d be dead.”
Carl ignored her and chewed his sandwich. “Last time I checked, we’re not the good guys.”
I shrugged, not really knowing the answer myself. “Must have been the blood loss. I was kind of out of it. I wasn’t thinking clearly.” That seemed to placate Carl, though Jill’s expression indicated she knew I was lying. “Well, at least we got the key, which means Phase Three is a go.” That reminded me, I had better call the Fat Man before he got jittery and started eating my family members.
“Can I know what that is now?” Jill asked. We both looked at her, but neither responded. “This Phase Three. I think I’ve proven my worth around here. You got your stupid box, so what’s the deal? I can’t believe what you went through to get it, either. Not that it hasn’t been fun, but I would like to get back to someplace without terrorists and mercenaries and crazy people.”
I had been giving this some thought, and now was as good a time as any. “Okay, but do me a favor first. There’s a big freezer in the garage. Could you get me an ice pack out of there first? My face really hurts.”
“Okay, sure,” Jill said as she left.
Carl raised a single bushy eyebrow as I rolled out of bed and winced as my feet hit the floor. “Are you crazy?” he asked.
“Well, I’m thinking about offering her a real job. We need to see if she’s up for it,” I explained as I walked gingerly to the mirror. My equilibrium was off, and it hurt to inhale. “I think she’s tough enough. Dude, just trust me.”
“Okay. Whatever. But I’m getting worried. Lately you’ve not been yourself. This job’s affecting your brain. We’re not in the helping business. Survival first. Everything else, second. You can do good deeds on your own time. I’m here to keep Big Eddie from skinning me alive. Other than that, I don’t give a shit.”
I examined my battered face in the mirror. I had really taken a beating. Nobody would ever accuse me of being pretty, but once the swelling went down, I would probably be back to my forgettable average self, just how I liked it. “Have I ever been wrong, Carl?”
“Constantly,” he replied. There was a frightened scream from the garage. “See.”
So Jill had found the freezer. “All part of my nefarious master plan. Come on.”
I ran into her on her way out of the garage. Jill nearly took me down as we collided, causing me to wince in pain. “Somebody want to tell me why there’s a dead guy in the fridge?” she shrieked.
She was actually taking it pretty well.
“Why is there a dead body in the freezer?” Jill shouted. “That scared me!”
Taking it well . . . relatively speaking.
“Hey, it worked for Walt Disney.” I opened the freezer door wider. Carl and Reaper were leaning on the van, enjoying the show. “Jill, allow me to introduce you to Ali bin Ahmed Al Falah, terrorist financier, evil genius, slave trader, gun runner, and huge Streisand fan. Seriously. I can’t make this stuff up.” Falah’s body had been crammed into the freezer. Skin gray, beard flecked with ice, his frozen eyeballs were staring at us.
“His pictures are all over the living room,” she asked suspiciously. “What kind of sick game is this?”
“Mr. Falah here was a very bad man. I’ve got pictures of him hanging with Osama. Phase One of this job consisted of me following him, watching him, learning his habits, how he talked, how he sounded. I took on the persona of a man named Khalid. I actually bought Falah’s social club so I could get into his circle of friends.”
“Why?”
“Because I need to be able to impersonate him so well that people who’ve known him for years wouldn’t be able to tell. Freeze pop has a standing appointment for a party that I need to crash. Plus, we needed his cash. This James Bond crap is expensive.”
“I do like my toys,” Reaper explained. “It is hard to hack half of the Zubaran government with sucky equipment.”
“Did you really need those big speakers, though?” Carl asked him.
“Helps me get in the mood.”
“Anyway, I arranged a meeting between Falah and some imaginary Russian arms dealers to take place at my club. The plan was to get him inside, make him disappear, and I replace him. Nice and simple.”
The idea didn’t seem to shock her. “And that got screwed up when Dead Six assassinated him?”
“Exactly. When t
hey put a bullet in his heart, we had to improvise. Luckily, all of his guards got killed, too, so though there were witnesses to the shooting, none of them were real chummy with Al Falah.” I gestured at the dead fat body wrapped in plastic. “I had planned on making him go away, nice and quiet. The ground work was already laid—now it was just messier. I made some calls as if I was him, telling his associates that I had faked my own death to go into hiding.” I left off the fact that I had even sent hand-forged letters to his children and wives. That seemed a bit grim. “Reaper had already taken command of all of his e-mail addresses—”
“I’m like the grand pimp mack daddy of identity theft,” Reaper said proudly.
“So as far as the terrorist world knows, Al Falah is alive and well and living incognito, hiding from the Americans. Since he was in such mortal danger, he asked for his dear old friend, Adar Al-Saud, to come and assist him. Adar’s a psychopath, but he’s one very special psychopath.”
On cue, Carl reached into his shirt and pulled out the key. It was still riding on Sarah’s chain. It spun, reflecting the light. “Adar’s daddy was an important man. Not many folks get access to the place we’re going. They sure don’t make them like this anymore.”
Reaper took the key from him. He twisted the base slightly, causing dozens of perfectly carved, delicate pins to extend in various directions. It was remarkably complex. “They never made them like this. I’m telling you guys, man didn’t have the mechanical ability to design something like this a thousand years ago. This would be tough to do with modern CNC machining.” Carl quickly took the key back before Reaper could suggest something about space aliens.
“So, you need to pretend to be Al Falah for Phase Three? Do you really need to keep him in the freezer, though?” She looked ill. “That’s just gross.”
I nodded. “All part of the plan. Mr. Falah here still has one last job to do.” I patted him fondly on his frozen shoulder. “He’s going to throw the hounds off the scent long enough for us to get away.”
“Okay, I get it. I get it . . . That’s a lot of effort to steal . . . what?” Jill asked. “What could possibly be so important? Zillions of dollars? Somebody’s Faberge’ egg collection? The Holy Grail?”
My crew traded glances. This part was hard to explain. “We don’t actually know what it is, just where it is,” I said slowly.
“Look, if you feel the need to keep me in the dark still, that’s fine, but don’t treat me like I’m stupid.”
“No, really.” I raised my hands in surrender. “They said that it would be the only thing there, it’s portable, and that we couldn’t miss it. They drew a rough sketch of it, but I don’t have any idea what it’s supposed to be.” I held my open hands about two inches apart. “All I know is that Eddie wants it very badly.”
“I can’t even find it on the Internet,” Reaper exclaimed, because, you know, that’s the source of all knowledge in the universe.
Jill was incredulous. “All this . . . and you don’t even know what you’re stealing? You guys are nuts.”
“No, Eddie’s nuts. We’re just too good at what we do.”
“Man, close the fridge. That’s freaking me out,” Carl said.
After briefing Jill on the highlights of the utterly insane and possibly suicidal plan, we took a little drive in the van the next morning. I did not tell her where we were going and once again made her wear the blindfold so that she would not be able to lead anyone back to our hideout. She was quiet as we drove through the streets of Zubara, probably thinking about what I had told her. I didn’t speak either, mostly because my face still really hurt. Carl was a decent medic, but having a mercenary smash your nose back into place and pull a broken tooth with a pair of pliers didn’t exactly qualify as quality medical care.
The streets were relatively quiet. Supporters of the emir had seen which way the wind was blowing. The ones that had enough money to cause trouble were on their way to Europe or Saudi Arabia. General Al Sabah owned Zubara now, and he was an astute enough man to not rock the boat more than he needed to.
Once I was sure that we had taken enough turns, I told Jill she could take her blindfold off. She rubbed her eyes as she adjusted to the light. The ocean was a brilliant blue out her window.
“So, where are we going?”
I didn’t answer. “Now that you know about the job, and you know how dangerous it’s going to be, I’m giving you an option.” She waited, watching seagulls spiral over the passing beach. “This next part is going to get complicated and I don’t normally recruit interns from the Department of Agriculture. This is a job for professionals, and I’m going to need a professional, not an amateur.”
“I never claimed to be anything I’m not.”
“True.” I parked the van at the end of a long wooden pier. There was a fifty-foot boat moored at the end. “Look, I promised that if you helped us, I would get you out of the country safely. And you’ve held up your part of the bargain. It was like you were part of the crew over the last few weeks. So now it’s time for me to hold up mine.”
She looked at the boat and then back at me. “I see . . . I thought you were going to ask me to keep help you with Phase Three.”
“Yes, I am. But if you want out, now’s your chance. That boat is headed for Bahrain. I know the captain. He’s a decent man, and he’ll take you to another friend of mine. From there, you’ll board a plane and take a circuitous route back to the US. Tickets and instructions are in the bag.”
“I can’t go back to the States. Gordon’s people will kill me.”
I patted a leather bag on the seat beside me. “There are some new papers in here. Forged passports, driver’s licenses, social security numbers, birth certificates, everything you need, all clean, courtesy of Reaper, on the house. His work is as good as you’ll ever find.”
“He’s really sweet,” Jill said simply. “Squirrelly, but sweet.”
“I’ve left contact information for an old acquaintance of mine. I’ve already spoken to him. He’s agreed to help you get a new life set up. He’s done this kind of thing before, and he owes me a favor.” He hadn’t been the first person I’d thought of, but as I’d gone down my list of other contacts in the States, most of them were either dead, in prison, or way too untrustworthy to send Jill to. Even though our last parting hadn’t been friendly, at least the old guy was honorable, so Jill would be in good hands.
“You will never be able to go back to where you’re from. You can never let your picture show up in the newspaper. Don’t end up on TV. And never get in trouble with the law. You get fingerprinted, and Gordon’s people will find you and kill you. You will never be able to let anyone know that you’re alive. You can never contact any family or friends.”
Jill sighed. “I told you, Lorenzo. My family is all dead. . . . Maybe that’s for the best. Look at the mess it’s gotten you guys into.”
That was a bleak way to look at it, but probably true. “You’ll have to start over. I can tell you right now that it’ll be extremely hard.” Pushing the bag over, I continued. “If you choose to go home, you can’t be Jill Del Toro ever again.”
She opened the bag and pulled out some passports. “Peaches LaRue? Delilah B. Sweet?” she said incredulously.
“Reaper has a thing for strippers. Take it as a compliment.” I shrugged. “There’s a couple thousand dollars in cash in there and a bank card to a Chase Manhattan account with a hundred and fifty thousand in it. That’s from me. Use it to get your new life started, but spend it gradually so it doesn’t attract a lot of attention. Consider it a going-away present.” I nodded at the boat. “All you need to do is get on there, and never look back.”
She glanced at the boat, at the bag, and then back at me. “You said you were giving me an option. What’s behind door number two?”
“I won’t lie. Carl thinks I’m insane to offer you a job, but I’ve got a good feeling about you. I think you’re sharp and tough. Plus, a pretty girl does come in handy.”
&nbs
p; “So, you think I’m pretty?” Now she was just being coy.
“Well . . . duh. I think you’d work out well. You help us complete Phase Three, and I’ll make you a full partner. The money is good. You get to live a crazy life, bouncing around the Third World, robbing and conning assorted warlords, terrorists, scumbags, and lunatics, until eventually one of them catches and tortures us to death, or we’re nabbed by some government, that’ll just throw us in jail forever.”
“Gee whiz, what’s the downside?”
“You don’t want to be around Carl on casual Friday.”
She studied the contents of the bag. I did not envy her choice. Both options required her to give up her entire life. Jill bit her lip as she studied one of the driver’s licenses. “How long do I have to decide?”
“The boat leaves in ten minutes.” I glanced at my watch. “Make that seven. I talk too much.”
“I’ve got a few questions. . . .” She paused, then gave me a dangerous look. “And don’t you dare bullshit me. I want the truth. Why do you do this, Lorenzo?”
“This job? It’s for my family, and I’m working on a way to make sure Big Eddie won’t ever threaten them again.”
“No, I know about them. Why do you do this?”
I studied the wheeling birds and the sparkling water. Why did I do it? It had all started as some sort of game, a challenge, a competition against the world. I had been the juvenile delinquent, the black sheep, the rebel. The first to fight, the first to cheat, the one that had to win, even though it didn’t matter what I was winning, or what I was losing in the process. One day I had just walked away, fell off the grid, disappeared into the stinking underbelly of the world. I had become a predator of the predators, the ultimate rush, the perfect challenge.
Now I was just tired. And I didn’t want my family, who were just normal, decent people, to pay for my sins. But even once this job was done, and even with Big Eddie either satisfied or dispatched, I couldn’t imagine myself doing anything else.
“Hell if I know. It’s what I do.” She nodded as if that made perfect sense. “Boat’s about to leave,” I pointed out.
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