Solid Gold

by Stephanie Andrews

  “Nothing fatal,” Don assured me, grabbing a handful of keys from Cosmo and looking at the tags. “Here,” he said, picking one of the keychains out and handing it to Park. “Blue Macan out front. Automatic.”

  Not far away, a siren went off. We all froze for a moment, except for Don, who proceeded to dole out the keys to everyone until only he and I were left. “Here,” he said, “you take the Boxster.”

  “Which one’s that?”

  He pointed at a sleek, bright orange sports car that sat a few feet away in the middle of the showroom. He started toward the black car next to it.

  “But how do I get it out?” I asked.

  He pointed at the front window and climbed into the driver’s seat of the other car.

  “Oh yes,” I said when I figured out what he meant. “Oh hell yes!”

  Twenty-Nine

  Despite being safely behind the windshield of the orange Porsche, I reflexively ducked my head as the car burst through the window. In a word, it was awesome. I don’t think of myself as a fan of wanton destruction, but damn, it felt like being in a rocket ship, or the Great Glass Elevator.

  I careened past the DHL truck and out onto the boulevard, turning south and following Don. As we passed the Fiesta Americana hotel on our left, I could see billowing yellow clouds pouring out of the first floor. I could only imagine the sulfur smell those smoke bombs would generate. There’s nothing like the smell of rotten eggs to evacuate a building.

  As we sped on, I couldn’t resist pulling into the passing lane and sidling up to Don in his flashy silver car. I was Agent Orange in my bright orange Porsche. I liked it.

  Don was less impressed. He pulled his sunglasses down far enough to give me a cautioning look: Don’t attract attention. Yet.

  Okay, I got it. I slowed and pulled back in behind him. I remembered my radio and pulled it from my bag and turned it on. I set it on the seat, as I was having a hard time steering with just my three-fingered left hand.

  Don’s voice jumped through the static.

  “Negative, Whitehat. Not the Pizza Hut. Across the street at the hotel. A1 Wi-Fi signal, should be everything you need.”

  “Okay, Charlie. Just gonna grab a couple slices before I head over. Man, watching that car explode, seems a waste.”

  “C’est le vie. Did you dump the phone after you texted the footage?”

  “Yes, of course I did. Whitehat Out.”

  Sirens doppled by from three firetrucks in the opposite lane, obviously heading toward Negron’s hotel. I smiled, then took my foot off the gas and coasted. It was hard to go slow in one of those things.

  “I am at the aquarium,” said Ruby’s voice over the radio.

  “Excellent,” said Don. “Find a nice spot at the far end of the parking lot. We don’t want to harm any dolphins. Nick will be there to pick you up in a few minutes. You know how to take a video?”

  “Yes. The doddering grandma knows how to us an iPhone.”

  The wide road brought us up onto a roundabout. I pulled up close to Don to make sure I didn’t make a mistake and followed him as we went three quarters around and then got onto route 150 south.

  A minute later Don pulled onto a side street next to a large complex that, according to the sign, was the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. I picked up the radio and thumbed it.

  “We’re not blowing up the Mormons, are we?” I asked.

  “No, next left. Give me about two hundred feet.”

  He pulled over in front of a low bungalow. There was a sign out front, but I couldn’t make out what it said as I sailed by. I stopped the car a block down and got out. When I looked back, Don was walking up the side of the road toward me. About half way, he stopped, pulled out his phone, and turned around. He held it up, standing motionless for about five seconds, until the silver Porsche exploded with force that lifted it completely off the ground. It seemed to hang in the air a very long time before crashing down again, flames and black smoke pluming into the air. Honestly, I almost bit my tongue it was so startling, even though I knew it was coming.

  Don walked up to me and looked at my car. “Agent Orange,” he said, with a chuckle.

  “I know, right? It’s like fate.”

  “We’re still going to blow it up. Can I drive?”

  “No,” I said, like he should know better than to ask, and climbed back into the driver’s seat.

  He didn’t protest, just walked around the front of the car and climbed into the passenger’s seat, moving my bag carefully to the floor, and adjusting the seat all the way back. On the street, people were coming out of their houses and moving tentatively toward the burning vehicle. Either to help or to gawk.

  “What was that place?” I asked as I pulled away and turned left to go around the block.

  “Negron’s accountant.” He typed into his phone, then pushed a button. I heard the little zoom sound as he sent the text.

  “Has he started responding yet?”

  “Yes, that was the seventh one,” he said, flicking his head to indicate the wreckage behind us. “Ruby’s should be going off right about now.”

  “What did you say to him?”

  He looked down at the phone and read out loud, “Hey Tony. It’s your friends from Chicago. Thought you might want to come out and play.”

  “That’s a little obvious, isn’t it?” I asked, swinging back onto the main road and heading north, back the way we came.

  “For some people, obvious is best. Plus, we want him to follow the bread crumbs, we need to make him think he’s smarter than we are. Watch out!” He grabbed the dashboard as a police cruiser, lights flashing, zoomed by us on the left and then pulled in front, suddenly slowing.

  This wasn’t a coincidence. I glanced in the rearview mirror and saw two more cruisers, one coming up behind us, the other moving into the left lane to try and box us against the guard rail.

  I floored it and pulled to the left as if to go around, and then tapped the brakes and wrenched hard to the right when the car in front tried to keep me from passing. I stomped hard again and the little orange devil leapt forward, passing the cop car on the right, metal screaming as we sideswiped the guard rail.

  “Jesus!” exclaimed Don as we shot ahead and entered the traffic circle. Now that I was out in front, they’d never catch us. I glanced over at Don to see him staring at me.

  “What? It’s not like we were going to keep it.”

  “We are carrying a bomb,” he said through gritted teeth, pointing at the bag on the floor between his legs. “Take a right up here,” he said, pointing.

  “They found us fast.”

  “They did. Perhaps Negron’s a little smarter than I thought. Satellite?”

  “I hope everyone’s okay.”

  “I haven’t heard anything to the contrary.” He picked up my radio and pushed the button. “Copter, how are we doing?”

  “Just fine,” came T.C.’s cheerful voice. “I’m five minutes out.”

  “Excellent. Queen?”

  “If I’m reading this right, and I like to think I am,” said Park, “it’s just around the corner.”

  “Great. Be right there.”

  We were off the main road now. I took a hard right and cruised quickly down the block, then turned right and right again, sighting straight down the block to the cross street. If we hadn’t lost the cops, they’d go flying by any second now.

  “Should we ditch the car?”

  “No. I really want to leave it in a special place. I think we’re clear.”

  He was right, we’d lost them. For now. I was worried that if we were being tracked from the air, we were going to stick out like, well, like an orange.

  “How far is it?”

  “Just a few blocks, turn here.”

  I did as he indicated, and we approached a long brick wall on our right-hand side. It was high and had curled barbed wire along the top. However, when we got to the main gates, we found them torn from their hinges and lying on the side o
f the entryway.

  “Are we expecting guards?” I asked as I steered between the big brick end posts.

  “No, maybe a housekeeper.”

  We approached the portico of a large white estate that overlooked a wide lawn with a view of the sea. A black van was parked in front.

  “Drive around back,” said Don, casually. There was no road, but I took him at his word and drove up on the lawn and around the end of the house. One part of the backyard was taken up by a huge shimmering swimming pool. The rest was perfectly trimmed lawn.

  “This is his vacation house?” I asked.

  “One of many, park by the pool.”

  I pulled up beside it, leaving enough space to get out without falling in. Don climbed out of the passenger’s side, then reached back in to take out the bag. I heard a shout and turned in alarm, but it was just El, racing from the back door of the house, a big smile on her face. Jorge and Cosmo exited just behind her, and walked slowly over to the car.

  “Agent Orange!” exclaimed El.

  “How’d it go?”

  “That was so, much, fun! Thought I felt a little sad to blow up the car.”

  “Yeah, me too.”

  “Hey guys,” said Don to the other two. “Can you give me a hand with this?” He motioned toward the little sports car.

  “In the pool?” said Jorge with a grin.

  “I thought that would be nice,” said Don.

  “I’ve got it,” said Cosmo, stepping forward. He put his hands against the roofline, bracing his back leg like he was going to stretch his hamstrings. Instead, he heaved forward and the car tipped up onto it’s side, rocked over, and fell upside down into the pool with a splash that we all stepped back from.

  “This was truly awesome,” I said, “and I don’t want to be a party pooper, but is this really going to buy us enough time?”

  “Don’t worry,” said Don. “This is just the beginning. By now I’m sure he’s traced my name to a hotel room at the Camino Real. He won’t send the cops there, because it’s not his hotel, and he’s got no good reason to go barging in there. He’ll send his own men, covertly, and probably plenty of them. They’ll get a full dose of tear gas when they breach the room. Marty is setting off private alarms all over the city, the police will be plenty busy.”

  The sound of a helicopter reached us over the crash of the ocean waves, and we all shielded our eyes to look up the coast as T.C. approached in the helicopter.

  “After I blow up the house,” Don continued casually, “I’ll take the van and meet Nick at the bank. Once Negron knows we are messing with his money, I’m pretty sure he’ll empty out the rest of the mountain to get us.”

  “Be careful!” I shouted, as the helicopter grew louder and louder, the wind picking up around us.

  “Careful is my middle name,” said Don, as he picked up the bag and headed toward the house.

  “Really?” I asked.

  He turned back to me and gave me that look over his sunglasses again.

  “No. Not really.”

  Thirty

  Once we were up in the air, the panic started to get me. Not fear of heights—though I had never been in a helicopter before—but fear of failure. Death. Whathaveyou.

  I looked across at El, who gave me a big thumbs-up and a smile. We were all wearing those big headphones, just like you see on television, but I didn’t know how to work it. She had taken off her bright yellow dress and was wearing army green cargo shorts, combat boots, and blue Ravenclaw t-shirt. I just sat there, half-numb. What if Park died, or any of them? What if Nick got arrested at the bank and thrown into a Mexican prison and I never saw him again?

  My stomach turned over, again. Nick. I really didn’t know where my mind or heart was at with Nick, and now really wasn’t the time to figure it out. Que sera sera, as my mom always used to say.

  Loud static suddenly crackled in my headphones, and it was so unexpected I screamed out loud. Fortunately, none of the others could hear me, I don’t think.

  “If you look at the road below,” said T.C.’s friendly voice in my head, you can see a line of black SUVs, maybe six of them, heading toward Costa de Ora. Looks like Don’s plan is working. Of course it’s working, he’s Don. Anyway, it’ll be a quick drop. We’ll be out of eyeline from the mountain top, but I’m still worried about being spotted. All the gear is stashed next to the motorcycles.”

  I craned my neck to see out the window, but I couldn’t spot the vehicles. Still, I felt a bit better. Six SUVs, two to four people in each. Twelve to twenty-four henchmen out of the gold mine.

  My math was interrupted by a sudden lurch and drop of the helicopter. Were we crashing? I reached out to the closest thing and clutched Jorge’s upper arm. He, in turn, had grabbed my left knee, then immediately pulled it back like he had touched a hot stove. I had time before our sudden and violent death to think about Jorge and if he was really shy, or he was just grossed out to touch a middle-aged woman’s leg. Granted, mine was more muscular than most, and I’m not even close to middle age yet, right?

  Turns out, that wasn’t death, it was just the way T.C. landed his helicopter when he wanted to do it as quickly as possible.

  We unbuckled and half-climbed, half fell out of the chopper and crawled out of the way as it immediately took off again, shooting straight up into the sky and disappearing over the trees.

  “I’m gonna be—” was a far a Park got before she threw up in the grass. Cosmo helped her to her feet, as Jorge and I headed toward the tree line where we could see the motorcycles and backpacks. I kept my mouth shut and breathed through my nose until my stomach settled. I opened one of the backpacks and found a bottle of water. I handed it to El.

  “Guess I should have packed some breath mints, too,” I teased.

  “Nice, real nice,” said Cosmo with a frown. I shrugged. Apparently sometimes funny isn’t called for.

  I pulled out the map from the front pocket of the backpack. Jorge had opened the other one and was searching through it.

  “No guns?” he asked, bewildered.

  “The guards have guns,” said Cosmo matter-of-factly. “After we take down the first ones, then we’ll just use theirs.”

  I looked at Park and winked. “He’s a keeper,” I stage whispered, and she half-choked on her water.

  We moved into the shade of the trees and gathered around the map.

  “There’s where the road enters the mountain,” I said, indicating it with my finger. We’d gone over all of this back in Jamapa, but it didn’t hurt to do it one more time. “You can take the motorcycle down this way and pick up this trail here. Remember,” I said, looking up at both of the men, “the objective here is distraction. It doesn’t matter if you actually breach or not, just make a lot of noise and cause a lot of trouble. Understand?”

  They both nodded.

  “And don’t engage for thirty minutes.”

  They nodded, Cosmo looking at his watch.

  “Do not, get yourself killed.”

  “Likewise,” said Cosmo, and he put a huge arm around Park and gave her a squeeze.

  Jorge looked over at the motorcycles. “You know how to drive one of those?” He asked.

  “Sure, I’ve got a little Honda at home.”

  “Because the last time I saw you on a motorcycle, you were driving it through the middle of the art museum.”

  “That’s right!” said Park.

  “I hope you have learned a little more control,” said Jorge, and he and Cosmto headed over toward the bikes.

  “Control is my middle name,” I called after him. It’s not. It’s Colleen.

  “This is going to be good,” said El, at my side.

  “Huh?”

  She just gestured to the two men, who were just now realizing that one of them was going to be driving, and the other was going to be sitting on the back with their arms around the driver’s waist.

  “My money’s on Cosmo,” she said, seemingly without irony.

  “You think
?”

  Thirty-one

  There was no question who would be piloting our bike. Me.

  “Sorry,” I said. “Hard to hold on to you with my bad hand.”

  “But you can hold on to the handlebars?”

  “Yeah, crazy, huh?”

  “Just don’t push me off the back again,” grumbled Park, referring to the time in Chicago when Selena was chasing us and I needed to lighten the load.

  Selena. I hoped she was doing okay. I hoped Carter had kept his word and kept her out of custody. She would be pissed I was doing this without her, but even Selena had to be on the sidelines sometimes.

  “Shouldn’t we have helmets?” asked Park, shrugging the enormous backpack onto her shoulders and then climbing onto the bike behind me.

  “We should have jetpacks is what we should have. How ‘bout it, science?”

  I started up the motorcycle and eased carefully into motion, taking time to adjust to riding off-road, and to the weight of Park and the gear, which leaned to the side each time we took a corner. And we took a lot of corners. The trail we were following switched back repeatedly as it took us higher and higher up the mountain. After fifteen minutes we rounded a corner and I let of the gas and coasted to a stop, pulling off the trail and under some trees.

  Park leaned to the right to look past me.

  “What is it?”

  “We’re close. We need to go the rest of the way on foot. The engine is too loud if we are hoping to climb up to his sun porch without being noticed.”

  I held out my hand and Park gave me the backpack. I slung it onto my shoulders and we started along the path. There was a lot of tree cover here, so I didn’t worry too much about being spotted. The shade was lovely, and I would have enjoyed the hike if I hadn’t been scared to death of confronting Negron. At the same time, I was eager to finish this and get some justice. The mix made my stomach do more flipflops than the helicopter did.

  “Woah!”

  “You got that right.” We had rounded a corner and stood looking up at the cliff in front of us. It was about four stories tall, and at the top was an avant garde wood and glass structure. It featured a large porch that cantilevered out into space. The view from up there must have been astounding. We were about to find out.