“Not cool, Harry.”
“You know what’s not cool? Fifteen thousand dollars of damage to the Crimebago Deux that insurance refuses to cover because I don’t have a rider for domesticated swine. The only way I’m letting him in my condo is as single portions, wrapped in tinfoil.”
The desert smelled like I imagined it would; like lonely wind and dry plants and dusty sand that coated nostrils and lips. It was chilly, and eerily quiet.
We did sound checks with our ear bud radios; one of Fleming’s toys. They were so tiny I was afraid I’d lose mine. Chandler gave us the basics on how to use the night vision goggles and the metal detectors. To keep our approach silent, Herb and I each had a second ear bud that plugged directly into the headphone jacks. So I was effectively deaf to sounds of the environment, and could only hear my team, or the electronic whine of metal being sensed.
Val rested her crutches against the back of the RV, made sure her rifle was slung correctly, and casted a glance my way.
“Be careful,” she said, her words hitting my ear receiver a second after I saw her lips move.
“You, too.”
Tequila gave Fleming a peck on the cheek, and then she motored off into the green-tinted night. Then he, Chandler, and Heath loaded wheelbarrows with high explosives, and as a group we moved north.
I had a surreal moment. I was a city cop from the Midwest, and I’d done some scary things and been in some dangerous situations, but here I was in Mexico wearing Starlight goggles and holding a metal detector about to navigate through a minefield.
“Keep it low and horizontal, almost touching the ground,” Chandler said. “Long, slow sweeps, a full one-hundred and eighty degrees. If I’m right, you’ll start getting signals in—”
The WHEEEE! of the detector startled me so badly I almost dropped it. I took a few heartbeats to regain composure, and bent down, spray painting a reflective white X over the spot. Then I moved left, around the mine, and continued forward.
“Stay close to her, Herb. We don’t want gaps between you.”
The second mine I found didn’t frighten me as much.
By the fifth, I felt like I might actually survive.
“Slow it down, Jack,” Chandler said. “This isn’t a race. We’ve still got more than fifty meters to cross.”
The breeze was cold, but after ten minutes I was soaked with sweat. Most of my attention was focused on finding mines, but a detached part of my mind wondered what the hell had happened to the human race. Mankind was hardly the only species that murdered its own kind. Lions slaughter cubs from other prides. Chimpanzees fight wars. Dolphins kill for sport. But only man planted bombs in the ground to indiscriminately kill strangers.
I was fifty years old. That was five decades of knowledge and experience. And all of that could disappear in an instant because some asshole built a bomb that killed when you stepped on it, and some other asshole bought a bunch and buried them all in a field.
As a cop, I’d seen and contemplated death. But if you really wanted to question the meaning of life, walk through a minefield. It really messed with your head.
“I stepped on something, and heard a click,” Herb said.
Everyone froze. I felt myself become dizzy.
“Don’t move,” Chandler told him. “Jack, can you get over to him?”
I carefully worked my way around the last X I’d painted, staying away from the edges, and made it to Herb. He smelled like raw, sweaty fear.
Or maybe I was smelling myself.
“Hey, buddy,” I said.
“Hey, buddy.” He chuckled. “This kinda sucks.”
“You’re not going to die here, Herb.”
“You sure about that?”
I nodded.
“Jack,” Chandler told me, “move your detector over Herb’s foot.”
I did. When I heard the whir of metal, I almost lost it.
“Hear something?” Chandler asked.
“Yeah.”
“Does it sound like a mine?”
“I can’t tell.”
“Some shoes have a steel shank in the sole. Do yours, Herb?”
“How would I know that? I got them for thirty bucks at Sears.”
“Is there any clothing you don’t buy at Sears?” Harry asked. “You dress like the cast of Barney Miller.”
“McGlade, shut up. Jack, move the detector over to Herb’s other foot, see if the sound is the same.”
I listened to Chandler. “I heard something.”
“Does it sound similar?”
“I think so.”
“Herb, I’m pretty sure it’s your shoe, and you just stepped on a rock. But we’re going to get a few meters ahead of you, just in case. Jack, lead on.”
“I’m not leaving him.”
“Jack, I’ve got a wheelbarrow full of plastic explosive and blasting caps. I’m not the person to fuck around with right now.”
Herb nodded. “Go. It’s probably my shoe.”
I gave him a harsh stare.
“Get out of here.” Herb smiled, then winked at me. “I gotta do this one solo, partner.”
Slowly, reluctantly, I continued to go north, marking mines until the whole caravan was ten meters away from Herb.
“Are we clear yet?” I asked.
“Keep going until we’re all out. If the mine goes off, we’re going to have to deal with forty armed guards.”
I pressed onward. When we reached the north face of the bullfighting ring, everyone stopped.
“Okay, Herb,” Chandler said. “You can take a step now.”
“If you blow up, I’ll name another pet after you,” McGlade said. “Maybe one of those really fat elephant seals that grunts.”
There was no reply.
“Herb?” I said.
Silence.
“Herb?” I raised my voice, wondering if my ear radio was working.
“Chandler was right. It was a rock. Catch up to you guys in a minute.”
I sank into a pool of beautiful relief. Then I looked at my team.
Chandler was headed east. Heath was going west.
And Tequila was already gone, his wheelbarrow abandoned.
DONALDSON
After they parked, Donaldson waited for them to leave. His intent was to go inside the RV, find a weapon more suitable than his stolen scissors, and tail the group to Lucy.
But all of Jack’s friends hadn’t left.
Some girl had stayed behind.
And that same girl was on the roof of the motorhome, facing away from Donaldson.
She had a gun. But that was okay.
Donaldson was indestructible.
He crawled toward her, clenching the scissors in his fist.
The girl’s gun was big.
And Donaldson wanted it.
LUCY
The hot plate was gone.
Lucy was sure she’d left it in Hanover’s room. But when she returned, after moving him to the playroom, no hot plate.
Could she have gotten the rooms mixed up? They all did look the same.
She checked every room the first floor. Couldn’t find it.
Checked with K. He didn’t have it, either, and Lucy left when he started quoting goddamn Shakespeare.
It wasn’t in the kitchen, or the pantry, or the dining area. She wondered if one of those idiot guards took it. So Lucy located a high-beam flashlight, then wandered outside to search.
JACK
We left the metal detectors next to the third wheelbarrow, and the four of us walked around the outside of the arena.
“Six guards,” Chandler whispered in my ear piece. “A pair on the east side of the stadium, smoking. Two on the south side of the house. And two more at a shed, on the northwest side. They’re cooking something on a hot plate.”
I shivered, my nervous sweat chilled by the cool desert air.
Herb, Harry, and I had done raids before, and I knew the hand signals to direct Herb to move around the house clockwise, and Harry counte
rclockwise.
“What?” Harry said.
“Go that way,” I pointed.
“Then just say go that way and cut the commando BS. I thought you were waving away mosquitos.”
“Go!”
He went.
“Levanta tus manos!” my ear bud crackled. “Get your hands up!”
I heard shouting, in Spanish and English. Then Chandler’s voice.
“They have Tequila.”
I dropped down, and turned to tell Katie to do the same.
But she was gone.
KATIE
She was close. So close she couldn’t stop from trembling.
Years, she’d searched. For most of her life.
And her journey was finally nearing an end.
Katie tucked away the camera she’d easily picked out of Jack’s pocket, gripped the Colt King Cobra hard as she could to make sure she didn’t drop it, and sprinted toward the mission building as soon as the patrolling guard turned the corner.
She had already fulfilled one decades old promise she’d made to herself.
Now Katie was about to make two more come true.
PHIN
Lucy had been away for so long, Phin had allowed himself to hope that perhaps he’d gotten some kind of reprieve.
Then she returned. With the electric burner.
So much for hope.
“Sorry to keep you waiting,” she said, plugging it into the wall. “Some of the men took it to heat up a can of tamales.”
Lucy placed it next to his foot, close enough that the heat was uncomfortable.
“So, here’s the game. You touch your right foot to the hot plate and hold it there for ten seconds. I’ll count out loud.”
“And what happens after ten seconds?”
“Then we do it with your left foot.”
Phin squirmed. The heating element was already so close, it had begun to burn him. There was no possible way he’d be able to hold his bare flesh to that without jerking away.
“And what if I don’t do it?”
“Then I’ll do it to you anyway. But that will show me that I can’t trust you, and I’ll crank up the rack until your tendons and ligaments detach. I’ll make sure you don’t die, though. I’ll keep you alive so you can watch what I do to your wife and son when I have them brought here.”
A scream began to well up in Phin, and he didn’t think he’d be able to stop it.
“It’s okay to make noise,” Lucy said. “I actually like it.”
The two guards came in. “El Cometa needs you in the throne room.”
Lucy’s scarred face twisted into something that Phin guessed was a pout. “I’m in the middle of something.”
“An intruder was caught, trying to break in.”
Lucy let out an overly dramatic, teenage-girlish sigh. “I guess we’ll continue this later.”
She turned to leave.
“Lucy!” Phin said, shaking in pain, “Fire hazard!”
Lucy paused, looked at the burner just inches from his feet, reached for it—
—and switched it off.
She left. But Phin no longer hoped for a reprieve.
He was going to die. And die in agony.
But, if he proved himself, maybe he would get a shot at killing Kite.
Phin clung to that.
JACK
Lights were coming on everywhere, and I pulled off my night vision goggles before I was blinded.
“I lost Katie. Does anyone have eyes on her, or Tequila?” I asked. “Tequila, are you there?”
“Copy,” said Fleming. “They took Tequila inside. Cracked him in the head first. Might have disabled his com. Over.”
“Herb? You see Katie?”
“No. But more guards are coming out of the mission. I count five.”
“Harry?”
“I was pissing. You guys try to piss with night vision goggles on? It looks exactly like Mountain Dew.”
“Chandler?”
“Copy. Rigging explosives, haven’t seen them.”
“Copy that. Same here,” Heath added.
“How about you, Val? Do you see Katie?”
No answer.
“Val? You there?”
My stomach sank. Where the heck was Val?
DONALDSON
The girl wasn’t struggling very much at all.
Even more proof that I have super powers, Donaldson thought. I snuck up without her hearing me, grabbed her with little effort, and now I’m flying.
Wait… why am I—
The girl had flipped him off the edge of the RV, and he hit the ground so hard he bounced.
Donaldson’s wind blew out of him, and as he desperately tried to suck in some oxygen there was a huge BANG! next to his head.
The girl on the roof is shooting at me.
He managed to get onto one knee, blindly reaching for the motorhome’s side door handle as another shot passed between his open legs. If Donaldson still had something there, it would have been blown off.
Pulling hard, the door swung open, and Donaldson planned to take cover when a demon appeared in the doorway and squealed at him.
Donaldson fell backward, managed to turn onto all fours, and then began to crawl as fast as he could toward the lights in the distance.
JACK
Who fired the shots?” Chandler said.
I looked back in the direction of the Crimebago Deux. “They came from beyond the minefield. Either Fleming or Val.”
“Copy that,” Fleming said. “It came from Val’s twenty, over.”
“Was she the one shooting?” I asked. “Or…”
Or was she the one shot?
Could some patrol, or guard, have gotten to Val without any of us noticing?
“That was me,” Val said. “I’m okay.”
I blew a stiff breath out between my teeth.
“There was a man on the roof of Harry’s RV. He attacked me. Knocked off my goggles. He took off in your direction. I don’t see him.”
“More guards coming,” McGlade said. “I count ten.”
“Another eight on my side,” Herb said.
“Copy. I’m going back for the last wheelbarrow,” Chandler told us. “Lay down suppressing fire. Keep them off of me and Heath.”
And then everyone began shooting.
LUCY
The guards led her into the dining room. There was a muscular man on his knees, hands cuffed behind him, bleeding from the side of his head. Luther was standing over him with his Spyderco Harpy in one hand. In his other was a piece of paper. He held it out for Lucy to see.
It was a computer printout of a man’s face.
Mr. Hanover.
“It was in his pocket,” Luther said. “That, and two guns, are all he had on him.”
Lucy’s mind whirled with scenarios. Had Hanover been lying? Was he actually a cop? How did this affect her murder plot?
Outside, there was gunfire.
“Is this a raid?” Lucy wasn’t sure who she was asking, K or the man.
“We’re prepared for a raid.” K brought his curved blade up to the man’s ear. “How many of your men are out there?”
The man stared impassively. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t so much as flinch.
Not even when K cut off his ear.
Lucy had never seen anything like that. Not ever. K was holding this guy’s severed ear, and the dude didn’t even blink.
K took a step back. “Well may it sort that this portentous figure comes armed through our watch,” he whispered.
More gun shots. Closer. The five guards in the room raised their weapons.
Lucy didn’t know what to do. She realized she was frightened. Of whoever was outside. Of K. Of Hanover, who she realized must have lied to her. Of this kneeling man who didn’t react to pain.
“He is an omen, Lucy. As harbingers preceding still the fates.”
“Will you fucking stop it with the fucking Shakespeare!” she screamed. “Make him say something!�
�
“Who are you?” K said, holding his knife to the man’s throat.
The man didn’t speak. Didn’t move.
K lowered his crooked body, peering into the man’s face, cocking his head. “It doesn’t matter what I do to him. He isn’t going to talk. This man is empty inside. You can see it in his eyes. It’s like… gazing into a mirror.”
Lucy considered the straight razor in her back pocket. Killing the prisoner was an option. Maybe K was right, and he’d never talk. But if he did, and Lucy’s deal with Hanover was somehow revealed, she would die a horrible death.
The other option was killing K. The guards were covering the doors, and no one was looking her way. Lucy could slit K’s throat, and try to escape amidst the chaos.
“Three of you, bring him to the arena,” K said. “Keep your guns on him. If he tries anything, shoot him until you run out of bullets.”
They led the man away, and K turned to Lucy. “You have Hanover in the playroom.”
She nodded, slowly dropping her hand to be closer to her razor.
“Bring him to the arena. These men may not talk. But we’ll see if they’ll fight.”
Huh? “K… that makes no sense.”
“This man was carrying Hanover’s picture. Is he a friend? Is he an enemy? This is how to find out.”
“We don’t even know what’s going on out there. It could be cops.”
“Or a rival cartel. Or prisoners trying to escape. Or the men, shooting at shadows. For all I know, princess, it could be friends of yours, here to rescue you. I know you want to leave. You could have gotten a message out a dozen different ways. You could have sent your mind waves out to the machines in the sky.”
She shrank back. “Mind waves?”
“They record our thoughts. Don’t pretend you don’t know. The spiders who crawl in your brain when you sleep. The cameras, everywhere.”
And it was now official. K had turned the corner into paranoid ranting madman crazytown.
She nodded, trying to appear as sincere as possible. “You’re right, K. We need to fix this. I’ll bring Hanover to the arena right now. We’ll find out everything.”
Last Call - A Thriller (Jacqueline Jack Daniels Mysteries Book 10) Page 23