Flee, Spree, Three (Codename: Chandler Trilogy - Three Complete Novels)

by J. A. Konrath

  “You got it, sis. I promise I’ll adhere to your strict moral code while committing grand theft auto.”

  Hammett headed off in the direction of the shops, and Fleming rolled into the lot, feeling very much like she’d just signed a deal with the devil.

  Hammett

  “Enemies change, and allies change,” said The Instructor. “You don’t owe loyalty to the past. Loyalty is for the present.”

  Even though she ached in too many places to count, had failed miserably on her last two missions, was betrayed by her employer, and would be given a death sentence by the United States government, Hammett felt pretty good. Somehow she had avoided getting killed so far, the rain had stopped, and even though she’d switched sides, at least her new partners were competent.

  Hammett had worked with her other four sisters—originally Hammett, Chandler, Fleming, and the other four had been septuplets—and they had been, without a doubt, the best team she’d ever been a part of. Unfortunately, Chandler had killed the other four. But now that Hammett was working with Chandler and Fleming, she felt the same kind of thrill. The three of them were what was left of the best of the best; they had the same training, the same DNA, and they all thought a lot alike.

  Hammett decided she was going to enjoy her time with her sisters, up until the inevitable moment she’d be forced to kill them. But until that point, they shared the same goal, and had to function as a unit.

  She walked the parking lot, shopping for her new vehicle.

  Many times in her line of work, and a few times in her personal life when she couldn’t get a cab, Hammett had stolen vehicles. Hot-wiring was a lot more complicated than it was portrayed in the movies, and with newer-model cars it was often impossible. Carjacking often put the law on your tail in relatively short order. The easiest and smartest way to steal a car was to obtain the keys and get a good head start before the owner knew it was missing.

  Or to just kill the owner. But Fleming was being a wimp about that.

  Hammett could probably kill someone and Fleming wouldn’t know, but that was a risky avenue to go down. Hammett needed her new teammates to trust her, at least a little, and that meant staying true to her word. In this business, you were only as good as your promise. So Hammett intended to not give them any reason to mistrust her, until she inevitably betrayed them and killed them both.

  She prowled the parking lot until she found the perfect mark—a woman in a recent-model SUV, her Nine West purse remaining open after she dropped her keys into it.

  Hammett opened her eyes wide and swiped a finger across her corneas. Then she stuck a fingernail up her nose, scratching the fragile mucus membranes. Once in character, she ran at the woman, bumping her from behind and knocking her purse free.

  Hammett rolled across the parking lot, landing near the purse. Tears were streaming down her face, and blood flowed from her nostril and dribbled over her lips.

  “Hey!” The mark looked angry and confused before spotting Hammett on the ground. “Oh my God, are you OK?”

  “My ex,” Hammett said, making her voice quiver. “He’s after me. He’s coming!”

  She pointed behind her. The woman turned to look. Hammett took her car keys, and the woman’s wallet as well. Then she snapped the handbag closed.

  “I don’t see him,” the woman said, turning back around. “Do you need help? Should I call the police?”

  “No! The police won’t help. I…I gotta go.”

  Hammett took off, sprinting across the parking lot, pinching her nostrils. When the bleeding stopped, she ducked into an L.L.Bean. Used to shopping quickly, Hammett picked out some black steel-toed hiking boots, black rain pants, wool socks, a gray T-shirt, and a bulky gray sweater. She bought them all, along with some strawberry lip balm from the checkout line display, paying with the woman’s credit card. After changing in the bathroom, she went to pick up her new SUV.

  Fleming was already there, switching out the plates in the front.

  “Not bad,” Fleming said. “I swapped tags with an out-of-state SUV, so it’ll take some time to sort out.”

  Hammett nodded, then handed Fleming the lip balm.

  “What is this?” Fleming asked.

  “It’s lip balm.”

  “What’s it for?”

  “You put it on your lips when they’re chapped. Duh.”

  “I meant why are you giving it to me?”

  “Your lips are chapped.”

  Fleming raised a hand, touching her lips, and Hammett spotted Chandler heading toward them with two huge bags of supplies.

  “You guys work out your differences?” Chandler asked.

  Hammett said, “She broke my pinkie, and I bought her some Chapstick.”

  If Chandler found the comment odd, she didn’t show it. Nor did she acknowledge Hammett’s new outfit, which was much more stylish and flattering and far less smelly than the one she’d given her sister back at the farmhouse.

  “This our vehicle?”

  Hammett dangled the keys. Chandler took them, and they loaded the bags and Fleming into the SUV, followed by her wheelchair.

  “I know a place in Milwaukee, perfect to knock over,” Hammett said. “Should net at least fifty K.”

  They headed east as Hammett laid out the details. When she checked the rearview, she caught Fleming putting on some lip balm.

  Good. Fleming is letting her guard down a bit.

  Hammett allowed herself a small grin.

  Now to get Chandler to do the same.

  Chandler

  “When things go wrong,” The Instructor said, “bail out.”

  A mile away from our target, I traded seats with Fleming, letting her drive using her aluminum forearm crutch to work the pedals.

  During the two-hour drive, Hammett had kept busy sawing off the stocks and barrels of the two Mossberg 12-gauge shotguns I’d bought at Walmart using the hacksaw and C-clamps I’d also bought at Walmart. It hadn’t been an easy task, especially with her broken finger, but she’d done it without complaint. Other supplies included a half-dozen prepaid disposable cell phones, three Buck Knives, and a giant bottle of Advil. I passed it all around.

  Fleming circled the block once, while Hammett and I hunkered down by the side door, weapons in hands.

  “If we’re not in and out in thirty seconds,” I said to Fleming, “keep waiting.”

  She patted the Skorpion submachine gun in her lap. “I’m not going anywhere. Take all the time you need.”

  I stared at Hammett until she noticed me and stared back.

  “What?”

  “No killing,” I told her.

  “Are you kidding? These guys signed on for this. Goes with the territory.”

  “You heard me.”

  “So if they shoot at us, what do you want me to do? Bat my eyelashes and flirt?”

  “Wound,” I said.

  She made a face. “You two could take the fun out of a clown orgy, you know that?”

  The SUV eased to a stop. I brought up my Mossberg. Six shells in the tube and one in the chamber. I had extras in my pockets, but if we needed to reload we’d done something very wrong.

  “In and out, you clear the door and the civilians, I’ll hit the safe,” I said. “On three. One…”

  “Three!” Hammett opened her door and leaped out of the vehicle. I ran after her, and within four steps she’d shot both men guarding the front entrance, the Mossberg booming, buckshot tattooing blood into the walls.

  Both shots were low, ripping through legs and feet, and as Hammett barreled through the front door, I attended to the guards and removed their guns and cell phones, shoving them into my backpack as they writhed and swore and moaned in pain.

  “Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time,” I told one of them, a black guy who couldn’t have been older than eighteen. “This ain’t a game for kiddies.”

  I followed Hammett inside, where she fired off two more rounds, one at a third guard, the other into a wall, yelling for ever
yone to get down.

  They moved as fast as stoned people could.

  I hadn’t initially liked the idea of robbing drug dealers. A bank would have been safer, the guards and patrons more predictable. But banks had cameras and hitting one was a federal offense, which would risk putting the FBI on our tails. Crack dealers wouldn’t chase us cross-country. Hell, after being robbed by two women, they wouldn’t even admit what happened to their homies for fear of losing face.

  I disarmed the third soldier, a pudgy, mean-looking kid around twenty, whom Hammett had shot in the groin. He didn’t resist, too busy clutching himself and screaming a mantra that consisted of repeating the word bitch over and over.

  The house was dim and shabby. Those who weren’t passed out on the filthy sofas were on the floor, ducking, begging, or attempting to crawl out the front door unnoticed. I scanned the room for weapons, noting the position of every person’s hands. It smelled like body odor and crack smoke and desperation, with the newly introduced odors of blood and gunpowder mingling in.

  There were gunshots—low caliber—deeper inside the house. Satisfied that no one from this room was in any shape to cause us trouble, I headed into the adjoining kitchen, following the path Hammett had gone, both hands steel-tight on my weapon, as if someone was trying to take it from me. An older man sat at a dirty Formica-topped table. As I moved past, I caught movement from the corner of my eye, the guy reaching into his jacket. I swung the barrel around and almost fired, before I saw it was a crack pipe.

  I guess everyone had their priorities.

  I blew out a breath, trying to reel myself in. I felt jumpy, out of my element. My heart rate raced, on the edge of being too fast. My palms were damp on my shotgun. The reaction was so unlike me. I had performed many operations more stressful than this one. I had nerves of ice.

  I tried to control my breathing, slow my vitals with techniques I’d honed over the years, but the foul smoke constricted my throat and made deep breathing difficult. My heart beat, too fast, and I could hear the thrum in my ears.

  Two more shotgun blasts from Hammett’s Mossberg, coming from above.

  I found stairs leading to the second floor and took them two at a time, my legs feeling heavy. I was exhausted—all of us were—but I had deep reserves. That said, even the deepest wells eventually run dry, and the last week had been hell. Knocking over a drug house in a neighborhood populated by gangbangers who wear guns like bling wasn’t a good time to run out of steam.

  At the top of the staircase, I dropped to one knee, shotgun extended, sighting down the hallway. As with many older houses, the hall was long and narrow, what cops liked to call a vertical coffin. If anyone came down that hall, I’d have them as trapped as a fake duck in a shooting gallery. But the same dynamic applied to me. Rooms flanked either side, and in any doorway a gunman could be waiting on my next move. I’d have to be fast, or I’d be dead.

  Burned gunpowder stuck in my throat and choked the air, the overhead light too dim to cut the haze. Shouting boomed from a room at the end of the hall. Taking advantage of the distraction, I gathered my legs under me and sprang into the hall. I sprinted its length, catching glimpses of darkened rooms and vacant doorways from the corner of my eye. Reaching the source of the commotion, I whipped around the doorjamb and entered the room low, catching peripheral movement to my left. I snapped my head around and focused on Hammett, who stood with her weapon raised, the sawed-off barrel pointing straight at me.

  I brought my shotgun up—that double-crossing…!—but she was faster, and before I could finish the thought, she fired.

  The boom! punched my ears so loud it vibrated in my fillings. I felt a warm tug on my thigh but not the instant death I’d been expecting. I fired as I went to the floor, Hammett getting in under the blast and rolling up to me, one of her hands knocking my shotgun away while the other pressed her hot barrel to my neck, searing my skin.

  I reached up, clawing at her eyes. Hammett leaned back and used the gun to push my chin to the left. There in the shadows a gangbanger twitched in a puddle of his own pooling blood, eyes open and vacant, a .45 still clenched in his fist.

  Hammett yelled something my stunned ears weren’t able to hear, but I didn’t have to know what she said to add two and two together. She hadn’t been shooting at me—she’d taken out the guy behind me. Maybe he’d been behind the door. Maybe he’d followed me into the room, and I’d somehow missed it. But whatever had happened, he’d almost killed me.

  My psychotic sister had saved my life, and I had almost shot her in response.

  I met her eyes and nodded, letting her know I got it, and immediately she had her hand on my shirt and was pulling me to my feet. I checked my thigh, saw my pants were pockmarked with four spots of blood where buckshot had tagged me.

  No pain yet, but it would come.

  The safe was in the corner of the room, as Hammett had predicted. A medium-size Sentry model, under a painting of a crucified black Jesus. Not waiting for me, Hammett started working the combination dial, leaving me to cover the door. After twenty seconds, the Sentry remained locked.

  “There a problem?” I asked, my ears still ringing.

  “They might have changed the combination. It’s been over a year.”

  The whole reason we’d chosen this spot was because Hammett had once taken a job where she’d been required to get information from one of the Midwest’s top gang leaders.

  “After a few hours with me, he told me his whole life story,” Hammett had said. “Every woman he’d slept with. Every crime he’d committed. The locations of seventeen drug houses, along with combinations to all of their safes.”

  “Maybe you’re mixing it up with another location,” I said.

  “Not possible.”

  “Give me a break. Everyone can make mistakes.”

  “Not me. Eidetic memory.”

  “You still could have mixed—”

  “There we go.”

  The safe door opened, and I was left wondering why Hammett and I shared the same features down to our fingerprints, but she had a photographic memory and I didn’t.

  She pulled a plastic Walmart bag from her pocket and began stuffing it with bundles of money, each banded with a bank strip that indicated denomination. Hammett left the stacks of singles, but did take a nickel-plated .357 and a Rolex with a gold bracelet. Then we were moving again, through the hall, down the stairs, and out the door where Fleming still waited.

  The streets were fairly empty, and the few people on the sidewalk looked in any direction but at us, probably sensing things weren’t quite right. I listened for police sirens, didn’t hear any. Nice neighborhood.

  We piled into the backseat, and Fleming took off at a quick clip. I was reaching for my seat belt when Hammett’s shotgun was once again pressed against my neck.

  “You ever shoot at me again, I end you,” she said.

  I met her eyes. Hard colliding with hard. The mistake had been mine in the drug house, but hell if I was going to flip over and show my belly. Not to Hammett.

  “End me? How many times have you tried? Yet I’m still here, bitch.”

  The SUV stopped and Fleming’s Skorpion appeared at Hammett’s temple. “Put it down, Hammett.”

  “Your dumbass sister almost killed me,” Hammett said, her upper lip in a snarl.

  “Now,” Fleming ordered.

  Hammett lowered her gun, keeping her eyes on mine. “Don’t you know how to clear a room, rookie? Check behind the goddamn door next time.”

  She was right. Fatigue, or just plain bad judgment, had almost gotten me killed. Hammett had saved my life. But there was no way I was going to thank her. Ever.

  “Chandler’s hit,” Fleming said, peering over the seat at my leg. She tucked away the Skorpion and replaced it with a first-aid kit, holding it out to Hammett. Then she shifted the SUV into gear again, turned on the dome light in back, and joined the weak flow of traffic.

  Without further comment, Hammett opened the ki
t and removed some scissors, then sliced through my pants where I’d been shot. She wiped away the blood with gauze, and I stared down at the four puncture marks.

  “No bleeders,” Hammett said. Her voice had lost all the anger and sarcasm. “Missed the femoral artery. I can get these out.”

  She numbed me with Demerol, poured on a bottle of alcohol, then went to work with the needle-nose tweezers. I closed my eyes and tried to relax—which is, of course, impossible to do when someone’s digging buckshot out of your leg.

  “Had to do this to myself, once,” Hammett said. “Beijing. Didn’t have tweezers, so I filed down a pair of chopsticks. Got a nasty infection. I saw some antibiotics in that duffel the shrimp left us, so when we’re done, take a few. Tough to function with a fever.”

  I didn’t like Hammett’s conversational tone. A minute ago, she’d had a gun to my neck. Now she wanted to be chummy and chitchat. And I had an idea why.

  At Hydra, the secret government agency for which we’d all once worked, I’d had a psychology instructor named Albrecht, who’d explained in excruciating detail how to verbally manipulate others. It was partly what you said, and partly how you said it, with tone and inflection and body language. I learned how to flirt and channel my inner femme fatale. I learned how to be commanding, to make people want to follow my orders. I learned how to be completely nonthreatening, an instant best friend.

  “Cut the bullshit,” I told Hammett. “I took the same classes you did.”

  “Ease up, killer. Just trying to distract you from the pain.”

  I opened my eyes to stare at her. “I’m never going to trust you, Hammett. Never. Let that play through your eidetic head next time you’re trying to con me into liking you.”

  Hammett didn’t get angry. If anything, she appeared thoughtful. “There are things I’ve done that you haven’t. Lines I’ve crossed that you believe you never would. And that makes me a monster in your eyes. At the same time, you kill people for the government, but you think you still have some morals left. That makes you a hypocrite in my eyes. A hypocrite, and a coward who is afraid to let her nature take her where it wants to go.”