“Really? Now?”
“Money or I shoot.”
Heath and Earnshaw had left far too long ago, and the bullfight was already starting. I did not have the patience for this. “Sure, anything you want.”
I dipped my head down as if pulling out my cash, then moving fast, I shot my left hand up, grabbed his, twisted the barrel to the side, and jabbed the fingers of my right hand straight into his eyes.
He released the gun and bellowed. Clutching his face with one hand, he clawed with the other, trying to get ahold of me over the seat.
“Na-uh,” I said and focused the gun on him. “Out of the car. Now.”
He didn’t move. “Puta. There are no bullets.”
“No bullets?”
“They are muy expensivo.”
I didn’t know if he was bluffing or not, but I didn’t want to chance a look, not while I was within his reach.
So I drew back the gun and hit him.
His head snapped back, and he let loose with a flood of obscenities. I hit him again, and he slumped against the seat. Convinced he was no longer in shape to quickly drive away, I climbed out of the backseat, opened the driver’s door, and dragged him out onto the pavement. Then I slipped behind the wheel, shifted into gear, and accelerated into traffic.
Weaving through a gaggle of crazy drivers, I checked the revolver, but he had been telling the truth. No bullets.
Maybe that’s why he was robbing me: to buy some.
The fake cabbie had cost me time, but at least I had wheels, and in the ashtray he had a small roll of cash he’d probably stolen from some poor tourists. I stuffed it into my pocket and focused on the road.
Getting anywhere in Mexico City was easier said than done, and the rest of the drive was an endless string of frustrations. Finally the Plaza Mexico rose ahead. I screeched around a sharp turn into a side street flanking the stadium and stopped.
I sprinted out of the cab, leaving it in the street, and raced toward the bowl-shaped ring. Amid honking horns, a trumpet sounded, high and clear, the signal for the beginning of the fight itself or one of the three stages within. Since Heath was working as an arenero, I had to assume the attack would come between bulls, when the areneros would be tending the ring.
Ironically, or perhaps not, much of what I knew about bullfighting, I’d learned from Heath himself before I became aware he was an operative.
There are three stages in a bullfight. In the first the picadors, men mounted on padded and blindfolded horses, wear down the bull by inciting him to attack them and plunging their lances into the bull’s neck.
The second stage belongs to the banderillero, who runs toward the bull on foot and plunges barbed darts decorated with colorful ribbons into the bull’s neck.
It isn’t until the tercio de muerte or third of death, that the matador takes center ring and performs a series of passes with his cape. That’s when the chants of olé would start, the countdown to the bull’s death. Today that death would be followed by many, many more, if I failed to stop it.
I had to hurry.
The entire area around the bullfighting ring was vibrating with energy. Concession carts lined every available space. Smells of food mixed with heavy exhaust. Cheers exploded from the arena.
I bought a ticket at the window using cash from the cabbie’s stash. I didn’t want to draw attention to myself, and I figured security would be watching the walls much more closely than earlier today when the plaza was closed.
Chants of olé started before I could get through the gate.
The matador was clearly in the ring and had started his passes. The tercio de muerte had begun, and once the bull was dead, the areneros would make their entrance.
I made it through the gate and the metal detector that spectators were required to pass through. Rushing by signs directing spectators to de sombra and de sol, the shade and the sun sections of the grandstands, and past statues of notable men and portraits of the sport, I wound my way back to the business areas of the plaza, the entrances to the bulls’ pens and the ring itself. A security guard stood in my way, guarding against the matador’s groupies, no doubt. But if American rock stars taught us anything at all, it was that not all groupies were kept away from their idols.
“¡Olé!”
I sidled up to the guard. He was younger than ideal, and it occurred to me that he’d probably see me more as a desperate cougar than anything else, especially since many matadors would be still in high school if they lived in the States. But maybe that in itself gave me something to work with.
And if manipulation didn’t do the trick, I had other ways of dealing with him.
“¡Olé!”
Again I spoke in serviceable Spanish, but let a Texas accent bleed through and my voice lilt as if with a touch of too much tequila. “I was wondering if you could help me.”
He shot me a look of obvious skepticism, but he didn’t seem uninterested. “I will try.”
“I want to meet a real matador. Are they down there?” I pointed down the ramp.
“I’m sorry. That area is restricted. You must go back to your seat.”
I toyed with the sleeve of his uniform with my fingertips. “But it would be the highlight of my vacation. Please. It would mean a lot.”
“I’m sorry.”
Just my luck. I found a man who couldn’t be seduced, at least not easily. Problem was, I didn’t have the time to do it properly. With each shouted olé, the crowd counted down to their own deaths.
Time to try a different tack.
I slipped the rest of the cabbie’s cash from my pocket and flashed a few hundred pesos. “I won’t cause trouble. I promise.”
He eyed the cash, his face hard. For a long moment, I thought he was going to refuse and force me to kill him. Then he plucked the dinero from my fingers. “You sneaked in. I never saw you.”
“Thanks.” I ran down the ramp before he could have an attack of conscience.
The bowels of the bullring were cramped and hot. Even before I reached the bottom of the ramp, sweat had slicked my back, and I longed for fresh air.
The ramp ended at a small, empty garage-like area. The odor of exhaust lingered, and I scanned the area twice before spotting the chute leading up to the arena.
“¡Olé!”
The crowd erupted into frenzied cheers, the stands thundering overhead. I could only guess, but my money said the matador had made his fatal strike. The celebration of a good kill seemed to be exploding overhead, and that meant as soon as all the roses and hats thrown into the ring were removed, Heath would be smoothing and spraying down the surface to control dust.
Spraying, that was the key.
I still didn’t know what part he intended me to play, but I had my own objective, and if his didn’t fit with mine, I wouldn’t hesitate to take him out.
I moved up the chute toward sunlight, finding myself in an area surrounding the ring itself. To my right, the bull corrals. Horses claimed the other side of the ring, but many of them were already in the ring, the picadors’ mounts dressed in padding that resembled quilted mattress covers.
In the ring the picadors and banderilleros carried the matador in a victory lap, their huge sombreros bobbing into view. I scanned the area, looking for a tractor, a truck, or an ATV that might be used to smooth and water the ring.
Then I spotted it, on the other side of the bulls, a small pickup idling at a gate, waiting for the celebration to close. It was the truck Heath had been driving earlier, the tank still filling the truck bed and the drag harrow trailing from the back. As the vehicle drove around the arena, it would spray a mist of water to control dust and rake the surface smooth.
Only I had a strong feeling it wasn’t water in that tank.
I sprinted through the walkway between the ring and the first-row seats. The celebration passed me on the inside of the ring, the crowd roaring around me, sombreros, roses, and upstretched arms blocking my view of the truck. I dodged my way through groups of pe
ople, running as fast as I could. Almost there.
A large man wearing a huge hat, and for some odd reason, a red-sequined skirt, jutted out in front of me, blocking my path.
“Disculpa.”
He didn’t move. I put my hand on the small of his back, giving him a shove. He turned around, and I realized it wasn’t a man.
I was staring into the brutal face of Earnshaw.
Honest mistake. And holy shit.
I leaped for the wall, caught the top with my hands, and pulled myself up until my hips balanced on the edge.
She went for my legs, and I knew if she grabbed me, I was dead.
I twisted and kicked, stomping her in the jaw just as her hands hit my ankles. Blood gushed from her nose and slicked her face, and I flipped over the wall before she could get a hold and landed on my feet in the dirt.
The truck had just passed, and I launched into a run after it. The sandy surface churned beneath the scarifying blades and smoothed under the finishing bars dragging behind, but I couldn’t see any spray coming from the tank. Not yet.
A startled arenero looked up from his rake, then stared past me, eyes wide. Behind, I could hear a low bellow, and I didn’t have to look over my shoulder to know that Earnshaw had made it over the wall and was in pursuit. I could only hope her broken nose and battered face would slow her down.
But I damn well wouldn’t bet on it.
Willing my legs to move faster, I caught up to the drag harrow and leaped onto the finishing bars. Keeping my feet moving, I scrambled up the drag and onto the framework of blades. One slip, and I’d be shredded, my flesh left in bloody ribbons. The tank peered down at me from the truck’s bed, ready to spray at Heath’s command. I was immune to the virus, but with the flick of a switch, he could make the tines too slick for me to keep my balance.
Yet he didn’t.
Pushing aside a barrage of questions, I climbed up the rig, hand over hand, foot beside foot, until I reached the truck bed. Stealing a glance over my shoulder, I saw that Earnshaw had reached the rear of the drag and was pulling herself up on it and toward me.
The Ebola tank took up the entire space, so draping my body over the smooth curve, I tiptoed along the edge of the truck box. The pickup swerved. My right foot slipped. Pulse thumping in my ears at the close call, I managed to pull myself back up and make it to the cab.
Struggling to balance, I kicked the driver’s window. The impact shuddered up my leg, but the glass remained intact. I kicked it again. And once more.
Glass shattered, falling from the window frame in pebbles.
I reached through the space, meaning to rake my fingers across Heath’s face, disabling him long enough to slip into the truck. But I grasped nothing but air.
The vehicle swerved toward the wall, and suddenly I was flying forward. I hit the dirt, breath whooshing from my lungs before my mind caught up to the realization that Heath had hit the wall.
No, not the wall. A gate.
The wooden burladero, meant to shield the gate, wasn’t strong enough to stand up to a truck, and it splintered in front of the truck’s left fender, the gate behind bent inward, off its hinges.
The truck revved, and I could sense it backing up, or at least trying to, but just as I struggled to my feet, Earnshaw slammed into me.
I flew forward. Somehow keeping my legs under me, I outpaced her momentum like a star running back, leaving her falling to the ground, grasping but not gripping. Her skirt fell down around her legs, binding them like shackles, and revealing a pink thong that on her looked downright wrong.
The truck door slammed behind me, and for a second I assumed Heath would join in our fight, or simply pull a gun and end me. Instead, he circled to the drag and started unhitching it from the truck.
Not that I could worry about him long, because Earnshaw was coming at me once again.
After getting a taste of her strength back at the apartment, I was not eager to let her get a hold of me. As strong as I was, she was stronger, and I believed every bit of Heath’s comment about crippling being the only thing that had kept her out of the Olympics.
I danced backward like a featherweight boxer trying to fight Tyson. I hit her in the side of the head with a quick snap kick, too fast for her to respond, yet what I gained in quickness, I lost in power.
She didn’t blink, just hunkered in low, ready to grab my foot if I tried the same trick again.
A large mass moved to my right. Not Earnshaw. There was something else in the ring with us.
Earnshaw’s eyes flicked to the side. “Oh, shit.”
At first I thought it might be a trick, a way to throw me off my guard. Then the mass moved closer, and I gave in and took a peek just in time to see a gray-and-white-dappled bull stop along the fence and turn in our direction.
His horns spread from his head, hooking at the end to point their sharp tips at us. Shoulders as tall as mine, the animal was massive, easily bigger than the two of us combined. Hell, he was bigger than two of the two of us combined, maybe three.
“That’s a lot of bull,” I said.
The beast lowered his head and charged.
Hammett
“In a fight to the death,” The Instructor said, “don’t be the one who dies.”
Oh, shit, Hammett thought as she watched Tristan finish climbing the rope ladder up the blimp. He stood to his full height and shrugged his shoulders in his armless T-shirt, the best muscles money could buy popping and undulating in his arms and chest. That was scary enough on its own. But it was especially scary a thousand feet in the air when Hammett had no weapon other than a tactical flashlight.
I survived Niagara Falls, only to be killed by some musclehead on top of a blimp.
Hammett undulated her diaphragm, forcing in a breath, her ribs screaming. She didn’t think the bullets had penetrated her Kevlar, but it felt like the shots had broken a few more ribs, and perhaps her scapula. Wincing at the pain, she forced herself onto all fours, and then her feet, lifting her hands above her head in surrender. She quickly formulated a plan, which was easily the worst plan she ever hatched, but she really had no other options.
Above the roar of the bitterly cold wind, she yelled, “I’m unarmed!”
She turned a slow circle, showing she had no hidden weapons, feeling at any moment the head shot would end her.
Oddly, it didn’t. So far so good.
“You need a gun to take me, big man?” she called.
He didn’t answer, didn’t drop the gun, and continued to close the distance until he stood a meter away.
“I get it,” Hammett said. “You’ve taken so many steroids, the only way you can handle a woman is with a gun. Cock doesn’t work anymore?”
Tristan had been trained by The Instructor and should be impervious to taunts. Even though he was easily twice Hammett’s weight, he had to know how dangerous she was. He wasn’t going to risk fighting her. The smart thing to do was put two in her head and then kick her to the earth below.
But then he gave Hammett the biggest surprise of her life and holstered his pistol.
“Never raped anyone on a blimp before,” he said. “Maybe I’ll give it to you as I break your neck.”
Hammett almost laughed. He was giving her a chance. Granted, the chance was slim, but it was a better deal than she’d had a few seconds earlier.
“Promises, promises,” she said, and winked. “Come get me, big boy.”
He rolled his shoulders, looking a lot like a CG version of the Hulk minus the green skin, and then stepped forward and lashed out with his right leg.
For a huge man, Tristan was extremely fast. Hammett couldn’t dodge the kick in time, and blocking it full-on meant broken bones, so she turned and stepped away, absorbing a glancing impact on her shoulder. Her arm instantly went numb, and she was knocked onto her back. She managed to use the momentum to roll to her feet again, standing on wobbly tiptoes against the curving slope of the blimp’s edge. One more step back and she’d slide off and make
a big spot on Toronto.
Tristan advanced, a smirk on his face, his Asian eyes narrowing to slits and making him look like a homicidal Buddha. If Buddha had spent his life in a gym instead of meditating.
Hammett buried the pain, the fear, and launched herself at the giant.
He raised an arm to block, and Hammett dropped to one knee under it, swinging an uppercut between his legs, connecting with everything she had. She immediately followed by dropping to a push-up position, then donkey kicking her left leg up and planting her boot into Tristan’s face.
He was a tree, not budging at all, but Hammett heard him grunt and knew she’d hurt him. Reaching up, she grabbed for his holster.
He caught her left wrist, twisted, and snapped her arm as easily as if it were a pencil.
Hammett screamed, anticipating the pain, howling as it came on and hit like a locomotive. She gritted her teeth as Tristan pulled her to her feet by her broken appendage and dangled her in front of him. A cat toying with a mouse.
His nose was bleeding, and his amused expression had turned sour.
“Did I miss your balls?” Hammett said through her clenched jaw. “Tough to hit such a small target.”
Then she struck with the tactical flashlight, aiming for his eye. He flinched in time, lowering his head, but the flashlight was heavy and solid and ripped a nice gash in his forehead.
He roared, throwing Hammett to the side.
She rolled twice over the top of the blimp, and then she went over the edge and was sliding, face-first, into Canada.
Chandler
“When it comes to fighting, there’s more to it than brute force,” said The Instructor. “But if brute force gets ahold of you, make sure you’re slippery.”
As the bull started toward us, Earnshaw stepped backward, as if she was going to run for the wall. I was about to do the same, when her left knee snapped up and drilled the inside of my thigh, just missing the grenade in my pocket, but hitting my femoral nerve.
Hits and kicks aren’t common in grappling, and I wasn’t expecting the move. My mistake. Pain shot up my leg, the limb collapsed under me, and for a few seconds, I was unable to react. Hell, I was unable to think. All I could do was lie there and wait for the deathblow.
Flee, Spree, Three (Codename: Chandler Trilogy - Three Complete Novels) Page 93