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

by J. A. Konrath

  “My Mossberg,” Chandler whispered.

  Heath hesitated only a moment, then reached alongside the bed for the bag he’d brought into the room. Chandler reached inside, taking her shotgun. Heath palmed his Sig Sauer. Then he tossed back the sheets and eyed the crumpled ball of denim lying on the floor beneath the front window.

  “No time,” Chandler whispered. “Just shoes.”

  She was right, of course. They wouldn’t get far barefoot. But the thought of his huevos flapping free with lead flying all around didn’t please him. He slipped into his cowboy boots.

  Chandler climbed out of bed, naked except for footwear and backpack. She held her shotgun at waist level. Above it, her perfect breasts. Below, an area of her he liked just as much.

  Life was too short for Heath not to take a second to stare. Was there anything hotter than a naked woman with a lethal weapon?

  The doorknob began to jiggle, slowly, the lock preventing it from opening. Chandler backed up against the wall, drawing a bead, and Heath crouched behind the bed.

  There was a chance, however slim, that it was the motel owner, or a drunk guest thinking it was their room, or some other harmless possibility.

  That thought was wiped from Heath’s mind when the door burst inward, revealing a Mexican dressed in black from his boots to his hat, a pistol in each hand.

  Heath aimed for his head, shooting just as Chandler’s shotgun boomed. The explosion was deafening in the tiny room. They both hit their mark, but hers ripped through his chest, and through the wall behind him.

  Three more men stormed the room in rapid succession with their guns blazing, but against Chandler’s shotgun they might as well have been bees in a hurricane. She cut them down as fast as she could pump the weapon, which was ridiculously fast.

  “What kind of rounds do you have in that thing?” Heath yelled, barely able to hear his own voice over the ringing in his head.

  “Fléchette. Steel darts.”

  Years ago, Chandler had taken his eye, but Heath was angrier at himself for letting her get away from him. “I really am in love,” he said to himself.

  “What?”

  He smiled. “We’ve got to get out of here.”

  “No shit.”

  Keeping low, Heath stepped toward the front of the room, making a last-ditch grab for his pants. The front windowpane shattered, glass and lead flying and peppering the wall behind him.

  He dove for cover behind the bed and then scrambled to the side window.

  They’d chosen an end room so they’d have multiple avenues of egress, not that he believed they would need them since they’d only planned to stay a couple of hours. But he’d learned years ago that a little planning could save your ass. Keeping low, Heath peered down at the parking lot.

  Hombres dotted the parking lot below, several dressed all in black and wearing Stetsons and boots like some sort of damn cowboy convention, all of them carrying AK-47s.

  “The situation is not encouraging,” he said.

  “How many?”

  “A dozen that I can see from here. Probably more in front.”

  “Who are they?”

  “El Cártel de Sinaloa,” Heath said. “They like to dress as rancheros.”

  “So why does the cartel care about us?” Chandler asked. “You piss these boys off somehow?”

  “Me? Of course not. Everybody loves me. You?”

  “As far as I know, the only cartel that would like to see me dead is Los Zetas.”

  Heath pulled his eyes from the men in the lot to shoot her a glance.

  Chandler shrugged. “It’s a long story.”

  “Well, it’s safe to say these cabrónes are not doing favors for Los Zetas. They aren’t amigos.”

  “I’m betting they have a financial arrangement with The Instructor.”

  “No one followed us from Mexico City.”

  “Your chip, Heath.”

  Of course. They hadn’t followed the truck, they’d tracked him. Chandler had warned him, and he hadn’t taken her seriously.

  Heath shook his head. They never should have stopped, even for a couple of hours. But at least, if he had to die, he would do it with a smile on his face and the smell of Chandler on his skin.

  “If we jump out the window, we’ll be dead before our feet hit the ground.”

  “So we go through the door.”

  She zipped open her backpack, pulled out a box of shells, and began loading.

  Heath aimed his Sig at the window, watching for movement behind the flapping curtain. The breeze from outside was oven-hot already and smelled like dust, exhaust from the highway, and gunpowder.

  “What this time?” he asked, noting her rounds were a different color.

  “Piranha.”

  “I am unfamiliar. It fires scary little fish?”

  “Sharpened steel tacks.”

  “Perfecto.”

  She slid the box of shells inside the pack and slung it back over her shoulder.

  “Ready?”

  “As I’ll ever be, bonita.”

  “On me.” She stood and advanced to the door, which had swung closed.

  Heath followed, the soles of his boots crunching over glass. He spotted his jeans under the window, sunlight sparkling on the shards covering them.

  Chandler stepped to the side of the doorframe, her shotgun pointed to the ceiling, she nodded, and Heath yanked the door open.

  Two bodies slumped on the threshold, three more in the hall. They wore body armor over their western shirts, not that it had done them any good against fléchette shells. Chandler stepped over the corpses, then crouched low, staying in the right angle between building and air-conditioning unit.

  Heath moved in behind her, stopping to wrestle an AK-47 from one of the dead men. He slipped the strap over his head, the webbing wet and warm and sticky against his bare skin. The smell of blood and gunpowder hung thick in the back of his throat.

  He checked the weapon and then brought it to his shoulder, peering through the scope and getting an up-close view of Chandler’s ass.

  “Tell me you aren’t looking as my ass through the scope,” Chandler said without turning around.

  “If I did, I would be lying to you, and we are working on building trust. Besides, it was your call to not get dressed.”

  “I don’t want to get shot because you’re preoccupied being the horndog.”

  “I can’t think of a better reason to get shot. And you need not worry, I’ve got your ass covered.”

  “I bet.”

  They moved slowly, expertly, falling into a well-rehearsed stealth mode. The hotel formed a right angle, the walkway elbowing where one wing met the other, then ending at a slanted roof, clay tiles angling down over the hotel’s main office. The picnic areas backed by a tall fence flanked the other side of the lot, and judging from the lack of activity around the spot where they’d nestled the truck, the men below either hadn’t located it or didn’t know its value.

  Only one staircase served this wing of the hotel, about four doors down angling in two sections with a landing in between. A second staircase spilled out near the office.

  “The office,” Heath said.

  Chandler nodded. “On me when we’re ready.”

  “Just give the word.”

  Male voices shouted below, whoever was in charge of this assault directing men up to the second floor.

  Chandler aimed the shotgun at the spot where staircase met balcony. A vine climbed up the stairs and clung to the railing, spreading in both directions. The vine’s leaves trembled with the vibrations of feet climbing steps.

  Three men appeared, running up the stairs, rifles ready. One wore a black cowboy hat like others Heath had noticed. The other two were dressed less cowboy and a little more military. All wore body armor.

  Chandler took out the first man just as his foot hit the walkway. He flew backward, his hat tumbling onto the balcony.

  While she pumped another shell into the chamber, Heath
hit the next two with clean headshots. Their bodies fell back down the steps, metal clanging.

  “Move! Move! Move!” Chandler yelled. She rose to her feet, blasting at the steps and men beneath.

  Heath raced down the walkway, keeping low and close to the wall. At the top of the stairs, he dropped to a knee and fired at the handful of cabrónes lurking at the bottom. He caught one in the neck, the others ducking back and out of the way. Stepping toward the walkway’s edge, he laid down a steady stream of fire and called to Chandler, “On me! Go!”

  “Coming to ya!”

  She ran, low and fast, passing behind Heath and then taking up position at the intersection of the second wing.

  “I got you! Go, go, go!”

  He met her at the angle. Positioning themselves back to back, they each covered one of the wings.

  A pickup idled in the parking lot, a group of men gathered around it, some squeezing off a round now and then, some standing around watching as if this was some kind of spectator sport.

  “Yo quiero tu panocha,” one of the men yelled, thrusting with his hips. Several others laughed.

  “I have to reload,” Chandler said, her expression neutral.

  “Go ahead.”

  “Yo quiero tu panocha,” the man repeated, others joining in.

  “Yo tengo hambre mamasota, mucha hambre!”

  The come-ons might not bother Chandler, but they bothered Heath. He fired, taking off the top of the man’s head.

  “At least he’s not hungry anymore.”

  Several rounds flew back their way.

  “Ready to move?” he asked Chandler.

  “On me, OK?”

  “I like it when you say on me. It makes me remember being on you.”

  She stood in all her naked and armed glory and blasted several shots. Heath was already in motion. A man emerged from the second staircase, heading straight for him. Heath hit him on the run, then took a knee.

  Lead flew up at him from the staircase, and he leaned flat against an angle in the wall to stay out of the stream. He couldn’t tell how many men remained below, but judging from the rain of bullets, there were many. He and Chandler wouldn’t be able to make it down this staircase either.

  He eyed the roof of the office, still ten meters away, then swung back to Chandler.

  “On me! Move!”

  Then Chandler was running, and he was shooting. When she reached the protected angle, she hunkered down beside him.

  “I’m out.” He dropped the rifle, letting it swing from his shoulder on its strap. Then he pulled his Sig from his pack. “Stairs are no good. We need to keep going.”

  “OK,” Chandler yelled back. “On me! Go!”

  Gunfire popped and pinged around them. Just as Heath cleared the second staircase, a ranchero in black stepped out, obviously lying in wait, rifle in hand.

  Shit. A pistol was no good. Not from here. Not without armor-piercing rounds. Heath fired anyway, the bullet hitting the man in the body armor.

  The drug soldier stumbled forward, then Chandler pivoted and pumped a load of razor-sharp tacks into him from the other side.

  Heath let out a whoop as she turned back to the men below, pumped, and fired. “Go! Go! Go!”

  Heath made it to the end of the walkway. “I got you! Go!”

  She ran, covering the last stretch of walkway as he fired. When she reached him, she knelt down beside him, chest heaving.

  “You’re giving me a hard-on, bonita.”

  “You better watch out. You’ll get it shot off.”

  “Now that would be a shame. But with you looking like that, I don’t stand a chance.”

  “How many are left?”

  “At least ten. And those remaining will be better. The young ones, trying to make their bones on our blood, went first. The rest will be old pros.”

  Chandler glanced back at the man soaking the concrete. “You might want to take advantage.”

  “Of you?”

  Chandler gave him a wicked smile. “Of his ammo.”

  “Good idea.” While she gave him cover, he raced back and searched the body for extra magazines. Finding two, he returned to Chandler’s side.

  Beautiful Chandler.

  She could turn right now, bust one of those piranha shells through him, and be free and clear. No tracker. No way for The Instructor to find her once she got away. She would be able to destroy the virus and be on her way home.

  “Why didn’t you do it?” he asked.

  “Kill you just now?” She fired two blasts in the hostiles’ direction. “I thought about it.”

  “But you didn’t.”

  “Tried to at the gas station.”

  “You weren’t trying. Not unless you intended to fuck me to death.”

  “That was my plan this morning, until these guys showed up.”

  His Chandler. She was something, all right.

  Heath took a deep breath, the air foul with gunpowder and the odor of blood. “You said you removed your chip.”

  “Yes.”

  He’d noticed the wound, just under her belly button, while they were making love. Skimming his gaze down her body, he could see the red line, the black stitches right now.

  “I am thinking removing mine might be a smart idea.”

  “You’d trust me to?”

  “You’re not planning to kill me, right?”

  “Not today. You?”

  “Couldn’t do it, bonita, even if I wanted to.”

  Even if he had to.

  And that was not a good position for a spy to find himself in.

  Hammett

  “Die on your time,” The Instructor said. “I forbid you to die while on my clock.”

  The last two hours were a blur.

  Somehow Hammett had managed to reach the harbor on her floating chair cushion, haul herself out of the water, and limp a kilometer west.

  The cold water had numbed a lot of her pain, and her blood loss made the whole journey almost an out-of-body experience.

  She finally lay down in a large patch of bushes near the shore, hidden from passersby by their height, too cold to even shiver, blithely wondering what would kill her first, hypothermia or hypovolemic shock.

  Ultimately, it didn’t matter. She’d completed her mission. Stopped the threat. Saved a half-million lives. Not too shabby for a few days’ work.

  Her only regret was not finding a good home for Kirk. Which was an interesting regret, considering all of the terrible things Hammett had done in her life.

  During her walk, she’d ignored several people who asked if she needed help. Even now, Hammett could probably sit up, let out a yell or two, and be in a hospital within a few minutes.

  And from there, a public trial, jail, and execution. Or worse, no trial at all, swept away to a black site where she’d be tortured the remainder of her life.

  This way was better. At least she’d die on her terms.

  A gull appeared overhead, riding a thermal so it seemed to hover.

  For some reason, Hammett’s mind flitted to an earlier conversation with Chandler.

  Did saving all those lives make her a hero?

  Probably. But no one would ever know about it. Or care.

  Truth was, Hammett didn’t care either. Life didn’t matter, hers included.

  Still, dying a hero was something she never could have predicted. Hammett was the epitome of the phrase born to lose. Destined to make the world a worse place for everyone.

  And yet, as she cashed in her chips, shuffled off her mortal coil, the balance books told otherwise.

  Hundreds killed. Hundreds of thousands saved.

  Hero?

  Maybe she was.

  The gull changed directions, flying away.

  Hammett took a breath. A shallow one.

  Her heart fluttered. Arrhythmia.

  Her systems were shutting down.

  It wouldn’t be long now.

  Hammett wondered, under better circumstances, if her life could h
ave turned out differently.

  What if her birth mother had lived, and she’d grown up with her six sisters?

  A mother and a father, in a nice, suburban household.

  Grandparents who baked cookies.

  As many dogs as she wanted.

  She imagined a family vacation. Disneyland. Pictures hugging Mickey Mouse.

  Skinning a knee and having someone kiss it to make it better.

  Dad pushing her on a bike. Mom pushing her on a swing.

  Doing her sisters’ hair because that’s what sisters did, not because they were on the run.

  What if…

  The two cruelest words in the English language, what if. But Hammett let the fantasy play out.

  Growing up, safe and secure.

  No hurt. No abuse.

  Losing her virginity to an adorable boy who cared about her.

  A college, studying something normal.

  A job that didn’t involve killing.

  A marriage in a big white dress, cutting a big white cake.

  A baby growing inside her.

  Hearing a child, her child, call her mama.

  Spending holidays with the family. Catching up with her sisters. Trading pictures and stories and recipes.

  Watching her kid grow.

  Baking cookies with her grandchildren, in a big house with as many dogs as she wanted.

  Being loved.

  Hammett had never known what it felt like to be loved.

  But that wasn’t a regret. It was impossible to regret something you had no control over.

  Hammett had been dealt a bad hand. She played it as best she could, with bluff and bluster and maybe even a bit of courage.

  But bad hands don’t win. It was finally time to fold.

  Another breath, even weaker.

  Such a strange thought, knowing that her next breath could be her last. Everyone had a last breath. Hammett’s was coming soon.

  Was it worth keeping track of how many breaths she had left?

  Was anything worth it? Any of it?

  Hammett considered, for the first time since she was a child begging the universe for help that never came, if there was a God, a heaven.

  If so, God was in for a surprise. The world he created sucked, and when she showed up, she was going to smack some regret into him for doing such a crummy job.