“Would you trust me if you were in my place?”
A quote from Wuthering Heights popped into my head. Catherine describing her bond with Heathcliff. I hadn’t read the book since I was fourteen, but I could still see the words as clearly as if I had eidetic memory after all.
“Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same…”
I blew a derisive laugh through my nose. We were the same, and that I was entertaining the possibility of a relationship with Heath at all suggested I was delusional. And yet I felt more myself than I had in what seemed like a very long time. Maybe Hammett was right. Maybe I was out of my mind. Or maybe I was finally coming to grips with who I really was, and maybe someday, I would be able to quit thinking so hard and accept it.
Maybe…someday…
“What is so funny?” Heath’s cheeks held a flush, the tequila starting to work its magic.
“I think you might be right. I think we might actually be made for each other.”
“You think, querida? You think too much.”
“So I’ve heard.”
“Stop with the thinking. You need to feel. You need to do.”
I ripped open the sterile package and brandished the scalpel. “I need to cut. You really think you can tough it out?”
“I know I can.”
So had I when my chip was removed. Only it hadn’t worked out the way I’d expected.
“Take another drink, Heath.”
He did, and he’d just lowered the bottle when I made the first incision, slicing through skin and the first layer of subcutaneous fat.
He grunted, gritting his teeth.
“It gets worse.”
“Just do it.”
I slipped my fingers between the strands of muscle, searching for the telltale lump of the tracking chip, just around the size of a quarter. Probing underneath the striations, I sought out his duodenum.
Heath grasped my wrist, hard enough to hurt.
“On second thought, I think the Demerol might be a good idea.”
I already had a shot prepared, and gave him a few quick jabs. After only a few seconds, his face relaxed.
“Demerol, eh?” His voice had lost its edge.
“I mixed in a little morphine.”
“You tricked me, bonita.”
“You can believe that. Or you can believe I didn’t want to see you in pain.”
He closed his eyes, his breathing slowing down. I went deeper, finding the chip quickly. I took hold of it with a clamp and removed it as gently as I could. Then I closed up the incision with sturdy, if not fancy, sutures.
I bandaged him and gave him a shot of penicillin. The bottles of Demerol and morphine I left on the mattress next to him, just in case the pain was too much for even a man of his machismo to handle. Then I fished the keys from his duffel and slipped them into my pocket and the Jericho into my back waistband. I set his Sig Sauer a short distance away, close enough for him to retrieve it, but far enough that I would be long gone by the time he did.
“Leaving?”
I hadn’t realized he was conscious, and I wondered how long he’d been watching. “I have to get rid of the chip, or they’ll be knocking on our door.”
“Then you will be back?”
I swallowed, my throat dry, and said nothing at all.
“You say nothing, because you don’t want to lie to me. Even with this betrayal, the seeds of our mutual trust are sewn.”
“OK, I won’t lie. I won’t be back.”
“And I won’t lie. You placed my gun too close to me, and even through this drug haze I could grab it now and shoot you.” He smiled sadly. “But I won’t.”
“It’s better this way. The virus would spread, and kill innocents.”
“Innocents are already being killed. The people of Mexico need someone to stand up for them, to champion them. You would destroy that?”
“I’m not destroying the champion, only this particular weapon.”
He struggled to sit up and then fell back to the mattress. Although I’d done my best to avoid cutting his abdominal muscles, I’d had to separate and stretch them to extract the chip. They didn’t work the same way after that, at least not right away, and it took a little while to figure out how to compensate. Add that to the booze and narcotics, and he would be worthless, at least for a little while.
“I’m sorry, Heath.”
“Why? It’s what I would do.”
“I know.”
He stared at me, not answering for a long time; the only sounds were whistles and merchants’ carts outside.
Finally I turned toward the door.
“Be careful on El Camino del Diablo,” he said. “La Migra are watching, but they aren’t alone. La Muerte waits there as well.”
Fleming
“Once you give up hope, you give up everything,” The Instructor said.
“Well, howdy there, sweet thing.” Rhett smiled, holding Fleming’s shotgun at his waist, pointed her way. “That’s quite the contraption you’re riding around in.”
Fleming didn’t move. She didn’t even breathe. She didn’t want to give Rhett any more reason to shoot her than he already had.
“And what’s in your lap, there? Ice? Gets hot in there, I bet.”
“Where’s Bradley?”
“Missy, he’s not your concern anymore. You queered that deal when you broke in and started shooting up the place.”
“You still have some oil under your fingernails.”
Rhett held up his hand, showing Fleming the bandage. “Oh, I owe you for that. And I’ll pay you back, with interest. The Instructor wants you alive, but that doesn’t mean we can’t have a little fun first. Now get out of the wheelchair.”
“I can’t walk. Remember?”
“Little lady, I do not give a shit. You can drag yourself across the floor like a beached mermaid, for all I care. Now get out of the goddamn chair.”
Fleming grabbed her armrest—
—and hit the button.
The homemade air-compressor mortar concealed beneath the wheelchair seat was packed with a kilogram of three-quarter-inch metal screws, which Fleming estimated flew at a speed of four hundred meters per second.
Rhett’s good ol’ boy smile was shredded right off his face, along with his eyes, ears, and any other distinguishing features. It happened so fast that Fleming saw the skull beneath the flesh before the blood began to flow.
He dropped to his knees, his hands clutching what used to be a face, with an anguished, well-earned scream.
The blood fell around him like red rain, and he had enough of a tongue and throat left to yell a garbled, “Help me!”
“Sorry, Rhett,” Fleming said. “You’re screwed.”
Actually, she wasn’t sorry at all. In fact, Fleming was secretly pleased she got to use the screwed line. She wouldn’t ever admit it to anyone, but that was the reason she’d loaded the mortar with screws instead of heavier lug nuts. “You’re nuts” wouldn’t have been nearly as cool.
He dropped dead a moment later, and Fleming wheeled over. Bypassing her trashed shotgun, she reached down for Rhett’s pistol and shoved into the back of her pants.
“Hold it.”
Fleming turned her head.
Scarlett stared at her through the sights of a 9mm.
“Keep your hands there,” Scarlett said, limping over. “I think we’ll go with Rhett’s original plan.”
She grabbed Fleming’s wrist and yanked, pulling her out of the front hatch in the chair, tossing her onto the blood-slicked floor.
Fleming landed on her belly, immediately flipping over to face Scarlett.
“I underestimated you,” Scarlett said. “I thought, after your accident, all the fight would have gone out of you. But you’ve proven yourself to be a big pain in the ass, even without the use of your legs.”
Fleming kept her voice even. “Where’s Bradley?”
“He’s waiting for us. We’re going to get out of here, go somepla
ce nice and private, and you’ll get to watch while I use a blowtorch on his face. Maybe I’ll say something snappy, like you did. ‘You’re fired.’ Or, ‘Is this your old flame? I think I carry a torch for him.’”
“You should kill me now,” Fleming said. “Because you’ll regret it if you don’t.”
Scarlett laughed. “Kill you? It’s never been the goal to kill you. Haven’t you figured that out yet?”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
Scarlett moved a step closer, almost within reach. She stared down at Fleming and smiled. “I can’t believe it. You still don’t know how you got injured in Milan, do you? And who did it to you.”
Chandler
“Facing death is part of the job,” said The Instructor. “Don’t blink.”
La Muerte. Death.
I wasn’t sure how Heath had guessed I would cross the border via the brutal stretch of desert known as the Devil’s Highway, but I wasn’t surprised. He seemed to know my thoughts and feelings better than I did.
He drifted off, and I left and closed the door behind me. In the adjacent room, Filena narrowed her dark eyes. “You kill him?” she said in English.
“No.”
“Too bad.”
“You’re a real charmer. I see why he likes you so much.”
“Who cares what you think? You are just another of his whores.”
“You’re one to talk.”
She stuck out her chin, defiant. “Armando sells his body, same as me. But I sell it to make men happy. He kills with his. I’d rather be a whore than a murderer.”
She knew Heath was an operative? Interesting. And a bit troubling.
Several gallon jugs of water lined the side of the cupboard where Heath had found his tequila, along with a jumble of empty bottles and rubber tubing, equipment often used in meth production.
I opened my backpack and took out my body armor and slipped it on. It was incredibly lightweight, a relief since the temperature was already close to one hundred degrees Fahrenheit. I’d used a good number of my shells, so in removing the body armor, I was able to fit a length of tubing and a gallon of water inside my backpack. I took another jug of water just in case. All the equipment in the world would be worthless if I didn’t have enough water.
“You are dead, you know. Both of you.”
“It’s been a lot of fun,” I told her, “but I have to get going.”
She raised an eyebrow, and I was again struck by how pretty she was. “You’re Chandler, aren’t you? Armando told me about you.”
I was a spy, but I was a woman, too. And what woman could walk away from that?
“He did?”
“Don’t think you’re special. You’re just another notch on Armando’s belt.”
“Not like you, huh?”
She laughed, and it was ugly. “He has talked about you. But he never told you about me. And you think you know him.”
“I think,” I said, “that you’re a small-minded, jealous little tramp who hates her life and herself.”
“Why should I be jealous? When he was in trouble, he came to me, puta.”
Questions crowed the back of my mind, things I wanted to ask about Heath, about her, about what had gone so wrong between them. But no matter what answers she gave, no matter how much I learned about Heath, no matter how I would like to let myself feel about him, he and I had very different aims, and neither of us would back down.
At least this time, I’d come out on top.
“They’ll track you down.”
Hand on the knob of the front door, I paused. In the end, as much as I was beginning to care for Heath, all I could really give him was a fighting chance. “I’m counting on it.”
The streets looked the same as when we’d arrived, children playing, merchants selling, dogs barking, eyes watching from windows, but the very pressure of the air seemed to have changed, like a storm coming in, only there wasn’t a cloud in the sky.
I oriented myself using the area’s mountains and then launched into a fast walk, taking a different route back to the lot where we’d left the truck. The air smelled hot and dusty, tinged with the sweet stench of garbage. A pickup thundered behind me, the bed filled with watermelon to sell, and as I crossed one of the more central, paved streets, I passed a man hawking meter-high carvings of Jesus on the cross and Santa Muerte, skulls and angels, and La Virgen de Guadalupe. An old woman spotted me and launched into a torrent of Spanish, trying to sell me some local culture.
I held up a hand and kept moving.
I’d plunged into another group of ramshackle houses, painted turquoise and white and orange, when I felt the familiar whump whump whump of helicopter blades beating the air above.
Shit. I hadn’t counted on a helicopter.
I turned from one dirt road onto another, sticking close to the cinderblock walls of houses and cover of mesquite and banana trees. With Heath’s tracking chip in my pocket, I couldn’t hope to disappear, but to shoot me they would have to spot me, and I intended to delay that moment as long as possible.
The chopper’s buzz grew louder, drowning out the whistles of children and accordion-driven norteño music blasting from a tinny car radio.
I reached the dry open lot, our truck with its tank of death visible through the waves of heat rising from the dirt. I stopped, trying to pinpoint the chopper’s location.
In this town, like many others, electric lines crisscrossed from pole to building, a supplemental web of wires branching off in all directions from the authorized and unauthorized tapping of electricity. A fire hazard and eyesore, in this case it also provided a shield, porous to be sure, but enough to prevent the helicopter from hovering too close. Once I broke from the ramshackle cover of buildings and electric wires, I’d be easy to spot. And easy to approach.
I scooped in a deep breath and stepped into the street.
As if on cue, the silver Eurocopter EC 120B zoomed in above me, its blades stirring up dust and beating the scraggly leaves of a palm. Judging from the corporate look of the craft and the pair of ranchero gunmen peering out the open door, it was my Sinaloa cartel friends. When they spotted me, they raised their rifles.
AK-47s again. Maybe they got a deal buying in bulk.
I dashed along the rutted street and then ducked under a steel sheet propped up like an awning just as bullets sprayed the path I’d just walked.
People screamed, children ran.
Bastards.
I might be able to avoid getting killed, but if these guys kept it up, innocents wouldn’t be so lucky.
I dropped my extra water and brought my shotgun up, firing, pumping, and firing again, until I was out of shells. The chopper pulled up, hovering just out of my shotgun’s effective range, and although I was sure at least some of the shot had hit the bird, it didn’t seem to have an effect.
I was getting low on shells. The fléchette and piranha now gone. I slung my pack off my back, digging for the dragon’s breath.
A slug whizzed past my face, too close.
Shit.
I pulled up the zipper. No time to find the shells, no point in firing again until my friends came in closer. Unfortunately, an AK-47 could pack a wallop even from their current position. That left only two options, continue to draw fire while using children and old women as cover, or run for it.
I ran.
Springing into the road, I pushed my legs and pumped my arms, racing in a zigzag like some crazy sprinter who’d lost sight of the finish. I gripped my empty shotgun in my right hand, my pack flopping in my left, and sweat dripping salty into my eyes. I reached the other side of the road, the open lot stretching in front of me, my boots skidding on the loose gravel.
The helicopter thundered right behind, buzzing over the remaining power lines and then dipping low. Shots cracked, some close enough for me to feel the pop as they broke the sound barrier.
I kept going, running, zagging, pushing for the truck at the far side of the lot. Almost there, only a
few yards to go.
Gravel pinged and danced around my feet. A slug thunked into my back, slamming me into the dirt. I couldn’t move, couldn’t think. Opening my mouth, I strained to breathe, but all I inhaled was dust, chalky and gritty on my tongue. Another slam caught my side, like a baseball bat to the rib cage.
The chopper roared above me, and I waited for the next bullet, this one to my skull, ending it all. A second passed. Two. But although all I could hear was the beating blades, the headshot never came.
I glanced up and back, spotting the helicopter turning around, getting ready to make another pass.
Gritting my teeth against the pain ripping my back and lungs, I willed myself to my feet. Thinking I might even have to kiss Harry for the Level III-A ballistics body armor, I spit dirt from my mouth and stumbled on to the truck.
I yanked the door open, but by then, the helicopter was back on top of my position. Bullets rained down, shattering the windshield, puncturing the roof. I shoved myself away from the door and raced down the embankment and into the arroyo. The helicopter pulled up enough to clear the trees, then roared after me.
Every stride sent a stab of pain down my side. Each breath I took wrapped my ribs in agony. I stumbled, fell to my knees, then pushed myself up and kept going. I needed to find cover, needed to locate a place where I could double back, but all I could see in front of me was parched, open ground.
Tugging open the zipper, I fished out the last of my shells. My hand trembled as I dropped the pack and loaded the shotgun.
The chopper swooped in low and fast, blades beating, guns firing.
I pumped.
I fired.
The dragon’s breath peppered the helicopter, engulfing it in flames. One man jerked back into the interior, the other lurched as the shot hit, then caught fire. The chopper bobbled in the air, and he fell, tumbling to the ground like a meteor entering the atmosphere.
I went into the pack again and grabbed the grenade, removed the safety clip, pulled the pin, and pitched it up and through the open door. Then I took several strides, dove to the ground, and covered my head.
The explosion flattened me to the dirt with the force of a giant fist. The helicopter wheeled to the side, its blade catching the earth and sending it cartwheeling straight at me.
Flee, Spree, Three (Codename: Chandler Trilogy - Three Complete Novels) Page 100