by KT Bryan
She wanted to holler, scream for Dillon to look out, but before she could open her mouth, before the cop could pull the trigger, there was a blur of movement from behind him, and the next thing she saw was the cop slumping to the ground.
Jake. Thank God. Jake dragged the cop back into the jail and closed the door, then turned off the outside light.
In the next instant, the car engine roared to life and that was her signal to move. She ran headlong toward the car and jumped clumsily into the back seat before slamming the door. Jake was already in the front and the second her door closed, Dillon shoved the car into reverse, spun it around with tires screeching, and took off down the empty road.
Dillon was right. Piece of cake.
For now.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Journal Entry
Laid anchor today near a twenty-island archipelago off the coast of Cartegena. Geared up and dove with Sanchez to check out his new ultimate in narco-subs. Don’t know if he was showing off or keeping me in the loop. Either way, he’s got a fully submersible which is remotely controlled and can carry up to fifteen tons of cocaine. Going to be damn near impossible for the DEA or Coasties to find. I know the route it takes now and at some point this new toy of his is going to find its way into the right hands. Well, right for me, wrong for him. He’s gonna go apeshit for sure.
On a more civilian note, you would love it here, and I promise to bring you. Water is clear as fine crystal and has an azure hue that defies description. Fancy coral twists and reefs that shimmer. Even the fish glitter with attitude.
And speaking of attitude, I took Dreena for a swim after business hours. For a little kid, she’s pretty fearless. Ditched her life vest to chase a sea turtle. I played pirates with her and taught her how to say, “Shiver me timbers,” in English. Doesn’t really translate into Spanish.
I tossed a few quarters into the water so she could find her pieces of eight. I’ve been reading her Treasure Island at bedtime and for now she’s enthralled with pirates. Sunken ships, buried treasure, gold doubloons and pieces of eight. I’ve told her tales of an island princess, but she insists on becoming a pirate.
She’s taken to calling me a scallywag and insists I walk the plank at sword point (a dull dinner knife taped to the end of a small broomstick), which consists of me hopping onto the dive platform and falling into the water. She thinks this is hilarious good fun and after a dozen or so times, I’m laughing so hard I usually tip her overboard. Gar.
I don’t have the heart to tell her that nowadays the typical pirate wears a ski mask, carries an AK-47, and travels in a speedboat. ~~ D.C.
<><><>
They were back at the safe house in less than five minutes. Dillon didn’t bother turning off the engine as he turned in his seat and told Sara to, “Stay put.” Without waiting for an acknowledgement, he was out of the car and into the house right behind Jake.
Sara had been crying. He’d heard her quietly sniffle, saw her swipe at her face in the rearview mirror, and he wished like hell he had more time. Time to hold her, to tell her everything was all right, that he’d seen the cop come out and had been ready to move. He wanted to tell her that yes, sometimes the bad guys did win, but he’d do everything in his power not to let anything bad happen. Not to him and especially not to her or their child. But he didn’t have the time, and probably wouldn’t until his business with Sanchez was finished once and for all.
Jake handed him the silver thumb drive and stuck the black one, the decoded backup, in his pocket. Dillon stuffed the drive for Sanchez, which was still in a plastic bag, in the duffel bag with his weapons. The duffel bag was waterproof, but he guessed Jake wasn’t taking any chances.
They were back out to the car in maybe two minutes. He tossed both duffels onto the back seat with Sara. Then he tossed a candy bar onto her lap, went around front and climbed into the driver’s side.
“You got me,” she held it up, studied it. “A Snickers?”
The look on her face was priceless. Joy and gratitude played across her features. Hell, he’d give her candy bars for the rest of her life if it meant seeing that look of pure happiness on her face even one more time.
Except that they had a huge-ass problem hanging between them, not to mention the fact that if he had his way, the rest of her life probably would not include him.
What about Ellie? What about your child?
Under the circumstances, marriage and family felt like a no-win situation and he had no clue.
Sara opened the candy bar and took a bite. “This is probably a dumb question, but did you get the flash drive?”
“Safe and sound and in the duffel bag.”
No sooner were the words out of Dillon’s mouth than the back windshield shattered, raining shards of glass over Sara’s head and shoulders. He yelled, “Get down!” and she pitched herself off the seat and onto the floor, covering her head with both hands.
“I’m getting a little tired of this shit!” He gunned the engine and spun out of the driveway, flying over most of the front lawn and back onto the street. “Jake, I need directions.”
“Northeast. Head in that general direction and after we lose these guys, we can figure the rest out from there.”
There were six police cars behind them, sirens blaring, lights flashing, and Dillon drove like a maniac toward the middle of town, first turning left and then right, over and over, taking every side street and alley they passed, zigzagging through intersections and damn near taking corners on two wheels. They managed to lose three of the police cars, but three were still with them.
The speedometer climbed to eighty.
He glanced back at Sara, remembered she wasn’t buckled in and just like a very good Boy Scout said, “This would be a good time to put your seatbelt back on.”
Sara nodded, then stared mutely out the front windshield, checking he imagined, to see where they were. And right that second, where they were was heading at breakneck speed straight for some kind of produce delivery wagon that was slowly pulling out in front of them and it didn’t look like they were going to have time to avoid hitting it.
“Hold on!” He slammed on the brakes, cranked hard on the wheel, and sent them veering sharply to the left, tires squealing, turning them in a complete half circle as they went skidding sideways, missing the truck by inches.
The first police car directly behind them wasn’t so fast and it hit the truck head on.
Dillon stomped on the gas and the car shot forward, heading back the way they’d come. Muttering a curse, he swerved to miss a couple of drunk partygoers who were crossing in the middle of the street, and then nearly sideswiped a white van on his left. In seconds, the two police cars he hadn’t been able to shake were on their tail again.
Not for long. He pushed the car to its limits, and when he finally had a lead on the last two cops by about half a mile, he turned off the headlights, ducked down a side street, then made a sharp right into the crowded parking lot of an all night cantina. He parked between two pickup trucks and killed the engine.
“This should buy us a few minutes.” He glanced at Sara who looked like she’d turned to stone, and again with no time to say much of anything that might make her feel better, he turned to Jake and asked, “Where’s the best place for me to steal a plane?”
“Under the circumstances, our best bet is to steal one of Sanchez’s planes. We’re about fifteen kilometers away from where he keeps one.” He looked at his watch. “It’s just after nine, so that leaves us twenty-four hours to get where we’re going and contact Sanchez.”
Twenty-four hours. That might be all the time he had left with Sara and he bleakly wondered if he was going to have enough time to save his child.
“There’s no us to it. There’s just me. I’ll drop you two at a motel.”
Jake’s face tightened, he glanced at Sara, then back to Dillon and after a long minute, nodded. “Fine, but let me get you to Sanchez’s airfield first.”
“Just give m
e directions.”
“You sure? You might need--”
“Yep. Just directions.”
Jake sighed. “There’s an old, abandoned farm we’ve been watching about fifteen kilometers from here. From the surveillance I’ve gathered so far, Sanchez uses the barren field as a landing strip. He keeps a jazzed up, high-tech Piper there, and since it’s so far out of town, it’s only lightly guarded. I’ve seen a total of six men there, three men at a time, working twelve-hour shifts.”
“Local police don’t hassle them?”
Jake shrugged. “They used to. After enough of their men died, read that as murdered, the locals gave up and took the money Sanchez so generously offered for their silence, if not their cooperation.”
“So, how do I find this place, exactly?”
“Head due west. Once you come to an old, crumbling mission outside the city, you’ll see a rather large statue of Saint Francis. At that point, there’s going to be a Y in the road, and you’ll want to go right. About nine klicks from there, you’ll see a small lake on the left. Two klicks past that, you’ll hit a one lane bridge. Four more klicks and you’ll see the farmhouse and fields off to your left.”
Dillon nodded his thanks and turned in his seat to face Sara. “After I get Ellie and Matt, I’ll meet you back in San Diego. Two days, tops. I promise.”
Sara’s raised eyebrows lowered into a frown. “How can you promise something like that? How do you know Sanchez won’t just take the flash drive and then kill you?”
“I’ll make him a deal he can’t refuse.” Like holding a gun to his forehead. Bullets had the tendency to make even strong men weak, he just hoped like hell he got that close. And then, because Sara looked like she was going to erupt into a mountain of either tears or disputes, he added, “Look, dealing with murderers and drug dealers is part of my job description. I’ll be fine. Matt and Ellie will be fine. Piece of cake.”
Jake snorted a laugh and chimed in, “Right under ‘General Duties’, our job description specifically says ‘fight terrorists, pose for recruiting posters, deal with murderers and drug cartels’. It’s one of those things we’re obligated to do.”
Dillon half smiled at Jake’s attempt to lighten things up, then turned back to Sara. “Don’t worry, I’ll make it happen. And when I do, you won’t ever have to worry about Sanchez again. I swear it.” Reaching behind him over the seat, he angled her chin up, saw how hard she was fighting back tears, and sighed. He forced himself not to pull her into his arms. Once again, no time.
He turned back to Jake, annoyed, frustrated. He would be back. He would save Matt and Ellie. “Where’s a good place for me to drop you?”
“This is a fairly seedy part of town and a good place to hide. There’s a hotel just down the street. We can walk it in less than five minutes.”
The three of them got out of the car, and after handing Sara’s duffel bag over to Jake, Dillon pulled Sara to him for a quick hug and kissed her on the forehead.
Then he got back into the car and drove off without looking back. For now, at least Sara was safe.
<><><>
Twenty minutes later and, lo and behold, there sat the farmhouse off to the left just where Jake said it would be.
This section of the old road traversed a low hill that would have afforded a decent view of the next mile or so if hadn’t been so dark. Unfortunately, the way the clouds were blocking the moon, dark took on a whole new meaning, so he rolled to a silent stop under a copse of trees and grabbed a Starlight scope out of his bag.
About three hundred yards in the distance, a weather-beaten house stood watch in front of a fairly large barn, and since the only other building was a ramshackle chicken coop, the barn had to be where Sanchez and his men stored the Piper. To make things even more obvious, there was a worn strip of land behind the barn with a faded windsock at one end, and like some twisted Got Milk commercial, it screamed, “Got drugs? Land here.”
If he wasn’t in such a hurry, messing with these morons might be fun. Except he was in a hurry, so he zeroed in on the house, and wondered how hard it was going to be to get past three guys guarding an airplane and dirt landing strip. Normally, snatching a small plane would be a snap, but he had a feeling Sanchez had sent out little red warning flags to everyone in his command, and the last thing Dillon wanted was to get busted, or shot, before he ever got airborne.
A single guard sat on the house’s dilapidated front porch with his chair tipped back against the wall. The guard seemed at least semi-alert and had an assault weapon lying across his lap.
Through the drizzle, Dillon slowly scanned a low stone wall that snaked around the small farm’s perimeter. A rusted-out tractor sat abandoned and knee deep in weeds, but other than that, and a newer model Mustang parked off to the side of the house, there wasn’t much else to see.
He set the scope on top of the duffel bag, moved the sedan further off the road, down a slight incline where the vegetation was more dense and debated whether or not he needed to take the duffle with him.
Probably not yet. Better to see what he was up against first.
He grabbed the loaded nine-millimeter and jammed it into the back waistband of his pants. Two extra clips went into both leg pockets, and satisfied that he was ready, he switched off the ignition and stepped out.
Over the wall and through the weeds, off to Grandmother’s house we go.
After he made his way through the empty chicken coop, he stopped to take one last look at the house. From an open window, Latino music drifted into the night, the kind that made him think of dim bars and stale smoke. The kind of music that had been blaring from the cantina where he’d left Sara just minutes before.
Jake would probably keep her in Mexico overnight, then get her tucked safely away on base in San Diego where hopefully Dillon would be able to join her in a day or two.
And then what?
Yeah, Romeo, and then what?
“Walk away from her now, Dillon. Put her in custody. WitSec, a safe house. She’s as good as dead if she’s with you.”
Witness protection, he supposed. And then...well, then he’d say good-bye. He’d make sure she was safe, maybe in another state, or maybe even in California. He’d get her and Ellie set up in a good neighborhood, in a comfortable house and then he’d walk away.
Except, damn it, he couldn’t wrap his mind around walking away from Sara. Or his kid. Hell, he couldn’t even imagine having a kid. Especially a six-month-old daughter he hadn’t even met yet. The fact that Sanchez, the man who he most hated, who he most wanted dead, had his child at this very moment, made him want to draw blood.
It also made him cold, somewhere deep down inside, in a place he normally kept under tight control, rigidly leashed, and that cold blossomed until Dillon’s mind grew icy and dark.
He would walk away. He had to.
And then it hit him. He didn’t even have a choice. He was, after all, a felon now. He could very well spend the rest of his life in prison.
But, he was, by God, going to get Sanchez first.
Blending into the shadows, shoving fear and fury aside, Dillon made it across the side yard without the guard on the front porch noticing him and then crouched under the kitchen window. He raised himself up just enough to peer inside the lower left corner of the screen.
Two guards sat at a scarred pine table playing cards and guzzling beer. Their automatic weapons had been casually placed on a side table and not within easy reach. He listened for a moment, waiting to see if he could tell just how drunk they actually were. Drunks made stupid mistakes, the kind of mistakes that could get everyone in the place killed.
The two men sounded pretty much like most guys who sat around playing cards and getting blitzed. They bluffed, they bragged, and they shot the bull. One complained about his wife, the other bragged about his girlfriend. They both agreed their jobs were cush, and they laughed at the ridiculously high salary Sanchez was paying them.
He crouched in the shadows for ano
ther few minutes before he moved silently toward the back door, opened it, eased in.
And came nose to nose with the business end of a pistol.
<><><>
Jake and Sara had just checked in to a squalid dive masquerading as a motel and it was all Sara could do not to swagger. She had a secret and, sure she felt a little smug, a lot guilty, but she had the one thing she knew was going to get her out of here. Fast. Whether Jake liked it or not.
No way was she going to let Dillon save her, save her brother and her baby, or face Sanchez alone. Besides, she still wasn’t quite sure she trusted Dillon not to kill Matt on sight. He looked more like Manny Vega the drug runner than Matt Jackson the doctor of archaeology Dillon knew.
Besides, fair was fair.
No matter how much Dillon wanted Sanchez, it wasn’t fair that Dillon should do this alone. It wasn’t fair that he should do this for her. And God forbid, it surely wasn’t fair that he might even die. If anything happened to him or Ellie or Matt, then she should be there. She needed to be there. At least trying to help. Somehow.
If Jake and Dillon wanted to call her too stupid to live, fine. So what. But to her way of thinking an extra set of eyes and ears could only help, and hey, if she had to, she could sure as hell shoot a gun.
She hated getting Jake in trouble with Dillon, heck she didn’t want to get on Dillon’s bad side either, but it wasn’t as though she was exactly on his good side anyway. So, tough. She had to leave, now, before Dillon got on that airplane.
But now that it was time to get the ball rolling, her palms started to sweat. Making Jake crazy mad was not going to be her idea of fun.
Sitting on the side of one of the double beds, she took a deep breath and tried her first approach. “I don’t suppose there’s any way you’d take me out to that airplane?”
Jake was sitting at a small square table, the kind made especially for cheap motels, thumbing through a magazine. He snorted at her question. Didn’t bother looking up, didn’t even say no, just snorted his answer like a cheap whoopee cushion.