“I’m behaving consistently with our cover.”
“What did you do?” He took another sip.
“I made an offer to buy Lawan.”
He almost blew his beer through his nose.
“You what? Are you out of your mind? So you met Pu? Talked to him?”
“I want to help her. Somebody has to.”
“Not you. You don’t have to. That’s not your job. It isn’t why you’re here.” He took a breath. “How did it go?”
“Not so well. He refused.”
“What did you offer?”
“Twenty-five.”
“Twenty-five hundred dollars? You’re low.”
“Twenty-five thousand.”
“You’re insane. For a girl you just met.”
“For a human being in trouble.”
“I gather he wasn’t interested?”
“Correct. By his calculations, she’s worth a half million to him.”
Rob whistled. “Wow.”
“Yes. Apparently, the money in child sex abuse is big.”
He drained his beer. “Okay. I agree we should get out of here. But you’ve just made it very difficult for us to come back. Ever.”
“It doesn’t matter now. We have the tracker in his watch. As far as I’m concerned, I never want to see this shithole again.” The schoolgirl was now performing a provocative dance with the snake, to the delight of the spectators, the music having slowed to a pulsing Middle Eastern beat, presumably evocative of snake charmers.
Jet pushed to her feet. “Come on. I’m done with this.”
Rob followed her to the exit after flipping two hundred baht onto the table. They were just pushing the curtain aside as a moan went up from the crowd.
“You leaving now? You miss the best part!” the street hustler admonished at the exit and then stepped out of Jet’s way when he caught a glimpse of her eyes.
Rob shrugged at him.
“Touch me, I break your arm,” she warned the man, who backed slowly away, his hands held high.
“Okay. Have a good night, lovebirds,” he sang with a cackle and then spun, off in search of more prospects.
“You handled that well,” Rob said as her boot heels snicked against the sidewalk.
“Don’t talk to me. I need a minute.”
“Sure thing. You just about blew our entire operation, but no sweat. Take some ‘me’ time. Why not?”
She threw him a black look and then slowed.
“I’m sorry.”
“You should be. I thought you were pro. Mind telling me what the hell was pro about any of that?”
“I figured it wouldn’t hurt. And it could have worked. Anyway, it was worth a try. No harm done. So we don’t go back to the club. Our job there is finished, anyway.”
Rob sighed. “I suppose it is.”
They resumed walking again and crossed the street to the next block. Tonight, the area was quieter than the prior evening, with only a few tuk tuks roaming the road in search of fares.
Neither of them had much to say. At the mouth of the alley where they’d parked, she hesitated. The area was as black as the night, the overhead light on the building by the car having burned out while they were inside. She was just about to warn Rob that something was wrong when a figure rushed out from the shadows and lunged at her with a knife.
Chapter 16
Jet spun to the side and pitched her purse at the assailant’s head as she simultaneously blocked another blow from a second man who’d swung a hatchet at her shoulder. A third grunted as Rob executed a flying kick that caught him in the chest, snapping several ribs with a crack; he crashed against the wall, his machete falling harmlessly into the gutter. A fourth attacker stabbed at Rob with a wicked-looking stiletto, but he parried it and landed a series of rapid strikes against the man’s neck.
A gunshot rang out from down the alley, and Jet heard the distinctive sound of a bullet whiz by her left ear as she ducked, fishing into her purse as she dodged another swing of the hatchet. The knife wielder slashed at her, and she jumped back, tossing her purse to the side as she freed her pistol. She heard Rob grunt as the stiletto sliced his ribs, and then she slammed the butt of her gun into the side of the hatchet man’s head, dazing him.
The man with the knife lunged at her again, just as another shot boomed and a slug ricocheted off the brick wall beside her. She brought her weapon up and fired, blowing half the knife fighter’s face off, and then shot the hatchet man twice, point blank in the chest. Even as he was falling, she dropped to the ground and fired two more rounds down the alley at where she’d seen the shooter’s muzzle flash. Another shot rang out, grazing her leg, and she fired her final round at where she’d seen movement twenty yards away. If she’d had her Beretta, she’d have hit the shooter, but with the Sig Sauer it was dicey.
She heard a thunk from behind her and rolled to see Rob leaning against the wall, the gore-crusted machete in hand, his two attackers dead on the pavement. She grabbed her purse off the ground and launched herself at the alley mouth.
“Move!” she yelled, and then tore off without waiting for him. She rounded the corner as more shots followed her, blood streaming down her leg from where the bullet had grazed her quadriceps. Rob was behind her and was also oozing blood: from his abdomen. Jet slowed her pace.
“How bad is it?”
“I’ll live,” he hissed. “You?”
“Same here. You have a gun?”
“Nope. Too dangerous carrying one in the club.”
“Good thing I was packing.”
He nodded. “Still got at least one shooter back there.”
“I know. In here,” she cried, then ducked down a pedestrian shopping area, the startled strollers backing away from the blood-sodden pair.
They continued running another two blocks, and then she slowed, taking cover in the shadows of a darkened building.
“What the hell was that?” Rob asked, gasping for air.
“Ambush. But question is who?”
“Lap Pu?”
“But why?”
“The kid?”
“Makes no sense. Could have been because of the money I flashed around, but that didn’t feel like a robbery. More like a hit.”
Rob frowned. “But if it was a hit, why the amateurs? Why not just gun us down by the car?”
“Good question. Did you notice that they were all pretty rough-looking? Not city rough. Outdoor rough. Their skin was like leather. I’ve seen that on Bedouins…”
“What now?”
She pulled some Kleenex from her purse; after tearing three loose for herself and pressing them against her leg, she handed Rob the packet.
“We need to get out of here.”
“I’ll call Edgar,” Rob said, pulling his phone free of his shirt pocket.
A twinge of anxiety tickled Jet’s stomach, but she couldn’t place what was causing it. She nodded to Rob, and he dialed Edgar’s number. After a few terse sentences, he hung up.
“There’ll be a car here within ten minutes. White Yaris.”
“And a doctor?”
“Already arranged. We’ll go straight there and get patched up.”
“So now all we need to do is stay alive till help gets here,” Jet said, eyes scanning the dark street. A motorcycle putted by, two locals astride it, laughing together as they bounced down the road.
When the Yaris pulled to the curb and flashed its lights, they hurried to it and slid in without a word. The driver was rolling away before they’d slammed the doors, his eyes roving in the rearview mirror, on the lookout for threats.
“Nice shooting back there,” Rob said in a low voice.
“Not too bad yourself with the Slingblade impression.”
“What I really want to do is direct.”
The little car purred along, and Jet stared out through the tinted window, lost in thought. Whoever had attacked them had known exactly where they would be, so it couldn’t have been Lap Pu – they’d gotten
there before him, so at best he would have had to follow them.
The implications weren’t positive.
Someone knew their every movement.
Someone who wanted them dead.
~ ~ ~
“We’ll dress this and stitch it up, and you’ll be as right as ninepence,” the doctor, a wizened British man, assured her with a nod.
She winced as he sutured her but didn’t make a sound.
“Now, then. Let’s take a look at that stab wound, young man” he said, motioning for Jet to get off the exam table.
“Do you have a sink?” she asked. “I need to rinse out my pants. Blood and all.”
“Other room. Take your time. All right, then. What have we got here?” he asked Rob, who merely sat on the table and pulled his shirt up.
The doctor peered at the gash and flushed it out with antiseptic, Rob’s sharp intake of breath hissing as the pain hit.
“Well, it’s messy, but superficial. A few stitches for you, and the drama will be over. Hold still,” the old man instructed, then blotted the injury with gauze before threading the hooked needle. “You’re lucky I hadn’t polished off the second half of the Balentines I’d started on. As it is, steadies the hand and soothes the spirit.”
Rob ignored the banter, preferring to suffer the ministrations in silence.
“There. No worse for wear, I’d say. Just watch for swelling or redness. I’ll give you both a five-day course of antibiotics, purely precautionary, to stave off infection. I dare say you’ll be fine. Do try to avoid getting stabbed or shot, though. Bloody inconvenient to have to open the office near midnight.”
“Thanks, Doc. I’ll keep that in mind.” Rob began buttoning up his bloodstained shirt.
“No, no. You can’t go out like that. Here, let me see if I have a spare in the closet. I’m sure I do. If not, at least an exam coat.” The doctor opened an en suite door and rummaged around before emerging with a gaudy Hawaiian print rayon shirt with dancing dogs cavorting all over it. “Ah. One of my favorites. I’ll be sorry to see it go. Wear it in good health. World’s going to the dogs, and so forth…”
He handed it to Rob, who eyed it skeptically before pulling off his more conservative one. Jet returned wearing her jeans as he donned the dog shirt and strained to button it across the chest. The result was absurd, and when he faced the mirror, he joined Jet in laughing at his reflection.
“Looks brilliant, young man. Magic, really,” the doctor said without a trace of a smile.
“I wonder if they make a set of matching pants?” Rob remarked drily.
Their business with the doctor concluded, they descended the stairs to the street, where the Yaris was parked out front, the driver napping behind the wheel.
Rob pounded on the window. “Come on, wake up, you lazy…”
“Run,” Jet whispered and then spun, tearing back up the stairs.
Rob stood by the car for a second, unsure of what was happening, and then ducked and darted for the front door just as a shot gouged a chunk of plaster out of the entry foyer wall by his head. He was a third of the way up the stairs when the glass door behind him exploded, showering him with tiny glittering shards. He scrambled the rest of the way to the landing and heard the sound of running footsteps from the street below, then darted down the hall to where Jet had sprinted for the doctor’s office. He was just through the door and twisting the deadbolt shut when rounds thudded into the steel. The doctor gaped around, panicked.
“Is there another way out of here?” Jet asked in a low voice.
He nodded, pointing. “Back exit. What on earth is going on here?”
“Come with us. It’s not safe. They killed the driver,” Jet explained, then threw the back door open. A raw concrete landing led to another metal door that was bolted shut. She caught Rob’s eye.
“They tracked us here. Go down the back stairs. I’ll be with you in a second.”
The front door groaned on its hinges as the attackers threw their weight against it. Rob nodded, grabbed the doctor by the arm, and led him to the rear stairs. Jet dashed to the drawers and opened them, finding what she wanted in the second one. She grabbed some gauze, a small plastic bottle and the paper-sheathed disposable scalpel and then ran for the stairwell, where she could hear Rob and the doctor clumping down to the ground level.
If they were lucky, they would have a minute or two before their pursuers began looking for another way in. Her only hope was that it wasn’t a large team. If it was, they were screwed.
Rob and the doctor were waiting at the bottom of the stairs.
She thrust the scalpel at the doctor.
“Quick. You need to cut this thing out. Now.” She unbuttoned her top and slid a sleeve off, pointing to the spot where the chip had been imbedded just a few days earlier.
“What am I cutting out?” he asked, hands shaking as he fumbled with the paper wrapper.
“A microchip. Tiny. But you have about twenty seconds to get it or we’re all dead.”
She gritted her teeth as he sliced her flesh open over the small bump and probed around with the sharp tip of the blade until he extracted the shiny silver disk. Thick, red blood dripped from the incision, but she ignored it.
“Blot it and glue it. Rob. Take this chip, and throw it back up the stairs.”
The doctor wiped away the blood, then squirted Dermabond into the incision and pressed the two sides together. He took his hand away ten seconds later, and she clenched the wound, applying pressure.
“Get ready to run,” she whispered to the doctor, who nodded. She pulled her blouse back on and buttoned it, the gash now sealed tight.
When Rob returned, she opened the rear door, peering into the half dark of the service way that ran along the backs of the buildings. There was no sign of life.
A crash echoed from upstairs – the attackers had knocked the doctor’s front door down.
“Now,” she said and bolted, Rob and the old man trailing her.
As they neared the end of the block, the hulking outline of a construction project loomed on her left – an older building that was being renovated. A chain-link fence circled it, but there looked like enough room at the gate for her to squeeze in.
“Can you make it?” she asked Rob and the winded physician.
“We’ll have to.”
Jet went first and slid into the gap, clutching her purse as she beckoned them to follow. “Hurry.”
Rob went next, his dog shirt tearing as he struggled to get through. He finally made it, then held out his hand for the doctor.
“Come on. Now.”
The old man wedged himself into the gap and then stopped, his white exam coat snagged by the raw wire jutting from the fence.
“Tear it. Let’s go,” Rob urged, as his eyes swiveled down the alley.
Three men toting assault rifles emerged from the doctor’s building, gun barrels sweeping the street.
The doctor gasped at the sight of the gunmen and renewed his efforts to get free, but the only thing he accomplished was to make the fence rattle, drawing the gunmen’s attention.
The night exploded with the stutter of automatic weapons, and the doctor’s body jerked spasmodically as a succession of white-hot rounds tore through him. Rob ducked back into the building where Jet was waiting and shook his head.
She turned and mounted the concrete steps to the second floor. It was gutted, empty except for a workbench, with no place to hide, so she continued to the next level, Rob behind her.
They heard their pursuers trying to pry the doctor’s corpse from where it blocked the gate, and then another blast of gunfire shattered the night as one of the men shot the padlock off.
Jet pointed at a far window and then broke for it. Peering over the edge, she calculated the distance to the next building and then backed away from the empty aperture before hurling herself through it feet first.
She landed in a pile of broken glass. She’d kicked through the window and was lying on the floor of a dark
ened office.
“Jump,” she hissed at Rob, who was still standing in the other building, then she sprang to her feet and took off into the space beyond, looking for an exit or something that could be used as a weapon.
Rob pounded after her and found her at a stairwell.
“They’re right behind us,” he rasped.
“I know. If we go down, we run the risk that one of them stayed on the street.”
“So what do we do?”
She cocked her head and pointed.
“We go up.”
Chapter 17
A crashing sound reverberated through the empty building from below as the gunmen leapt across the chasm and landed on the glass. Jet and Rob took care to climb the stairs to the roof as silently as possible, hoping that their pursuers would think they had made the predictable choice and had gone down to the ground level.
The door to the roof was old and rusting from years of exposure to the salt air and the elements. Jet listened, finger held to her lips, for sounds from two stories below and was rewarded by a door opening and then footsteps moving stealthily down the concrete stairs. When they had faded, she shouldered the roof door open.
The rusty hinges springing wide sounded like a grenade detonating to her ear.
A door slammed beneath them, and the clump of boots ascended steadily from below.
She reached into her purse and withdrew the phone she’d gotten from Edgar and keyed the sequence that would convert it into a gun.
“Go see if there’s a fire escape or a building we can jump to,” she whispered. “I have three shots in this thing, and it should stall them when I start shooting. But that will only last so long. If we don’t get off this roof, we’re dead.”
He took off across the roof as she held the door ajar. Three yards of range wasn’t ideal, but maybe she wouldn’t need that much.
She sensed rather than heard the lead man, and a second after his gun barrel came into view, she depressed the fire button, and the little phoned popped like a small pistol, the shell bouncing to the side through a sliding port. She heard a grunt of surprised pain and then gunfire filled the stairwell. Jet threw the door shut, allowing the fire to ricochet back on the shooters. Hopefully at least one stray would hit them, further adding to the sense that she was shooting back. She knew from experience that things could get weird fast in a firefight, and perceptions could play tricks on you. That was her only bet at this point.
JET II - Betrayal (JET #2) Page 12