Cutting Loose

by Tara Janzen

  His gaze followed her down the street, until the muscle car turned right, starting its circle around the block.

  He had a plan; it was very simple and straightforward, and involved Lily Robbins. It also involved the Smith & Wesson .45 caliber pistol concealed in his shoulder holster. Fast and dirty, that’s how it was going to go down. A gun to the woman’s head and a demand for the bracelet.

  “Hand me my suppressor, Kitten,” he said.

  Mallory reached into the gun bag he’d set between them and pulled out a silencer for his pistol. He quickly and efficiently threaded it onto his Smith & Wesson.

  “Take the wheel,” he said, getting out of the car with his pistol hidden inside his suit jacket. There were only two regular doors into the building, and they were all in view of where he’d parked the Town Car. All the garage doors were in the alley.

  He moved quickly, using the crowd on the sidewalk to conceal his approach and wanting to be in place before the Shelby Mustang came back around. He noticed a spot close to where the alley met the street, opposite the garage doors, a wedge of deep shadows between a Dumpster and the next building’s fire escape. He would stop there, facing the street. If he showed up on a camera, he’d look more a part of the pedestrian traffic than the alley. He wouldn’t enter the alley until he had a target.

  He was still on his approach when the freight elevator rumbled into action, breaking the relative silence of the night with its sudden clanking and clanging. It couldn’t be anything else, not on this block. As soon as he broke the alley’s opening, he saw it, the freight cage slowly descending with its gears squealing and its bars rattling, making a perfect racket.

  He instantly understood. Whoever was in the building had been alerted to the Mustang’s arrival and was blocking off half the alley. Nobody was getting past the huge iron-and-steel freight cage. He was glad he’d kept Mallory and the Lincoln Town Car on the street.

  He kept moving, speeding up his gait, walking faster, knowing the Mustang had to be close and would come in behind him.

  In less than five seconds, he was at the Dumpster, in place, and heard the car’s headers rumbling up the street. Turning his head, he located the Mustang and followed it with his eyes, watching it pull off the street, stop for some people crossing the mouth of the alley, then start forward again. The car was moving slow, about five miles an hour; as it crawled along, one of the garage doors farther down in the alley started sliding open.

  Spencer was only going to get one chance at this. The driver’s attention would be on the widening rectangle of light where the door was opening. The guy would never see him coming up on the passenger side until it was too late.

  The streets of Denver were packed with people, especially in LoDo on a Saturday night, and Zach was careful to maneuver around them. He’d gotten Lily to Steele Street, though, and that was all that mattered.

  SB303 was opening a garage door for him. They were less than thirty seconds away from being home free. He glanced in his side-view mirror, saw nothing, and brought the car to a stop, waiting for the garage door to fully open.

  “Don’t make a move, or she dies.”

  Zach didn’t make a move. He’d heard similar words and similar voices before, and in his experience, they meant exactly what they said.

  He shifted his gaze hard right without moving his head and saw Lily. He also saw the suppressed .45 jammed up against her head, saw the hand holding the gun, saw the asshole’s finger on the trigger, already applying pressure. He had his Para in his shoulder holster, but inside the car, even though he’d trained for it, he knew he couldn’t draw faster than the guy could squeeze those last few ounces of pressure on his trigger.

  “Give me the bracelet, now.” The guy’s voice was cold and calm, with just a hint of impatience.

  Ahead of the Shelby, the garage door was still opening.

  “I dead-dropped it a couple of blocks north of here, on my way into town,” Zach said, lying and buying time. “Let me leave the woman here, and I’ll take you to it.”

  “Tell me where it is.”

  Zach couldn’t see the guy’s face, nothing above the man’s shoulders, which were broad and muscular, beefy under his suit jacket.

  “That’ll be tough,” he said. “There’s a warehouse on Nineteenth, near Market, with a loose brick in its west wall. I left a chalk mark on the sidewalk a block farther north.”

  “Then Ms. Robbins comes with me. We’ll follow you. Open your door, Lily.”

  “No,” Zach said, fast and low, making the word a command. “She’s handcuffed to the seat. She stays with the car.” Even as he spoke, he took a chance, reaching down for Lily’s hand. She understood completely, and in one smooth move, he had the cuff back around her wrist and was lifting it to show the guy, at least show him the illusion of the cuff around her wrist.

  “So where’s your fucking key?”

  “Lost it. The guy in there probably has one,” he said, jerking his chin toward 738 Steele Street. “My dead-drop buyer wants the bracelet. This guy is paying for the woman.”

  He heard the man with the gun swear.

  “Back up real slow,” the guy said. “If I lose contact with her head, I pull the trigger.”

  Interestingly enough, Zach had heard those words before, too, in Vientiane, on the Mekong River. He’d gotten that woman out alive. He was going to get this one out alive, as well.

  He put Charlotte into reverse and started backing up very slowly. The garage door was almost up now, and he could see Dylan coming down the stairs at the back. He hoped to hell the guy with the gun didn’t see him, but he didn’t speed up. He just kept Charlotte to a crawl, slow and easy, taking her back out of the alley.

  “The pickup at the dead drop will take place in about fifteen minutes,” he said. “We need to get over there.”

  “What’s your name?” the guy asked him.

  “Alejandro Campos.”

  The guy let out a short laugh. “Yeah, Campos. I heard your name from somebody else. Didn’t know you ever made it this far north.”

  “Only for special occasions,” he said, holding Charlotte to a crawl. Not an easy task.

  Next to him, Lily was white-faced, and holding perfectly still. The pendejo had one of his hands twisted into her braid, which made Zach a little queasy, and he had that big fucking gun jammed up behind her ear, which made him downright sick. And he still had his finger on the trigger, which made him very angry and very cautious.

  Once Zach got Charlotte on the street, the guy told him to stop.

  “Put on the parking brake and get out of the car very slowly. Don’t look back at the car, not even for an instant. Move toward that gray Saturn and put your hands on top of its roof.”

  The gray Saturn was parked less than ten feet away.

  “Spread your legs, and wait for my associate. We’re changing places. You’re going to drive my Lincoln, and I’ll drive the Mustang.”

  He got out of Charlotte and started walking, and the next sound he heard sent a bolt of sickening dread down his spine. It was a solid thump and a soft, startled cry, then silence. The bastard had hit her, probably knocked her out.

  Zach took the final steps to the Saturn and placed his hands on top of the gray car. He didn’t look back at Charlotte, didn’t look to see what kind of shape Lily was in, and then it was too late. He heard the guy shift the Mustang into first and saw him take off up the street, cross Eighteenth, and wait in the middle of the next block. Dylan hadn’t made it out into the alley yet, but he would have heard Charlotte leave. The sound was unmistakable. He was probably already on his phone, asking SB303 what was up.

  Goddammit. The sonuvabitch had hit her.

  He heard the Lincoln pull up behind him, and to anyone walking down the street, he knew nothing looked out of place. He was just a guy leaning on a car. The only odd thing might have been if anyone had noticed the woman coming up behind him and giving him a quick frisk—and it was definitely a woman. Her hands were small,
her touch lighter than a man’s. She found his Para almost instantly and slipped it out of its holster like a professional. His two knives came next. She pulled one out of his pants pocket and the other out of an ankle sheath.

  “Get in the car,” she said when he came up clean everyplace else. She hadn’t actually shoved her hands in his pants pockets, just patted them down from the outside. She’d gotten his wallet, but she was welcome to it. He didn’t keep anything important in his wallet when he was on the job, just a fake I.D. and a boatload of cash.

  He was happy to get in the Lincoln Town Car and get closer to Lily.

  Once he was behind the Lincoln’s steering wheel, he headed northeast, along Wazee. The woman in the car with him was beautiful, very elegant, with auburn hair, and a 9mm Sig in her hand. She was wearing a black V-necked sweater, low cut, and a pair of cigarette jeans, tight, with red heels, and she was dripping in diamonds—bracelet, necklace, earrings. She looked rich and spoiled and like she could be dangerously bitchy—emphasis on the dangerous.

  “What’s your name?” he asked, and saw Charlotte slip in behind him as he crossed Eighteenth.

  “He calls me Kitten,” she said, and Zach cast her a quick glance.

  Geezus. Kitten. She had a voice like twelve-year-old Scotch, rich and smooth, full-bodied, with just a touch of huskiness.

  “What’s his name?” It never hurt to ask.

  “He doesn’t have a name, sweetie, and he’s not happy right now, so don’t make him mad, okay?”

  She was smooth, all right.

  Lily had put her Colt in Charlotte’s console. If she could get to it, she could even out the odds real damn quick.

  The next cross street was Nineteenth, and he turned right and then parked a block up. There was a loose brick on the west wall of a small yellow warehouse on the corner, something only a street kid would know about. It had been used to stash stuff since God knew when. He wasn’t worried about showing the guy the chalk mark. There wasn’t one, but there was no reason to go looking for one, either. All the guy wanted was the bracelet.

  Charlotte pulled to a stop behind him, and he could see Lily slumped down in the passenger seat, then saw her raise her hand to the side of her head, where the bastard must have hit her. He tried not to think about it, concentrating instead on the guy with no name. The man got out of the Mustang at the same time that Zach got out of the Lincoln. Kitten stayed in the car.

  Zach only had to stall for a minute. That’s all it would take. SB303 was still tracking Charlotte, and Dylan had to be on his way, especially if SB303 had gotten a look at Charlotte’s new driver.

  Unlikely, he realized a couple of seconds later, when the first thing the guy did was throw the Bazo out on the street at Zach’s feet.

  “I broke your toy,” the guy said, his gun leveled at Zach’s chest.

  Yeah, broke. More like ripped it out by its hardwired guts and smashed the screen. So much for Dylan coming to the rescue.

  “It’s down here,” he said, not giving anything away. He was alive, Lily was alive, and he actually had what the guy wanted, most of it, anyway.

  At the side of the building, it took him a minute to remember which brick was loose.

  “What’s the problem?” the guy asked.

  “No problem. It’s just been a while.” About twelve years.

  “A while, like what, half an hour.”

  “Yeah.” Asshole.

  He tried one brick, then another. The guy’s phone rang, and he answered it without a flicker of distraction. His gaze didn’t leave Zach, and his gun held steady.

  “Where?” the guy said. “Coming south or from the west?”

  The guy didn’t take his eyes off him, but Zach looked in both directions and saw a silver Mercedes crossing Eighteenth and heading their way.

  “You’re out of time, Campos.”

  No, he wasn’t. He jiggled the loose brick free, noticed the cavity was full of junk, and pulled a classic bit of sleight of hand, blocking the guy’s line of sight for a second with the brick while he pulled something out of his pocket.

  Without a word, he handed the guy the macramé bracelet.

  The man grinned and made his first mistake—and it only took one. He lowered his gaze to see the bracelet, and Zach nailed him, parrying his gun hand and slamming him hard up against the brick building, hard enough to hear a loud crack, hard enough for his head to bounce off. Zach twisted the gun out of his hand, and the guy fell to his knees, but he didn’t fall over.

  Zach didn’t give a damn. It was enough. He was running for Charlotte. If Kitten was calling in a warning, then he needed to get the hell out of there.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the Mercedes speed up. He knew Kitten was watching the silver luxury car, but any second she was going to look to see what her partner was doing, and when she saw him on his knees, Zach was betting she was going to level her Sig out the window and go for him or Lily.

  He wasn’t going to give her the chance. He was only seconds from Charlotte, and then he was inside and sliding the Mustang into first and hitting the gas hard. He’d be goddamned if he got trapped between a damn Mercedes and a damn Lincoln Town Car.

  He pulled out onto Nineteenth as fast as Charlotte could take him, which wasn’t nearly as fast as he would have liked, not with traffic getting in his way. Goddammit. All he had to do was get past the Town Car before Kitten could pull her pistol and take aim. And by the skin of his teeth, he did, hitting the street with a bit of luck and a carefully controlled drift to get him heading in the right direction, which was “away.”

  Nothing could have gone smoother—except for the searing pain suddenly engulfing his body.

  Oh, fuck. It stole his breath.

  He shifted up into third, tearing down the street, getting away.

  Away from that goddamn dangerous Kitten, who had just shot him with her goddamn Sig.

  He felt Charlotte’s right rear tire get blown out and was barely able to hold her on the road. Goddamn. Goddamn. That had been no 9mm. The Mercedes was on his ass and tearing into him with something a whole helluva lot bigger than that.

  Another bullet hit Charlotte, something big enough to come through her trunk, slip through her backseat like butter, and scream through the interior to cut down the length of his thigh.

  Fuck. He was trying to think, trying to keep his head clear, but it wasn’t working. The Mercedes was behind him, gaining, and the Lincoln was tearing out after the Mercedes.

  Fuck. He’d run out of time, all of his time, all at once. Goddamn. And he hadn’t seen it coming, not like this.

  No time. There was no time.

  He turned the next corner, not even bothering to shift, just spinning the wheel, using the brake and clutch, and letting Charlotte ride the drift. Lily was talking to him, her voice high and agitated, but he couldn’t hear a word she was saying. He had an awful lot of stuff on his mind, most of it looking like it had hit a fan, and he was having trouble piecing his thoughts together.

  It was just the pain. It would pass, and then he’d be fine. It was just the initial shock of getting hit, and of course the blood, which he could feel running out of him.

  Goddammit.

  When he saw a squad car up ahead, cruising its beat on the street, he didn’t second-guess the one complete thought he got. He slid Charlotte to a tire-squealing stop, sending up a billow of smoke and almost slamming straight into the POS.

  “Get out of the car,” he growled, and when she started to speak, he cut her off. “Don’t fuck with me, Lily. Get out of the goddamn car now!”

  He could take care of himself, but he couldn’t take care of her. Not like this.

  The two officers in the squad car were scrambling out, pulling their guns, and she must have understood—she either got out of the goddamn car, or somebody was going to get hurt. Probably him.

  As soon as she slammed the door, he took off again, putting her completely out of his mind. Gone. He had one goal now. Only one.
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br />   He took the next turn, and drove through five more, weaving his way back toward Steele Street, and now he was two blocks north of it, with the cops calling him in, and the Mercedes and the Town Car still on his ass.

  Perfect. He’d counted on it.

  He had not been interested in any half-assed standoff with these assholes and the Denver police, with him in the middle of it, and Lily standing right next to him. For what these guys were after, shooting it out with the cops was well within their risk quotient.

  Zach had taken that option away from them. If they wanted what they’d all come for, they had to come for him, or so they thought.

  He tasted blood—Dammit, this can’t be good.

  Slamming down on the clutch and the brake, he pulled Charlotte to another rubber-burning stop. Then his foot slipped off the clutch. The Mustang’s Cobra jet engine died, all 428 cubic inches of it, stopped dead.

  Fuck.

  He pushed open the door and half slid, half fell onto the pavement. Squealing tires and a flash of headlights were the last things he heard and saw before he rolled under the car and started his fall into darkness.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Saturday, midnight—Denver, Colorado

  At least her watch worked, Cherie thought, its tiny tritium numbers glowing in the dark, showing her the time, midnight, and no doubt irradiating her, but not enough to be the end of her.

  No, she thought. Her end was going to come from getting herself so damn lost in the absolute heart of Denver that she would become a trivia question in the city’s history books, an urban legend, an enduring mystery. Dammit. She was right in the middle of the damn city, and she was nowhere, trapped in a wasteland of tunnels. Not the huge ones carrying the city’s utilities. There were people in those tunnels, maintenance people, engineers, safety inspectors.

  No. She was lost in the old abandoned tunnels, where all those kinds of people had worked years and years ago, but where nobody came anymore.