The Devil’s Share

by Wallace Stroby

  “On the ground,” she said again. “Both of you.”

  The guard came out after him, on the same side, hands in the air. He was a kid, in his twenties maybe, the uniform hanging loose on him. He wore a dark automatic in a hip holster.

  “Facedown on the road, right there,” she said. “Now.”

  The driver knelt, put his hands behind his head without being told. “You, too,” she told the guard, and he looked around, confused. She pointed the HK at his chest.

  “Down,” she said.

  He looked at her, then sank to his knees.

  “Flat,” she said, and they both stretched out on the roadway. She slung the HK behind her, plucked the guard’s gun from his holster, pushed it into a jumpsuit pocket. She got out a pair of flexcuffs, knelt on the small of his back. “Take it easy,” she said. “Relax, and no one gets hurt.”

  He flinched as she pulled his left arm behind him, then his right, bound his wrists with the flexcuffs, cinched them tight.

  The driver had his head turned to the side, watching her. He’d already crossed his hands behind him, not waiting for the command. She flexcuffed his wrists, patted them both down for other weapons, found none.

  “Stay there, “she said. The smoke was gone, but the acrid smell of it hung in the air. Where the charge had gone off was a hole about a foot across, a thin tendril of smoke rising from it. It had worked as Hicks said it would.

  The driver was still in the truck. Sandoval stood on the running board, shouting at him, banging the butt of his HK against the window. The rear Crown Vic was already empty, both front doors open. The driver and guard, hands bound, were being led away by McBride and Keegan, both in balaclavas. Keegan had his shotgun against the back of the guard’s head.

  A masked figure came up beside her. Hicks. She pointed at the men on the ground, said, “Get them,” and started toward the truck. Sandoval was still shouting at the driver. The window had spiderwebbed but was intact, the driver fumbling with a cell phone.

  With the HK still slung behind her, she sprinted, planted a foot on the truck’s front bumper, vaulted onto the hood, knelt there. The driver looked at her through the windshield, and she drew the guard’s gun, fired a shot into the air. The casing clattered on the hood. She lowered the gun, pointed it at the driver, the muzzle touching the glass.

  He punched numbers into the phone, panicking, and she gripped her right wrist with her left hand, steadied the gun, tapped the barrel twice on the windshield. He looked into the muzzle, exhaled, then tossed the cell phone onto the dashboard in disgust. She heard the click as he unlocked the door.

  She slid down off the hood. When the driver started to get out, Sandoval caught his jacket, dragged him down, and kicked his legs out from under him. He fell to his knees, and Sandoval said, “Smart guy, huh?” and drove the butt of his HK into the side of the driver’s head, knocked him down onto the road. He tried to crawl away, and Sandoval kicked him hard in the side with a booted foot.

  “Stop it,” she said. Sandoval looked at her, anger in his eyes.

  “Get him tied and out of sight,” she said. “We need to clear this road.”

  She didn’t wait for a response, ran back to the lead car, the door still open, engine running. She tossed the HK onto the seat, pulled the door shut, slammed the shifter into drive. Giving it gas, she straightened the wheels, pulled onto the shoulder and drove twenty feet, then cut the wheel hard so the two front tires hung off the edge of the road, the hood tilting down into the arroyo. She shifted into neutral, then killed the engine, grabbed the HK, and got out.

  When she looked back, they’d pushed the second Crown Vic to the side of the road, and Chance and McBride were at the back of the truck, working at the heavy padlock with a sledgehammer, Hicks watching them. Keegan and Sandoval had taken the rest of the men behind the boulder.

  She went around to the rear of the first car. With her back to it, she gripped the bumper, pushed with hips and heels. The car creaked, protested, then began to roll, got away from her. She caught her balance, turned to see it head nosedown into the arroyo, in slow motion at first, then all at once. It overturned, landed on its roof, glass exploding, then slid down the side of the arroyo to the bottom, dust rising up. She tossed the guard’s gun down after it.

  Almost dark. She heard the truck’s rear door go up on its rollers, ran back toward the others. Hicks and Chance clambered up onto the tailgate lift and into the bed. McBride stood on the shoulder, looking in both directions, his HK at ready.

  At the truck, she climbed up into the driver’s seat, took the cell phone from the dashboard. The screen read SEARCHING FOR SERVICE. She pulled her own phone from her pocket. It read the same.

  The engine was off, but the keys were still in the ignition. She started the engine to save them a few seconds, then climbed down, lobbed the driver’s cell phone out into the arroyo.

  Hicks and Chance were up in the darkness of the truck bed, flashlights on. In their light, she saw three heavy crates bound to the far wall with bungee cords, sandbags laid at their base. The lamassu. There was another crate beside it, a quarter of the size, secured the same way. Then a fifth, smaller than the rest.

  Hicks stood by the larger crates, playing his light up and down them. He knelt to inspect the others, then turned and jumped down from the truck bed. “Everything’s here. We’re good.”

  Chance climbed down after him. To McBride, she said, “You two go. We’re clear.” He jogged back toward the Taurus.

  Chance reached up, caught the handle on the door, pulled. It came down loudly on its rollers, slammed into place. He threw the crossbar.

  Hicks had the other Crown Vic in neutral, was pushing it back again, holding the wheel through the open driver’s side window. She ran to help him, shoved on the front left fender, avoiding the jagged metal of the shattered grille. The rear tires went off the edge of the road, and he stepped clear as the car slid backward into the arroyo, the hood pointing up at the sky for a moment, then dropping down out of sight. She heard metal crunch as the car went down.

  “I’m gone,” Chance said. He climbed up into the truck cab. McBride and Keegan were already back in the Taurus, balaclavas off, Keegan driving. He pulled onto the shoulder, then made a long turn to swing around, head back the way they’d come.

  She heard the truck’s gears grind, stepped away. Chance steered to the left, using the big side mirror for guidance, negotiated a three-point turn. He pulled off his balaclava, lifted a hand to her as he drove past. The truck rumbled off in the Taurus’s wake.

  It was over. The road was clear. The only shot fired had been hers.

  Dark now. Behind the boulder, Sandoval had all five men on their knees, facing the stone, hands bound. The Cherokee’s engine was running, headlights on. Hicks was storing the last of their equipment in the back. The other three had left their weapons with him. Sandoval stood behind the men, his HK at port arms, still chewing gum.

  The older of the two guards, gray hair in a military cut, uniform smeared with red dust, craned his neck to look behind him.

  “You know what’s in that truck?” he said. “It’s not what you think. It won’t be any use to you.”

  “Don’t you worry about it,” Sandoval said, and flicked the guard’s ear with the HK’s suppressor.

  The guard twisted his head away as if in annoyance, looked back at him. “You ever use that weapon? Man to man? Shooting at someone who’s shooting back?”

  “Shut up,” one of the men said. It was the driver of the truck. He was bleeding from a cut on his forehead. “Just do what they say.”

  “They’re not gonna hurt us,” the guard said. “They aren’t killers. They’re punks.”

  Sandoval laughed, came closer and slammed the butt of the HK into the guard’s shoulder. He grunted, fell facedown in the dirt. Sandoval put a boot on the back of his neck, held him there. “You should listen to your friend.”

  “Enough,” she said. Sandoval looked at her, then took his boot
away, stepped back.

  The guard coughed and struggled back to his knees, trying to catch his breath, looking at the ground now. The other four were watching him. The driver she’d taken out of the first car was breathing shallow and fast, his face shiny with sweat.

  “What’s your name?” she said to him.

  He closed his eyes, swallowed, then looked back at her. “It’s okay. I’m with you. Everything’s okay.”

  She frowned, wondering what that meant.

  “Your name,” she said.

  “Why?”

  “Answer her,” Sandoval said.

  She felt Hicks come up alongside her.

  The driver turned his face away. He was starting to hyperventilate. “Charles.”

  “Charles what?”

  “Conlon. You’re going to kill us, aren’t you?” His breathing was ragged, his shoulders trembling.

  “Listen to me, Charles,” she said. “You’re all going to be okay.”

  He had his eyes shut tight again, and there were tears coming out from under them.

  “All of you, listen,” she said. “Before long, someone’s going to be out here looking for you. A half hour tops, probably less. Either way, you’ll all be fine. Later tonight you’ll be telling this story to your wives and girlfriends. Don’t give us any trouble, stay calm, and everybody gets to go home.”

  The gray-haired guard turned to look at her. There was blood on his lips. “How far do you think you’ll get before that truck’s spotted?”

  “For Christ’s sake, shut up,” the truck driver said.

  Conlon was shaking now. She turned to Hicks. “We need to get going.”

  He nodded, but didn’t move. His HK hung from its sling, muzzle down. He had one hand on the butt.

  Sandoval looked at him, said, “Well, jefe?”

  Hicks looked down at the kneeling men. “What she said.”

  Sandoval said, “You sure?”

  “Yeah. Let’s move.”

  She went to the back of the Cherokee, unslung her HK, slid it into the tac bag there.

  Hicks came up behind her, took off his rifle, said, “Better check the road.”

  She went out to the highway. Taillights in the distance. The Taurus and the truck. She watched as they grew dimmer, vanished. Nothing in the other direction.

  There was the sound of a scuffle behind her. She turned fast, heard Hicks say, “No!” Then a figure came out from behind the boulder, running, hands bound behind him. Conlon.

  She angled to cut him off. He slammed into her, and they both went down on the blacktop. He was panting as he rolled away, tried to get back to his feet. She kicked at his legs to trip him, missed, and then he was up and running again, down the center of the road, his gait awkward, the bound hands throwing him off balance.

  He yelled, “Help! Somebody help us!” and Sandoval stepped out from behind the boulder, said calmly, “Stop.” A beam of red light bisected the darkness, shone on the running man’s back.

  “No!” she said, and rolled to her feet. “Charles! Stop!”

  He turned toward her, stumbling, backpedaled. A red dot centered on his chest; then came the clack and snap of a rifle bolt. He spun around, legs tangled, fell face first onto the road.

  She ran toward him, heard feet behind her. She reached Conlon, knelt beside him. He lay with his right cheek on the blacktop, eyes open. Hicks knelt next to her, said, “Goddamn it.”

  She tried to turn Conlon over, saw the blood soaking through his white shirt. She pulled off her left glove, touched her middle finger to his carotid artery, trying to feel a pulse beneath the skin. She tried another spot on his neck, an inch lower. Nothing.

  “What?” Hicks said.

  She sat back on her haunches. “He’s dead.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yes.”

  Sandoval stood on the shoulder, watching them. He’d turned off the laser sight.

  “What happened?” she said.

  “He got up, took a runner,” Hicks said. “I told him to stop.”

  She pulled her glove back on, feeling the anger. Taking dirt from the road, she rubbed it against the spot where she’d touched him. It would cover any fingerprint or DNA she might have left.

  “We were almost out of here,” she said.

  “I don’t know what got into him. He just panicked, ran.”

  “We have to get him off the road. Help me.”

  They gripped his bound arms, rose. He was dead weight between them.

  “Careful,” Hicks said. “The blood.”

  They half carried, half dragged him across the road, his shoes scuffing on the blacktop.

  “You shouldn’t have let this happen,” she said.

  “He shouldn’t have run.”

  “They were your responsibility.”

  Sandoval was back behind the boulder now, shouting at the others to stay where they were.

  They laid Conlon alongside the Cherokee, out of sight of the men. She and Hicks were both out of breath.

  “You bastards,” the older guard said. “You murdering bastards.”

  “Shut up,” Sandoval said. “I won’t tell you again, papi.”

  She went around to the front of the Cherokee. Bugs flittered in the headlights. She looked at Sandoval. He had the butt of the HK braced on his hip.

  “I told him to stop,” he said. “Everyone heard me. He should have stopped. He didn’t. What was I supposed to do?”

  The skinny guard she’d taken from the first car had his eyes closed, was mumbling to himself, the cadences of prayer.

  “We have to go,” Hicks said.

  “Just drive away,” the truck driver said without turning. There was rising panic in his voice. “Leave us here. Just drive away. You got what you want.”

  “Be cool,” Sandoval said to him. “Just stay where you are. Everything’s gonna be all right.”

  Hicks looked at her. “We don’t have a lot of choice here.”

  “No,” she said, knowing what he meant.

  The other guard had gone silent for a moment, was praying again. The Hail Mary.

  “Wait a minute,” she said. “Let’s all just take a breath here.”

  Sandoval had moved to stand behind the older guard. He popped his gum, looked at Hicks. “Your call, jefe.”

  She took a step closer to the Cherokee, the rear hatch still open. Wondering how long it would take her to get the HK out, if the safety was on.

  “No,” she said again.

  Hicks looked at her, then turned back to Sandoval, nodded.

  “Wait,” she said, and then Sandoval lowered the HK and shot the guard in the back of the head. Blood sprayed the boulder.

  Beside him, the truck driver screamed, threw himself to the side. Sandoval took a step back, aiming now, fired three more times, the only sound the clack of the rifle bolt, the grunts of the men. Then all four were facedown in the dirt, gray gunsmoke drifting through the headlights.

  She felt dizzy, the earth tilting under her feet. She reached the Cherokee, grabbed for the HK. Hicks drove a shoulder into her, knocked her away. She caught her balance, spun to face him, and then a red laser sight touched the center of her chest. Sandoval had the HK to his shoulder, finger on the trigger.

  Hicks took a step away, said, “Hold on now. Everybody just hold the fuck on.”

  She looked at Sandoval. The laser was steady. She wondered what she would see when he fired. If she’d see anything at all.

  A low moan came from one of the men on the ground.

  Hicks looked at her, said, “It was the only way.”

  The red dot climbed her chest, blinded her for a moment, centered on her forehead. She held her breath.

  Hicks said, “He’ll do it, you know. If you make him.”

  The laser traced its way back down her body, hovered over where her heart would be.

  “Sandy,” Hicks said. “Ease up. It’s okay.”

  “You sure of that, man?”

  “I am.”

>   Sandoval lowered the rifle. The red dot trailed down her leg and into the dirt at her feet.

  Another moan. The skinny guard’s right foot began to scuff softly at the dirt.

  “Sandy,” Hicks said.

  Sandoval shook his head. “It can’t be just me, man.”

  Hicks looked at him for a moment, then reached into the back of the Cherokee, took a dark automatic from the tac bag, a suppressor already threaded into the muzzle. He worked the slide.

  “Don’t,” she said. Her mouth was dry.

  “It’s the only way,” he said again, then walked over to the men, leaned over and carefully shot each of them in the head.

  The night was silent again, except for the chugging of the Cherokee’s engine. She couldn’t breathe.

  Hicks pulled off his balaclava. His face was damp with sweat.

  “Time to go,” he said.

  SIXTEEN

  They rode in silence, Hicks at the wheel, Crissa shotgun. Sandoval was behind her, looking out the window. All the weapons were disassembled and back in the tac bag, along with the balaclavas and jumpsuits.

  A car passed them in the opposite direction, didn’t slow. She flipped down the visor, watched Sandoval in the mirror there. If they planned to kill her, he’d be the one to do it. A shot to the back of the head, then her body dumped in the desert. The last witness to what happened back there, what they’d done.

  He saw her watching him, leaned forward, touched her shoulder.

  “Hey,” he said. “I’m sorry. I got a little rattled back there, that’s all. We all did.”

  She drew away from his hand. “Rattled? That what you call it?”

  “Hey, he called the play. We told him to stop. He didn’t. There wasn’t much choice.”

  “We could have caught him,” she said. “Brought him back.”

  “Maybe, maybe not. But we’d all be fucked if he made it into those hills, wouldn’t we? We’d never find him. I did what I had to do.”

  “No one wanted it this way,” Hicks said without turning. “But it happened. It’s over.”