Not that he really needs to. The man he is here for probably parked where he did so he could keep an eye on his vehicle at all times.
And even if he didn’t, Lima is prepared to wait as long as it takes.
This is too important not to.
Settling his back against the metal frame separating the front seat from the back, he can feel warmth radiating through his clothes. Residual heat from a day sitting under the California sun, it provides a nice offset to the cooler air pushing inland from the ocean.
Standing like that, he could wait for hours.
Turns out to be less than five minutes.
Judging by the way the front door to the place bursts open, Jensen Spiers is looking for a fight. Considering the dark tint of the windows in the bar, he could probably only see the silhouette of Lima leaning against his car, unable to make out the details.
His face red and a hand cocked toward his hip, he jogs out in three strides, the door swinging back to the wall behind it. Mouth open, he appears ready to unleash a torrent of obscenities before pulling up, recognition setting in.
“Enjoy your drink?” Lima asks, letting a hint of the bemusement he feels show on his face. It’s not everyday someone like him gets to mess with the police.
Even more rare that they can’t say a damn thing in return.
“It’s you,” Spiers replies, his face twisting up into a scowl. Slowing his pace, he pulls up just off the front headlight, making no effort to come any closer.
No handshake. No fist bump. Damned sure not a bro hug.
“I’m surprised you recognized me,” Lima replies. “Been a while since you’ve been by.”
Saying nothing, Spiers pushes his hands under the front of his sport coat, forcing the tails back behind his wrist. Rotating at the waist, he glances in either direction, light flashing off the perspiration lining his forehead.
“Relax,” Lima says. “Nobody’s going to see us talking. Hell, that’s the reason you picked this spot, isn’t it? So you could hide out for a while?”
“What do you want, Lima?” Spiers responds, a bit of an edge in his tone. His eyes narrowed, he glares at him an instant before shifting his attention back to the street.
To Bocco parked nearby.
“It’s not what I want,” Lima says, content to stay exactly where he is for the time being, “it’s what I don’t.
“See, you and I have had a good thing going for a while now. Your interests benefit, my interests benefit, everybody goes home happy.
“I’d hate to see that all come to an end.”
The glare on Spiers’s face deepens, his eyes narrowing to no more than slits. His chest rises with each breath, forcing air in and out.
“And what the hell’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means it’s been four days,” Lima replies. “It means we made good on our part, and it’s time for you to do the same.”
Taking a half step forward, Spiers acts as if he might make a rush. As if he isn’t aware of Bocco parked nearby, or what Lima might have tucked under the tail of his shirt.
As if either one of them give a rat’s ass about the fact that he carries a badge.
“Yeah? Or what?”
Using his hips, Lima leverages himself up from the side of the car. He matches Spiers’s movement, closing the gap between them to no more than a couple of feet. Easy reach should either one decide to make a move.
“I don’t think that’s a question you actually need answered, is it?”
Chapter Six
I don’t usually bother carrying a cell phone because I don’t expect people to call me. Or text. Or tweet. Or any other bastardized medium the things have now been programmed to handle.
In fact, not a single person even has the number, the item taken straight from the packaging a week before, another in a box all exactly the same.
I carry it because it is wired directly to the security system surrounding my home. If so much as a single thing – be it a coyote or a hit man on assignment – crosses my perimeter, a silent warning is sent straight to my phone.
Running with the headlights and the radio off, I move by moonlight through the darkness. The battered body of my rusted-out rig bounces over the dirt two-track, the route so ingrained in me I could do it blindfolded.
Neither of the windows have worked in ages, both stuck down, cool night air flooding through the cab. It lifts the hair from my neck, twirling the narrow ponytail behind me, thin tendrils of it licking at my exposed shoulders, the tips still damp from my post-fight shower.
Sitting on the dash before me is the phone, the screen facing up, remaining dark after the single message earlier.
Which means that whatever stepped foot inside is still there.
On the bench seat beside me is a Wilson Compact X-Tac Elite, my hand already clutching it, the ridges etched on the grip panels digging into my palm.
Most of the time, I would never leave the house so lightly armed. Being a single woman alone in the Mexican desert, there never seems to be a shortage of people looking to take advantage.
I used to refer to such people as training, but once I quickly discovered they weren’t even worth that much, I started thinking of them simply as target practice.
Carrying that kind of firepower into Shakey Jake’s would be asking for trouble, though. This truck is the oldest, filthiest thing I could find when I moved down here, and still it has been broken into twice. Leaving an AR-15 strapped behind the seat isn’t really an option, nor is taking anything bigger than the X-Tac inside while I’m in the ring.
A full half mile from the house, I let off completely on the gas. I can’t do anything about the small cloud of dust rising in my wake, but I don’t have to make my presence that much more obvious by sending the brake lights flaring through the darkness.
It takes most of the momentum the truck has to crest a small rise, allowing me to make a turn. Pushing north off the path, I shove the gearshift up into neutral and let the truck roll to a stop. Once more I give the gear shift a nudge, moving it all the way up to park and pulling the keys.
Not bothering to unlatch the door, I grab hold of the top and slide my body out Dukes-of-Hazzard style. X-Tac in hand, I pause, partially tucked behind the body of the truck, peering up over the bed.
From where I’m standing, I can’t see my house. I know it is still two rises away, three-eighths of a mile as the crow flies, but I can’t risk driving any closer for fear of being seen or heard.
Checking the sky for any signs of light — be they man-made or someone setting blaze to my home — I see nothing but the waning gibbous moon and a healthy smattering of stars.
In the air, I detect no scent of smoke, only dust and cactus fruit.
The sole sound I hear is the cooling engine ticking beside me.
Extending the gun before me, I wrap both hands around the base of it and slide out from around the back end of the truck. My boots land silently against the mix of sand and dust underfoot as I cross one leg over the other and move into a light jog.
Settling into an even pace, I make no effort to conceal my movements just yet, knowing that simple math dictates they can’t see me. Not at my height and the positioning of the ground around me.
If they could, that would mean they have night vision or heat sensors or some other form of tech that my running in a crouch isn’t going to do a damn thing about anyway.
My breathing evens out as a sheen of sweat rises to my skin. Dust clings to it, forming a paste the length of my arms, the first droplets of sweat stinging my eyes, their brine crossing my lips.
Odds are this is nothing more than an animal. Something hungry and desperate that saw the structure and decided to come foraging.
No matter how meticulous I am about garbage, it has happened before.
But I can’t make the mistake of relying on such an assumption. Not with the things I have in my background, the past littered with people that would love nothing more than to know my current
location.
Topping the first rise, I slow my pace to a walk. Circling out wide to the north, I put extra distance between myself and the driveway, trusting that if anybody is watching for my approach, they’ll likely be staring out at the most obvious point of entry.
That if they did happen to notice the thin puff of dust rising against the darkened horizon, they were sitting and waiting, expecting me to still be coming from that direction.
Continuing my path for more than two hundred yards, I turn back to the east and drop myself into a deep squat. My knees are no more than a couple of inches from the soft earth as I ease forward.
Somewhere behind me, the phone is flashing a second time as I cross over the perimeter line. X-Tac gripped firmly, I swing in behind a thicket of twisted and gnarled mesquite, using their macabre structure as cover.
My breath catches in my chest as I lower myself to the ground, peering through a narrow gap between the branches.
The rusting trailer I call a home sits a quarter mile away. Despite the dark tan paint covering it, the structure is plainly evident under the glow of the moon, a dark smear against the pale desert floor.
As is the SUV parked directly in front of it and the man perched on the front steps. Reclined to full length, his legs are extended and crossed at the ankles, his body one long silhouette on the flimsy metal staircase.
At a glance, I’m too far away to make out any identifying details about the man or his rig. Not a single thing clicks into place until, without warning, he throws his head back and calls, “Hey, Ham, you out there yet? It’s your old buddy Mikey!”
Chapter Seven
I would call Mikey an acquaintance. A business associate. I probably wouldn’t bother correcting someone if they even went as far as to say colleague.
I would not call him a friend. Friends leave a person vulnerable. They allow for a leverage point should somebody ever come looking for one. They can create an inlet into my life that I don’t want or need.
To say nothing of the fact that they can be needy, treading on friendship to finagle something they want.
I definitely wouldn’t call him my old buddy. I tried that shit once upon a time, and it didn’t work out well for any of us. That’s why I now live alone in a trailer in the desert.
Among other reasons.
Mikey is still reclined on the front steps of my trailer as I walk up, the warning shot I put through the support strut six inches beneath him doing nothing for his posture or the faint grin on his face. His fingers laced over his stomach, he tries to play it off like he is calm and relaxed.
In reality, he knows to keep his hands where I can see them at all times.
I’ve released my two-handed grip on the X-Tac, though the pad of my right index finger still rides right along the barrel as it hangs by my side, ready to be raised and fired in an instant if need be.
The last time I spoke to Mikey was more than three years before, a conversation that ended with the announcement that I was out. Knowing better than to push me on it, he had held up his hands and wished me well.
Neither had reached out in the time since. Not for birthday wishes or Christmas cards or any of that other crap people do to fill the time.
Like I said, we’re not friends.
“I see you’re still paranoid as hell,” he says as I approach. Rolling over onto his right haunch, he looks down at the structure beneath him, glancing to the spot I’d put a bullet a minute earlier. “Nice shot.”
Some people that don’t know me the way Mikey does would assume that I had been aiming for him and missed low.
At least he recognizes that the bullet went exactly where I wanted it to.
I remain silent, ignoring his opening statement as I make a quick loop around the SUV. Starting with the license plate number, I commit it to memory before glancing through the tinted windows, seeing the seats and back end all clean and empty.
Makes sense. To get here he would have had to cross over the border, and trying to enter with anything dirty would have pissed off the border patrol.
And even daring to set foot on my land with something like that would have really pissed me off.
“Again, with the paranoia,” Mikey says, a touch of chiding in his voice. “Can’t an old friend just stop by to say hello?”
Again, he’s trying to play it like we’re chums. Every internal warning indicator I have seems to flash in unison as I complete my loop of the truck and stand before him.
Mikey is the professional handle adopted by Michael Benson, former Delta special operator that was dishonorably discharged ten years prior for enjoying certain aspects of his job just a little too much.
How the man managed to avoid thirty years in Leavenworth is still a matter of some speculation, the prevailing opinion being that he wasn’t the only one to do some things he shouldn’t have.
Sometimes the best way to ensure compliance is when everybody has each other by the short and curlies.
Now butting up against forty-five years of age, traces of middle age are starting to creep in. His hair is still thick and straight across, but now there are a few stray grays mixed in. His olive skin has faint creases around his mouth and eyes.
Dressed in all black, his usual preferred ensemble of T-shirt, cargo pants, and boots is on display, as if he still might yet get a call to return to his old life at any moment.
Not that I suspect he’d have the slightest interest, his new vocation paying many, many times what Uncle Sam could ever imagine.
My guess is it’s now that role that has deposited him on my doorstep, all his talk of old pals be damned.
“Nice shiner,” Mikey tries again.
“What are you doing here?” I ask, making sure he can still see the Wilson hanging by my side. “And don’t you dare call yourself an old friend again.”
“I could really go for a beer.”
“Then go get it. I hear there’s some nice places in San Diego.”
A flash of white teeth reveals a smile. Lifting his hands from his stomach, he shows me his palms. “Okay, okay. Truce. It wasn’t easy finding you. I thought at the least we could have an actual conversation for a minute before we got right down to it.”
I would love to know how he found me, but there’s not a chance I’ll give him the satisfaction of hearing me ask.
“Your mom quit taking your calls, again? Finally stopped buying your bullshit?”
“Stopped breathing,” Mikey corrects, adding, “Cancer. I got your card, it was nice.”
I know the last crack is nothing more than trying to get a rise out of me, something I have zero interest in allowing. Flicking my wrist slightly, I let him see the tip of the gun tapping against the side of my leg.
Judging by the position of the moon and the time it took me to get from Shakey Jake’s, I’d guess it is fast approaching midnight. I’m hungry, and I’m tired, the adrenaline of the fight and seeing my alarm system light up starting to seep from my system.
Soon enough, basic physiology will kick in, and I’ll start to power down.
And now thanks to Mikey, I need to move to my backup location before I can actually rest.
Letting out an exaggerated sigh, Mikey leans forward, the steps groaning slightly beneath his weight. At six-two, he weighs north of two hundred pounds, all of it carved from marble, the obsessive training regiment and the haircut about the only things that he maintains from his days in the military.
His hands hanging down between his knees, he says, “I know you said you were out—”
“I am.”
“But,” he continues, his voice rising slightly as he extends a hand my way, “I had one cross my desk this week that I thought you might be up for.”
“I’m out,” I repeat, not having the slightest interest. Not in whatever came across his desk or even in continuing this conversation.
When I walked away, I meant it. That’s not a life one can be halfway into, and if things continued the way they were going, halfwa
y was about the best I could hope for.
He knows that. Or at least he should.
The previous smile fades as his eyebrows rise slightly, the first hints of frustration creeping in. “I got that, but just listen to me for one minute. I went to a lot of work tracking you down and driving my ass across the border to get here.”
A scowl crosses his face as he looks out over the desert. “Be a lot easier if you’d just keep an answering service in some warehouse in Kansas like the rest of us.”
I don’t bother pointing out that’s because the rest of them decided to stay in while I wanted to walk away.
Far, far away.
No part of me wants to listen to anything he has to say, knowing that every syllable he utters only presents more complications, but he doesn’t seem real intent on moving anytime soon.
And despite how much the current situation might lend itself to just shooting him, that would bring with it a host of other problems I’d rather not deal with.
“Forty seconds,” I reply. “Starting now.”
Flicking his eyes my way, any sort of emotion bleeds away. In its place is nothing but an even serene, the former operator back in his element, barking orders.
“Transport job,” Mikey says. “Full details are in the file on your table.”
My grip tightens slightly, acrimony spiking at the fact that he’s already been in my house. Even if I’ll never sleep another night here, I still hate knowing he violated the place, doing it for no other reason than to prove he could.
Damn men.
“Tell them to call UPS,” I reply.
Transport jobs are about the easiest task that someone like Mikey ever gets handed. Everybody in the world seems to think whatever they need moved is the most valuable, official, in-need-of-protection thing that ever existed.
Ham Page 3