Screw him. But still, I hesitated. He deserves to die. But not today. Not like this. “Damn it.” I didn’t know why, but I grabbed the drag handle on the back of his web gear and jerked. Agony tore through my injured torso. I pulled him through the mud, back toward the hole.
It took the last of my strength to drag his unconscious weight through the breach. The Army had seen me run out, and not realizing who I was, welcomed me back. Dozens of Zubaran Army regulars were leaping from the backs of trucks, running into the compound to mop up the slaughter. I was so covered in blood, filth, and mud that I was utterly unrecognizable at that point.
Somebody saw the insignia on my collar. “Captain!” a soldier shouted. “What are you doing?”
“We need this one alive. Get him in the truck,” I ordered.
The American kid was unconscious on the seat beside me. A medic had done a competent job stopping his bleeding before we had departed, supposedly for the hospital. I had waited until we were out of sight of the compound and past several other APCs set up as a roadblock before I clubbed the driver and tossed him onto the road. I was kind of making this up as I went along.
“Reaper, I’m back.”
“Where are you?”
“I’m driving a Zubaran Army pickup south on the main road. What’s left of Dead Six?”
“Okay, I’m pulling back for a better view.” Reaper’s voice was intense in my good ear. “The last of them blew a hole in the west wall of the compound and moved south through the shanty town past the roadblocks. Looks like they’re in two army trucks. No sign of pursuit.”
They had to be going to a safe house. “Track them,” I ordered.
“They’re heading south on Balad.” He continued to give me directions as I drove like a madman, keeping the hammer down and blowing through roundabouts like they weren’t there. The windshield wipers couldn’t match the intensity of the deluge, and I could barely see. Headlights flashed behind me. Carl and Jill had caught up.
Valentine moaned. He didn’t look good, pale and shaking from blood loss, and I wondered if my act of kindness/stupidity would have been for nothing. Reaper informed me as the Dead Six trucks pulled into the back of a slaughterhouse a mile south of here.
“Lorenzo, what are you doing?” Carl asked. “Do they have the key or something?”
This was idiotic. I am an idiot. Why am I doing this?
I didn’t know, but it was too late now.
“No, Carl. I’ve got it. Just hang on.” I looked down at Valentine. “You owe me,” I whispered, even though he couldn’t hear. “You owe me big.”
I arrived a moment later. The garage door of the slaughterhouse was still closing, light leaking out from beneath. I laid on the horn, and after a moment the door stopped and then reversed its motion. Leaving the kid behind, I bailed out of the cab, and hobbled toward the headlights of Carl’s van. Armed Americans came out of the slaughterhouse and approached the still-running Army truck.
I slid into the passenger seat of the van, and it was moving before the door closed.
No amount of rain could wash Zubara clean tonight.
Chapter 21:
Nefarious Master Plan
LORENZO
May 12, 2008
The light streaming through the window was blindingly bright. Cringing as the bandages around my chest tightened, I raised one hand to block the sun from stabbing through my eye sockets.
“So, you’re awake.” Jill Del Toro smiled as she opened the curtains. “How do you feel?”
That was a stupid question. “Ever take a contact shot to the chest with a .44 Mag?” I asked rhetorically. My voice sounded funny. Sadly, I already knew that as bad as my ear was ringing, I had done some serious damage. When that ring went away, I’d have lost a range of hearing forever.
“Uh . . . nope. Can’t say that I have.”
“What time is it? How long have I been out?” After getting patched and stitched from the Dead Six gig, I had gone right into a fuzzy, painkiller-induced sleep.
“It’s five in the afternoon. Don’t feel bad. You looked like hell.”
I studied my left hand. Carl had taped all the fingers together. He was a decent doctor. He had certainly gotten enough practice on me over the years. “Well, I got pistol whipped with a ten-thousand-dollar Korth. Funny, it felt the same as getting pistol whipped with a Ruger. Who would have thought?” I looked under the sheets. I wasn’t wearing any pants. “Please tell me Carl’s got the key? Really intricate antique thing?” Jill nodded. “Oh, thank you.”
I’d done it. After all that, we’d gotten the key.
The gloating almost made up for the physical suffering. Good thing painkillers tipped the scale in gloating’s favor. “Has there been any backlash from our little escapade?”
“It’s all over the news. The police are saying it was a terrorist group and that they’ve been eliminated. The emir was murdered last night. General Al Sabah is getting all the credit for tracking the assassins back to Fort Saradia and eliminating them.”
I nodded. So, just like that, the bad guys had won.
She slowly sat on the edge of the bed, her manner serious, her voice somber. “I watched the video from Little Bird. I saw them die. I saw them all die.”
“Those kinds of things happen in this world.”
“Dead Six ruined my life. They murdered my friends. I didn’t think I would mind seeing them all killed, but that . . . I just don’t know.” She trailed off. “That just seemed so wrong.”
I could tell she was really upset, just trying not to let it show. “Well, it wasn’t really the trigger pullers’ fault. They were probably kept in the dark and just given orders. It was that one guy from the embassy that wanted you dead.”
“Gordon,” she sighed.
“I don’t think he was there,” I said. “Sorry.”
“Now him, when he gets his, I want a front-row seat. That last girl, though, when she got shot, and he tried to protect her? That was the girl from the radio, wasn’t it?”
I nodded. “His name is Valentine. Her name is . . . was . . . Sarah.”
Jill bit her lip. “That was the saddest thing I think I’ve ever seen. But I have to know. Why did you go back for him?”
I’d gone back for the key, but I’d taken him with me, and I didn’t even know why. The bedroom door opened. “Because Lorenzo’s an idiot,” Carl said as he entered the room with a sandwich on a plate.
“Hey, you brought me some dinner. Thanks.”
“Get your own,” he responded as he took a bite. “Why the hell did you save him anyway? That just complicated everything. Lucky you didn’t get shot. You just can’t stick to a plan, can you? Why do you keep screwing up simple things?”
Jill gave him a look that would have killed most men with a soul. “I thought it was brave, and if it wasn’t for Lorenzo screwing up I’d be dead.”
Carl ignored her and chewed his sandwich. “Last time I checked, we’re not the good guys.”
I shrugged, not really knowing the answer myself. “Must have been the blood loss. I was kind of out of it. I wasn’t thinking clearly.” That seemed to placate Carl, though Jill’s expression indicated she knew I was lying. “Well, at least we got the key, which means Phase Three is a go.” That reminded me, I had better call the Fat Man before he got jittery and started eating my family members.