“Mur lura ghall-irqad.” Go back to sleep.
“Jien ma ghajjenin,” he said protesting.
She stepped from the door, all expression gone from her face. Picking up the pillow from the empty bed opposite him, she held it out as if she was going to give it to him. “Min hu li fl-istampa?” she said, asking him about the picture on the stand beside the bed.
“Tan-neputijiet tieghi.” My grandchildren.
She could never imagine living long enough to have so many grandchildren. When he smiled at her, she pushed the pillow into his face and held it there while his feeble hands fought to free himself. The deed done, she fluffed the pillow and tossed it onto the other bed.
After opening the door, she kicked the foot locks off all four corners of the hospital bed and then rolled the old man into the hall, keeping as far to the left as she could without hitting the walls. Evers hadn’t gone far. His escorts were standing vigil outside the men’s room. She passed the first guard, a little too close, turning her lips into a pout as their eyes met. Death was a sad thing.
The bed in her hands veered toward the wall, so close the rear wheel rolled over the second guard’s foot. “Mi dispiace, mi dispiace tanto!” she said in Italian and she was sorry as she reached for his gun, flipping the safety, chambering a round, and firing even before she fully yanked the gun from its holster.
While the knee-capped guard howled, she swiveled and planted a round in the other’s chest. A second swivel and a third shot finished what she started.
“Knock knock,” she said, softly rapping against the men’s room door. “Ready or not, here I come.”
Chapter 14
Scott heard the wind up of the helicopter’s engine. He approached from the north while Edie approached from the south. Both were heading diagonally from the rear, out of the line of sight and peripheral vision. Industrial buildings around the heliport made a loose U with an unobstructed view to the east.
Thankfully, cold starting a chopper wasn’t like starting a car. You couldn’t just turn a key and go. Everything needed a moment to warm up and with the mystery woman and her gun doing the talking the pilot was shaking visibly.
Their steps were in sync. He braced himself before sliding up to the door, flinging it open and shouting, “Fermare! Don’t move!”
The woman pressed her gun to the pilot’s right temple. “Back away or I put a bullet in his brain.”
Scott didn’t hear the shot ring out, but he heard the bullet shatter the windshield and strike the center console. The woman rolled out of the chopper at the same time the pilot did, dropping to the ground and trying to spin away, but Scott was too quick and his gun was pressed against the back of her head before she got in two steps.
“Drop it, move slowly,” he said. “Put up your hands.”
Edie was on the pilot instantly, grabbing him by the collar and whipping him around the front of the chopper to Scott.
A bullet struck the ground at Scott’s feet. The second shot helped him identify the general location of the shooter, but he saw nothing where the shooter should be. In truth, he hadn’t even heard the sound of the gun firing, only the sound of the bullets striking.
Silencers could be pretty good but they didn’t really make gunshots silent. They muffled and distributed the sound, making it difficult to locate the gun and the shooter, but not impossible. With a scoped rifle, there was a cost to the silence. Bullet speed and distance, usually.
“You put your hands up,” the raven-haired beauty said, but Scott wasn’t buying any of her desperado act. She didn’t carry herself like a hired thug.
“I don’t think so,” he started to say, just as another round was planted at his feet. The shot, like the previous one, seemed to come out of nowhere and anyone that good with a scope and a trigger had his full attention. He raised his good hand, letting the Berretta swivel around his thumb as he did so. “Okay, okay, I got the message.”
The pilot said something in Italian that Scott didn’t quite hear. Edie responded by bouncing his head off the side of the helicopter. But a round planted at her feet got her to surrender her weapon. Unlike Scott, who held onto his pistol, she dropped hers to the ground and kicked it over to the woman.
“You’re a hard man to kill, Mr. Evers,” the woman said, collecting the guns.
Soon Edie, the pilot and Scott stood facing the woman, lined up as if for a firing squad.
A voice called out in greeting behind them. “I second that, Mr. Evers.”
“You have me at a disadvantage,” Scott said, turning toward the sound of the voice. “You know my name, I don’t know yours.”
The tall dark-haired man surveyed the scene with his green eyes. “Call me the director. It’s what others do.”
“Okay, director,” Scott said. “I assume you’re him, are you not?”
“Him,” the director said, playing with the word on his tongue, much as Scott had. “If you’re wondering whether I’m the one who’s working the strings, I can assure you things have gone as frighteningly awry as you think they have.”
Scott stepped toward the director. In response, the woman pushed the barrel of her gun under his chin.
“Now, now, Mila, we don’t want any more accidents,” the director said, sweeping away the gun. With the gun out of her hands and into the man’s, Mila crumbled to the ground in tears, practically popping out of her red bikini top as she did so. The director consoled her by reaching down and cupping a hand to the side of her face. To Scott, he said, “See what you’ve done?”
Scott studied the director. “I’m guessing not long till the authorities arrive, better talk more quickly.”
The director chuckled, raised his arms. “Look around. Do you see anyone coming to your rescue? You don’t even know what’s going on today, do you?”
Scott moved beside Edie, who was strangely quiet. “Was this some ruse to get my attention? Well, you’ve got it.”
“Today’s a new day. Yesterday, we were enemies, Mr. Evers. Today, we can be something else,” the director said, ejecting the round in the chamber, dropping the magazine into his hand and then twisting the gun around for Scott to take. “Truth be told, I’m as unhappy as you are about how things have turned out.”
“Oh, we’re on to truths now, are we?” Scott said, glancing again at Edie. “Well then, how long until your sniper opens my head like a ripe cantaloupe?”
The director let out a groan. “Dear God, it’s been a long couple of days. This little show wasn’t for your benefit I can assure you. Well, at least not at first. I also can assure you that our goals are now perfectly aligned.”
“Aligned?” Scott said, his brows raising. “Perfectly?” He laughed out loud. “That’s not even remotely possible.”
“I assure you it is not only possible, but true, Mr. Evers.” The director showed no emotion. “My operative betrayed me, Mr. Evers. I sent in another to try to clean up a horrendous mess. That operative failed as well. Suffice to say, at this point—”
Scott shouted, anger flushing his face red, “You call the murder of dozens of civilians and soldiers a mess? Who the hell are you?”
“Precisely the point,” the director said. “As I’ve already told you, what happened was a terrible, terrible mistake. I was betrayed, my resources were misappropriated. My operatives shall answer for this I assure you. It’s the best I can do. It’s all I can do.”
Stepping in front of Edie, Scott slapped one of the spare magazines he was carrying into the Berretta, chambered a round and aimed directly at the director’s head. “Oh, I think there’s a whole helluva lot more you can do.”