‘Don’t move.’
The voice was calm, controlled and icily cold.
20
‘Get on your feet, slowly, hands in the air.’
Ethan obeyed, turning to see Saffron Oppenheimer standing with the sawn-off Beretta pulled deep into her shoulder, the barrel pointed unwaveringly between his eyes.
‘You found me,’ Ethan said. ‘Saved me a job.’
‘I’ll do the jokes,’ Saffron snapped. ‘How did you get here?’
‘Car,’ Ethan said, aware that Saffron might not know of Lopez’s presence and deciding to tell the best kind of lie, one that involved telling as much of the truth as possible. ‘I came out here looking for you and found one of your lackeys limping down the road.’
Saffron’s eyes narrowed.
‘Colin Manx. He okay?’
‘He’s got a dent in his nose and an even bigger one in his pride, but he’ll live.’
Saffron glared at him from over the barrel of the shotgun for a few moments, and Ethan decided to try her patience and see what he got. He lowered his hands.
‘Keep them up!’ Saffron snarled.
‘What for?’ Ethan asked, keeping his voice reasonable. ‘You’re not a killer, Saffron, and you don’t want to be.’
‘What the hell would you know about it?’
‘15th Marine Division, Iraq and Afghanistan,’ Ethan said. ‘Two tours in each theater. I know what someone looks like when they’re trying to kill you, and you’re not it.’
Saffron shifted her weight to the opposite foot, glancing down the hill for anyone else backing Ethan up.
‘There’s nobody else,’ Ethan said. ‘I dropped Manx off with a patrol car and came out here. He’ll be giving a statement by now in Santa Fe.’ He looked at the barren hillside around them. ‘There’s nowhere to run, Saffron. The game’s up.’
‘I’ll decide when the game’s up,’ Saffron snapped, but the venom in her voice had weakened.
‘No, you won’t,’ Ethan said. ‘Once word gets out about the attack, you’ll have the entire state police on your ass, maybe even US Marshalls. You’re effectively a fugitive with an already high profile. How long do you think you’ll last out here before you quit, or somebody else sells you out for a lenient sentence?’
Ethan saw the barrel of the shotgun slowly dropping, not from resignation but from muscular weakness as the weight of the weapon strained Saffron’s arms. Saffron saw the direction of his gaze and yanked the barrel up, and as she did so Ethan made his move and lunged forward, one arm outstretched as he tapped the shotgun barrel sideways and up into the air to point over his head.
Saffron leapt backwards to avoid his charge, but Ethan was already inside the weapon. He shoved the barrel further up as his other hand slammed down across the stock, smashing it out of Saffron’s grip as her wrists failed her. Ethan leapt backwards as he twirled the heavy shotgun through his hands to point upside-down at Saffron, his finger finding the trigger.
‘We need to talk,’ he said.
Saffron’s shoulders sank, and she sighed. ‘About?’
Ethan opened his mouth to speak, just as he realized that she was feigning. Her left boot whipped up and knocked the shotgun barrel to one side as she plunged inward and drove her right boot into Ethan’s belly with ferocious force. He barely got clear of the blow, catching it on his midriff hard enough to drive the air from his lungs. Saffron danced forward in a graceful pirouette as Ethan staggered back and drove one flat palm up toward Ethan’s jaw. He whirled the shotgun in his grasp, the butt of the weapon smashing her wrist aside with a loud crack. He heard her cry out but she did not fall back. Instead she rushed closer to stamp one boot painfully onto his right foot as her left elbow snapped round to catch him on his jaw.
Ethan saw the world quiver as he toppled off balance and slammed down hard onto the unforgiving earth. Saffron was on him in an instant, grabbing the shotgun and twisting it sideways before pushing the stock down onto Ethan’s throat, leaning all her weight in behind it. His eyes bulged and he gagged as the weapon crushed his windpipe. He pushed back hard, lifting her slightly, and then drove his knee into her side. Saffron lurched off balance as Ethan pushed the shotgun upward and then yanked it sideways between them, hurling her off him. Saffron relinquished her grip and rolled neatly away, reaching to her waist as she did so. Ethan scrambled up onto one knee in time to see a Bowie knife flicker in the bright sunlight. He aimed the shotgun at her.
‘Paper, scissors, knife, gun. I win.’
‘The gun’s empty.’ Saffron grinned. ‘I’ll be off now.’
Shit.
‘Running won’t help anything, Saffron,’ he said, surprised to find himself slightly breathless. She was as fit as she was fast, he’d give her that much.
‘Sticking around isn’t a great idea either,’ she snapped back at him. ‘It’s been fun.’
Saffron turned her back on him just in time to see Lopez rush up behind her.
‘Who were you callin’ Chiquita?’ Lopez snarled as her tightly bunched right fist cracked across Saffron’s jaw.
Ethan winced as Saffron spun a hundred-eighty degrees and hit the dusty hillside flat on her face. Lopez massaged her knuckles and smiled down at him.
‘We’ll call that little rescue ten bucks, okay?’
‘Where’s Manx?’ Ethan asked.
‘Taking a nap,’ Lopez uttered. ‘I cuffed him to the door, don’t worry.’
Ethan crawled to his feet as Saffron dragged herself to her knees, massaging her jaw and glaring at Lopez.
‘You’ll regret that, you little squirt.’
Lopez’s smile vanished as she made a move toward Saffron. Ethan jumped in between them, seriously uncertain of whether he could prevent the two from tearing each other apart.
‘Easy,’ he said, giving Lopez a cautionary glance before looking at Saffron. ‘We’re not here to arrest you, we need your help.’
Saffron got to her feet, still glaring at Lopez.
‘With what?’
‘We need to find a man named Tyler Willis,’ Ethan said. ‘Know anything about him?’
Ethan instantly knew he’d hit the mark. Saffron’s eyes flared at the mention of Willis’s name. Not in recognition, he guessed, but more in surprise, as though he shouldn’t have known the name at all. She seemed momentarily lost for words and Ethan took advantage of her indecision.
‘You’re in deep shit, Saffron, no two ways about it. The more you can help us, the better it’ll be for you. Whatever the hell’s going on here we need to know about it because before long this whole thing is going to be a government issue, you understand what I’m saying?’
Saffron’s eyes narrowed.
‘Who the hell are you people?’
‘It’s a long story,’ Ethan said, and tossed the shotgun back to her. ‘You tell us what we need to know and this might all be smoothed out a lot quicker. There’s no other way.’
A voice from behind Ethan said, ‘Yes there is.’
He turned to see a young girl, no more than eighteen with blonde dreadlocked hair parted in the center and hanging in schoolgirl’s braids on her shoulders. She stood with a small revolver gripped in her tiny hands, pointing it between his eyes. Saffron turned and dashed to the girl’s side, grabbing the pistol from her hand.
Ethan was about to pursue her when perhaps thirty or so dusty, scrawny-looking teenagers appeared on the ridge variously carrying bats, bicycle chains and chunks of rock. Lopez was already moving, but Ethan stalled her with a wave of his hand and looked instead at Saffron.
‘This solves nothing,’ he said. ‘The police will track you down no matter where you go. You hit those laboratories, but you weren’t there to free the monkeys, were you? You were there to destroy the mainframes. You’re working for somebody.’