Maybe he’d recovered the five million. If so, it would be time to tie up loose ends. Belghazi. Then, I supposed, me. Game over.
I looked out at the harbor again, feeling myself slipping toward it, into it. The water was warm. The feeling was not at all unpleasant.
“You all right?” I heard Dox ask. I looked over. I saw his eyes move to Belghazi’s prone form, then scan left and right, then back again.
I didn’t answer. The question might have been cruel, given what he was about to do to me, yet somehow it struck me as almost funny. I looked at him and smiled.
“That mean yes?” he asked, pulling abreast of me now. He raised the rifle to eye level. There was a soft crack and a flash from the end of the suppressor.
I looked over at Belghazi. He was totally still. Dox had put a last round into his head.
I felt tired, so tired. The ground underneath me was soaking wet and warm, and for a moment I thought I was back near the Xe Kong river, where I had killed that young Viet Cong. He, too, had been lying on earth saturated with his own blood, and in that instant it was as though I was seeing the world through his eyes. As though he was calling to me from across time, from across the grave.
Dox was looking at me now. I saw concern in his expression. He lowered the rifle.
Suddenly I was confused.
“I thought I was dead,” I said, trying to explain. My voice sounded odd to me, slow and unnaturally low.
“Well, you don’t look so hot, but I’m pretty sure you ain’t dead. I would say, though, that we ought to get out of here.”
“Mmmmmm,” I said, looking past him at a dark and suddenly retreating shape that flickered at the edge of my vision. Only teasing, Death seemed to be saying over his shoulder with a rictus smile, with good humor and an oddly paternal affection. Take care of yourself, okay? We’ll play again.
Dox stooped and got his head under my arm, then straightened. We started walking toward the fence.
“What about… what about the money?” I asked, not understanding what was happening.
“Well, it was a heartbreaker, I won’t deny it, but I had to abandon the big payday and come to your rescue. I meant to get here sooner, but there was a lot going on back at the ranch and I had a fair amount of ground to cover. Plus these PSG/1’s are heavy, even for musclemen like me.”
“You just… you just let it go?” I asked, trying to take it in.
I felt him shrug. “I don’t give a damn about money if my buddy’s in trouble, partner, and I know you feel the same.”
I didn’t respond. “What about… what happened in front of the gate? That other car?”
I lost my footing for a second, but Dox’s arm, tight around my waist, kept me going. “Now there’s one nobody would believe if I were to tell ’em,” he said. “I don’t know who Belghazi’s pal is, the white fella, I mean, but he’s quite a shooter. He dropped one of the men in that Toyota, and then, when the two Arabs who came in the van got up from humping the ground, he capped them both point-blank. They seemed a bit surprised at the time. He and the other fella from the Toyota had each other pinned down after that. They both had good cover, and I couldn’t wait for a shot ’cause I thought you might need my help. Too bad, too. If I’d been able to take them both down, that bag would be waiting for us right now. Well, it might be, still. We’ll see in a minute.”
“Hilger… he was shooting them all?”
“Hilger? Ah, the white one. Yeah, he sure was. I don’t think that boy wanted anyone around to contradict the story he was making up about how all this carnage occurred and his role in it. He’s a resourceful one, and cold-blooded, too. Hell, Kanezaki ought to hire him for the shit we do.”
We got to the street and paused. I heard gunshots from in front of the gate, then return fire from inside the Toyota.
“Damn, those boys haven’t killed each other yet,” Dox said. “Looks like we’re shit out of luck. Here we go.”
He pulled me across the street fast. If Hilger or the Arab noticed, they gave no sign of it. They had each other to worry about.
A few seconds later we were on the other side, heading upward, enveloped by darkness. I lost my footing again and this time couldn’t find it. For a moment I felt I was floating on water, that some sea creature had risen up beneath me and lifted me onto its snout. My head cleared, and I realized Dox had picked me up over an enormous shoulder and was carrying me.
“Wait,” I said. “Put me down. The money’s right there, if you can drop those two.”
“Partner, you are bleeding out,” I heard him say from under me. He didn’t even break stride. “Don’t worry about the money. We’ll get another chance.”
I drifted away again. When I came to, we were back at the van we had rented. Dox laid me out in the rear and slammed the door. The engine gunned and we drove off. A moment later, I heard him on the cell phone. His tone was urgent but I was fading in and out again and couldn’t make out what he was saying. Something about a doctor, maybe.
“Come on, man,” I heard him bellowing from somewhere in front of me. It seemed that his voice was coming from a great distance. “Stay with me now. Kanezaki’s scrambling a doctor and I need to know your blood type.”
“AB,” I said, my lips moving thickly. “AB negative.”
“Well, thank God for small miracles! A universal recipient! Come on down!”
I WAS GONE a long time after that. When I woke up, I was in a bed in a dingy room. I looked around. Taupe drapes from another millennium. An old television on a cheap dresser. A metal door with a peephole. It was a hotel room.
Dox was in a chair next to the bed, facing the door, his head slumped forward, the rifle set across his lap.
I pulled back the blanket and looked down at my thigh. It was heavily bandaged. Likewise for my wrist. The thigh and wrist hurt, and the ribs were worse, but none of it was terrible. My head felt fuzzy, though, and I realized someone had given me something for pain.
“Hey,” I said.
Dox’s eyes popped open and his head snapped up. “Well, all right,” he said, flashing me the grin. “It’s damn good to see you, man. You had me worried there for a while.”
“Where the fuck are we?”
“A little Motel 6 kind of place on Lantau Island. I didn’t want anyone bothering us while you were recuperating.”
“Who bandaged me?”
“Your uncle Kanezaki made a few phone calls and took care of everything. Got a local doctor out here pronto. He sewed you up, but you’d lost a lot of blood. Luckily I was on hand to lend you a quart or so. So don’t be surprised if your dick’s grown to about twice as big as you remember.”
I laughed weakly. “Am I going to start looking at sheep differently, too?”
He grinned again. “You should only be so lucky. But one way or the other, take comfort from the fact that you’ve got a quart of Dox sloshing around inside you. There’s people who’d pay good money for the privilege, and here it’s yours for free.”
I nodded, taking it all in. “Thank you,” I said, looking at him.
He shook his head. “Forget about it. Like I told you, you were good to me in ’Stan. I don’t forget.”
“Well, I reckon we’re even, then,” I said.
His eyebrows shot north. “Did he say ‘reckon’? My God, son, it’s working already!”
WE CALLED KANEZAKI the next day, after we had changed hotels. We put him on the speakerphone on Dox’s cell phone.
“I was always afraid the two of you were going to join forces,” he said.
Dox grinned. “Well, someone’s gotta save western civilization from the forces of darkness,” he said.
“You’re closer to the truth there than you know,” Kanezaki replied.
“What are you talking about?” I asked.