Turner looked down at the man on the ground as he struggled to straighten himself from the ball of pain he’d curled into. The operative smiled. This would be his first chance to use a new toy.
He took a step toward Millar and then saw someone emerge from the shadows of the building. He immediately recognized the man with the thin frame and Washington Nationals cap cocked to the side. It confirmed what he already knew. This was a setup.
The newcomer leveled his Beretta at Turner’s head and said, “You’re a fuckin’ dead man now.”
Turner knew instantly the man wasn’t a pro. A professional would have taken him out from the shadows and skipped the Hollywood theatrics. The man looked scared and seemed to be waiting for further instructions.
The silence was broken by an agonizing groan from his friend on the ground. Turner had no doubt he was a man who would have already pulled the trigger.
“What the fuck are you waiting for? Kill him,” Millar’s captor coughed as he slowly regained his feet.
Trent Turner’s eyes darted over to the assassin and then back to the gunman. He knew this was about to get ugly. He noticed a telltale squint followed by a slight lift of the gun’s barrel.
Chapter 35
Etzy Millar’s heart was pounding as the events unfolded in front of him. The pain from his ribs was washed away by the adrenaline coursing through his veins. He’d only seen one person killed before, and that was just yesterday. Millar was paralyzed by a potent combination of fear and confusion. He had no idea what was going on. He was having trouble wrapping his mind around this, but from the looks of it, things would soon turn deadly.
He had tunnel vision, and the constant throbbing of his heart intensified as the blood pulsed through his veins. He saw the killer bark out a command to the man in the baseball cap and then turn his attention back to the man who had come from out of nowhere.
A few moments went by before the assassin began to walk toward the spot where his weapon had landed. It was the loud groan the assassin let loose that brought Millar out of his trance. He watched the killer fall flat on his face and start to convulse. The next thing that invaded his senses was the sound of metal skidding across the ground. He looked down and saw the pistol in front of him at his feet. His sensory overload leveled off, and he instinctively traded his laptop for the gun. He looked over at the killer. He had stopped convulsing.
“Sizzle, sizzle,” the stranger said with a smile.
The killer had a pissed-off look on his face. Millar was still confused, but the situation was becoming clear. He already liked the new guy.
“Okay,” Millar said in a shaky voice. “Nobody move, or I’m just going to start shooting.”
His hands were trembling, his eyes full of a crazed fear of what might happen if he blinked. He cycled the gun from one person to the next as he tried to figure out what to do next.
“Be careful, or your sister is dead,” the killer coughed as he stood back up.
“Don’t move,” Millar said. He was visibly more nervous.
“Calm down, calm down. I’m just getting my phone. I’ll move slowly. Just take it easy.” The killer spat a mix of blood and saliva onto the ground and slowly took out his cell phone. “I have to make a call.” He punched a number into his phone and raised the device to his ear.
“Who are you calling?” Millar asked, shifting his weight nervously.
He shot a cold stare at Millar. “If this conversation ends without me, kill the girl,” he said into the phone.
A new wave of fear washed over Etzy Millar. It started at the back of his head and worked its way forward. “What are you doing?” he insisted.
The assassin pointed out the stranger. “Kill that man now, or your sister is dead,” he said.
Millar’s hands went from a tremble to a shake as he redirected the weapon, aiming at the man.
“You don’t want to do that,” the man said. “I’m here to help. He doesn’t have your sister.”
His voice was confident, and the expression on Millar’s face turned to a deeper shade of confusion.
“Come see. You can speak with her,” the killer said as he held out his phone.
He started to move toward Millar, and the stranger sent him a quick jolt that stopped him in his tracks, almost dropping the phone.
“Sizzle, sizzle,” the stranger repeated.
Millar gave the stranger a questioning look.
“nsEP,” he said with a wink. “A Nano-Second Electrical Pulse. Not something you’d want to attach to your balls.” He looked to the killer as though he had a second thought. “Well, at least for most of us.”
The killer tried to reach for the Taser leads in his back, but he zapped him again.
“Ah ah ah,” the stranger said as he shook an angry finger back and forth. He turned to Millar and said, “Don’t let him get near you. He’ll take that gun away and snap your neck before you can blink.”
The hacker turned the gun on the assassin and slowly reached into his back pocket to pull out his cell phone. “Stay there,” he said nervously, and then rattled off a number for them to call.
The assassin shook his head in disgust and then spoke quietly into the phone as he stared down the hacker.
“I can’t hear you. What are you saying?” Millar said, his voice panicked.
“Ease up. I gave him the number,” the killer barked.
A few seconds later Millar’s phone began to vibrate. He angled it toward his face to view the caller’s number. It was bogus, all sixes.
“You’d better answer that, or they’ll kill her,” the killer said.
Millar fumbled to answer the phone. “Hello? Melody?”
“Kill him or she’s dead,” the caller said.
The words caused Millar’s stomach to crawl.
“Do it now, or it’s all over,” the assassin ordered in a dark tone.
“I want to talk to my sister,” Millar said, sounding desperate.
“You don’t make the demands here,” the caller told him.
The man’s tone was patronizing, and his foreign accent made him sound even more sinister. He clamped the phone between his shoulder and ear and turned the gun toward the stranger with both hands. He squinted as he tried to squeeze the trigger.
“I heard that Etzy was looking for some help on the boards,” the stranger said coolly. “It’ll be tough to help you out if you put a bullet in my head.”
Millar released the pressure on the trigger, unsure of what to do next.
“Kill him or she dies,” the voice on the phone barked with a sense of finality.
It had been a long time since Etzy Millar’s father had taken him to the range to shoot a gun like this. That was in happier times, before his father had turned into an alcoholic.
Nothing had happened the last time he tried to squeeze the trigger. He nervously turned the side of the weapon toward him and flicked off the safety. Millar would do anything to save his little sister. He took a deep breath as he prepared himself to go through with the deed.
Chapter 36
“Look out, Mom!” Maria Soller yelled.
Her mother swerved, narrowly missing a group of men in dark clothing. The two women sped out of the apartment complex, trying to make it to the exit in time to link up with the vehicles that had taken Melody Millar. They had barely made it.
Maria pointed to the right and said, “Look, they’re over there.”
“I see them, I see them,” Matilde Soller confirmed. She stepped on the gas to close the distance.
Nerves augmented the frantic twists and turns in the road as they tried to keep pace with the SUVs at a distance. It wasn’t long before they reached the Washington, DC suburb of Germantown and then the lightly traveled roads in the small community of Poolesville, Maryland. Both of them had been mostly silent as they concentrated on the trio of vehicles.