As if to endorse Corbett’s thoughts: “I could have fired already, if that were my intent,” said the blond. “I am going to tell my men to hold their fire,” he added, the little revolver with the big muzzle unwavering on Corbett’s breast. He raised his free hand; waved it, still not turning from Corbett. “Do not fire unless he fires first,” he called. “This is the man who must take the money!”
It was the sight of the approaching men that made Corbett’s decision for him; that, and a feeling that the blond truly wanted to hand the money over for reasons that might become clear, if he lived long enough to hear them. Die right now in the next thirty seconds, taking a Russian with me, or live from moment to moment and hope they fumble worse than I do. Either way, they aren’t getting the hellbug. “Tell them if anybody fires, you get it,” he said, his mouth dry.
“You are not a man for panic,” said the blond, with a nod that was almost admiring. “Well, do we shoot each other after all?”
Corbett knew that he had just come as near to panic as he ever would. “The time for that is past, and you know it,” he said, and lowered the Uzi.
As the two latinos approached Corbett stood up, hands at his sides, and watched the blond reseat his revolver in its astonishingly small ankle holster. The blond stood, then, and retrieved the Uzi, with a perfunctory glance at its receiver. He looked into Corbett’s face as he reached into the jacket and withdrew the Glock pistol, sticking it into his belt. Then he hefted the Uzi. “This is yours, Mateo,” he said, and exchanged weapons with the taller of the two men. “I see he did not take it without a fight.”
The lean man stared hard at Corbett, a vein pulsing in his forehead next to a fat blue bruise. “An ambush, Lobo,” said Mateo, and swept the barrel of his weapon in a slashing blow toward Corbett’s head.
“Stop that,” commanded the blond. “He is necessary!”
Corbett, who had ducked away from the full force of the blow, reached up to feel the torn cartilage at his earlobe. The third man shook his head as if to distance himself from such things.
At a gesture from the blond they called Lobo, the men fell in behind Corbett, the four of them walking toward the shed, Mateo grumbling in boots that flopped without laces. Lobo turned his attention to the small man: “What of the fire, Jorge? Did you find an aircraft?”
“No aircraft,” said the little man, evidently surprised at the question. “Greasewood and that relic of a car. And when I circled back through the brush, our friend Mateo grunting and flopping like a trussed pig. He made enough noise for ten.”
“You did not have to cut my laces, you son of a whore,” Mateo grated in return.
Despite the blond’s pointed disapproval of their wrangling, the two were still at it when they reached the shed. The lank Mateo strode away from the shed, unzipping his pants as he went. “I will want that shoulder holster now,” said the blond wolf; “it pleases me. You will not need it when you take us to the aircraft. We could find the aircraft anyway, of course, because it cannot be far away.”
Corbett removed his jacket, dropped it atop a pile of trash, and shrugged out of his holster straps, handing the leather rig over. “You’ll find the airplane booby-trapped if you ever find it at all.”
That, I believe. You have done much for a man alone,” said the wolf, pulling keys from a pocket. “But after you have counted what is here, you may wish to disarm your handiwork.”
What I’ll do is try to stay alive until dark, Corbett decided, as little Jorge slung his Uzi over a shoulder. If I can’t get away within a couple of hours, there’ll be a real explosion for them to deal with. Christ, maybe I can swim to the hellbug in the dark, he was thinking, furiously working on some vestige of a new and workable scenario, unwilling to embrace utter failure, when the blond lifted the trunk lid.
The man stood perfectly still for a count of two and then, with motions so fluid they seemed almost unhurried, pointed his Uzi at little Jorge’s stomach. “Put down your weapon, Jorge,” he said calmly.
Jorge frowned, glanced at the open trunk, and Corbett thought the man’s eyes seemed to glaze. He leaned his weapon against a tire and the blond kicked it under the car. “Sit facing the wall,” he said in a soft snarl. “Both of you. If either of you moves or speaks I will kill you here and now.”
The little man met Corbett’s gaze, shrugged, and lowered himself to the dirt, Corbett imitating him. A long moment later, Corbett heard the flop of loose boots, then a rapid command in Spanish and a burst of curses from Mateo. Blessed with a fighter pilot’s peripheral vision, Corbett watched as the blond used his weapon to prod the man forward. In a voice tight with contained rage, the blond rasped, “Which of you ladrones took the money?”
“Hijo de puta, “Mateo hissed, and without an instant’s hesitation fell on the little man at Corbett’s side, beginning with a kick that must have broken a few ribs.
In an instant the two latinos were grappling, the smaller man already in obvious pain as they fell against Corbett, who scrambled aside, coming to his feet with his hands in the air.
The blond stepped forward, grasped Corbett’s collar, hauled him aside, then fired a burst through the shed wall just over the heads of the struggling pair. Corbett rolled and came to his feet, then backed against the wall of the tin shed. One of the combatants made a sound that seemed less than human, half bleat, half sigh. Their leader snarled, “Stop it, Mateo! How will we know where he put it?” He began to lash at the lean Mateo with the barrel of his weapon.
“Ay, caray, “said Mateo, still holding onto the little man’s hair with one hand as his other hand appeared holding a thin-bladed knife. As Mateo’s gaze fixed on Corbett’s face, his eyes grew round and unfocused, a man filled with furies suddenly unleashed toward all comers.
Corbett grabbed his leather jacket by one sleeve; used it as a flail to whip the maddened Mateo away, without effect. The man simply lowered his head and charged, snatching at the jacket with one hand, slashing with the knife in the other. The warning shouts of the blond seemed to go unheard as Mateo bore Corbett backward, slamming him against a corner post.
Corbett caught the knife hand, not at the wrist but with his own left fist literally covering the other man’s right, going down beneath the cursing latino, feeling the blade flick like a tongue through his shirt collar. With his free right hand he found Mateo’s coarse hair, hauled back, then snapped his own wrist forward, the top of his head pounding against Mateo’s nose. He felt the thin blade against the edge of his chin and arched his back, then put his entire left shoulder into a single, short upward blow of his left fist, still holding Mateo’s knife hand in it.
The latino’s wrist failed, his hand twisting to the side, and Corbett saw the razorlike blade make its brief passage through the straining throat of Mateo. For an eyeblink of time, only the pink and darker than pink of a sudden incision showed, and then a warm cascade of crimson flooded onto Corbett’s arm.
Someone was shouting, pummeling the shoulders of Mateo, who now began to slide away, jerking and gasping, Corbett still holding on to that knife hand as long as it quivered. The slashing blow of an Uzi’s metal stock caught him at the juncture of neck and shoulder, driving him once more against the wooden post.
“Get up,” commanded the blond, taking two paces back, his weapon aimed point-blank at Corbett’s torso.
It took Corbett two swallows before he could say, as he struggled away from the gory mess, “The bastard would have killed me.”
The blond cursed again. “Yes. Hotheaded fool, it may have been he who took the money after all. Now we will have a devil of a time finding it.” Motioning Corbett further away, the man felt for pulses in both his men. He did not seem pleased at his findings, but with more plain disgust than sadness.