He held his hand up to silence them. ‘Nope. I don’t have anything more than that. All she said was she was taken to Southport in Gloucester City, and now she’s free and safe. She said we should haul our asses and get her.’
‘That sounds like her,’ Bear said and leaned back, relaxing, little springs and nerves in him uncoiling.
They didn’t spot her outside the diner, just a whole load of cars, trucks and drivers of various shapes and sizes. No Chloe. No Tony.
Bwana didn’t wait for Broker to stop, lunging out of the Escalade before it had even come to a halt, covering the ground in long strides, other drivers scampering to get out of his way.
Broker shook his head at his departing back. ‘Surest way to get ulcers, or give someone a panic attack.’
Bwana flung open the double doors to the diner and stood there, ignoring the scowls from the tattooed mountain behind the counter and scanned the diner. No Chloe. No Tony.
He scanned again, now joined by the others, blocking the door. No sign of them.
He walked to the counter. ‘There was a guy and a woman here, half an hour back. She used the phone. Seen her?’
The man looked at him dismissively. ‘Bud, do I look like someone who keeps tabs on who comes here, does what? So long as I’m paid, I don’t give a damn.’
Roger joined Bwana, the others staying by the door, and smiled widely at the man. ‘My friend here is not a man to rile. If you know where those two are, it’s best you tell him.’
The man opened his mouth to retort, saw something in Bwana’s eyes, and closed it, his eyes moving past their shoulder.
‘Those two are here,’ came Chloe’s voice from behind them.
They turned round to see her supporting Tony, handing him over to Bear and Broker.
‘Any need to barge in here and threaten violence?’ she asked Bwana icily.
‘I didn’t. I asked politely,’ he growled back, enjoying the relief the back and forth provided.
‘Hell, Bwana, you walk like that without even saying a word, and mothers take their children and run to the hills,’ she threw back at him.
‘How’s he?’ she asked Bear once they were driving back. Bear was tending to Tony in the rear.
‘I was a Ranger, ma’am. I’ll be fine, just some flesh wounds,’ Tony mumbled through cracked lips. ‘Should help me land the girls now.’
Broker snorted. ‘I can just imagine the stories that you’ll spin out of that, Tony. Enough fodder for a few years, I reckon.’
Women fell for Tony, finding something in his average appearance and shy demeanor. It helped that once he lost his reserve, he was an incredible raconteur.
Bwana, driving, glanced balefully at Roger. ‘You never told me that bruises will help with women. You always said all I had to do was dress sharp and the women would come running. I did, and none came.’
Roger looked pityingly at Bwana. ‘Nothing can help you, Bwana. You’ve seen those Hulk movies, haven’t you? You figured out that there’s a reason for Hulk not having a mate?’
Chloe and Bear, listening behind them, knew this was their way of letting off their tension, helping the needle move from red to normal. She squeezed Bear’s arm, conveying all that she felt in that small gesture.
Broker let them have their moment and then asked her, ‘What happened? How did you get out?’
Chloe shook her head, puzzled. ‘I’ve been trying to figure that out for some time. Those goons took us to that place and started on us when they couldn’t raise Cruz. Well, both of us were going to hold out as long as we could, and then someone joined the party.’
She told them what she’d seen and heard. Which wasn’t much.
‘But I retrieved these.’
She dug into the pockets of her fatigues and brought out the knife and the playback gadget.
Broker inspected them for a long while and then sighed. ‘The blade… millions like it sold in Walmart and Target. We won’t get anywhere with that. The device is more interesting. Home-made with components from RadioShack, but those components are fairly common, and we won’t be able to track the source store.’
He went silent, thinking, and finally gave voice to what had been going through his mind for a long time.
‘You know, if this is our same ghost, he isn’t your ordinary vigilante or gun nut who’s developed a Batman syndrome.’ He held the playback device. ‘This is an amateur device, but sophisticated enough to have hundreds of recordings in it that play back authentically. There’s shooting in a desert, shooting in a corridor to give echoes… he’s got shooting on a mountain, for crissakes. The way he appears and disappears, the way he took those guys out — the first time he’s shown his hand. If it’s him, of course.’
‘He’s a professional. Like us.’
They digested his words, nodding in acknowledgement. They had reached the same conclusion.
‘Better not be one of those navy boys,’ Bwana muttered.
Roger waved a hand dismissively. ‘Question is, why is he helping us?’
Broker got there before them and waited for their light bulb moment.
‘Clare?’ Chloe asked.
‘Well done. She’s the only one I can think of who’s got a vested interest in looking after our hides.’
‘If it was her, why wouldn’t she tell us? And looks like this guy is so good, how about bringing him in our fold?’ Bwana broke in.
‘All in good time, Mr. Patience. As long as this ghost isn’t in our way, he’s not hindering us in any way.’
Chloe twisted around to peer in the back of the Escalade. ‘Where are those two? What did you find out from them?’
Broker sobered. ‘They had suspected Shattner of being a plant after several of their deals went down badly, and after the cops had barged in on their last deal, which was there’ — he nodded in the direction of Southport — ‘they were even more sure.
‘They hadn’t plugged him till then because he fit into their façade perfectly, good mechanic, white guy, all that shit. And get this — they were thinking of using him as their own double! However, when the deals started going south, they couldn’t risk having him around anymore and decided to lift Shattner.
‘They brought him here, maybe the same place that you were held in, going by what he mentioned in his journal, their description of it, and your mentioning it.’
‘Shattner didn’t break.’ Broker’s voice softened and slowed, his words hanging heavy in the air.
‘They shot out his knees, but he stuck to his story. Diego went to work on his insides, and by then he was screaming, calling out his kids’ names. He must’ve lost his senses by then.
‘But he didn’t break.’ Broker wiped his face with his hand, slicked back his hair, and took a deep breath.
‘Of course, everyone breaks. Cruz and his sidekick knew this. So did Shattner. When Diego was cutting him, he lunged inside not away, and the knife went too deep. Diego said he was smiling as he died. They were kicking him and screaming at him as he lay there, asking him to confess.’
Chloe shut her eyes, willing her imagination to stay silent, not throw up images of Shattner broken and bleeding, the deep driving urge in him not to escape, but to die before the truth spilled out. She drew a deep breath and looked at the men around her, the cold, hard light in their eyes comforting her.
She rested her head against Bear’s shoulder, which was hard as a rock. ‘The kids. Elaine Rocka. They need to know he wasn’t a loser.’
Bwana’s voice rumbled in the vehicle. ‘They will. We would’ve been proud to know him.’
‘What’ve you done with them?’ she asked after a long time.
‘They’re alive, but Broker came up with a unique disposal system,’ Roger deadpanned, lightening their mood.