could sit back and wait for the elusive $100 million washing machine to be delivered to his confederate, Starfish Guard L. Minana.
“You’re not here to liberate us, are you?” Charlie said to Hector.
Hector flashed a car salesman’s smile. “I am.”
“
“If you tell me the detonation code for the bomb hidden in the washing machine. Alejandro’s wheeling it down to my brother’s boss’s cigarette boat right now. I can go down and test it. If it works, you’re outta here.”
“
“There’s something wrong with his head,” Hector reassured the guard. “But the other one, he’ll tell us.”
Minana, Hector, and Drummond all looked to Charlie, who did not know the code but could learn it with a quick glance at the Perriman Pristina’s serial number. Were he to share that information, Hector would liberate them. From the cell. He wouldn’t permit them to live much longer than that, though.
Charlie’s only other idea was to stall until Drummond blinked on. “The code’s on my cell phone,” he said. “It’s listed in my phone book under ‘Dry Cleaners.’ ”
Hector looked to Minana.
“They didn’t have no phones on them,” the guard said.
“Yeah, I figured it was a lie.” Hector’s big mouth twisted in disgust. “The college boys Lesser used to bring down from the States, they were all fucking math geniuses. Memorizing a thirty-number code for those dudes is like memorizing a name for me or you.” He spun at Charlie. “I’ll tell you something, man. There was some pretty slick spooks on Ceron last week, packing state-of-the-motherfucking-art code-breaking software. Not one of them made sense outta that Bernadette and Antoinina thing, though. But you turned it into latitude and longitude in, like, five seconds. In your fucking head, too, am I right?” Without giving Charlie a chance to respond, he asked Minana, “How does your piano piece go?”
The guard indicated the wall of bars fronting the cell. “He lays his fingers flat on the crossbar. Then I play them”-he raised the cudgel as if it were a hammer-“until he sings.”
“Go for it, maestro,” Hector said.
Minana advanced to the crossbar. Hector pointed his revolver at Charlie, directing him to come forward.
Drummond looked on with anguish that Charlie judged, unfortunately, legitimate. And warranted.
“Stick your fingers through the bars,” Minana told Charlie.
The guard tightened his grip on the cudgel.
Charlie placed his fingertips on the cold and grimy crossbar and slid them forward, a hairbreadth at a time, scrambling meanwhile to come up with an alternative.
All he came up with was nausea.
“Wait,” Drummond said-ordered, actually, in that Patton style he employed when he was at the top of his game and things got hot.
Electrified, Charlie withdrew his hands and looked to his father.
There was no fire in Drummond’s eyes. “What if we work out some sort of arrangement, Hector?” he asked. As if he believed it was a truly novel idea.
“Like when the bomb gets sold, I get half of the money?”
“Something like that, yes! How about it?”
“I’d rather get all the money.” Hector flicked his gun, directing Charlie to return his fingers to the crossbar to be broken.
Just then an explosion shook the entire building, slamming both Hector and Minana against the floor. Grabbing the bars kept Charlie upright.
Drummond plucked him away, flinging them both toward the corner of the cell near the cots. They landed on their knees. Drummond pressed a pillow over the back of Charlie’s head, guided him into a crouch, then reached up, snaring the other pillow and placing it behind his own head-all of this was done in about a second and as naturally as if Drummond had been zipping his fly.
“Grenade?” Hector shouted to Minana.
The guard gave no indication of having heard Hector, likely due to a near-deafening onslaught of machine-gun fire. Hurrying to his feet and waving for Hector to follow, he ran for the stairwell.
The barrage continued, darkening the air with dust and loosened mold. Individual bullets ricocheted, shattering glass or ringing against metal fixtures and furnishings. After about a minute, the gunfire dwindled to sporadic pops. Finally the building’s familiar silence returned, followed by the sound of somebody running up the stairs-somebody new, judging by the squeal of rubber-soled shoes.
38
The smog parted, revealing Bream standing outside Charlie and Drummond’s cell. Dust whitened the pilot’s hair and coated his face, except where blood dripped down. He carried an assault rifle, his pants pockets bulged with fresh mags, additional guns protruded from his waistband, and grenades dangled from his belt along with a sheathed knife almost as big as a machete.
“I had to whack an attractive lady from the CIA in the head with a teakettle to get out here, but otherwise you fellas did well in getting thrown in this clink,” he said. “I had no damned idea how we were going to get you off Martinique after we took care of the bomb business.”
Could this be Bream to the rescue? Charlie was at a loss.
The pilot stepped out of sight. The cell’s front wall slid open with a resounding clank. Reappearing, Bream grumbled. “Course, now we gotta get off
“Thank you, J. T.,” said Drummond, exiting the cell.
“My pleasure.” Bream drew one of the pistols from his waistband.
Charlie was too far away to do anything more than watch in horror: Had Bream decided that Drummond was now expendable? Drummond, for his part, barely registered the pistol.
“Either of you got a preference for the Glock 17?” Bream asked.
“I do.” Drummond claimed the stout black pistol as if slipping on a glove. He racked the slide, inspected the chamber, hit a button ejecting the clip, and studied its contents. Satisfied, he rammed it home, checked the safety, and found a comfortable grip. “Nice.”
“Fly me, you do get some frills,” Bream said.
He offered Charlie a rugged gray pistol, a Sig Sauer. Charlie happily accepted, though in his estimation his skill as a marksman was limited to hitting a target directly in front of him. If the target was large and stationary.
He followed Bream and Drummond to the stairs, imitating the way they led with their guns, as if lighting the way.
At the lower landing, Bream sidestepped the crimson pool surrounding Minana. “I got this guy and Ricky- Ricardo-on-Steroids on their way down from the cellblock. The other guard was dead on my arrival. Who else have y’all seen since you’ve been here?”
“We heard there was a maintenance man.” Charlie tried to avoid looking at the dead man.
“Yeah. Overalls. Him and a ponytailed version of Ricky Ricardo and another thug were loading the washing machine onto a cig boat when I puttered up. They dropped what they were doing and started shooting at me. I had to fire blind.” Bream pantomimed ducking beneath his boat’s gunwale and firing without looking. “I got lucky,” he concluded with false modesty.
Sticking his gun out ahead of him, he hugged the doorframe, then darted out of the stairwell.
“We’re good for now,” he called back.
Drummond exited with catlike movements similar to Bream’s. Charlie brought up the rear, clumsily, slipping off the short step down from the landing to the intake desk, almost falling onto the bribe-proof Bulcao. The guard sat at his computer terminal as if still typing, except his neck was at an impossible angle and there was a dark cavity where his left eye had been.
