“We’ve got a lot of shit to shovel,” I suggested.
“Fair enough,” Jill replied. We spent the next two hours doing various farm chores as Jill told me her story. She’d been an intern at the US Embassy when she had a run-in with Gordon Willis. Gordon had some embassy staff murdered. She went on the run, was kidnapped, and was eventually rescued by Lorenzo, in the very house where I’d blown Adar’s head off. The whole thing made my head spin.
I told her parts of my own tale as well. She laughed nervously when I explained that Gordon had described her as a dangerous traitor.
“I’m sorry about Sarah,” Jill said eventually.
“How did you know?”
“We had one of your radios for a while. and I was watching on camera when she . . .when it happened. Lorenzo has this little drone airplane.”
I exhaled. “Thank you. I’m doing okay, all things considered. So . . . where is Lorenzo now?”
“Honestly?” Jill said. “I have no idea. I haven’t tried to contact him. He could be anywhere.”
Chapter 25:
Undocumented
LORENZO
June 22
This part of the Red Sea was really more of a dirty blue.
The boat rocked in the mild waves, Saudi Arabia behind us and North Africa somewhere over the horizon. The air smelled of fish and diesel fuel. I leaned against the railing, contemplating our next move.
Reaper was sleeping in one of the passenger cabins. It had only been a couple of days since he’d been shot, and he was still looking haggard. My back still ached from the ricochet that I had picked up in the elevator, and the last member of my crew was dead. Right now I wanted to get as far away from this damnable place as possible. Our next stop would be Egypt. There was a safe house in Cairo that we could hole up in while we formulated a plan to deal with Big Eddie.
Eduard Santiago Montalban. Half brother to the billionaire businessman murdered recently in the Gulf. Raised in Hong Kong, educated at Eaton, and as far as the world knew a useless fop that lived off the family wealth. He was all over the high-society pages, philanthropist, humanitarian, playboy, all that bullshit.
In actuality, he was the one that took care of the dirty side of the Montalban family business: murder, extortion, bribery, money laundering, slave trading, you name it, Big Eddie was involved. All the years that I had worked for him, I would never have guessed who he was. At times, I’d thought that he was imaginary, a name put onto some cartel of powerful individuals. Surely, one man wouldn’t be capable of that much evil.
Allowing me to find out his true identity would be the biggest, and last, mistake that Eddie would ever make.
We would arrange a handoff for the scarab to string him along, but I planned on getting to him first. He was so fixated on getting it that a preemptive strike would be the last thing that he’d expect.
And what was in there that made it so valuable? The metal was something hard and black that I couldn’t recognize. The glowing amber liquid was a mystery. Nervous that I’d had it next to my skin for so long, I’d had Reaper check it with a Geiger counter. It wasn’t radioactive, and he couldn’t recognize it, so Reaper had hypothesized that perhaps the glow was some sort of bioluminescence. In other words, it might be alive.
Maybe it was some sort of bio-weapon? But its setting didn’t make any sense for that. Reaper, being absurdly inquisitive, had wanted to crack it open so he could get a sample to test. I’d shot that down, because I was afraid that opening it would kill us all. I just wanted to get rid of it as fast as I could. Maybe I was psyching myself out, but it made me uncomfortable just looking at it. All that we knew for sure was that it was more valuable than all of the other treasures in the prince’s vault and that Eddie was willing to kill crowds of people to get it.
My cell phone began to vibrate in my pocket, interrupting my thoughts of revenge. Glancing around, I made sure that there were no other passengers along the railing, just a couple of filthy seagulls. It was a forwarded voice mail from another one of my numbers. Suspicious, I punched in the security code. I did not give that phone number to very many people.
“You said not to use any names, so I hope you recognize my voice.” It was Jill Del Toro. “I hope you guys are doing okay with that thing you were working on. The date’s passed. I’m settled in pretty good here, thanks to you.” I was embarrassed to find myself grinning stupidly, not the way a cold-blooded criminal was supposed to act, but it was good to hear the recording of her voice. “You said to contact you if I needed help. There is something going on, something related to what happened before, from when you found me. I don’t know who else to turn to. Lo—” She caught herself then continued. “Please call me.”
She rattled off a phone number and the message ended. I dialed the number; it had an American area code, but I didn’t know which state it was for. An answering machine picked up.
“Hi, you’ve reached Peaches. Leave a message.” It was Jill’s voice; damn Reaper and his stupid stripper- name fake IDs.
“Got your message. I, uh . . .” What was I supposed to say? It wasn’t like I didn’t have more important things going on. Eddie needed to be dealt with. I had a mystery bug full of something glowing and apparently alive, and a crown prince who would have me fed to his tigers if he found out I’d been the one to steal it. My family was still in danger, and the only surviving member of my crew was healing from multiple gunshot wounds.
She had never even been a real member of my team. Like Carl said, she was just some stray that I had saved from Adar’s goons. She had even turned her back and walked away, so as not to sully herself in my gritty illegal world. I was a hardened, professional criminal. I didn’t have time for helping people out of sentimentality.
“I’m coming. Call me when you get this and let me know where to meet you.” I folded the phone and stuck it back in my pocket. “Fuck!” I shouted. The seagulls scattered, squawking at my vehemence.
Screw it. I was running out of friends. I could arrange a meeting with Big Eddie in the States just as easy as I could meet him in Egypt.
Change of plans. I was going home.
LORENZO
Santa Vasquez, Mexico
June 24
The chubby man wiped his brow as he entered the little office. Massive sweat rings had pooled in his armpits. He’d been working outside on the tiny airport’s asphalt runway, and it was over a hundred degrees. He dropped the bag containing his lunch on the desk and immediately turned on the oscillating fan, sticking his face directly in front
