Dead Six

“It’s okay; he deserved it. Let’s get out of here.”

We weren’t out of the woods yet. The radio crackled. “Lorenzo, did you get her?” It was Hawk.

“Yeah, we’re coming out. Two down.”

“Hold on. There’s more vehicles coming in,” Bob said. “I’ve got an SUV and a couple of sedans.” Headlights came through the window. Our escape route was illuminated.

“Are they holding a convention?” Hawk asked.

“Lots of men moving now. These new ones seem to be paying attention. Don’t move,” Bob insisted. “These aren’t government.”

“What’s wrong?” Jill asked desperately. She was wearing some sort of pink waitress outfit, but it was filthy and blood splattered. She looked exhausted. “Is that Carl on the radio?”

She didn’t know. It just strengthened my resolve. I had to get her out of here. “We can’t sneak out. We’re stuck. We might have to fight our way out.”

“Lorenzo, we’re in position. Just say when,” Valentine said. His demeanor had changed. He wasn’t the sarcastic, nervous asshole he’d been before. Now he sounded utterly calm. I’d seen him in that state before. I could only imagine what kind of childhood he must’ve had to have gotten so messed up.

Jill knelt by the nearly decapitated man and removed a Glock from his belt. She checked the chamber then stuck it into her waistband. “There’s a subgun under that coat.” She followed my pointing finger and nodded. I leaned against the door and listened. There were more voices on the other side now.

“So what do you want, Gordon?” Oily, British accent, effeminate. “I’ve got important business to conduct. I don’t have time to drive out to middle of the bloody desert. I had to fly into a pathetic little airport in the middle of this dreadful desert just to get here. And it was closed. There was nothing there but an empty hangar! I had to land at a closed airport like . . . like some kind of vagrant!”

Eddie?

“I would think by now you would trust me.” The voices were muffled through the ancient wooden door, but that had to be Gordon. “Why the entourage?”

“Associates of mine from Las Vegas. I had them pick me up. But I didn’t bring them just because I don’t trust you. I also have some personal business to conduct in the area.” In other words, these were the men that he was planning on using to kill me at the scarab drop.

“Well, Mr. Montalban, as for your personal business, it turns out that there might be another favor I can do for you.”

“Removing my brother from the equation did improve my affairs rather immensely. But all part of fulfilling Project Blue, to the benefit of your employers, of course. And in addition I paid you rather handsomely, so I would hardly call it a favor.”

“As was part of the agreement. My partner is at the Alpha Point for Blue now.”

“I always keep my promises, Mr. Willis. So tell me why you dragged me out here to this filthy, dreadful little place.”

After all of this, Eduard Montalban was in the next room. He’d killed my friends, tried to kill me, and had threatened my loved ones. All thoughts of escaping quietly were dismissed. There was no way he was getting out of here alive. I looked to Jill, eyes wide, stubby machine gun shaking in her hands, and she understood. I pulled a frag grenade from my vest and put one hand on the door knob. “Get ready,” I whispered into the radio.

“This thief, Lorenzo, that you asked me to keep an eye out for—”

Eddie cut him off. “Lorenzo is why I came to America in the first place.”

“How much would he be worth if I was able to deliver him into your hands?” Gordon asked.

Eddie didn’t hesitate. “Though a challenging diversion, he’s worth nothing; But he has something in his possession, an antique piece of jewelry. For that, I’d give you ten million.”

“What if I told you that a person of interest we were looking for was picked up by facial-recognition software while passing through Las Vegas? Once flagged, SIGINT eventually pinpointed her in Quagmire. Surprisingly enough, under interrogation it turns out she’s friends with this Lorenzo of yours. My men will be picking him up shortly, right down the road. And for you, a special deal. I’ve neglected to mention any of this to my superiors.”

“Of course. But if your men screw this up and I don’t get my property back, I’ll hold you responsible.” A small dog began to bark in the next room. Who the hell brings a dog to a meeting like this?

“It’s already in motion,” the government man said. Somewhere, an armed squad was lying in ambush for us. They hadn’t the faintest idea where we actually were.

“I hope you realize who you’re dealing with, Gordon. Underestimating a man like Lorenzo can be fatal.”

Damn straight.

I opened the door.

VALENTINE

My blood had run cold when I’d heard Gordon’s voice. Then the Calm had washed over me, and suddenly I felt very detached. I couldn’t believe it. I had all but resolved myself to disappearing quietly. I had convinced myself that getting to Gordon was impossible, that it was just an angry fantasy. Now Gordon had been dropped right into my lap. He’d injected himself back into my life and screwed it up all over again. Beneath the Calm, at the outermost limit of my perception, I was seething with anger. He wasn’t going to get away this time. He wasn’t going to do this to me twice.

Reaper and I were in a shallow ravine that was about two-thirds of the way down the steep hill we’d come from. Hawk had crawled another twenty feet to a better position of cover. At the top of the hill was Bob with his rifle. At the bottom of the hill was the cinder-block building where they were holding Jill.

“Reaper, keep your head down,” I said. The nearest visible bad guy was far out of range of his stubby shotgun. “I’ll tell you when to move. Stay alert.”

There were two parties of men hanging around outside. One was presumably from Gordon’s group, since they had been driving the government Suburbans. Only three of them remained outside, doing a very poor job of keeping watch. The rest, more heavily armed in SWAT gear, had piled into a van and left. I figured that was the group that was supposed to be ambushing us at the arranged meeting point.

But several other cars that had just arrived, and these new guys were anxious. A handful of men got out and entered the building, including one of the biggest, fattest men I’d ever seen. This giant whale of a man was probably close to seven feet tall and had to weigh four hundred pounds.

“Who’s the fat guy?” I whispered into my radio.

“Unknown,” Bob tersely replied.

“Fat guy?” Reaper asked, suddenly sounding even more anxious. Before I could stop him, he poked his head over the ravine to see. A shocked look appeared on his face, and he immediately dropped back down.

“What is it?” I asked. But Reaper wouldn’t tell me anything. He just whispered into his radio that “the fat man” was here. Lorenzo clicked his microphone in reply.

Bob had said over the radio that these new arrivals were more alert, and that was definitely true. Compared to the government suits, the new guys looked like they belonged in a European fashion magazine, and they were all openly carrying weapons. Some had MP7 submachine guns, some had G36C assault rifles, and all were alert.

I was startled by the sound of a muffled explosion. The windows of the cinder-block building blew out, and the prison camp suddenly came alive.

The men outside were all startled by the blast. I put my aiming reticle on the upper chest of one of the new guys. He was hanging back by a sedan, his carbine shouldered, obviously providing rear security. I swiped my selector switch to the fire position and squeezed the trigger. I hit the man in the sternum, and blood from the giant exit wound on his back splashed onto the car door. He crumpled to the ground, landing in a small cloud of