worrying a bit, but ready to go for it so we could get the fuck out of France before the police got hold of us.
I didn’t bother with the bottom screws, just pried the bars downward. Then, getting out my Browning and turning my fanny pack around to the back of my spine again, I went in headfirst, belly-flopping onto the toilet, using the two urinals as support to stop me falling onto the floor and making noise.
I could hear voices on the other side of the door.
Lotfi followed me through, closing the window behind him but not pulling down the catch.
The door was an overpainted cheap interior one, with an old, brushed-aluminum handle. The gap at the bottom was too narrow for me to look through, but the screams and shouts didn’t leave much to the imagination. At least I couldn’t smell gasoline or burning yet.
Lotfi also got his ear to the door. “They’re begging them to stop — we must hurry now.”
“We need to spread out so we can cover them all. I’ll take the left, using the Portakabin on that side as cover. You take the right, using the other one.”
One of the Romeos screamed so loudly it sounded as if he were in here with us. Lotfi got very worked up, his eyes flashing once more the same as they’d done in Algeria. I put a hand on his shoulder. “Me left, you right, and this God of yours knows I’m with you, yeah?”
As he nodded, both Romeos cried out again. I pulled the hammer back from its half-cock position on the Browning and checked chamber by gently pulling back the backslide just enough to see the brass of the round in position. Then I pushed it back into position.
Lotfi was doing the same as I checked my fanny pack for the last time and wiped the sweat from my eyes with a tar-stained hand.
Slowly, I pushed down on the door handle and it gave way with the smallest of squeaks. I didn’t want to burst in. I wanted us to get in as far as we could, using the Portakabins as cover, before it went noisy.
There was a little resistance from the hinges, but I managed to pull it toward me an inch as Goatee’s shouts and the screams from the pit increased. My view was mostly obscured by the Portakabins, but between them to my half-right I could see the concrete ramps. And no one was there anymore.
Chapter 52
I couldn’t understand the Arabic, but I could tell the difference between begging and demanding. Lotfi’s hard-set jaw told me that for him every word mattered.
I just had to assume that they all were at the pit; there was nowhere else for them to have gone, unless they were hanging around in the mobile construction trailers or giving the Lexus a polish.
Change of plan now that I couldn’t see anyone. I visualized how I would go straight through the gap in the two trailers to the ramps, so I could use them as cover while I dominated the area. None of them would be able to outrun Mr. Nine Millimeter.
That would give Lotfi a chance to move in and lift Hubba-Hubba, and once that was done, there would be three of us to get Goatee into the car and get the fuck out. And that was about as far as I got. We’d just have to get in there with the maximum amount of speed, surprise, and aggression, weapons up, making sure they didn’t have time to draw down. Only Lotfi’s God could tell where things went from there.
I moved my head back so I could whisper to Lotfi. “Change of plan, I’ll head straight for the ramps and —”
A piercing scream forced its way through the gap in the door.
Lotfi jumped up, pushing me over. Pulling at the door, he drew down his weapon before hurling himself into the warehouse, screaming Arabic, running straight through the gap between the trailers, then turning right, to the pits, and disappearing from view.
I followed, safety off, screaming at the top of my voice, joining in with everyone else now as the noise echoed about the building. “Hands up! Hands up! Hands up!”
I’d taken only three steps into the warehouse when there was a loud whoosh from the other side of the trailers to my right, then agonized screams that drowned every other sound.
I emerged past the trailers to see the group to the right of the blazing pit staring open-mouthed at us. We both screamed louder, trying to overcome the noise from below us as the flames shot higher than our heads.
Baldilocks was in position to draw down, but couldn’t decide whether to do so or not. He looked at Goatee. He was looking at me. I stayed static, weapon up, out in the open.
Lotfi had reached the pit, his screams now just as loud as those of the burning men.
I kept my Browning up, pushing down with my thumb on the safety. “Hands up! Hands up! Hands up!”
The black-leather brothers were trying to work out whether to take a chance and draw down; I could see it in their eyes. I felt the heat on my face as I moved in closer, to get better shots, never crossing my feet over as I moved, wanting to keep them apart so I had a constant, stable platform to get some rounds off on target. I didn’t have that many to fuck about with.
Lotfi, on his knees by the pit, roared with all the air in his lungs as he battled with the hot, heavy iron gate, trying to drag it just a few feet.
Hands flailed from the flames below. Disembodied, high-pitched screams filled the building.
Above ground, the group’s eyes were still darting everywhere, at the pit, at me, at each other. I moved toward them more and with each step the stench of burning flesh became stronger than the fuel’s. It was tempting to do all four of them, but Goatee was in the middle of the group. I needed him alive.
Lotfi yelled for his brother, fighting the flames, fighting the gate.
Where was Van Man?
There was movement to my right and I was too late.
The piece of scaffolding swung in hard. I felt a crushing pain in the right side of my chest and the Browning flew from my hand. I lost all the air from my lungs before hitting the concrete.
Between the flashes in my head I could see Lotfi lying on the floor, gripping a charred hand that strained up through the bars of the gate. The flames were beginning to die. Even if his brother hadn’t burned to death, he would have been asphyxiated long before now.
Lotfi bellowed like a wounded animal, a long, drawn-out, pitiful howl of despair. His sleeves were smoking and burnt away, and his hands and arms were blistering. Bodies moved in and he was kicked away from the gate, but it wasn’t physical pain that was causing his anguish.
My glimpse of him lasted a second more, before feet rained in on me too. I could do nothing more than curl up, close my eyes, grit my teeth, and hope it would stop very soon.
Angry Arabic echoed around the walls. The kicking stopped. Hands grabbed my feet, dragging me on my stomach and chest toward the pit. Lotfi’s screams got closer. I pushed down on the heels of my hands to try to keep my face from being grated along the concrete floor and felt the skin of my palms coming away.
I opened my eyes in time to see the charred but still recognizable bodies in the pit, and the smoldering paint on the gates. My legs were released, my fanny pack got pulled off me, and I was pushed against the right-hand mobile construction trailer. Lotfi was marched over to join me and forced onto his knees. All four of them stood around us, letting off a good kick now and again. The hem of Baldilocks’ pants was just inches from my face. I could smell cologne and cigarettes, and heard heavy, labored breathing as one of them spit on my neck.
Lotfi seemed oblivious to the state of his arms and hands. His skin was hanging off him like potato peel, some flakes red, some black. His watch and Medic Alert looked as if they had sunk into his grotesquely swollen wrists. The raw skin on my hands, ingrained with grit, was incredibly painful, but nothing like he was going through.
A pain in the right of my chest was as much as I could bear. I had to take rapid, shallow breaths, and each one felt like I was being stabbed.
Lotfi caught my eye and started rocking slowly backward and forward with his arms out so he didn’t touch them, just taking the pain. “I should have—”
He got a kick that rolled him off to his side. They closed in on us again just as Goatee pushed his way through the crowd. They gave him some space as he looked down just a few feet away from us, having nearly recovered his breath. In his left hand he held our passports. The four behind him were already counting out our cash. In his right hand he held an untipped cigarette, unlit, and a disposable lighter. Eyeing us both with mock concern, he placed the
