"I don't like the looks of this," he said. "Get down from there."
"Aw, just some more of the clown's funny business," Perkowski said, reaching for the light string. "Let's shed some light on the subject."
"I wouldn't—" Baker started to say, but was drowned out by the deafening roar of half a dozen shotgun shells firing at once.
Perkowski's body—his head and arms a bloody ruin—hurtled from the ladder and landed on Toro.
Fury overtook Baker then. Another of his men down! The son of a bitch!
He raised his Tec-9 and began firing. He stitched all thirty-two rounds into the ceiling that ran along the hall, and was flipping the clip to spray another thirty-two when a hand grabbed his arm.
"The woman!" It was Muhallal, his expression a mixture of anger and fright. "You'll kill the woman!"
Baker was about to tell him to fuck off when howls of pain started from the living room. He wheeled around the corner to find Briggs writhing in agony with his hand in the wall.
"What the fuck?" Baker said.
"The wall safe!" Briggs gasped. "It wasn't locked. I saw some cash inside, but when I reached in, it spiked me!"
Baker saw blood oozing out of the circular opening and dripping down the wall.
"You jerk!"
"You gotta get me outta this thing, man!" Briggs wailed. "I think I'm spiked through. It's killin' me!"
Shit! Baker thought. What else could go wrong?
That was when the beeping started.
Everybody froze. Even Briggs stopped his yelping.
The beeping… it was coming from the beat-up stereo cabinet across the room. Kenny stepped over to it and pulled open the doors.
An LED display was doing a countdown in big red digits, beeping as each new number appeared.
… 58… 57… 56...
Kenny knelt for a closer look, then jumped back.
"Christ, Sam, it's a bomb!"
Baker froze for an instant, then stepped closer. Kenny didn't know bombs; that was his domain.
Baker felt his scalp crawl when he recognized a brick of C-4. He knew the stuff. He'd used it when he wired that lawyer's car. And this brick had a lot of wires running in and out of it.
…45… 44… 43…
"Well, don't just stand there, Sam!" Kenny shouted. "Defuse it!"
"In less than a minute? Afraid not."
… 40… 39…
Behind Baker, Briggs started wailing, calling on God and his mother for help.
"I'm outta here!" Toro said, and headed for the door.
"Hey!" Briggs cried. "Where y'goin'? Hey, guys—don't leave me here with a bomb! Please, guys! Please!" The last was a drawn-out wail.
… 36… 35…
Baker noticed the Arab heading for the door and wasn't surprised. He wanted to follow, wanted very much to be far from that bomb, but…
"Sam?" Kenny said, looking spooked. "Shouldn't we be—?"
"You got your knife?" Baker said, pulling his big Special Forces blade from its sheath.
… 32… 31…
"Sure," Kenny said.
"Then get it out and come over here. Move!"
"Hey, Baker!" Briggs said, wide-eyed as he saw them rushing at him with drawn knives. "What you gonna do?"
"I oughta, cut your arm off for sticking your hand where it doesn't belong," Baker said, stopping on Briggs's right. "And I may have to yet, but let's try something else first. Lean back." He slapped the wall on the other side of Briggs, above and to the left of the level of the safe, and told Kenny, "Cut a hole there. Do it!"
…28… 27…
"We'll never get this safe out of the wall!" Kenny said, his voice a couple of notches higher than usual.
"I know," Baker said.
He went to work on the wall directly above the safe, punching a hole in the plasterboard with the butt of his knife. Once he had the hole, he reversed the blade and used the saw-toothed edge to cut over to a stud, then angle down.
…24… 23…
He tried to keep looking cool, couldn't let Kenny think he was scared, but his heart was going like a jackhammer and he could feel sweat breaking out all over his body.
As soon as Baker's blade reached the top of the safe, he hauled back and punched the plasterboard, popping the cut piece into the wall space.
Baker glanced over and saw his nephew hacking furiously at his spot on the wall. His face was waxy-white, making his red hair look like fire, but he was getting the job done. "Do it, Kenny!"
… 20… 19…
"I don't want to die because Briggs is stupid, Sam," Kenny said as Baker went to work on the section above and to the right of the top of the safe.
"Neither do I, kid. But you don't leave one of your guys behind if you can help it. Even if he's an asshole."
That had been one of the rules in SOG. A man went down behind the lines, you risked almost everything to extract him.
…16… 15…
He heard Kenny punch through, and then he was through with his second opening. He stood on tiptoe and peered into the hole. He needed more light.
"Kenny, get that lamp over here."
"Sam…"
Damn, his nephew was practically whining.
I know how you feel kid, but you gotta hang in here with me. Don't let me down.
"Do it!"
…12… 11…
Kenny picked up the lamp and held it high with shaky hands.
Now Baker could see, and he spotted the powerful spring that had powered the spike into Briggs's arm.
"There's the sucker," he said.
…08… 07…
He reached in and inserted the point of his blade under the bottom of the spring. His own hand was beginning to shake, and the point slipped off the spring.
"Come on! Come on!"
He positioned the point again, then grunted as he threw all his strength into levering that spike out of the safe. It moved, and he heard air hiss through Briggs's teeth as the spike slowly withdrew from his flesh.
… 04 … 03…
With a piercing cry, Briggs yanked his bloody arm from the safe and began a headlong dash toward the front door.
Kenny was right behind him. Baker brought up the rear, leaping off the front steps and pushing Kenny to the ground.
"Hit the deck!" he shouted.
17.
"Where are we?" Alicia said as Jack helped her up the ladder from the tunnel. "Take a look." Alicia turned in a slow circle to get her bearings. They'd emerged in the center of a clump of bushes bordering a potato field. Fifty feet to her right, she saw the white rented car, parked where they had left it. Beyond the car lay Jack's ranch house, with every window lit.
"We're across the street," she said.
"Right."
"Are we going to—?"
Alicia jumped as a booming retort echoed from the house, followed by a burst of machine-gun fire.
"My God, what happened?"
"Somebody just became cannon fodder, I imagine," Jack said.
"You mean dead?"
He nodded. "Most likely. I told you, it's my decoy place. Booby-trapped to within an inch of its life."
She looked at Jack. She'd grown to like him, even trust him during the short time she'd known him—unusual for her, because her list of trusted people was a short one—but there was so much she didn't know about him. And here was something she hadn't realized—maybe she'd guessed it, but hadn't wanted to confront it: beneath that unprepossessing, low-key, regular-guy surface was someone willing and able to kill when necessary.
And he was standing only a foot away. Her mouth went dry. She took a step back.
"You… killed one of them?" She tried to make out his expression in the dark.
"I like to think he killed himself—by being someplace he had no right being, doing something he had no right doing."
Alicia felt weak and shaky inside. She took another step back. "This is—very scary."
"You worried about them?" he said.
"But they are," he said softly, his eyes on the house, not her. "They killed your PI, they burned Benny the Torch alive, and they blew up your lawyer. What was his name again?"
"Weinstein… Leo Weinstein."
God, she'd almost forgotten about poor Leo.
"Okay. They blew him to pieces. And for what? For doing his job. You think Mrs. Weinstein would object to her husband's killers getting a dose of what Leo got? I don't think so."
"I wouldn't know about Mrs.—"
But Jack wasn't listening. He kept talking, his voice getting lower and colder.
"But I'm not doing this for Mrs. Weinstein, or your PI, or even for Benny the Torch, who I knew in a small way. I'm doing this for me and, whether you like it or not, you."
"Not for me," Alicia said. "I never wanted—"
"Because they're killers. And once you get on the wrong side of killers—and trust me, we're both on their wrong side—the only way to deal with them is to get them before they get you. If you don't, I guarantee you'll regret it. Because someday they'll find you—maybe by accident, maybe on purpose, but someday your paths could cross and then they'll snuff you out without hesitation. Or at least they'll try to."
Jack's casual, matter-of-fact tone chilled her.
What have I got myself into?
"Here they come," he said.
Alicia looked and saw two figures charging out the front door. She recoiled when he grabbed her arm, but he held her firmly.
"This way," Jack said. "And stay low."
In a crouch, he guided her to the car and carefully opened the driver side door. The courtesy lights stayed off—now she understood why he'd jammed the button with a toothpick. He motioned her in ahead of him.
"Crawl across and keep your head down," he whispered.
He got in beside her and eased the door shut. He inserted the key in the ignition but didn't turn it. Instead he leaned close to her and stared at the house.
"Now… watch. Won't be long."
18.
Fighting panic, Kemel crouched by the flat rear tire of the rusting truck in the front yard and watched the house. The mercenary he'd followed here huddled beside him.
How could so many things go wrong in one evening? How was it possible?
Earlier he had been upset, especially after learning that two of the guards had been killed. Two corpses could lead the police directly to Kemel, and thus to Iswid Nahr. He would be humiliated before Khalid Nazer. Baker had said he would make the corpses "disappear," but how much of that was bravado?
Perhaps none. Kemel had to admit that he had been quite impressed with the way Baker handled his men. They seemed well trained and responded with military precision to his commands. And he'd had the foresight to plant a tracer on the Clayton woman.
Baker was rising in his estimation. If only he weren't so headstrong…
But then the situation had rapidly deteriorated. One dead, another pinned in the house like an animal in a trap, and the house ready to explode in a few seconds.
And where was Baker now? Why was he still in the house? Was he trying to defuse the bomb?
Suddenly the mercenary who had been trapped, the one they called Briggs, burst through the front doorway closely followed by Baker and a redheaded mercenary.
Briggs ran toward the pickup while Baker and the other flattened themselves in the grass. Kemel ducked and held his ears.
A second later he faintly heard a retort—sharp, quick, like a shot.
After waiting a few more heartbeats and hearing no explosion, Kemel cautiously raised his head enough to see over the pickup's rear cargo bed. He saw Briggs standing on the far side, holding his bloody arm.
"You sons of bitches!" Briggs shouted. "You lousy fucking bastards! You left me in there to be blown to hell and the only thing that exploded was a firecracker!"
"What?" said the mercenary beside Kemel as he rose to his feet.
"That's right, Toro!" Briggs screamed as he staggered toward them. "A fucking M-80! And look at you assholes hiding behind that truck like the yellow-bellied rats you are!"
One of the mercenaries who had been guarding the rear of the house ran up to the truck.
"What the hell's going on?" He stared at Briggs's bloody arm. "What happened to you?"
"You want to know?" Briggs said. "Toro, tell DeMartini how you—"
"Run!"
Kemel glanced toward the house and saw Baker on his feet, backpedaling and pulling the redheaded mercenary around to the side of the house.
"Get away from the truck!"
The other three mercenaries weren't paying attention, but Kemel decided if Baker was running, so would he—as fast as he could.
"Yeah!" Briggs shouted behind him as Kemel turned and sprinted away. "Run! You yellow-bellied Arab rat! Run before I—"
The explosion caught Kemel by surprise. One moment he was running, the next he was flying, as if a giant hand had slammed against his back and hurled him through the air. The night was full of sound and light and flying metal.
Kemel landed and rolled and stayed down, lying flat with his arms over his head, pressing himself into the cold hard earth.
And then it was over.
Kemel shook his head as he rolled over and rose to his knees. He could barely hear through the high-pitched hum that filled his head. He looked around and saw burning bits of wreckage strewn about the yard. The mercenary who had been behind the truck with him was a still dark form on the lawn. He was sure the wounded Briggs and the one called DeMartini were in a similar state on the other side of the smoking hulk.
But someone was moving. Baker… returning from the side of the house, shaking his fists at the night. Kemel could see the rage in his face, and knew from his wide-open mouth and the bulging cords in his neck that he was screaming into the night.
But Kemel could not hear him. And he was glad of it.
He looked back to the road and noticed that the white car they'd followed here was gone.
Kemel lowered his head and prayed. It was that or burst into tears.
19.
Yoshio found himself laughing aloud as he watched from his car.
Tonight had been a thing of beauty. When he had heard shots from within the house, he had assumed the worst: That Muhallal and his hirelings had killed the Clayton woman's ronin. But when Yoshio had seen figures hurrying from the house and taking up position behind the wrecked truck in the front yard, he had expected a firefight to follow.
But how could there be a firefight when Alicia Clayton and the ronin were slipping into their car across the street?
The explosion had made everything clear. A small explosion—or the impending threat of a larger one—had driven everyone from the house to the supposed safety of the outdoors. And what better place to shield one's self from flying debris than behind the oh-so-conveniently located truck rusting in the front yard?
But the house was not rigged to explode. Why destroy a perfectly good house when you can drive out invaders with a fake bomb and induce them to cluster around the real bomb?
And as the debris from the derelict truck was still flying though the air, the ronin's white car had begun moving, rolling down the street with its lights out. Slipping away into the night.
Yoshio clapped his hands. So simple. So elegant. Bravo, ronin-san!
Fortunately, Muhallal had survived. Yoshio wanted the Arab alive. He was the only one besides the Clayton brother who knew why the Clayton house was so valuable.
He watched Baker rage at the night as the remaining man he had sent to guard the rear raced back to the front yard. Yoshio rolled down his window to hear what Baker was screaming.
"Who is this guy? I want him! I want him! Who are you, you fucker? Show yourself! Let's do it! You and me! That's all! No tricks! Just you and me!" Baker's voice rose to a screech. "Who the fuck are you?"
Good question, Yoshio thought. Who is this ronin!
Obviously, he was more than me
re hired muscle. He was a man who was comfortable with violence but used it judiciously, and with style. He was a man experienced in his line of work and intended to stay in it for the long run—as witness this skillfully booby-trapped house. The house told Yoshio that the ronin planned far ahead and might well be prepared for almost any eventuality.
Which meant Yoshio would have to be especially cautious in his next move.
For Yoshio was determined to meet the ronin before Muhallal and Baker, by some blind luck, blundered into him and killed him. Yoshio was sure the ronin knew something, had learned something in that house.
He resisted the urge to gun his engine and follow him. He calculated the risks and decided it unwise to drive past the house right now. Baker or one of his thugs might empty a clip or two from their assault pistols at him. He had little faith in their accuracy, but a lucky slug might pierce his gas tank or—worse yet—pierce him.
No, he would catch up to them back in Manhattan.
Then he would learn what those two had discovered in the Clayton house.
20.
"Really, Jack," Alicia said. "I want to go home."
Or at least get out of the car. She felt queasy.
Instead of heading back to the city, Jack had continued east, racing toward the tip of Long Island. He'd taken them into the Hamptons, and then turned north until they'd come to the quaint houses and deserted marinas of Sag Harbor. Now they were pulling into the parking lot of something called the Surfside Inn. Alicia knew there was no surf in Sag Harbor; in fact, this crummy-looking motel wasn't even near the water.
"We can't risk heading back to the city," Jack said. "They're hurting, but I don't know what kind of reserves that Arab's got. He could have spotters waiting out on the highways, looking to follow us back home. So I say, let's take the long way home."
"All right, let's." She just wanted tonight to be over. "So why are we stopping here?"
"To spend the night." He held up his hand before she could speak. "Trust me. We head back in the morning, no one will find us. We try it tonight, there could be more rough stuff."
Damn him, she thought. He knows exactly what to say. The last thing she wanted was more violence.
"All right," she said, surrendering. "But can't we find a better place than this?"
Repairman Jack [02]-Legacies Page 27
