by Jeff Abbott
They waited another two minutes; no sign of movement.
‘Trevor, Wart, go,’ Bucks whispered and the thin Jamaican and the Wart hurried forward. Trevor lifted the Wart up high; Wart started cutting the stretch of barbed wire at the top of the fencing. Trevor balanced Wart on his palms, and the ribbon of wire curled away as Wart moved down the fence.
Then Trevor boosted Wart over the fence. He eased himself down on the other side, carefully, then dropped to the asphalt. Whit, Bucks, and Heavy Jamaican began to scale the fence, Trevor helping them. Frank hung back.
‘Frank, shake your ass up here,’ Bucks said.
Frank started to climb, tentatively.
Whit was over the fence, trying to be silent in making his jump down, when the shadow bulleted out from the other side of the lot, beelining toward Wart, who was crouched over, waiting for the rest of them.
Whit said, ‘Oh, no,’ loudly, as he dropped to the pavement next to Bucks and the bullet, a sleek Doberman the color of night, launched itself at Wart. The dog took him down in the shoulders, hammered him to the concrete. A horrible tearing noise rose from their struggle; a spray of blood shot across the asphalt. Teeth sunk into flesh and ripped with ingrained precision.
Wart screamed once as the dog yanked him around by the neck, as fangs found new hold. Bucks and Trevor fired. The dog yelped, twisted, then Bucks put a bullet right in the dog’s skull. Wart lay there, groaning, cupping his hands under his chin, the blood welling.
Whit turned and the second dog was arrowing right for him, eyes locked to his throat, snout down, ten paces away and Whit fired, the silencer Bucks had attached to his gun making a soft-bark sound, firing once, twice, catching the dog in its leap, the bullets tearing dogflesh from ribs and it fell, thudding into him, knocking him to the ground. But dying. Whit climbed out from under the dog; it made a last, feeble attempt to snap, to fend off the dark, then shivered into stillness.
‘They know we’re here now,’ Bucks said. ‘Rush it, full frontal.’ He and the Jamaicans charged the office door, Whit kneeling by Wart. He was fading, gone as Whit touched his wrist, the carotid and jugular torn, his throat nothing but wound, the neck broken. His eyes were still open in shock at the sudden, end-it-all turn.
Whit glanced back over at the fence.
Frank was gone, fled into the dark of the alley.
Whit turned and headed for the building; a couple of sharp pops from Bucks’ gun shattered the door glass, loud in the quiet of the industrial park. Bucks reached inside, flipped the locks.
They were in, Heavy taking the lead and Whit coming in last.
The entry office was dimly lit, an empty desk, a mountain of old newspapers scattered around the room. The smell of gasoline – rich, unexpected – filled the air. Two gas canisters stood on the side of the desk. Whit stopped. The canisters were full but capped. Waiting to be used or moved.
Bucks gestured down the hall, and Heavy Jamaican bolted down it, laying a spray of suppressing fire, tearing chunks out of the wall and ceiling. At the end of the hall a metal warehouse door stood shut.
‘Wait,’ Whit called, ‘they’re torching the warehouse?’ But Heavy and Trevor and Bucks were blasting the door, charging into the warehouse proper, and now there was an answering hail of shots, an intense staccato of bullets and screams.
He barreled down the hall, after Trevor and Bucks, and went through the door. A storm of gunfire met his ears, battle in full rage, shrieks, the horrible sound of metal impacting flesh.
They had been waiting for them. Two men, taking cover behind boxes twenty feet beyond the door, emptying rifles, Heavy stumbling as blood erupted from his chest. No sign of Trevor but then the men behind the boxes screamed, fell. Bucks charged past a wall of boxes and gave out a bloodcurdling yell. More gunfire erupted to Whit’s right, from two different guns. A moment of quiet. Then bullets shot by his head and Whit dove down, skidding on the concrete floor, crabbing for cover behind a set of crates near the door, Spanish scrawled along their sides. Bullets ripping into the wood.
He heard his mother scream his name.
46
‘Whit!’ Eve screamed. ‘Get out!’
Whit stayed down on the floor, his gun close to his head. She must have seen him come through the door; he hadn’t seen her. He heard sobbing. Then he heard a soft cussing. Bucks, in pain, angrily moaning.
But no more shooting. Over in thirty seconds that felt like thirty hours. He closed his eyes, forced himself to breathe quietly.
‘Whit,’ a voice called. José Peron’s. ‘Come out now. Or I shoot her.’
‘He’ll shoot me anyway,’ Eve said. Her voice calmer now, ordering him. ‘Get out!’
Whit risked a look past the crating. The warehouse space was huge, but most of the shooting had taken place in an open area within thirty feet of the door. Wooden crates stood stacked, haphazardly, and José and his group had quickly retreated behind the boxes. A forklift sat idle in a corner. A small space had been cleared behind a tower of boxes, and worn chairs and a desk were grouped there.
Heavy lay in a heap by a desk, half his face gone, two men Whit had not seen before dead near him, heads and chests bloodied messes. Heavy had kept shooting after he went down, probably taking the two men with him, and the concrete floor was scarred and chipped with bullet hits. Whit could not see Trevor, but Trevor wasn’t shooting and he hoped the man had found cover. Tasha Strong stood over Bucks, a gun locked at his temple, relieving him of his pistol. Bucks bled from a leg wound, had his palms open in surrender. And José stood, looking to Whit’s right, listening like a wolf for the scrabble of the rabbit in the grass.
Whit aimed at José, who didn’t see him but stepped behind the forklift. No clear shot. Whit ducked back behind the crate.
‘I’m counting to three, then I’m shooting your mother if you don’t come out, toss the gun out, arms up,’ José said. ‘One. Two.’ Counting fast.
‘I’m counting to three,’ Whit shouted, ‘and if you don’t release Bucks and my mother, I’m calling the rest of our team outside and telling them to start your office fire for you.’
‘Excellence!’ Bucks yelled, then groaned. ‘That’s real excellence!’
‘Shut up,’ Tasha said. ‘Shut your ever-running mouth.’
‘Where’s my movie?’ Bucks said. ‘José, you bastard …’ A shot rang out and Bucks shut up.
‘Do you not know what be quiet means?’ Tasha said.
But José had stopped his countdown. ‘Let’s all be cool. Where’s the money, Whit?’ he called. ‘You tell me and I’ll let you and your mother go.’
Whit said nothing. He thinks we still have the money. But that’s crazy, he has it. No, clearly he didn’t, and the realization froze Whit’s blood.
Frank, running from the fence once Bucks changed the plans. Frank being more than a coward. Maybe Frank hadn’t gotten any tip from the street; maybe Frank cut a deal with José to deliver Whit and Bucks. He could hear Frank’s voice, smooth, into a phone: Yeah, say you know about Montana, that’ll prove to him you really have his mom. José wanted Eve to help him, get the rest of the Bellini money for them, and she wouldn’t do it. So give them Whit because Eve would help them if they had a gun to his head, give them Bucks to tidy up the last of the loose ends, and Frank was set. That’s why he objected to the extra men Bucks brought. Frank thought tonight would be a walk-in and exchange for all intents and purposes, some separate deal cut between him and José.
Whit had thought José knew about Montana because he killed Harry. But whoever killed Harry could have coached José. Frank never knew about Montana until he saw Harry Chyme’s notes.
Frank’s left us with guns pointing at each other’s throats while he has the money.
Whit eased back from the crates. The stack stood five feet high, next to a long wall of shelving, and he abandoned his original position, ducked down, tried to move silently under the shelving, his pistol in front of him.
‘Whit!’ Eve yelled.
> ‘You. Shut it down,’ Tasha said. A hard slap. ‘Scout,’ Tasha called. The little nickname she’d given him back at the club, a thousand years ago. ‘Come on now. Make it easy on her and you, okay?’
Then silence.
Whit knew that in the sudden quiet, José was hunting him. Moving into the maze of crates, not waiting for him to show himself. He moved further back along the wall, heading south, and in a bit of open space he spotted Trevor. Dead on the floor, eyes glassed, a puddle of brainy gunk underneath his head. He’d come around in a swath through the boxes, caught the two guys shooting at Heavy, killing them, before catching a head shot.
An assault rifle lay by his side.
Whit inched over, knowing he was putting himself into the open. But he didn’t see Tasha, didn’t see José. He carefully picked up the rifle, pulled it close to him, crabbed back behind a crate. It was wicked, an AR-15 he guessed, the kind popular in law enforcement and the military, a sixteen-inch barrel. Maybe thirty rounds in a magazine, he thought Claudia had told him once. No idea how many Trevor had used, the rifle could be empty. He checked the selector lever; it was set on auto.
Near him was a set of metal stairs that led to a catwalk that cut straight over the warehouse space. At the level of the catwalk an array of fluorescent lights, dimmed but active, gleamed.
Climb up there and he would be a dove in the sky, an easy target. But he was getting backed into a corner. He could dash across the remaining open space of the warehouse that he could reach, pray they couldn’t see him in time … and then what?
He heard footsteps. A soft tread. Coming his way.
In the dim light he backed into the stairway, trying not to clang the rifle barrel against the steel. Looking back he spotted red metal behind him, beyond the stairs. More canisters of gasoline, stacked near another set of crates. Weird, why gas where they had their drugs? Why weren’t they getting the cocaine out of here and onto the street as fast as they could? Perhaps the coke was gone. But no, these were the pottery crates that Kiko had smuggled the goods in. Eve had said the dope was in pottery. But hardly a crate opened, the drugs staying put.
Tasha and José didn’t want to deal the cocaine. They were going to burn it. Hence the gasoline and flammables in the front office.
Or he could. They were going to kill him and Eve. He could not hide longer than perhaps another two minutes.
He made his choice. He was going to kill people now, including himself, and he fought down the sharp throb of fear and regret in his chest. Because there was no other route, no other way. At the least José wouldn’t get away.
Whit closed his eyes, thought of his father, his brothers, Claudia, Gooch. Eve. Said his good-byes.
He opened a canister, gently tipped it over, let the fuel glug out onto the floor.
‘Whit. Come out, now.’ Twenty feet away from him. ‘You give us the money, we’ll let you go. We’re really not the bad guys here.’
Whit upended another container of gasoline, then a third and a fourth, scurried back from the spreading puddle. The smell rose like swamp gas; José had to know what he was doing. He backed up into stairs that led to the catwalk that crossed the space. Looked up, saw the fluorescents, still dimmed.
‘We’re not the bad guys,’ José repeated. ‘We’re doing good. We’re all about stopping the drug dealing, man.’
Whit stopped, counted the lights, wondered how much they would spark. Either from the electricity being shorted or bullets hitting metal.
José’s voice drew closer. ‘We call ourselves Public Service, Whit. We rid the world of this scourge of drugs. Your mother’s joined us. Willingly. Isn’t that right, Eve? She’s nodding, Whit. We could use a resourceful guy like you on our side. Don’t be afraid. “True nobility is exempt from fear.” What we do is truly noble. Let’s talk.’
Ten feet now.
‘If you join us—’ José started.
Whit fired the assault rifle at the canisters, stacked by the fuel he’d poured. They blossomed into flame. Then he spun and ran up the steel steps, fired a long burst at the ceiling, at the array of fluorescents.
The lights shattered, sparking from the gunfire, plummeting into the spreading gasoline. Debris hit his shoulder, cut his arms. He reached the top of the catwalk and heard the whoo-humph of the gasoline catching in full fury, felt the sudden heat beneath his feet. The lights flickered in the other half of the warehouse and running hard along the catwalk, harder than he ever had, he saw his mother. Handcuffed to a folding chair, Tasha shoving her toward the office door, José screaming below him, caught in the flush of fire, screaming, screaming, and then not.
Bucks limped after the women, his pants leg torn and bloodied. Whit ran down the stairs at the other end of the catwalk, thinking Christ was I stupid, the fire moves faster than me and then he was on the floor, the crates erupting into fire as more canisters exploded, the warehouse’s very air seeming to ignite. He dropped the empty assault rifle, grabbed Bucks’ arm, hurried him through the splintered warehouse door. Heat rose like a storm surge behind them.
They ran through the outer office into the thin rain of the night. Eve lay on the ground, Tasha standing over her, forcing her to her feet.
‘Stop!’ Whit yelled. He grabbed the Sig tucked into his pants, tried to bring it to bear.
Tasha spun and fired at them as they came through the busted door and Bucks howled, staggered, fell to his knees. Whit jumped from the concrete steps, no place for cover, fired at Tasha. Missed.
And then Tasha had her gun at Eve’s head.
‘Scout! Back off!’
The heat flooded the air behind him, rising to an inferno. He aimed the gun at Tasha, at her shoulder. Eve dragged her feet, dragged the chair she was bound to, trying to slow Tasha, pull her off balance.
‘Let her go,’ Whit yelled.
‘You let me walk!’ Tasha shouted. ‘Or she dies!’
He moved faster toward them.
Eve screamed, ‘Whit, run!’
Tasha aimed at Whit, fired as Eve swatted at her arm, and the bullet cracked inches past his head. But Eve and Tasha were too close together for him to shoot.
‘Get away from my mother,’ Whit shouted.
‘You let me walk,’ Tasha screamed and Whit said, ‘Fine. Fine. Go.’
‘What?’ Tasha screamed. Disbelieving.
He turned the gun up, away from her, palms open. ‘Go. But don’t kill my mother. Please.’
‘Don’t do to me what was done to you, okay?’ Eve said.
Tasha backed away from them both, and Whit thought what are you doing, she’s guilty as hell, don’t let her go but letting her go meant saving his mother. Tasha ran. Whit hurried to Eve’s side, put himself between Tasha and Eve. Tasha bolted to her Honda, barreled the car through the closed gates, windshield breaking, metal screeching, but then on the street and careening away.
Eve was sobbing. ‘You came for me. You came for me.’
He held her for a moment. Then raced back over to Bucks. Blood welled from his chest, from his mouth. He checked Bucks’ pulse. Faint. Fading. Inside the warehouse a series of explosions shuddered. Fire department, police would be here any second.
Bucks opened his eyes.
‘Did … I get?’ Bucks said, looking hard into Whit’s eyes.
‘We’ll get an ambulance, Bucks, okay? Hold on.’
‘Did I get … the money?’ And then his eyes went vacant, empty as a useless platitude.
Whit closed Bucks’ eyes and pulled the Jag’s keys from the dead man’s pocket.
‘We got to go, Mom. We got to go.’ He steadied his mother’s arm, shot the handcuff off the chair. He hurried her through the now-broken gates, ran her back through the alleys to where the cars were hidden. One car was already gone. Frank and a hot wire, he decided. They got in Bucks’ Jaguar, and Whit tore out of the lot, headed down Mississippi toward Clinton. In the distance they heard the rising whine of a fire engine.
‘Whit,’ she said. ‘Oh, God. I love yo
u.’ She clutched his arm, wouldn’t let go.
‘Mom, let go, I got to stick-shift and I’m not good at it,’ he yelled and it made her laugh, a long hysterical laughter that put her low in the seat as he shot the Jag onto Loop 610.
‘Where …’ she asked.
‘We’re leaving town,’ he said. ‘We are leaving Houston, Mom, right fricking now.’
‘But Frank …’
‘Frank is a lying, murdering piece of shit,’ Whit said, and Eve went silent. She held onto his arm, shivering, crying, squeezing his arm like she couldn’t believe he was there. He steered the battered Jaguar onto 1-10 West, toward Austin and San Antonio.
She spoke again when Houston was well behind them, the road an empty black band except for the occasional eighteen-wheeler, the gleam of the truck stops of Brookshire ahead on the horizon. He held the steering wheel in a death grip.
‘The money. So where is the money?’ she said. ‘I can’t help but want to know.’
He glanced over at her and now he could see the wreck her mouth was, her lips badly cut, her jaw a solid bruise. ‘Frank has it. Has had the money all along.’
‘Oh, Christ. Frank. No.’
‘It doesn’t matter, Mom, it doesn’t matter, okay? It doesn’t matter. We’re safe now.’
She started to cry. ‘Don’t let them take me away from you, Whit, okay? Don’t let them take me from you.’
47
They arrived in San Antonio by seven in the morning, and found a small motel. She didn’t want to be alone so he got a room with twin beds and while she showered he drove to a nearby Target, waited for it to open, and bought them cheap jeans, sneakers, underwear, shirts, duffel bags. When he got back to the hotel she was clean but sitting in her dirty clothes. He showered while she changed and then he drove her to a nearby emergency room.
The doctor was a young Pakistani woman who gave Whit a fierce, accusing glare as she inspected his mother’s bruises. ‘What happened?’
‘My boyfriend beat me up,’ Eve said. ‘My son came and rescued me.’ She gave Whit a little smile.
