by Mark Dawson
Milton swung his arm and let go of the handle. The case thudded down into the sand between the two of them.
“Pick it up for me,” Delgado said to Russo.
Delgado stood back and shone the light down onto the case. Russo crawled over on hands and knees and popped the clasps, opening the lid and turning it around so that Delgado could see into it.
“Empty it.”
Russo did as he asked, taking out the bricks of notes one at a time and laying them down on the sand. Milton looked up at the two men back at the Suburban, their weapons raised and aimed, ready to fire. He felt a knot of tension in his gut. This was it. The exchange would either go ahead or it would not, and, if it didn’t, he was standing in range of two AR-15s and a beefy hand cannon. He had backup behind him, but they didn’t have rifles, and he wasn’t sure how Jessica would react in extremis. Her father was here, in the same crossfire.
Would she even be able to pull the trigger?
“There,” Russo said.
Delgado shone the light into the case.
“Where is it?”
“Where is what?” Milton said.
“You want to mess around with me?” he spat. “Are you out of your fucking mind?”
“Calm down,” Milton said. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Where’s the data stick?”
Milton was confused.
“The data stick. The Bitcoin.” He kicked out, sending the nearest stack of notes flying. “Where is it?”
Milton swallowed. An icy knot of fear expanded and filled his gut as he realised what might have happened. He remembered the second stick, the one with the password protecting its data. What if the banknotes were not all of the proceeds of Richard Russo’s theft? Delgado wasn’t interested in the hundred and fifty thousand. What if the real theft had been more?
The data sticks were back at the hotel. Milton had kept them, assuming that he might need the insurance.
“Where is it, pendejo?”
He knew that he was losing control of the situation quickly. Delgado would see this as a double-cross. They were out in the desert: no witnesses, guns aimed at each other, tempers high. All it would take was one spark and they were all done for.
“Take it easy,” Milton said.
“‘Take it easy’?”
“I didn’t know about any Bitcoin, Delgado. How much are you expecting?”
“How much?” Delgado shook his head. Before Milton could move, the Mexican raised his boot and drove it into Russo’s back. The old man jerked forward, his chest and face sliding through the sand and grit. Delgado aimed the AR between Russo’s shoulder blades, the flashlight lighting him up. “You tell him, old man. How much did you steal from me?”
Russo muttered something.
Delgado shouted, “How much, pendejo?”
The old man looked up. To Milton’s astonishment, he saw that he was grinning.
“Five million,” he said more clearly. “I stole five million from you, you dumb fuck, and you’ll never see a red cent of it ever again.”
Delgado hugged the butt of the carbine into his shoulder and aimed down at Russo’s body.
“Don’t do it,” Milton called. He raised the pistol, his finger through the guard, the trigger pressed into the joint.
“Back it up,” Beau called out. “We can figure this out.”
“No,” Delgado said. “We can’t. We—”
The top of Delgado’s head exploded. Milton felt a fine spray wash across his face.
A loud boom echoed out across the desert a moment later.
Milton hadn’t fired. Neither had Beau or Jessica.
The shot had come from his right, from out of the darkness, somewhere amid the dunes.
The Mexican nearest the Suburban opened fire with the AR-15, the rifle rattling as the first few rounds fired out.
Milton dropped to the sand, bullets flying overhead.
49
Mason Russo didn’t even watch Delgado fall. He had already nudged his rifle through ten degrees and sighted on the Suburban. He had watched the car through his night-vision goggles. He knew that Delgado had brought four men with him: three of them were outside; the driver was still at the wheel.
His sniping trench was two hundred yards from his target. He was a good shot, and he had arrived in the desert in plenty of time to make sure that his calculations were accurate. Elevation was minimal at this range and the air was still, with no windage to take into account. The weapon fired .338 Lapua rounds; those were notorious for drop-off, but again, it wasn’t really an issue at this range. He was close enough that spindrift was a minimal concern, too, but he had aimed just an inch or so to Delgado’s left to account for the bullet’s right-hand spin. There would be no time for such precision with the subsequent shots, but he was confident that that wouldn’t be necessary.
The rifle was a Sako TRG M10. It was expensive—nearly ten grand from Northwest Arms—but money was not an issue, certainly not when his father’s and sister’s lives were concerned. It was an excellent weapon, and Mason had spent three hours at the range in Clark County making sure that he was as familiar with it as he needed to be. He had fired thousands of rounds before that, ever since his father had introduced him and his sister to the range when they had been in their teens.
He squeezed the trigger once, and then twice, and then a third time.
50
Milton heard the boom of the rifle—one, two, three—and saw the man with the second carbine fall. His head jerked to the right as if he had been punched, and he fell to the side, dropping out of sight behind the car door. The second shot clanged as it slammed into the wing, and the third blew a hole through the windshield. The man with the handgun dropped down behind the door; Milton’s boots slid through the scree as he scrambled to the left, opening up the angle so that he could see around the man’s cover. He was crouched down, back pressed against the side of the car, gun clasped in a two-handed grip, the muzzle pointing straight up.
Milton pressed himself against the earth, extended his arms, held the Ruger in both hands and drew a bead on his target. He fired twice. The first shot missed, but the second did not. The round punched the man in the gut. He fell to his knees and Milton shot him again.
The booming echoes from the rifle shots rolled over the landscape.
Milton saw movement through the driver’s door. Beau fired, six shots ringing out. An airbag detonated; the rear windshield was punctured; a round blew straight through the roof.
The gunfire stopped.
Milton stared at the car, looking for any sign of movement. He dared not get up for fear of opening himself up as a target to whomever had taken out Delgado and the man with the second AR.
He had no idea what had just happened. His tactical assessment was in tatters.
He called out, “Beau?”
“I’m all right.”
He stared at the Suburban: still no sign of movement.
“Jessica?”
There was no reply.
Milton stayed low, the Ruger still aimed at the car.
“Jessica?”
Nothing.
“Beau—where is she?”
Beau didn’t answer.
Milton risked a look over his shoulder.
“Stay there,” Jessica called out.
“John,” Beau said. His tone was all wrong.
Beau had his arms above his head. Jessica was behind him, her arm outstretched, the little pistol aimed into his back.
“We’ve got a problem,” Beau said.
Milton gaped. “Jessica?”
“Stay down!” she barked, her voice full of steel that he had never heard from her before. “Throw the gun away.”
“What are you doing?”
“The gun—toss it.”
He had no choice; he flicked his arm, throwing the Ruger away.
“Hands behind your head.”
Milton put his hands behind his head and laced his finge
rs, then rested his cheek against the ground so that he could look over at where Beau and Jessica were approaching. Milton could see his friend’s face in the glow of the headlamps; he was angry, his eyes flashing and his lips pinched and white. Jessica brought him over to where her father was picking himself up.
“Dad,” she said, “are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” he said.
Milton stayed low.
“Get over there,” Jessica said to Beau, gesturing in Milton’s direction. “On your knees.”
“What are you doing?” Milton repeated.
“It’s my family,” she said. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t take the chance. You would’ve done the same.”
51
Milton looked out and saw that someone was walking toward them. The figure gradually grew clearer as it passed into the penumbra cast out by the headlamps. Milton was able to make out that it was a man and that he was aiming a long-barrelled weapon in the direction of the Suburban. The man drew closer, and Milton saw that what he had first taken as shadow across his face was, in fact, a slathering of camouflage paint.
Milton kept his eye on the man as he spoke to Jessica. “What’s going on?”
“Be quiet.” She continued to aim the pistol in their direction. “Dad,” she said, “can you get up?”
Russo put his hands in the dirt and pushed himself to his knees and then to his feet. “I’m okay,” he said. “Probably looks worse than it is. They just roughed me up a little bit.”
The man with the rifle reached them. The gun was on a sling; he moved it around so that it hung vertically and, now that his right hand was free, he took a pistol out of a belted holster and aimed it at the nearest of Delgado’s men. It was the man whom Beau had shot; he had been drilled in the gut, but he was still alive, trying to crawl away in the vain hope that he might not be noticed. The man stood over him, aimed down with the pistol, and fired a shot into his head. The man’s body twitched and then lay still.
He turned to Jessica and her father. “You both okay?”
“We’re good.”
“Got the Bitcoin?”
“In my pocket,” Jessica said.
“What about that?” the man said, pointing to the banknotes that Oscar had scattered just before he had been shot.
“We won’t be able to take that much with us,” Jessica said. “And it’s small change compared to the rest.”
“And we have to get moving,” her father added.
The younger man chuckled. “You’re right. I’m getting greedy.”
Milton looked at him. It was difficult to see much of his face beneath the paint, but Milton guessed he was in his mid-twenties, with bright white teeth—American straight—and, as he took off the woollen beanie that he wore on his head, Milton saw that his hair was worn down at his scalp, razor short. He was tall, not large, but he looked lithe and muscular. He looked like a soldier. Mason Russo had been in the military. That would have accounted for the accurate sniping and the ability to select a shooting position that none of the participants at the exchange—Milton included—had been able to see.
Jessica’s father looked over at Milton. “What’s your name?”
“John Smith.”
“He’s been helping me,” Jessica said.
“I don’t think your daughter has been completely honest with me.”
“What choice did I have?” Jessica said. “I didn’t mean to trick you, but you wouldn’t have helped me otherwise, would you?”
“No,” Milton said. “I wouldn’t.”
Mason came closer to him. “What you say your name was again?”
“John.”
“John. I’m sorry about this, John.”
He aimed the pistol down at Milton’s head.
“Don’t!” Jessica called out.
“What?”
“He doesn’t deserve that.”
“He’s seen all of us, Jessie. They both have. It doesn’t matter what they deserve. They can ID us. We got no choice.”
Milton closed his eyes. This wasn’t how he’d imagined he was going to go out, but tonight had been surprising in many ways.
“No, Mason,” Jessica said. “If he hadn’t been at the house, Delgado would have taken me, too. He got me out; he kept me safe. He got the case from the storage. We’re not shooting him. That’s not happening.”
Milton raised his head a little, just enough so that he could see Mason’s feet. He was standing close to him and, from the sound of his voice and the smudged prints that he had left in the dirt, Milton thought that he had turned slightly away.
Beau spoke up. “You kids need to have a think about what you’re doing,” he said. “I’ve dealt with men like Delgado before. It’s not him you need to worry about, it’s who they’ll send out here to figure out what’s gone down. That’s who you need to worry about. You know much about the narcos? If it were me, doing what you’ve done, to people like that? Well, it’d make me as nervous as a fly in a glue pot.”
“It’s not you, though, is it?”
Milton knew what Beau was doing: he was distracting them, giving Milton a chance to take Mason out. Milton was face down in the dirt and couldn’t be sure, but he thought it was more likely than not that the man was looking away. If that was right, and if he moved quickly, he might be able to hook his legs and topple him. If he could do that, he was confident that he would be able, at the very least, to take his pistol away from him.
If he was wrong, though… Mason was close and he wouldn’t be able to miss.
“We gotta go,” Russo said.
“We’re going,” Mason said. “But if we don’t shoot them dead, we’d better give them something else to think about instead.”
Milton released his hands and readied himself to hook Mason’s legs, but, just as he was ready to reach out, Mason took four quick strides away from him. Milton got his head up in time to see him aim the pistol at Beau.
Shit.
The pistol barked, the report echoing back at them from the side of the derelict building. Beau grunted in pain.
Milton got to his hands and knees.
Mason fired another shot. Grit flew at Milton from the impact just a few inches from his head.
“I swear to God I’ll kill you if you don’t stay down.”
Beau dropped to his knees, his hand pressed to his gut.
Milton caught Jessica’s eye for a moment and saw a flash of regret, but it didn’t last; she helped her father to the Yukon and got him inside. Mason covered Milton, the gun on him as he backed up and slid into the cabin through the open driver’s side door.
“Beau,” Milton called.
The Yukon’s engine roared. The tyres slipped through the loose scree, sending a rooster tail of stones and sand out behind the vehicle before the rubber bit and the SUV bolted toward them.
Milton scurried over to where Beau was kneeling.
“Beau—I’m here.”
“Gut shot,” he grunted through clenched teeth.
Milton looked up as the vehicle rushed by. Mason Russo was driving, his eyes on the way ahead. Richard Russo was in the passenger seat, his eyes also fixed out front; Jessica Russo was in the back, looking out at Milton and Beau, her face blank.
“They did us,” Beau said. He took his hand away from his gut; his palm was slicked with blood. “Look at that, John. They made us look stupid.”
Milton looked over at Delgado’s shot-up Suburban.
“Come on,” he said. “I’m going to get you to a hospital.”
Part III
52
Mason bounced the Yukon over the pitted road that led away from the gas station. He drove carefully, but with purpose; damaging the vehicle before they even made it back to the highway would be dangerous, yet that had to be balanced against the need to put distance between them and the gas station as quickly as they could.
Jessica glanced back and saw Smith kneeling down in the dust, taking off his shirt and pressing it down against Beau’s
stomach. The Yukon reached the end of the access road and bounced over onto the smoother asphalt. Mason straightened the wheel and pressed down on the gas.
Their father reclined the seat a little so that he could stretch out his legs. “Who were they?”
“John’s the English one,” Jessica said. “John Smith. The old guy is Beau. Friend of John.”
“‘John’?” Mason said, shaking his head. “What is this? First-name terms?”
She shook her head. “Fuck off, Mason.”
“I’m just saying—”
“I played the helpless woman. He swallowed it up.”
“What else do you know about him?” her father asked.
“He said he used to be a soldier. SAS.”
“Special forces?”
She nodded. “He went face-to-face with Delgado, didn’t flinch. Took out three of his guys at the house, too. Made it look easy.”
“Where did you find him?” her father asked.
“My car broke down on the way to Vegas.”
“The Tesla?”
“Yes.”
“I told you electric cars were shit,” Mason said.
“And I told you I’d ask when I wanted your opinion,” Jessica shot back.
Their father cut through the sniping. “So he picked you up?”
“I was at the Mad Greek and the car wouldn’t start. I told him about us all going travelling, and he said he’d drive me. We got to the house and I saw what had happened. We were still in there when Delgado came back. John took the guys out and got us away. It was only when we got to the hotel that I got the chance to call Mason.”
“I went straight over,” Mason said.
“We figured out what to do.” Mason paused, tapping his fingers on the wheel. “We should’ve shot them both. He’s seen your face. He’s seen all of us. Does he know who you are?”
“He knows my name.”
“You told him?”
“What else was I going to do?”
“Make one up?”
“Why would I do that? I didn’t know what had happened to Dad when he picked me up. He read the documents Dad wrote, the ones on the stick. How’d you think it would’ve gone down if I’d made up some name and the emails contradicted me?”
