DIE EASY: Charlie Fox book ten (the Charlie Fox crime thriller series)

by Sharp, Zoe

  Twenty

  Behind us, I could hear Baptiste and Dyer running awkwardly with Capt Neal slung between them. As his feet occasionally tagged the rubble underfoot, the pilot let out a roar of rage, using the pain, turning it into a battle-cry that urged them on.

  Then Sean cleared the Bell’s tail and took up fire.

  The door to the storage shed was studded metal and half open. I caught a flash of dirty rust before I hit it hard with my shoulder. I expected resistance but it crashed inwards and I went stumbling through much faster than I’d intended, almost splintering the rotten timber of the frame in best Hollywood style. Still, better that than bouncing off for a second try.

  Inside the shed were a couple of giant earth movers, no doubt used for shovelling the scrap into manageable piles. They loomed above us like mechanical monsters. I ducked between the two of them and got everybody down on the ground where the cover was best. The shed had no windows and although the walls were only corrugated iron sheeting at least they’d be shooting blind.

  Dyer was panting with the effort. His regular visits to the tennis club and the golf course had not prepared him for this kind of effort, I realised—certainly not under this kind of pressure. Baptiste was used to pressure of a different kind—big game outcomes rested on his physical prowess and he was fit enough to cope, but he was also shit-scared and not hiding it well.

  Autumn, on the other hand, was taking all this with a simple acceptance that was raising all kinds of nasty suspicions in my mind. She had not been on the original guest list, and although superficial checks had come up clear, I made a mental note to ask Parker to dig deeper, first chance I got.

  Either that or it was a bastardisation of the old Kipling poem. Something about those who keep their heads when all about them are in panic being too stupid to fully appreciate the true seriousness of the situation.

  Sean backed into the shed with his Glock still up and level, aimed for the door aperture. The first person to stick their head through would lose it.

  “I called it in before we evac’d the helo, so all we’ve got to do is sit tight and repel incomers until the good guys get to us—they reckon ETA nine minutes,” he said to me, not shifting his gaze from the hallway except a brief flick towards the injured pilot. “How you doing, Captain?”

  “Better than I would’ve been, if you hadn’t gotten me out,” Capt Neal said. “Much obliged to you all for that, too.”

  “Hey, your part of the deal was getting us down in one piece.”

  Capt Neal gave him a wry look. “Yeah, that one didn’t work out too well, now did it?”

  He glanced at Baptiste as he said it, but the younger man had not shed any tears for his dead bodyguard. I just felt a great sadness for Franks. In this business we were all of us prepared to die if the job demanded it, but to go down so uselessly seemed a waste of his courage and his intent, like a soldier dying in a training accident instead of on the battlefield, or a racing driver getting knocked down crossing the road.

  Still, dead was dead, whichever way you squared it.

  “What happens now?” Blake Dyer asked, getting his breath back.

  “I hit the emergency distress beacon, so they know to look for us,” Capt Neal said. “I guess the smoke’ll guide ’em in easy enough.”

  “You had time to do all that as we crashed?” Autumn asked, eyebrows climbing.

  “Afterward,” he said. “I kinda had my hands full up to that point, ma’am.”

  “I expected more warning buzzers and sirens as we went down,” I commented, keeping my voice low. I was watching the light patterns outside the cracks in the shed wall as I spoke, checking for anybody approaching from the rear. I suppose we should have been keeping silent, but what with the crash and the exchange of gunfire my ears were in temporary shock. The bad guys could have stomped around out there with steel segs on their boots and I would barely have heard them coming. I preferred to trust my eyes.

  Besides, most of the little group were shocky. Better to let them talk it out.

  “All you get’s a low-rotor-speed warning. Not much call for anything else,” Capt Neal was saying. “Once you lose the anti-torque rotor and you start to plummet and spin like some whirling dervish, you kinda know it’s all going to shit—pardon my language, ma’am.”

  I smiled. “Ever have anything like that happen to you before?”

  He shrugged. His face was pale and clammy. The ankles must have been giving him hell, but I knew taking his boots off at this stage would be a mistake. Better to leave them holding everything together until we could get him professional help.

  “Had a couple of engine failures and had to auto-rotate down. And I knocked a dead branch out of a tree once in Africa. Damn thing fell down through the rotor blades and snapped one of ’em clean off. We were three hours’ flight time from nearest civilisation at the time.”

  Autumn asked, “So how did you get back?”

  He gave her a pain-hazed smile. “Carefully, ma’am. Damn carefully.”

  Half a dozen shots suddenly crackled through the walls of the shed high above the earthmovers and disappeared straight out through the far side. New little beams of light appeared to mark their passage. Everybody ducked instinctively. At the same time, we took fire from the front, the rounds zipping through the doorway. A couple pinged off the front of the earthmover behind me. I was pleased to note they didn’t have much effect.

  I lifted the SIG up past the massive front tyre and loosed two shots in reply through the open doorway. No point in more.

  Then we waited. There was maybe ten seconds of silence before a voice called out loudly from outside.

  “Hey, mes chers, you know we got you pinned down in there.” There was a certain rhythm to the voice I’d noticed down here, the softening of “there” almost into “dere”. So, these were local boys. “You wanna give yourselves up and come out, maybe we don’t shoot you. You fight well—full of courage, huh? But fight on and you die.”

  “You think you can kill us?” I called back. “How’s that working out for you so far?”

  That earned me a vicious stare from Baptiste. “What the hell you doing?” he hissed. “Trying to get these guys mad?”

  It was Sean who threw him a brief silencing look. “They already brought down a helicopter and shot the shit out of us,” he murmured. “You think they’re not fairly pissed off already?”

  “You one of the bodyguards, huh?” shouted the voice from outside. “You prepared risking those people in there to find out? Quoi faire?” The voice was neither young nor old, but there was a lazy arrogance to it, and a cold winding thread. He would kill us if he got the chance and would maybe even enjoy it. “We only want one of you. The rest can go free.”

  “Yeah, but which one?”

  There came a harsh bark of laughter. “They know who they are.”

  I glanced between Blake Dyer, Autumn and Baptiste. “You want to draw lots?”

  Baptiste’s mouth gaped. Autumn leaned across to him. “For God’s sake, Gabe, she’s kidding.”

  Damn, but I was actually beginning to like this woman.

  “I know that!” He scowled, voice sulky. “But her timing sucks.”

  I raised my voice. “Are you going to tell us who it is you’re after, or do we play twenty questions?”

  He laughed again. It was not a happy sound. “So you want to play games with me, chérie? Only, that will just make me crazy, and you wouldn’t like me when I’m crazy.” He paused. I could almost see him posturing with his gang outside. “You ask me I think I can kill you all? Want to see me try?”

  “Do, or do not,” I shouted back. “There is no ‘try’.”

  “What’s that from—Sun Tzu’s The Art of War?” Blake Dyer asked.

  I grinned at him. “I think it was Yoda in Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, actually.”

  Even Sean allowed himself a small smile, a nod that might even have been approval. Past a clenched jaw he muttered, “Just stall him ’til th
e cavalry gets here.”

  “Hey, friend,” I called outside. “How many men do you have with you?”

  “Enough, I think.”

  “Really—more than we have bullets? I only ask because I’m guessing your guys are all gangbangers and wannabes and hangers-on, yeah?”

  “I said ‘stall’, not provoke him into something stupid,” Sean added.

  There was a long offended pause. “Is there a point to these insults? Only, if you’re right, and I am surrounded by lowlifes and outlaws, chérie, what’s to stop me letting them have some . . . fun with you and the other beb after we kill the rest?”

  “Training and experience, friend. We’re trained for one shot one kill and we’ve done it plenty of times before. And we have more than enough ammo to take out your crew with a few to spare to have some fun with you before we’re done. Still want to play?”

  Sean rolled his eyes. I winked at him. Baptiste was staring open-mouthed again.

  And then, in the distance, we heard the first of the sirens, the fast chop of an incoming helo. Never more welcome. I heard shouts from outside, angry instructions and not a little swearing.

  “Looks like you have friends in high places, chérie,” the man outside said, sounding rueful rather than angry. “So . . . until next time. And there will be a next time. On that you have my word.”

  You and whose army?

  But I said nothing. There was nothing to say. I reckoned the growing sounds of incoming law enforcement—police and SWAT—pretty much said it for me.

  Twenty-one

  I woke in the dark, sweating, and fearful that I was not alone.

  It had been another late night, another delayed turn-in. First there’d been the local law enforcement agencies to deal with, then the paramedics who’d carted Capt Neal off to hospital. They’d insisted on checking us all over with irritatingly slow and methodical thoroughness.

  Up until that point, I thought I’d escaped uninjured from the crash. It was only when the paramedics began examining me that I realised just how bruised and battered I was.

  Fortunately the bruises were nowhere that showed, although I had purplish discolouration spreading from elbow to shoulder that resembled a scale map of New Zealand. It looked like it was planning to reach actual size.

  Now, I had to suppress a groan for the effort it took to roll over fast and grab the SIG from under a folded towel on the nightstand. In the past I’d tried sleeping with the gun under my pillow but if I had a restless night there was no telling where it could end up by morning.

  I’d foreseen a restless night, but not because of this.

  “If there’s anything in your hands,” I said, my voice a sleep-laden growl, “throw it away now or I’ll make you drop it.”

  A shadow detached itself from the wall by the three-pace hallway leading to the bathroom and outer door. I felt my right index finger begin to tauten, but a moment later there was a click as the bathroom light flicked on. I flinched from the sudden brightness but saw enough to recognise Sean in the shaft of light.

  There was something about the way he stood, the tension in his body, that kept the SIG in my hands and the fear in my throat.

  I swallowed, forced my shoulders down as I sat upright, letting the gun relax into my lap, finger resting outside the trigger guard. If Sean noticed that I didn’t lay the weapon aside completely, he didn’t comment.

  “Hello, Charlie,” he said softly. “I s’pose it’s stupid to ask if you’re awake.”

  “I’m bloody wide awake now,” I said, and saw for the first time he was carrying a bottle of Glenfiddich single malt in one hand and a pair of cut-glass tumblers in the other.

  “I’m guessing you don’t really want me to throw this away?” he said, lifting the whisky.

  I hesitated. I was dog tired, but this was the first time since coming out of the coma that Sean had sought me out. The first time he’d reached out to me. I sensed his need for reassurance and craved my own.

  “And I’m guessing you can’t sleep,” I said.

  I always wore shorts and a T-shirt to bed when I was working, just in case I had to jump up in the dark. No point in having to take on an unexpected midnight threat wearing nothing but a smile. Besides, ejected brass spits out plenty hot enough to burn unprotected skin.

  But for all the protection my clothing seemed to be offering me right now I might as well have been naked.

  I sat up, pulling the sheets more tightly around my body and wrapping them under my arms.

  “I get the feeling I never used to like drinking alone,” Sean said. “Join me?”

  How can I say no to that, Sean? Even if I wanted to . . .

  “OK.”

  He didn’t move right away, just stayed by the edge of the hallway with the light behind him and his face in shadow. I half turned, reached behind me and switched on the bedside lamp just for my own defence.

  He was fully dressed, I saw. Not the ruined suit from earlier but jeans and a plain black T-shirt that sat flat and broad across his chest. My heart kicked like a long-distance runner entering the final bend before the home straight.

  “If you’re staying, take a seat,” I said. I cleared my throat. “Glenfiddich always was one of my favourites.”

  “I know,” Sean said quietly.

  My heart lurched. “Oh?”

  “You drank it at the little pub we went to—that first weekend we spent away together. Remember?”

  Oh Christ, did I remember . . .

  I’d never forgotten a moment of that time-out-of-time. It had seemed somehow surreal back then, as if it wasn’t meant to be and couldn’t last. But it had been perfect, too. Even what came after had failed to eclipse it totally from my mind.

  It was an illicit assignation—the first time Sean and I had been away together, the first time we’d slept together. Neither of us got much sleep. Having only a forty-eight-hour pass from camp tends to concentrate the mind. We’d crammed as much sheer experience of each other as we’d been able to into that limited time together.

  “. . . Remember?”

  In one explosive instant I remembered it all. A bombardment of sensation, of touch and feel and sight and smell and taste. I’d absorbed Sean on a cellular level, in every way I could possibly imagine. I’d given him all of myself, poured myself into him. I’d held nothing back.

  I’d thought he’d done the same.

  A whisper: “I remember . . .”

  He moved further into the room with that easy stride, but instead of heading for the armchair near the window he sat on the end of the bed. He set the glasses down on the mattress and unscrewed the cap of the distinctive triangular bottle with those long clever fingers, pouring generous measures for both of us.

  I took the glass he offered, careful not to let our hands touch, chinked the rim to his.

  “Sláinte,” I said, and let the liquid courage run down my throat, light my veins.

  “Na zdoravye,” Sean replied, took a long swallow of his own.

  The silence lay between us, crouched and vibrating gently, almost a shiver. I stretched round to put the SIG back under the towel on the bedside table. When I turned back I found Sean’s eyes on the scar around the base of my neck. He was frowning again, the same way he’d frowned when Gabe Baptiste had pushed him to recall the last time they’d met. I struggled not to put a hand up to the fading line, to cover it from his gaze.

  Occasionally I’d claimed the scar was surgical, but anyone with knowledge could see it was from an attack. You don’t have to add the words “near fatal” when somebody tries to cut your throat. Not when they’ve done it before and were looking forward to doing it again.

  That scar, a fading four-inch ragged line, served as a permanent visible reminder of what people were prepared to do to me, if I let them.

  And triggered the memory of what I was prepared to do in return.

  “I should know how you got that, shouldn’t I?” Sean said, almost under his breath. He dropped his nose in
to the glass again. “I should . . . but I don’t.”

  “You weren’t around when it happened,” I said, “if that helps.”

  He paused as if considering. “No. No it doesn’t. All I get is a feeling—a feeling that I . . . let you down somehow. Did I?” He shook his head before I could answer. “I mean, was I supposed to have your back and I . . . didn’t, is that what happened?”

  I heard the tension in his voice, the intensity. This mattered to him, but I didn’t allow myself to wonder why, or how much.

  “No,” I said softly. “That’s not what happened. You weren’t there, Sean. It wasn’t your fault. It was nothing to do with you.”