Milares lifted his head. He tried to look around him. But all he saw was gravel, like a haze of low morning fog, a light over the lot, and all the darkness around him.
He crawled forward. On his hands and knees. The gravel pricked and prodded at him, but Milares couldn’t have cared less about that. If he survived, he would deal with the bruises later.
“I’m sorry, Nestor,” the General called after him. He sounded delirious. Half-drunk from the throbbing in his hand. “I truly did believe you would help me.”
Milares looked in the direction of Barrios’ voice. He was barely visible. A dark green smear against the gray gravel.
“Where are you going?” Barrios asked.
Milares didn’t answer. He turned in Barrios’ direction and crawled harder. Hoping he would somehow see the Browning Hi-Power’s dark steel against gravel that was, at best, a shade lighter. The gun had to be near him.
Barrios staggered to his feet. He was within arm’s reach of Milares. Even as a fuzzy splotch, Milares saw Barrios’ thumb hanging at a sickening angle. The kickback from the pistol looked like it almost pulled his thumb completely off his hand.
“Nestor, what are you doing?” As soon as Barrios asked the question, he kicked Milares. The top of his boot battered into the wound on Milares’ side. All the strength leaped from him. His arms and legs gave way, leaving him lying on his belly at the General’s feet.
“Why didn’t you just go along with me?”
Milares felt around the gravel at the General’s feet. If he didn’t find the weapon, he was dead.
“Colonel, I asked you a question! Why would you turn on me now?” Barrios put his foot on Milares back. He started to apply pressure. Pushing Milares’ wound into the gravel. The pain was almost impossible to withstand. But Milares had to. There was no other option.
“I never thought you were a weak person, Nestor. I never thought you would betray your closest friend—for what? For women and children?”
“No.” Milares rolled on his back. His finger found the trigger of General Barrios’ pistol all on its own. He aimed the weapon at Barrios’ chin. “I did it for Venezuela.”
He squeezed the trigger. General Barrios fell backward, dead.
Chapter 33
I HELD CAROLINA’S WRIST as tightly as I could. I didn’t want us getting separated. Not now. Not when I knew Greer would be after us. Maybe the General’s men too. He wasn’t a fan of me.
We wove through the forest of pipes and collection tanks. I wasn’t sure where I was going. Just needed to get away from Greer and his Venezuelan business partners.
Then, I remembered the boat. The one Greer came in on. It was still moored to the dock. And it was our ticket out of here.
I turned sharply to the right—northward. Hopped over a low pipe, then ducked under another. I felt Carolina lagging behind. I let go of her wrist.
“Are you okay?” I asked as I helped her under the second pipe.
She nodded. “Just out of breath.”
Somewhere to our left—in the direction of the gravel lot we’d just escaped from, I heard a dozen feet crunching over the stones.
“Come on!” I grabbed her wrist again and dragged her forward. We moved around a collection tank, past a set of steel stairs. Ahead, I saw slivers of light. The lights on the pier. I didn’t know how far away they were. If I wasn’t under them, they were too far. But at least we were moving in the right direction.
Then, something popped behind me. Ear-splitting bangs. Bullets hitting the big tank we’d just walked around.
“Shit!” I pulled Carolina in front of me. Covered her head with my arms, and crouched down. We sheltered behind the big tank, which was at least twice as wide as the two of us put together.
I waited a moment. Tried to hear the attacker’s footsteps. Maybe the sounds of them muttering to each other, deciding how to best pin us down or kill us.
But after a few moments, I heard nothing.
Darkness ran thick around the tangled refinery pipes and tanks. Maybe it was just somebody trying to flush us out. Or someone shooting at a shadow they thought was us.
Staying in cover was tempting. And if I knew I wasn’t outnumbered, or if I was at least armed, I probably would have. As things stood, the best weapons I had were my fists, and I didn’t have the slightest clue how many of them might be out there, hunting for us.
“Stay quiet, stay low,” I whispered into Carolina’s ear.
She nodded at me.
We squatted as low as we could while still walking. I stepped tenderly over a knee-high pipe, then extended my hand back to her. And when I did, I froze.
One of the Venezuelan commandos crept carefully along. About six paces off. Moving perpendicular to us, straight for the docks. I only saw the tiniest shard of him, lit by a sliver of light crawling between all the machinery from the docks. He had just come around that big tank.
He wasn’t aware of us. His back was to us. I put my finger to my mouth, telling Carolina to stay quiet. She must’ve been able to see my face in the dark. She whipped her head around, looking behind, and saw the commando. Her eyes whipped back to me, big as an 18-wheeler’s tires.
I motioned at her to stay calm, but like hell that was gonna do anything.
So, I hopped the low pipes. I moved past her, staying squat and low. Coming up on that commando like a big cat creeping through the brush. I got close enough to kiss the back of his boots. I noticed a knife hanging in a scabbard off his thigh. There was no catch on it—nothing like a button or a strap to hold the blade in.
I made my move. Stood up, snatched the knife out of its holster, and jammed it into his neck.
His body immediately sank. I caught it, keeping the noise to a minimum. There was only a wet sigh from him. His last breath escaping his lungs.
Then, I took his rifle. Another AK-103. Similar to the one I’d been towing around from this morning.
When I turned on my heel to go back to Carolina, I was caught out by another surprise. This time, however, I wasn’t so lucky.
One of the commandos must’ve been watching this man’s flank but they momentarily lost visual contact with each other in the pipes and tanks. Well, he’d just regained visual. And he saw me.
I dove and fired. He scrambled behind the big tank, shouting and shooting.
Shit. We’d be swarmed in seconds.
“Carolina! Get up and move!” I pushed myself up. Fired from the hip to keep the other guy in cover, and, therefore, not firing on me.
Carolina was good in a fight. She knew not to ask questions. She just got up and ran. Vaulted over the knee-high pipe. I waited for her to scoot into better cover, then I knew I had to advance, or be shot in the back as I ran the opposite direction—toward the docks.
As I pressed my left shoulder against the big tank, that second commando popped his head out. He swiveled around. Craned his neck. He’d lost me. No clue I was two steps away from him.
I raised my rifle and fired. He fell over, dead. Never knew what hit him.
“You ever shot a rifle before?” I asked Carolina. I inched over and grabbed the rifle from the man I’d shot.
“When I was a girl,” she answered.
“Let’s hope you didn’t forget.” I handed the rifle to her. Then, saw something move in the shadows behind her. A man highlighted by another sliver of light from the docks. I didn’t think twice. Just leveled my rifle and fired where I thought he’d be.
He called out in pain. I saw him sprawl to the ground, awkwardly. If he wasn’t dead, he was out of the fight. That’s all I cared about.
“They’re gonna figure out where we are. We need to go.” I grabbed Carolina by the shoulder and moved in the direction of the docks.
We negotiated through another row of pipes, past a tall tank about twice as wide as me. I could see the concrete path through all the equipment. I knew it ended at the docks. We were almost home free.
That’s when hell opened up on Carolina and me.
I don’t know if they’d been watching us move, or if they just happened upon us. But the result was the same: a spray of bullets cut through the air at us. In the confusion, I hit the deck. I think Carolina laid low behind me and crawled toward an embankment of pipes on her belly. I crawled the opposite direction—toward something that looked like a big propane tank. The kind used on ranches and farms for heat in the winter.
When I got behind cover, I sat up. Tried to listen for movement again, but only heard the sound of gunfire.
I would’ve known if those bullets were being fired at my position. They’d hit the big propane tank like a wrench hurled at an empty oil drum. That is to say, it would be very loud.
But that wasn’t what I was hearing. What I heard was a small, tinnier sound. They were firing at Carolina.
So, I tried to be a good battle buddy. I stood up on the far side of the tank. I saw a muzzle flash about twenty yards off. I returned fire.
That got them to stop shooting. At least temporarily.
“Carolina!” I shouted. “Carolina are you hit?”
“No!” she answered.
“You better go get her, Mason!” Greer’s voice. He laughed while he spoke, like some old west bandit. “You don’t want a poor, innocent lady getting shot, do you?”
Their rifles barked out another slew of shots. Again, not aimed at me, but aimed at Carolina. That son of a bitch was toying with me. Took everything I had not to pop over the top of the big tank I was behind. Because I knew if I came up in the same place twice, I was likely to get my head blown off by somebody.
So I went left. Around the far side of the tank. The angles weren’t as good for me, but I’d be able to see someone. At least I hoped I would.
Sure enough, when I popped around the left side of the tank, I saw a clear muzzle flash. A man’s face uncovered by the burst of light from his gun. A nice target in the dark.
I steadied my rifle against my left shoulder. Buried my face behind the sights. Closed my right eye, and twitched the trigger.
My shot caught him. But somebody was watching. Bullets hammered on the big, hollow tank. Sounded like the whole world was coming down on my head. I pulled back and hid behind the tank.
“Keep your head down, Carolina!” I called out. “I’ll get you!”
“You still trying to save the girl, Mason?” Greer said, picking up on her name in the hurl of Spanish coming from me. “I mean, how long do you think she’ll survive? How long before one of us hits her?”
I didn’t know, and I couldn’t think about that. I had to keep my head clear.
Someone fired again. A lone rifle. A long, undisciplined burst.
Shit. It wasn’t one of them. It was Carolina.
“Stay in cover!” I screamed. “Stay down!”
But it didn’t matter. As soon as she finished firing, they answered. They shot twice before Carolina hollered into the night.
“Carolina!” I yelled. “Carolina! What happened?”
“Come on, Mason,” Greer answered. “You know what happened. Your girl was hit. The poor thing.”
I popped my head over the tank. A stupid thing to do, but I was hot. I just wanted to shoot something. Lucky for me, I got the chance. I saw Greer. Just a glimpse in the dark, but I knew it was him. I raised my rifle and fired.
But he ducked and laughed, disappearing in a tangle of pipes. I’d missed.
“Careful, now. You don’t want to shoot me, do you?” he laughed again. “Might not work out the way you want it to!”
The heart rate monitor. Shit. How was I going to keep that thing from calling a Hellfire missile down on my head? But I couldn’t let Greer go, because he wasn’t about to do the same for me.
I had to figure something out.
Before I had a chance to think about it, I heard someone coming toward me. Their feet beating on the soft dirt, coming around the right side of the long tank I hid behind. I swung my weapon toward the sound. A commando came into view. I yanked the trigger on my rifle, let it spew out three or four shots, as I moved the end horizontally. Two of them hit him around his thighs.
He crashed to the ground. But he wasn’t done. He lifted his rifle, but I was ready to shoot. I pulled the trigger on him, and his head fell back to the dirt. Dead.
Behind me, I heard Carolina groan.
“Hold on!” I shouted.
I checked around the end of the tank, made sure no one else was trying to rush me.
Saw nothing.
“Barrett, no,” Carolina moaned weakly.
Like hell, I was going to just sit around and let her bleed out. I left my cover. Scooted around a stack of empty barrels. I worked my way through a nest of pipes, and looked around, but didn’t see her. Not at first. I almost tripped over her legs as I stepped forward.
Carolina had squeezed herself between two tanks that reached twenty feet overhead in parallel. I put my hand on one, steadying myself as I reached down to grab her, but as soon as I did, my hand slipped.
I felt something wet and sticky on the shell of one of the tanks. Only took me a second to realize it was her blood.
“Dammit, Carolina.” I don’t know why I blamed her for bleeding. Wasn’t like she wanted to. I reached down again, got a grip on her arms, and pulled her up.
“Leave me here.” Her voice was thin and breathy. I worried that she’d lost too much blood already, and all I was doing now was putting myself in unnecessary danger.
“I’m not leaving you here,” I said dismissively. I looked left—toward the dock. Saw the lights clearer than I had seen them yet. All I had to do was get Carolina out of this cramped space, down an embankment, and we had a straight shot to the boat.
Carrying her over my shoulder, I moved deliberately toward the barrels I’d just come around. I think I had finished off all of General Barrios’ commandos. But Greer was still skulking around somewhere.
I poked my head over the barrels. Saw nothing but pipes and drums and big steel holding tanks. The office with all the computers lorded above everything, still lit up.
Then, I heard a gunshot. It came from the direction of the office. Spooked me. I ducked down, almost lost my balance and let Carolina spill into a set of pipes to my right. But I regained my footing, held her steady, and realized it was a lone gunshot I heard, and it was pretty damned far off. Relatively. In reality, it was probably one-hundred, maybe two-hundred and two dozen layers of steel away. Too close for comfort, most of the time. Right now, it felt safe enough.
I turned my back to the office and the gunshot. Ahead of me now, the docks and the ocean and freedom.
My heart thundered in my ears. Carolina’s heavy, slow breathing pressed on my shoulder. She wouldn’t last long. I had to get moving. I hoped Greer kept a first aid kit on that boat. Or at least some clean sheets to bandage her with.
I took a step toward the docks. Braced for something. A gunshot. A knife in my back. A hand grenade stuffed into my ear.
Nothing came.
So, I carefully continued on. Got to where the shore dropped off to the embankment and realized it was too steep for me to climb down with Carolina. I’d trip and break both our necks. So, I turned toward the concrete path cutting between everything. I’d be exposed, but it was the only chance I had.
As soon as I took my first step forward, something grabbed me. Hooked me around my neck. I was wrenched backward. I dropped Carolina. My veins were jammed up with my own blood, and my pulse beat on my eardrums. But I heard something above all that noise.
“You never understood my problem, Mason.” Greer. I saw his hands clamped near my jaw. He had a wire or a rope or something, and he’d pulled it tight around my neck. I was laying on my back, his legs outstretched around me, his ankles even with my hips. I thrashed my feet and tried to suck air, but got a whole lot of nothing.
“Think all the way back to London. Years ago, when we first met,” he whispered to me. His voice was like an icepick in my brain. Cold and sharp. “You took that suicide bom
ber boy and his mother into your care after all that happened. You lived with them. Watched over them. And now, you’ve done that all over again with Libby and Kejal. Played the good family man.”
My hands crawled around his. My fingers tried to find an opening in his grip they could pry into. But there was none.
“I want that too,” he said. “To raise a family. But I could never escape my job. I was always called back into service. Always ripped away from my life for the Agency.
“The money that’s coming to me from this job is back pay, as far as I’m concerned. It’s owed to me, and cheapass Uncle Sam never would’ve given it up.”
His voice was drifting away from me. I fought and fought as hard as I could. Willed my heart to beat harder. But, still, the edges of reality started to fade. I was blacking out.
“Not yet, Mason,” Greer sensed me letting go. He loosened the line, and I gulped air, but only for a second. Then he clamped down again, only giving me enough so I could hear him, but not stop him.
“You might wonder what any of that has to do with you,” he said. “And the truth is, it has nothing to do with you, Mason. But it has everything to do with you.
“I hate you, you see. To my core.” Greer’s voice was hot with anger, yet still cold as frostbite. “I hate that you showed me what I wanted was possible. That it was only ever on me to take it. You walked away. I hate that you get to live the happy life I dreamed of, at home with your wife, comfortable with your daughter, safe and cozy in Maryland—while I have acid dripped onto my ear by a Chinese intelligence officer.
“In short—” Greer’s mouth pushed closer to my ear. I felt his breath on me. Heard the demons stirring deep in his belly. “—you’re everything wrong with the world, Mason.”
He yanked the cord.
Then, there was a snap. I think Greer assumed it was my neck. Could have been my trachea or an artery or my spine. Because he loosened up on the line. Thought his job was done, maybe.
But as soon as I thrust my hand in the air to show him what I was holding, he realized he was dead wrong.
Jackal: Barrett Mason Book 3 Page 19
