by Zoe Sharp
Schade did not look happy, but he let the M4 slide through his grasp until it landed, butt first, on the toe of his boot and from there laid it carefully onto the carpet. At the same time, he unshouldered the sniper’s rifle and placed that weapon alongside the first.
Hamzeh prodded de Bourdillon further into the room and stepped clear of him. As he did so, he looked at Moustache, still on the floor where I’d left him.
“Who?” he demanded. Orosco nodded at me by way of reply. When Hamzeh’s gaze sought mine again, it was narrowed and hard to read.
Then he said, almost abruptly, “Would you say that loyalty is a fluid concept for some people, Ms Fox?”
“For some, perhaps.”
“You are a paid protector, are you not?”
I could see where this was heading but let it play out—to gauge the reactions of others, if nothing else. “I am.”
“Then would you consider a…change of employer?”
“What—now?”
“Of course.”
I glanced at Kincaid. He knew the circumstances that led to my present employment—or thought he did. As far as he was aware, I’d been backed into a corner and had allowed the prospect of a hefty paycheque to override any reservations I might have had about him or the business he was in. Now, I could read nothing from his expression.
Decoding his wife’s features was easier, but not by much. Her face was tight with stress, that was obvious. But under it I thought I could detect a hint of resignation rather than resentment. Schade had changed sides—if he’d ever truly been on the Kincaids’ side to begin with—and now she clearly expected I would do the same.
“Sorry,” I told Hamzeh. “Once I’ve signed on to do a job, I like to make a point of finishing it, one way or another.”
68
“That is a great pity,” Hamzeh said. “For both of us.”
“Oh?” I raised an eyebrow. “I assumed you would understand the position of someone with a sense of…dedication that’s close to your own.”
“You are right, of course,” he said, even if his tone suggested he would far rather have been wrong.
“You have seen what I have to offer you,” de Bourdillon put in, speaking stiffly to the man behind him, trying to keep his head very still. “I realised it is not what you were hoping for, but very desirable ordnance, all the same. Can I propose that you…take it and go?”
“Who will carry it—these men?” Hamzeh gave a harsh laugh as he gestured to Clean-Shaven and Moustache. “And who will carry them?”
“I have domestic staff, in their quarters here or at the stables. If you will vouch for their safety—”
“Even if we could load and transport the merchandise, our ship has departed. My people are dead or wounded. And my masters may believe already that we have betrayed them.”
Clean-Shaven, his voice blurred with pain, blurted, “Khalid…atarakna ya.”
Leave us.
The pool of blood under his outstretched legs was wide and growing wider, I realised. If something wasn’t done soon, making a decision on leaving him behind would become academic.
Hamzeh silenced his protests with a single, sharp flick of his eyes.
“It is not enough.”
“You’ll have your money back,” Orosco said. “You got my personal guarantee on it.”
“Still, it is not enough!”
“Well, what the fuck else do you want, hey?”
“I want…consequences.”
“We also have two dead and another injured,” Kincaid said, with a twitch of his fingers towards the body of Williams and to where Mrs Heedles lay, still unmoving on the sofa. “You are not the only one who has suffered.”
“You are to blame for that. And yet, even if you were to repay your friend here, you walk away with no more than a small deficit in your profit and loss account. Where is the lesson in that?”
His voice, his tone, was making the hairs come up on the back of my neck. I stole a glance at Schade, just the slightest movement of my eyes without turning my head. I saw the same tension in his stance.
He feels it, too…
Time slowed. Between one tick and the next of the antique clock on the side table, I could feel the position of everyone in the room, could almost see the connected emotions swirling around them like smoke. Those out of the game—Clean-Shaven and Mrs Heedles. Those who could not be trusted—Hamzeh, Orosco, Schade. Those to be protected—Helena, Kincaid, and de Bourdillon.
Too many people… It’s like Piccadilly fucking Circus in here!
I’d come over to Europe to safeguard Helena, whatever that entailed. My refusal of Hamzeh’s offer was a renewal of that vow. I wasn’t about to renege on a promise now.
I shifted my weight, trying to disguise moving half a step closer to Helena as no more than a nervous shuffle.
Hamzeh caught it, all the same. He gave a twisted smile. As though I’d just bluffed a bad hand in poker and he’d seen through it and was about to play a royal flush.
“For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction,” he said. “Is that not so?”
He lifted the gun in his hand, arm straightening as he did so. It was absolutely steady, without a hint of a tremble. I heard someone draw in breath on a soft gasp but didn’t immediately register who.
Because it wasn’t Helena in his sights.
It was Eric Kincaid.
69
Nobody moved.
Seconds passed like minutes. The muzzle of the gun was too close to Kincaid, and I was too far away to do anything. It didn’t matter how many lightning estimates zipped through my brain. There was no outcome I could affect.
Helena had begun to whisper, “No, no, no no no…” under her breath, and I knew the gasp had come from her. Schade’s jaw was set so hard his teeth were in danger, but he remained still. Orosco’s gaze was hooded. Even so, I caught something slither behind his eyes.
You want this, don’t you?
Hamzeh held his aim for another second. Kincaid stood, braced, as though that was going to make any difference. Still nobody moved.
Then, abruptly, Hamzeh lowered his arm.
“So, perhaps every reaction is not equal after all,” he said lightly. “It appears that you would not be missed in all quarters, Mr Kincaid.”
“Go,” Kincaid said through his teeth. “Go now and don’t give me a reason to come after you.”
“Oh, it’s too late for that, don’t you think?” Hamzeh skimmed his gaze across both Orosco and Kincaid. “I have failed my masters and they are not forgiving. It is not only me, but also my family in Damascus who will pay the price of that failure. Why should you and your family not pay the same?”
He snapped his arm straight again, twisting as he did so. This time, the gun was pointing square at Helena’s chest.
We all went rigid like he’d hit a switch that lit us up with high-voltage charge. A reflex action we could neither hide nor control. Hamzeh saw it and his mouth distorted into what passed for a smile.
“You see what happens when you play God, Mr Kincaid? You reach a crossroads. You make a choice. One action leads to another and the end result may turn out to be far from what you wished. All from one small, thoughtless decision.”
“I’ll resupply,” Kincaid said without hesitation. “The full order—double the order. Just leave her alone. Helena has no part in this…business between us.”
“Oh, I think she plays a vital role. Before, you wanted nothing more to do with me. But now, when you fear you are about to lose her, suddenly all is good between us? I don’t think so.”
“Leave her out of this… Please.”
In taking a bead on Helena, Hamzeh had angled his body slightly away from Schade. I saw Schade’s hand snake, slow and smooth, under the tail of his jacket. I forced myself not to react, not to betray that movement to Hamzeh.
Orosco, to his credit, waited until Schade had drawn and aimed before he cut in.
“You shoot my little gir
l, Khalid, and it’ll be the last thing you ever do.”
Hamzeh heard the ripe threat in the other man’s voice and seemed aware, for the first time, of the mistake he’d made in part turning his back on Schade.
Schade took a step to the side that brought him fully into Hamzeh’s field of view. The gun was a .40 calibre Glock, and the hand that held it didn’t waver. Hamzeh eyed both with irritation.
“I should have made you strip.”
“Let it go, dude. No way to win this one.”
“Perhaps,” Hamzeh said, “but sometimes simply ‘not winning’ is better than losing.”
The tendons in the back of his hand began to bunch as his grip tightened. I didn’t wait to see any more. I didn’t need to.
The distance between me and Hamzeh was too great to bridge. Instead, I threw myself sideways at Helena, bowling her straight off her feet as the shot cracked out with jolting force.
Sheer momentum carried us over the low back of the nearest sofa. I was already spiralling in flight, so when we flipped over the top and crashed onto the floor behind it, Helena landed half-sprawled on top of me rather than underneath. I had one arm wrapped tight around her body and the other up high to shield her head. The force of the impact knocked the breath right out of me.
It was only as we hit that the pain, sharp as a razor, speared through my right side, just below my ribs. A scalding heat that flooded outwards in rapidly increasing gushes with every beat of my heart.
Fuck, I’m hit.
I shoved the realisation back down into my subconscious, rode over and through it. With a grunt of effort, I rolled Helena under me, keeping her head pressed down while I lifted mine. The pain was building faster now, vicious with it. I gulped down air.
Under the bench seat of the sofa I could see enough to know that Hamzeh was down. He lay crumpled, face turned towards us. His eyes were wide, but whatever had been behind them was already fading. As I watched, he seemed to sigh, his chest deflating for the last time as his final breath slipped away.
Jean-clad legs and booted feet stepped in close. Schade leaned down and placed two fingers against the empty pulse-point in the Syrian’s neck for just long enough to know for sure.
“Helena!” Kincaid was bending over us. I dragged myself off to the side, aware as I did so that she made no protests or attempts to rise. Her shirt was greasy with blood. I got as far as opening my mouth to reassure him that it was all mine when it finally dawned on me that it wasn’t—all mine, that is.
Oh shit…
Kincaid ripped open her shirt. Under it, her skin prickled with goose bumps. Her breath came in shallow, hard-fought gasps. Kincaid ran his fingers over her. As he reached her left side she cried out. He jerked his hand away as if he were the one solely responsible for her pain.
And I saw the puckered gunshot wound in her chest.
How…?
Dazed, I looked down at my own body. I knew I’d been in the path of the single round Khalid Hamzeh had fired at Helena.
And somehow he’d shot us both.
70
Helena was suffocating.
At a guess, the round had wedged somewhere in her left lung. Blood was leaking into her chest cavity, slowly filling the space she needed to draw breath. With infinite gentleness, Kincaid turned her onto her left side to give her other lung half a chance, murmuring to her all the time. There was a catch in his voice.
Orosco hovered, clearly wanting to shove Kincaid out of the way and take charge but clueless what to do for her. I’d no idea where Schade went.
“But…I got in front of her,” I mumbled. “I know I got in front of her.”
“You did, my dear. So you did.” De Bourdillon was suddenly right by my side. He helped me to sit, carefully manoeuvred me so I was leaning against the sofa, and lifted the sodden tails of my shirt.
I looked down, saw a small ragged hole in the side of my stomach just below my ribcage, oozing blood. It burned like I’d been run through with a flaming sword. I couldn’t suppress a groan. Not the first time I’d been shot, but it didn’t get any easier with practice.
Carefully, de Bourdillon tilted me sideways, pressed his fingers round to my back. He reached an area where the skin was numbed but everything beneath it howled with pain. I hissed in a breath. My head was beginning to buzz, vision prickling. I blinked, took in more air.
I will not pass out.
“A through and through,” de Bourdillon said. “You got in front of her, without a doubt. Had Mr Hamzeh been firing soft-nosed rounds, you would have stopped the shot with your own body, which I believe was your intention.”
Orosco gave a harsh laugh. “Either that or the bitch pushed her into the line of fire, hey?”
“Darius, for once in your life will you just shut the fuck up,” Kincaid said. “Gilbert, where’s the closest trauma centre with an air ambulance?”
“I believe the nearest SAMU unit is in Rodez.” He got to his feet. “I’ll call them—”
“No way!” Orosco’s order brought both men up short. Kincaid rose, stepped in close to his father-in-law.
“Need I remind you that your daughter may be dying. We need medics and a helicopter and we need them here now!”
“And by the time they arrive, she could be dead already. We take her. That way, we get her there maybe faster, and no cops. Schade’s grabbing us a set of wheels.”
I expected Kincaid to argue. Driving fast on rural roads could do Helena untold further damage. My money would have been on the local Service d’Aide Médicale Urgente. The French, I recalled, preferred to send doctors to the scene rather than stabilising the casualty for transport. It was Helena’s best chance.
But if the cops turned out, too, there was no way we could hide the bodies before they got here.
“You’re worried about saving your own skin?”
“Hey, I’m no good to her—or anyone else—rotting in some frog jail!”
Kincaid looked set to argue, but Orosco had snatched the pistol from Hamzeh’s dead hand and he gripped it now with meaning.
Kincaid bit back whatever was foremost in his mind with obvious effort. He stepped back, lifting his hands, and said instead, “Tell Schade to hurry.”
Orosco’s shoulders came back, recognising the capitulation for what it was. He gave a short, triumphant nod, and hurried from the room.
As soon as he’d gone, Kincaid dropped into a crouch again, but this time his focus was all on me.
“Charlie, that bastard is going to kill her with what he’s trying to do.”
I gave a half-laugh that didn’t quite come out right. “I know, but if you think I can do much to stop him right now, I’m afraid you’re way over-estimating my abilities.”
He shook his head. “Call him in. Just…call him in. I’m begging you. Before it’s too late.”
“Wait… Call who?”
Kincaid’s face twisted. “He’s got to be somewhere close by. He wouldn’t let you come here without back-up… I know you’re working for him.”
“Who?” My brain was not firing on all cylinders. “You mean Parker?”
“No—Epps. Conrad Epps.”
71
To begin with, I said nothing. Which, I realised quickly, was a mistake. I should have asked Kincaid right off the bat what the hell he was talking about, or at least said who the hell is that?
But what I eventually blurted out was entirely the wrong question: “What do you know about Epps?”
With a grim smile, he said, “Just about all there is to know.”
My brain made up for its earlier stutter by over-revving now. So Kincaid knew who I was and why I was there. Or, what he didn’t know for sure, he’d guessed at and was probably pretty close to being right. It made some sense of why I’d been left behind in Italy, and why Schade had been told to get rid of me here.
But now he was desperate. Now, Helena’s life was on the line and he was prepared to climb into bed with the devil himself to save her.
; Which meant yes, he probably did know all there was to know about Conrad Epps.
I hesitated. If I told the truth—that I’d been more-or-less disavowed the moment I set foot outside the States—then my usefulness would be gone.
So, too, would any reason for them keeping me alive. And I wasn’t in any state to do much about it.
I glanced at Helena. De Bourdillon had turned her onto her left side and was supporting her there, trying to hold the pressure off the wound but let gravity keep her lung drained at the same time. If the way her whole body shook in his arms with the sheer effort of dragging in each breath, it was only partially successful at best. Her eyes were wide with panic, seeing nothing.
Kincaid was staring at me like he was willing me to give him what he needed.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “There is no back-up. Not this time. It’s just me.”
I half-expected him not to believe me, but instead he gave a bitter smile.
“I guess that figures. He always was good at kicking you in at the deep end of the pool without asking if you could swim—or telling you about the sharks.”
My mouth opened, closed and opened again as, finally, the pieces slid into place with a bloody great clang like a steel door.
“My God,” I murmured. “Gone native…he was right about that. You went so native you married the boss’s daughter. It’s you, isn’t it? All this time…you’ve been Epps’ inside man…”
Kincaid said nothing but he didn’t need to. I could see it in his face—a kind of relief that the secret he’d carried for so long, like a stone, could finally be set down. If only for a brief while.
“Yes,” he said quietly. “But what use is any of it if I can’t reach him when I most need his help?”
“Let me try to get hold of Parker,” I said. “I don’t know where he is, exactly, but he might have contacts here.”
Kincaid reached for his phone. As he did so, de Bourdillon cleared his throat.
“I, ah, may have some assistance on the way,” he said, almost diffidently.
