Hell of a Mess, page 16
part #4 of A Love & Bullets Hookup Series
“No idea,” Bill said, wondering if he should take cover. Was it Fiona out there? He was tempted to ask Soul Patch if one of the figures was a woman, which might give too much away. If it was Fiona, who did she bring with her?
“What do we do?” Soul Patch said.
“What we have to,” Crew Cut retorted.
Soul Patch titled his head away from the scope, squinting up at the older cop. “What do you mean?”
“You know what I mean. No witnesses.”
And in the space between heartbeats, Bill knew it was her out there. She had come for him, somehow. She had pieced together his garbled messages and made her way through the storm and now she was readying to rain hellfire down on these chumps who had captured him, because that was how this shit worked, they were on a telepathic level that had allowed them to survive again and again, more than the sum of their parts, only she didn’t know about the cop in the shadows with the sniper rifle and the thermal scope—
“No witnesses,” Crew Cut said again. “I’m sorry, but that’s just the way it goes. Bad luck they were out here tonight.”
Hardaway looking at Bill now, evaluating him in the same way as Crew Cut. “You sure you don’t have anything to tell us?”
Bill shook his head. “I swear, I don’t know what’s going on.”
His eye fixed to the scope, Soul Patch loaded the rifle, worked the bolt. “This really sucks,” he said. “It’s a man and a woman. They’re crouched down, waiting.”
“You didn’t have to tell me that,” Crew Cut said.
“Yes, I did,” Soul Patch said, seating the rifle more firmly against his shoulder. “You know, we have all the firepower. We can just go down there, tie them up. There’s no reason to add two more bodies to our fuckin’ ledger.”
“We do have rope,” Tattoo said.
It’s her, Bill thought. She’s out there, and they’re about to put a bullet in her head. Maybe I can grab the rifle and run, take a left through the doorway over there. They won’t expect it. The guy with the shotgun won’t fire because he’ll fear hitting one of his friends, and the rest don’t have their guns out. I can make it, right?
No, of course not. Because he had this explosive collar around his neck, its cold weight pressing his skin, and Crew Cut had the detonator. He might only make it fifteen feet before the cop pressed a button and splattered the walls with his brains.
“Move over,” Crew Cut said, looming above Soul Patch, who stared at him for a long moment before rolling away. Crew Cut knelt behind the rifle and placed his eye to the scope.
Fuck it, Bill thought. I was always the weaker of the two of us, anyway. Sorry, babe. Would’ve been nice to spend another morning in bed with you.
He lashed out his right foot at the rifle’s barrel. He underestimated the distance, but his reach was long enough. His toe scraped the edge of the stock, bumping the rifle a few inches to the left as Crew Cut’s finger tightened on the trigger.
An ear-quaking boom as the rifle fired.
Bits of plaster rained from the ceiling.
Bill primed his foot for another kick, ready to deny Crew Cut a second shot, but Hardaway’s forearm wrapped around his neck, her other hand on the back of his skull, her foot slamming into his shin hard enough to drive him into the ground, but in mid-fall he had enough time and breath to shout: “FIONA, RUN.”
So much for famous last words. He hit the floor, knocking the remaining air from his lungs, Hardaway spinning around to drop a knee on his chest. This was it—but what did he expect? Most criminals died under terrible circumstances, in terrible places. Why should he have bucked the odds?
Instead of adjusting the rifle and firing another shot, Crew Cut was on his feet, scrambling his pistol free from its holster, his face red with rage. “The fuck,” he wheezed between clenched teeth, cocking the hammer of his weapon back. “You fucked with me for the last time.”
It was worth it, Bill wanted to say—better last words, if only he had the air to form them.
TWENTY-SEVEN
Fiona’s hand slapped her hip, a reflex toward a nonexistent pistol. The assassin already scrambling away from her, deeper into the brush. She followed, doing her best to keep the larger trees between her and the hospital. The first shot had vaporized the branch over their heads, peppering them with sap and wood-chips, which meant it was a high-powered rifle—whoever these fuckers were, they came ready to fight World War III.
“Night vision or thermal,” the assassin said, crawling on hands and knees. Fiona tensed, expecting a second shot to blow her head clean off—
Nothing but the moaning wind and dripping water.
What was going on?
From the direction of the hospital, a loud crash. It sounded like metal slapping metal. No round whistled overhead. Was it a gunshot? Or something else?
God, she hoped Bill was okay.
“We’re no good out here,” the assassin said, rising behind a thick tree. “Oh shit, I dropped the shovel somewhere.”
If those people inside the hospital had night-vision goggles or a special scope, they had all the advantages. They could set up a position and plug away until they scored hits or the hurricane roared back in, whichever came first.
Fiona rose to a crouch. Bill had showed her the maps of the island more than a few times, but to be honest, she had tuned out most of what he was saying. It was one of those relationship things: your partner falls in love with something and prattles on about it endlessly, and sooner or later you begin to smile and nod and think about something else—anything else—whenever the topic comes up. She remembered him talking about the sites where the money could possibly be buried, including…
“There’s a lighthouse,” she said. “It should be straight up and to the right from here. Not far from the hospital.”
“You want to trap us in an enclosed space?”
“Better than staying out in the open. We can set an ambush.”
“With what? A fucking rock and a smile?” the assassin said, bending down to pull at some wet vines, revealing a rusted length of rebar. He hefted it, judging the balance. “Think this will scare them?”
“Anything’s a weapon if you’re creative enough,” she said. “Let’s go.”
She led off, moving as quickly as she dared.
Between the wind snapping between the trees overhead, the water pattering from the trees, and the roar of waves pounding the shore, it was impossible to hear the deeper sounds of the forest. If someone was sneaking up on them, they’d never know until it was too late.
Fiona had to tell herself the flickers of movement at the edges of her vision were only brush moving in the wind—only that and nothing more. Her eye kept trying to manifest figures, people stalking forward with oversized helmets on their heads and guns in their hands, and she had to breathe in, breathe out to stop her attack instincts from kicking in.
The brush grew so thick they were almost swimming through it. The rocky shore was to their left now, tantalizingly close, so much easier to travel along, but stepping out into the open would make them targets.
Beyond the roaring shoreline, flashes of lightning in the distance. Far side of the hurricane’s eyewall approaching faster, more rain and lightning and skin-stripping wind beyond it. If they weren’t off this island—somehow—by the time it hit, they would need to take cover somewhere until it passed.
If a piece of flying debris or rising floodwaters didn’t kill them in the meantime.
Or a bunch of gunmen.
“Is that it?” whispered the assassin, pointing ahead of them.
Maybe fifty yards ahead to their left, atop a spit of muddy land jutting into the water: two stories of crumbled brick and rotted wood, barely held together by webs of thick vines and weeds. It looked more like a bunker than a stereotypical lighthouse, but maybe the upper floors had collapsed at some point over the past few decades. “That’s it,” Fiona said, redoubling her efforts to plunge through this damn brush.
Hopefully there would be something useful inside the aged wreck of the lighthouse. An iron bar, a rusty knife, anything with weight or an edge she could use.
Hopefully the floor or the ceiling wouldn’t give way as soon as they stepped inside.
Hopefully Bill was still alive and breathing, because otherwise she didn’t know what the hell she would do—
Flashlights in the trees to their right. At least three or four people, moving through the woods at speed. Fiona sped up on aching legs, the assassin breathing hard beside her.
TWENTY-EIGHT
Crew Cut’s pistol in his face, Bill wondering if this was it, the Big Adios—and then Hardaway snapped:
“Stop.”
Crew Cut’s eyes flicking toward her, brow furrowed in annoyance.
“We need him alive,” Hardaway said, stepping to her left for a better look at startled Bill.
“This better be good,” Tattoo chuckled.
“Fiona,” Hardaway said, her eyes locked on Bill. “That’s your girlfriend?”
Crew Cut leaned back, the weapon drifting away from Bill. The vein twitching on Crew Cut’s brow said how much he wanted to pull that trigger.
“The task force, where we first learned about Bill here,” Hardaway continued, and chuckled. “He was traveling with a woman, Fiona, I forget her last name but she was an enforcer for Rockaway, racked up a serious body count. Bill said he broke up with her, but that was a lie, wasn’t it, Bill?”
“Yes,” Bill said. Why lie at this juncture?
Crew Cut turned and lashed a foot at the wall. The brick imploded in a cloud of dust.
“I bet it’s her,” Hardaway said. “And if it is, we’ll need a hostage. It’ll make dealing with her a whole lot easier. Unless you want to spend the rest of the night playing cat and mouse with a super-killer?”
“You said there was someone with her?” Soul Patch asked. “Who’s that?”
“Great, two killers,” Tattoo offered. Setting down his shotgun, he retrieved the rifle, collapsed the bipod, and retreated to his former position against the wall. Squinting into the thermal scope, he scanned the woods beyond the hole. “I don’t see them now.”
Soul Patch deadpanned: “What else could go wrong.”
“Screw it, okay, so they’re out there.” Crew Cut took a deep breath, his massive shoulders rising, and let it out slowly. “We’re not abandoning this, do you understand? We’ve come too far.”
“What’s the next site?” Hardaway asked.
Bill tried to think. Two of the sites were out in the woods, down near the remains of an old dock. It was thick brush through there, with lots of opportunities for Fiona and whoever was with her to set up an ambush—but thanks to the thermal scope on the rifle, a sneak attack was impossible. That left one site with enough blind spots for Fiona to do her best work.
“The lighthouse,” Bill said. “It’s not far from here.”
“Okay,” Hardaway said. “And where do you think she’d go? Would she head there?”
“She’s not stupid,” Bill said. “You’re a bunch of people with guns. She has no guns. She’s not going to be trapped in a small space with you.”
“Fine,” Crew Cut said, waving for Tattoo to hand over the rifle. “Let’s move right now.”
As Crew Cut took the rifle, adjusting his grip so he held it at port arms, Bill thought: There’s your first mistake, amigo. You need two hands to hold a sizable piece of masculinity-affirming hardware like that, and that’s one fewer hand holding the detonator for this nuke around my neck. Maybe it would take you two seconds to set the rifle down and reach into your pocket, which isn’t much time, but maybe it’ll be all the time I need.
“Let’s get this shit done,” Soul Patch said, with the testosterone-fueled growl of an action hero in the movies he doubtlessly loved. Leading off, he stepped onto the pile of rubble at the base of the hole, scanning the ground beyond the hospital for threats. It would have been the perfect moment if Fiona had something planned for him—if not a bullet, certainly a brick thrown at high velocity—but he leapt through unharmed.
The rest followed. The lighthouse was to their right, beyond the muddy path they’d taken to reach the hospital. As they spread out behind Crew Cut, Hardaway slid into position behind Bill. He could hear her breathing hard, exhausted, anxious. Good.
The path ended in a wall of trees. Tattoo and Soul Patch clicked on their flashlights, the glow flaring the branches and brush into scattered patterns of brightness and shadow, a thousand phantom arms reaching for them—
Bill hoped their adrenaline was running high. If they were excited or scared, it would lead to mistakes. Maybe I can get my hands on that detonator, he thought, allowing himself the tiniest sip of hope. If I can do that, and get away from them, Fiona and whoever’s with her can kill these fools. Even better, Fiona must have gotten here by boat.
Bill stopped in the middle of the muddy path, curious how Hardaway would react. She poked him in the small of his back with her pistol, but softly. “Move,” she muttered.
“Whatever.” He was right: she was tired. Excellent.
Past the line of trees, the silhouette of the lighthouse hulked against the bruised-purple sky. The dull crunch and snap of vegetation somewhere to their left. Maybe footsteps, maybe the wind. At the head of the pack, Soul Patch knelt in the mud, the rifle’s scope raised to his eye, and cursed.
“What’s going on?” Tattoo asked, stepping behind a thick tree to their right.
Crew Cut scanned the facade left to right, up and down. “Two shapes, I think. They’re in there.”
“It’s them,” Hardaway said.
“Thanks, Miss Obvious.” Crew Cut shouted like he was trying to control a riot: “You better come out! We got your boy as a hostage!”
No reply from the building. Bill hoped she was preparing all kinds of nasty traps. I hope you rip them up, babe. Nobody does it better than you.
“Hardaway, Brooks,” Crew Cut nodded at the doorway. “You’re at bat.”
“What?” Tattoo asked.
“Go the fuck in,” Crew Cut said. “You got a pistol and a shotgun. Cut them apart. We’ll cover you from outside. Then we dig.”
TWENTY-NINE
A hundred years ago, the North Brother Island lighthouse must have been a beautiful example of minimalist architecture, with its solid brick walls and an iron spiral staircase ascending to the roof. But decades of salty air and storms had turned it into a haunted house—and Fiona and I were the ghosts.
We entered through a gaping hole in the rear wall. A wide doorway to our left, beyond the staircase, led to the building’s front rooms. More than enough walls to protect us from their thermal scope or night-vision goggles.
The rusted remains of the staircase looked like the spine of an enormous creature twisting through a ragged hole in the roof. The faintest light trickling through the opening played over moss-coated bricks, a floor littered with stones and dirt and bits of litter.
Shouting from outside: “You better come out! We got your boy as a hostage!”
I glanced at Fiona. “He’s alive, at least.”
“For now,” she said, scanning the floor as if a heavy- caliber machine gun might magically appear to even the odds for us.
No firearms were forthcoming, but I spotted a wooden handle, maybe two feet in length and broken with a jagged end. I snatched it up, hoping it wouldn’t shatter if I hit something with it.
From the front rooms: a scrape, a crackle of rocks.
They were coming after us.
I gestured for Fiona to stand on the right side of the doorway. As she moved, I reached into the backpack and extracted one of the flares. Popped it to life. Hurled it as hard as I could up the staircase. My aim was true: the sputtering, flaring light landed on whatever was left of the floor above us, its red glow flickering against the shattered brick.
I trotted to the side of the doorway opposite Fiona. Even in the dark, I couldn’t miss the look of utter disdain on her face. Yes, as an ambush, it sucked—what kind of slack-jawed moron would see a bright light and walk right toward it, assuming they’d find their prey there?
I wasn’t trying for some Ulysses S. Grant-level subterfuge, though. I only needed a second of distraction.
The flare bought us that and more.
The crunch of feet on gravel. Someone murmured on the far side of the doorway, no more than ten or fifteen feet away. I worked my grip on the handle. Fiona had a rock in her hand.
The footsteps closed in.
I tensed, ready to spring.
The two figures darted into the room, moving fast and low, as if expecting a threat at the far end of the space. Maybe the flare’s flickering glow destroyed their night vision a bit, too. The one closest to me was a heavyset dude with a square jaw, the bloody light playing over the snaking tattoo poking from the collar of his shirt. He gripped a sawed-off shotgun.
His partner was a woman, squarish and strong, her pistol leveled in a two-handed grip. She must have spied Fiona in her peripheral vision, because she began to turn in that direction—and Fiona, quick as a snake, brought the rock down on her head.
As she did, her partner turned toward the commotion—just as I slammed the handle down on his shotgun. At least, that’s what I was aiming for. I intended to knock it from his hands, followed by a Babe Ruth swing for his face. Except my timing was off, the handle descending onto the hinge of his elbows, which snapped back, bringing the stubby barrels of the sawed-off to his face as his finger reflexively pulled the trigger.
Buckshot and bits of head splashed the wall. A cloud of brick dust drifting down. The woman yelled—she was already on the ground, Fiona’s knees pinning her spine. Fiona had the woman’s gun in one hand and was patting her down with the other. A wallet, a radio, a small knife hit the bricks.
My ears ringing, I retrieved the smoking shotgun and set it aside and patted the dead man’s pockets until I found another few shells, a wallet, handcuffs, and a set of keys. I broke the shotgun open and reloaded, then flipped open the wallet to find the name of the man who’d just won Dumbest Death of the Year.
