The limo was still cruising across the bleak desert. Reaper was driving now, so Carl could play medic, and had taken us off the main road and deeper into the dunes. The car kicked up a massive sand plume behind us. “We’re almost there,” he shouted into the back compartment.
“Good,” I answered as I threw the waterlogged and bloodstained man-dress on the floor. Carl handed me a T-shirt. “As soon as we stop, you guys grab Al Falah out of the trunk, shove him back here, and we’ll light this sucker. I’ll get the van ready.”
“What, you get one little hole in you and you think you don’t have to lift the fat guy?” Carl asked with a grin. Even a bitter and angry fellow like Carl had to be in a jovial mood after pulling off a heist like this. He started to undo his tie. “At least he’ll be thawed. When he wouldn’t bend, it was a hell of a time getting him in the trunk.”
They’d identify the burned corpse as Al Falah, probably assumed murdered by his co-conspirators, which would totally point the investigation in the wrong direction at first. Eventually an autopsy would show that he’d been dead for a long time, but by then we’d be well out of the country.
I tried to turn serious for a minute. “Guys, I’ve just got to say. You were amazing back there. The EMP was awesome. You took down security in record time, everything. That was damn near perfect . . . except for the sprinklers.”
“Yeah, what the fuck was that?” Carl shouted before he called Reaper something unpronounceable in Portuguese and threw his tie at the driver.
“Hey, I had to improvise,” our techie answered defensively. “Next time, you do the computer stuff and I’ll do the kung-fu ninja stuff. How hard could it be?”
“Well, either way, we’re done.” I pulled the scarab from my pocket. It still made me uncomfortable. “We got his damn . . . whatever.”
“Rub it and see if it grants three wishes,” Reaper suggested.
“Whatever, Aladdin, Big Eddie will be in contact and we can arrange a handoff. And I didn’t get the chance to tell you—I met Eddie. He was there at the meeting.”
“No way,” Carl said. “Was he there because of us?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. But he felt the need to talk to me in person, which can’t be good.”
“Do you think our families are off the hook?” Reaper asked quietly.
“I think I’ve got an idea to guarantee Eddie sticks to his word. I’ll fill you guys in on the way to the border.”
An ancient oil rig appeared ahead of us. It had long since fallen into disuse and was slowly decaying back into the desert. There was a wooden shack behind it where we had stashed our van. A few minutes to destroy the evidence, and we’d be on our way toward the border. We parked near the dilapidated shed. Old canvas tarps whipped in the wind.
I stepped into the searing heat, savoring the freedom of it, and went to unlock the padlock we had left on the shed. Carl pulled out a pair of binoculars and scanned the desert we’d just traveled. “Lorenzo, we’ve got dust behind us. We’re being followed.”
I shouted back as I unlocked the door. “How far?”
“We’ve got maybe five minutes,” he responded. “How’d they find us?”
I’d hoped that Starfish would have bought us more time. “Eddie probably had a bug stuck on our car during the meeting,” I shouted. Well, it was either Eddie’s goons or the prince’s men. Eddie must have decided he couldn’t trust us to hand off the goods, that double-crossing bastard, and heaven help us if it was Hassan. I shoved the door open. The white van was a welcome sight. “Hurry up and move that body! We’ve got to roll.”
I was getting into the van, looking for the ignition key, as Carl was unlocking the limousine’s trunk. Reaper was getting out of the driver’s seat.
“They won’t be able to catch us, Lorenzo. Nobody can catch me,” Carl said as the trunk lid opened.
CRACK!
I jerked my head in surprise, jolted by the unexpected noise, dropping the keys to the van’s floorboards.
Carl’s beady eyes narrowed in momentary confusion, bushy brows scrunching together as he looked into the trunk. The first bullet had struck him square in the chest, leaving a red hole on his white dress shirt. The second concussion came a split second later. Blood spurted from Carl’s neck, his hands flying reflexively to his throat as he fell sprawling into the sand.
Time jerked to a screeching halt.
“Carl!” Reaper screamed. Someone was crawling out of the trunk.
I was moving, the FNP coming out of my waistband.
The man twisted to the side, one foot hitting the ground, the other still bent in the trunk. He extended a small B&T machine pistol in one hand, seeking Reaper.
“Down! “Down!” I pushed around the van door, punching the FN out, the front sight moving into my field of vision, finger already pulling the trigger back.
Too late.
The submachine gun bucked, brass flashing in the sunlight. Reaper jerked violently to the side, spinning, crashing into the limousine’s hood as the window beside him shattered. I fired, the 9mm in my hand recoiling, the front sight coming back on target, firing again.
The man dove from the trunk, rolling in the sand on the other side of the limo. I moved laterally, gun up, tracking, searching, looking for another shot. He opened up from under the car. Bullets stitched across the shack behind me, flinging splinters into the air. Metal screeched as something struck the van. I was running now, not even thinking about it, trying to flank around the side of the car.
He rose, looking for me, glaring over the top of the limo, stubby black muzzle swinging wide. He was a tiny, dark-skinned man, drenched in sweat. Still moving, I saw him first, centered the front sight and fired. His head snapped back violently, visible matter flying as I shot him in the face. I hammered him twice more before he disappeared.
I lowered the gun. Multiple dust plumes were closing in the distance. Reaper was dragging himself up the car hood. He screamed as the pain hit him. I grabbed him as he started to fall again. “Can you move?” I shouted.
He grimaced, biting his lip, tears running down his cheeks. “Yes.”
“Get in the van. Hurry!” Reaper lurched away. I ran for Carl.
My friend was gasping, shaking, blood streaming between his fingers as he kept pressure on his neck. He focused on me as I knelt beside him. “Get him?” he wheezed. There was a massive quantity of blood already spilled on the sand.
“Yeah, I got him. Hang on, man, I’m gonna get you out of here.”
Carl closed his eyes. He grabbed my hand and squeezed.
Then he was gone.
“Carl?”
The cars were closer now. I knelt by the body of my friend, pistol dangling from my numb fingertips. I wanted nothing more than to stay here and wait for them to arrive.
Then all of this would have been for nothing.
I stood, dragged Carl’s body to the limo, gently set him in the driver’s seat, then went to the trunk. Falah’s body was still cold. It was probably the only thing that had kept the assassin alive in the heat, lying on that ice block, waiting for his chance. He must have gotten in while we were at the palace. I retrieved the white phosphorus grenade from under Falah, pulled the pin, and tossed it into the Mercedes. It ignited behind me in a billowing wall of chemical flame.
Carl would have liked the Viking funeral.
Reaper was sobbing when I got into the van. “Dude, the fuckers killed him.” He was cringing from the pain, holding his hands tightly to his wounded side. “Eddie did this. Bastard’s gonna pay.”
I found the keys on the floorboard. The goons were inbound. It was going to be a race to the border now.