The door to the back room opened. I slid back down the outside wall. A man was coming into the room. He was wearing a suit, and a cigarette dangled from his lips. He was small, weasel-like, and had an MP5 slung over one shoulder. “Hey, baby. The boss man says we don’t need you much longer.”
Jill raised her head for the first time. There was duct-tape over her mouth. Having held her against her will once myself, I could understand the need for the tape. She struggled against the chair. The fierce anger in her eyes was very familiar. The man closed the door behind him. “See, the way I figure it, I’m your only hope right now. You do me a little favor, and maybe I do you a little favor, know what I mean?” If he was any more of a slimeball he’d be leaving a trail.
The man leaned the MP5 against the wall. He took his suit coat off, threw it on top of the gun, and began to loosen his tie. “You know you want it anyway, baby. Make this good for me, and I can talk the boss into letting you go.” Jill just glared at him.
I found the small dowels in my pocket, palmed them in one hand, then slowly put my hands on the windowsill and began to lever myself through as silently as possible. If I could take this guy out quietly, we still had a chance.
The man had his back to me, distracted as he ran one hand through Jill’s hair. She jerked her head away. “Fine, you wanna be a bitch, whatever. I like it when they fight.” He laughed.
What happened next was a surprise. Jill’s hands came around in a blur, bloody tape still tied around her wrists. She must have been working those against the back of the chair for hours. She slugged him right in the throat. He made a terrible gahhwk noise and stumbled. Then Jill stuck one thumb into his eye and locked the other hand around his larynx. The man started to scream, but she cranked down on his throat and choked it off. Her knee found his crotch, so violently hard that I cringed.
He punched her in the side, she cranked down harder, crushing his windpipe, forcing him to his knees. I pushed myself through the window, landing on my hands and rolling. The would-be rapist was on his back now, with Jill bearing down on his throat with both hands. He grabbed her by her hair and jerked her down, but she kept cranking on his neck.
The door opened. I stepped behind it without thinking, a dowel in each hand. “Davis, what the hell are you doing in here?” the second man asked. He stepped into the dark, his imagination filling in the blanks about the struggle before him, drawing all the wrong conclusions. “Can’t you just keep it in your—” I kicked the door closed after he stepped through, the length of piano wire stretched between the two dowels coming down over his head. I crossed my arms and tugged with all of my strength.
He never knew what hit him. The second man struggled, leaning forward I followed, all my weight dragging the wire inexorably through his flesh. The wire grated against vertebra in a matter of seconds, and we both fell to the ground in a spreading puddle of red. His head was barely attached.
I rolled off the twitching body and moved to assist Jill, but she didn’t need any help. She leaned back, shaking. The man’s eyes stared blankly at the ceiling, his tongue almost bit off between his teeth. Jill stood, angrily ripped the tape from her face, and kicked the body once.
“Jill? Are you okay?” I whispered, the sound of conversation barely audible on the other side of the door. The rest of Gordon’s men hadn’t heard. She fell into my arms and sobbed. “It’s okay. I’ve got you.”
“You came for me.” She was trembling. “I thought I was dead. . . . I’ve never killed anyone before.”
“It’s okay; he deserved it. Let’s get out of here.”
We weren’t out of the woods yet. The radio crackled. “Lorenzo, did you get her?” It was Hawk.
“Yeah, we’re coming out. Two down.”
“Hold on. There’s more vehicles coming in,” Bob said. “I’ve got an SUV and a couple of sedans.” Headlights came through the window. Our escape route was illuminated.
“Are they holding a convention?” Hawk asked.
“Lots of men moving now. These new ones seem to be paying attention. Don’t move,” Bob insisted. “These aren’t government.”
“What’s wrong?” Jill asked desperately. She was wearing some sort of pink waitress outfit, but it was filthy and blood splattered. She looked exhausted. “Is that Carl on the radio?”
She didn’t know. It just strengthened my resolve. I had to get her out of here. “We can’t sneak out. We’re stuck. We might have to fight our way out.”
“Lorenzo, we’re in position. Just say when,” Valentine said. His demeanor had changed. He wasn’t the sarcastic, nervous asshole he’d been before. Now he sounded utterly calm. I’d seen him in that state before. I could only imagine what kind of childhood he must’ve had to have gotten so messed up.
Jill knelt by the nearly decapitated man and removed a Glock from his belt. She checked the chamber then stuck it into her waistband. “There’s a subgun under that coat.” She followed my pointing finger and nodded. I leaned against the door and listened. There were more voices on the other side now.
“So what do you want, Gordon?” Oily, British accent, effeminate. “I’ve got important business to conduct. I don’t have time to drive out to middle of the bloody desert. I had to fly into a pathetic little airport in the middle of this dreadful desert just to get here. And it was closed. There was nothing there but an empty hangar! I had to land at a closed airport like . . . like some kind of vagrant!”
Eddie?
“I would think by now you would trust me.” The voices were muffled through the ancient wooden door, but that had to be Gordon. “Why the entourage?”
“Associates of mine from Las Vegas. I had them pick me up. But I didn’t bring them just because I don’t trust you. I also have some personal business to conduct in the area.” In other words, these were the men that he was planning on using to kill me at the scarab drop.
“Well, Mr. Montalban, as for your personal business, it turns out that there might be another favor I can do for you.”
“Removing my brother from the equation did improve my affairs rather immensely. But all part of fulfilling Project Blue, to the benefit of your employers, of course. And in addition I paid you rather handsomely, so I would hardly call it a favor.”
“As was part of the agreement. My partner is at the Alpha Point for Blue now.”
“I always keep my promises, Mr. Willis. So tell me why you dragged me out here to this filthy, dreadful little place.”
After all of this, Eduard Montalban was in the next room. He’d killed my friends, tried to kill me, and had threatened my loved ones. All thoughts of escaping quietly were dismissed. There was no way he was getting out of here alive. I looked to Jill, eyes wide, stubby machine gun shaking in her hands, and she understood. I pulled a frag grenade from my vest and put one hand on the door knob. “Get ready,” I whispered into the radio.
“This thief, Lorenzo, that you asked me to keep an eye out for—”
Eddie cut him off. “Lorenzo is why I came to America in the first place.”
“How much would he be worth if I was able to deliver him into your hands?” Gordon asked.