Which, by the looks of things, wasn’t going to take long.
“The cops are on their way,” Xander said, the strain clear in his voice. “They said to just sit tight and wait for them to get here.”
I nodded. I was waiting for our opponents to make the first move in any case and it wasn’t a lengthy wait. Just as I started to move back out of the kitchen again the first of the shots came, half a dozen of them in a random pattern straight through the front door. I dived across the hallway and landed half on top of Trey, keeping him flattened down hard onto the floor.
After the pandemonium came an eerie silence, broken only by Scott’s quiet moaning.
Then a voice I didn’t recognise shouted, “Hey, Fox, we want you and the kid. Come on out and the others get off.”
I lifted my head. “And if we don’t?” I yelled back.
I could almost hear the man shrug. “Makes no difference to us.”
I shuffled round until I could look at the bullet holes in the door again. Sunlight shafted through them, highlighting the dust motes that drifted and spun inside the hallway. The holes ranged from a couple of feet off the ground to head height. If we’d been standing they would have hit us. Not exactly warning shots, then.
I hutched back into the bathroom. Xander and Aimee both had their eyes fixed on me. They were still keeping the balled-up towels hard against Scott’s hip, their hands bloody with their efforts. Scott protested less, now. His face had turned almost as pale as his hair and pearls of sweat had formed on his forehead, sliding sideways to the floor.
“The cops are on their way,” I called to the men outside, hoping that their need not to be apprehended was greater than their need to kill us.
The man on the other side of the door just laughed. “I know,” he said, almost lazy with it. “Actually, Charlie, we’re already here.”
For a moment I was stilled by my own surprise, then I scrambled across the hallway into the kitchen and risked a peek through the window. Outside, behind Scott’s pickup, stood a good-looking man I recognised instantly. Even without his trademark Oakley eyejackets.
He wasn’t in uniform, like the first time I’d seen him at the house in Fort Lauderdale. Neither was he in casual dress, as at the theme park. Today was different. Today Oakley man was wearing a dark suit and white shirt like the other two men alongside him. Brought a whole new meaning to the phrase dressed to kill.
I looked at the others while I had the chance, but I knew I hadn’t seen either of them before. One was short and stocky, with pale gingery-blond hair. The other guy was dark skinned, slightly Hispanic, with a pencil-thin moustache across his upper lip and a single gold hoop in his left ear. I wondered if all three of them were cops and just how they were planning on explaining the dead man behind the Chevrolet.
I dropped back below the level of the kitchen cabinets. Through the doorway I could see Scott had started to twitch, going almost into convulsions. I could hear Aimee’s voice taking on an edge of panic as she whispered to Xander.
I crawled back through to the bathroom.
“It’s the same guy,” I said to Trey. He didn’t need to ask who I meant. The fear froze his face into a tight mask across his bones. “We’re going to have to give ourselves up.”
He hesitated, just fractionally, then nodded once, not arguing about it.
“OK,” I shouted. “I’ll bring Trey out, but only if you let us get the kid who’s injured out of here first.”
“You’re in no position to bargain,” Oakley man shouted back.
“That’s true, but if you have to shoot us out of here you’re likely to lose more men. This way’s easier.”
There was a pause, as though he was weighing up the merit of what I’d had to say. His voice matched his appearance, I realised. I didn’t know enough about American accents to pinpoint his origins, but it sounded educated. The kind of voice I would have expected from that attractive collection of features.
“OK, Charlie,” he said at last. “Come on out and we won’t stop the others leaving.”
“No way,” I said. “Xander and Aimee will bring Scott out first and put him into the pickup. As soon as they drive away, you get us. Not before.”
And if you double-cross us, I didn’t add out loud, then I will do my best to put a bullet in your brain, you bastard.
“OK,” Oakley man said again. “You got yourself a deal.”
“Right,” I said, more quietly, to Xander and Aimee. “Grab the biggest bath towel and get that under Scott. You’ll have to use that to carry him like he’s in a sling. Get him to the nearest hospital,” I added, trying to smile reassuringly. “He should be fine. He’ll make it.”
We manoeuvred ourselves with difficulty in the cramped bathroom, getting the towel in position. Scott’s cries had subsided into a low groaning now and his skin was chilled and clammy to the touch.
Xander was physically strong, so I put him at Scott’s head, leaving Aimee to carry the end of the towel at his feet. As they staggered into the hallway with their burden I slipped the hard drive we’d taken from Henry’s computer into Xander’s pocket.
“If we don’t get out of this,” I murmured, “that might tell you who’s behind it all.”
He nodded briefly, face tight with tension. “Good luck, man,” he said.
“Right,” I called through the door. “They’re coming out. Pull your men back to the other side of the street.”
I waited a moment or two, opened the door just far enough for the two of them to hustle through it, then slammed it shut again and moved back to my kitchen window vantage point.
Oakley man may have been many things, but at least he kept to his promise as far as Scott was concerned. The three of them watched from the far side of the Chevy as Xander and Aimee struggled to get Scott into the back of the pickup. Aimee hopped into the load bed with him, as Xander got behind the wheel. He set off fast, as though scared they’d change their mind and try to prevent him. I watched the Dodge all the way to the end of the street, until it turned out into traffic and disappeared from view.
And all the time I was furiously searching for a way out of this that didn’t involve our surrender. That didn’t involve our defeat and capture.
“OK, Charlie,” Oakley man said. The three of them had moved forwards again, taking up position just to the rear of Henry’s old Corvette which was parked to the side of the house. “I’ve kept my side of the bargain. Now it’s your turn.”
“How do I know you’ve let them get clear?” I hedged. “Not exactly one for leaving witnesses, are you? Let’s give them a little longer.”
He laughed again, but there wasn’t much amusement in his voice. “If you’re waiting for rescue, Charlie, you’re gonna have a long wait,” he said. “No-one’s gonna save you this time.”
I didn’t answer right away. I knew I didn’t have many options left. Not ones that were survivable, at any rate.
For Trey or for me.
I looked down. The hands that were tightly gripping the SIG were covered in Scott’s blood. I knew I had just two rounds left in the gun and there were three bad guys left outside. Not good odds, whichever way you looked at it.
“Come on Charlie,” Oakley man said gently. “You make us come in there and get you and you’ll regret it.”
“Why?” I tossed back, reckless now. “You’re probably going to kill us anyway.”
I expected some kind of reassurance but it didn’t come. Instead there was a pause and then that bloody annoying laugh again. “True, but some ways of dying are harder than others,” he said and the very lightness of his tone made his words all the more brutal, all the more chilling. “Just ask your pal Henry in there.”