Karin came out from behind the car, walking briskly forward as Dino and Wu copied her progress from the other side. Dino shouted, “Hold it right there, assholes. We got you covered now.”
Not an ounce of fear showed as every pair of eyes turned toward them. “Who the fuck are you?”
“Doesn’t matter. Let the old man go and get off this property.”
“Or what? You gonna shoot us dead?”
The tall leader of the group laughed and waved his small handgun around, still gripping Dino’s father’s neck. The old man’s eyes were alight with recognition, the face twisted with fear.
Karin gave herself room on the right, shifting three times, fully aware of what they could and couldn’t do in this situation. It would have been easier to confront the gang in its lair, but they’d not been able to figure out where it was in time. Karin’s intellect told her this was the wrong move — but it was the only move they had.
Dino approached the fence. “Let him go.”
“How ’bout you turn around an’ walk that ass of yours into the mountains?”
Karin breathed out slowly, finger on the trigger. The trouble was — some degenerates just didn’t know when Hades was calling.
Wu inched carefully to the other side, ensuring all three soldiers were clear of each other’s line of fire. Karin wondered if shooting up the car might help.
“We own these hills,” the leader then said, acting as if he was some kind of Wild West gunslinger. “New pad, new deal. We figure we get less heat out here, but can hit the town anytime we like. Old man here, is just in the way.”
Dino visibly gritted his teeth. “United States Army, scum suckers. Put down your weapons.”
A snort of laughter from the leader was quickly taken up by his followers. “Army? Army? Ha, ha, ha, ha.” He made a point of looking closely at their civilian outwear — heavy jackets, dark jeans and boots. “You think three M16s gonna scare us away? Shit, I got ten back at the ranch along with mosta my boys.”
Karin knew they had no time. Every moment that passed moved conflict closer. Every minute sent her new plans shrinking further away. And time was ticking there too. Drake and his team might be out of the country, but they would be back before long. Karin simply had to find Webb’s special information stash before they did.
Dino risked getting closer, the angles lessening by the step. If Karin had comms she’d order him to stop. Instead, the leader of the dope squad squeezed harder on his father’s throat and then threw him back against the door.
“Fuck ’em up.”
Blood shot from neck and shoulder and chest, nothing lower. Karin’s aim veered less than a few millimeters as she squeezed two shots off and saw two men fall dead. Wu performed equally from the other side. The soldiers did not flinch as two bullets flew in reaction to sudden death. The leader stared and blinked and tried to keep his mouth closed, handgun waving all the time.
“What you done… shit… my crew, man…” The weapon, held at an odd angle, drifted in Dino’s direction.
Karin took him down. She had to. Dino was already dropping his M16, shouting out his father’s name as the man fell to the floor, shot in the chest by one of the errant bullets and trying to stop the blood flowing out of his mouth. Dino reached him on two knees and cradled the man’s head. The front door opened and a woman rushed out, wild, face bruised and puffy, the dying man’s name loud upon her lips.
Karin cursed her luck. She let the M16 drop, barrel down toward the ground, as she stood on the spot, looking over at Wu and wondering how they’d let everything go so fast. Life was unpredictable. Outcomes were as volatile as forked lightning. The blazing sun glowered down on an impulsive and chaotic scene.
I just became a fugitive…
But even bad outcomes had their beneficial linings:… and became thick as thieves with two highly capable soldiers.
Together, they were going to be better.
CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT
In the end she knew they had no choice. The drug smugglers’ ranch would need to be cleansed.
Karin tried to pull Dino away from his father but a stiff arm batted her away. She took the blow across the top of the eye, but didn’t flinch. Dino’s mother was on her knees in the dirt, head pressed to her husband’s chest. Dino’s brother was approaching slowly from the house, bewilderment written across his features.
“What happened? What did you do?”
Karin held it all back. Dino himself cradled his father’s head in his lap, blood soaking through his trousers and coating the back of his hands. The pale face that looked up at Dino possessed no semblance of life anymore.
“Dad…”
Karin recalled hearing when her family died, when Komodo died. An overwhelming grief would have gripped Dino, taking him far away from the present. Karin glanced over at Wu and clicked her fingers hard to get the soldier’s attention.
“Look alive, Wu. We ain’t done here.”
“Shut up, Blake.” He shook his head. “What a fuck up.”
She concurred. Nevertheless, she could see what had to be done. Clear thinking was one of her fortés. Maybe it was her intellect, or a side-effect of the fortress she’d built up around her past. Maybe it was the training kicking in under fire. But she saw what was needed in the next few hours as clearly as the river bed of a crystal-water stream.
“Keep it together,” she said, then turned her attention back to Dino.
“Think, Dino. You know what we have to do.”
The old man’s face stared up at her from over Dino’s shoulders, the accusation written visibly. They weren’t going to avenge him; they’d already done that. But…
“We need to save the rest of your family.”
Dino shuddered. “I can’t… just leave. Not now.”
“You can.” She reached down and hauled him up, leaving the widow and her son staring at their father. “You have to leave now and never come back.”
The pain wrung his heart out. The understanding aged him as she watched. “The cops won’t buy this story.”
“They will.” Karin saw it all in her mind, thoughts striking as fast as lightning. “Leader already said they use M16s. We leave one near your father. He shot the attackers, they shot him. Cops won’t know there’s a ranch.”
“But…”
“Your mother had no idea he’d gotten the rifle. They already reported this hassle to the cops. Look at the bruising. Unless we get friggin’ Bosch down here they’re not gonna look too closely — it’s just another strung-out gang off the streets.”
“And when they look for a motive?” Wu asked.
“Dead end,” Karin said. “They’ll drop it.”
“We went AWOL.” Wu came closer. “They’re gonna put it together.”
“Unlikely,” Karin told him. “The investigations won’t link. They’ll be entered into different databases. And nobody can prove we were here, especially when we’re deliberately seen in a different state tomorrow…” She stared from Dino to Wu. “It’s gonna work.”
“How the hell did you come up with all that in just a few minutes?” Wu asked.
“In another life I was a writer.” She fixed her attention on Dino. “Can you do it?”
The young man rubbed at his forehead, eyes tightly closed. A brisk gust of wind kicked up dirt around them. Dino’s brother crouched by his father, head down. Dino’s mother sat back on her hunches, a hand reaching out and touching her husband, watching the soldiers.
“My dad just died,” Dino said in a broken voice. “How can I do anything?”
“Because your mother and brother’s futures depend on it. Because you want to rid the earth of the rest of these assholes. Because you’re a bloody good soldier, that’s why.”
“In the end,” Wu said, “it all comes down to family.”