"Neither do I, kid. But you don't leave one of your guys behind if you can help it. Even if he's an asshole."
That had been one of the rules in SOG. A man went down behind the lines, you risked almost everything to extract him.
…16… 15…
He heard Kenny punch through, and then he was through with his second opening. He stood on tiptoe and peered into the hole. He needed more light.
"Kenny, get that lamp over here."
"Sam…"
Damn, his nephew was practically whining.
I know how you feel kid, but you gotta hang in here with me. Don't let me down.
"Do it!"
…12… 11…
Kenny picked up the lamp and held it high with shaky hands.
Now Baker could see, and he spotted the powerful spring that had powered the spike into Briggs's arm.
"There's the sucker," he said.
…08… 07…
He reached in and inserted the point of his blade under the bottom of the spring. His own hand was beginning to shake, and the point slipped off the spring.
"Come on! Come on!"
He positioned the point again, then grunted as he threw all his strength into levering that spike out of the safe. It moved, and he heard air hiss through Briggs's teeth as the spike slowly withdrew from his flesh.
… 04 … 03…
With a piercing cry, Briggs yanked his bloody arm from the safe and began a headlong dash toward the front door.
Kenny was right behind him. Baker brought up the rear, leaping off the front steps and pushing Kenny to the ground.
"Hit the deck!" he shouted.
17.
"Where are we?" Alicia said as Jack helped her up the ladder from the tunnel. "Take a look." Alicia turned in a slow circle to get her bearings. They'd emerged in the center of a clump of bushes bordering a potato field. Fifty feet to her right, she saw the white rented car, parked where they had left it. Beyond the car lay Jack's ranch house, with every window lit.
"We're across the street," she said.
"Right."
"Are we going to—?"
Alicia jumped as a booming retort echoed from the house, followed by a burst of machine-gun fire.
"My God, what happened?"
"Somebody just became cannon fodder, I imagine," Jack said.
"You mean dead?"
He nodded. "Most likely. I told you, it's my decoy place. Booby-trapped to within an inch of its life."
She looked at Jack. She'd grown to like him, even trust him during the short time she'd known him—unusual for her, because her list of trusted people was a short one—but there was so much she didn't know about him. And here was something she hadn't realized—maybe she'd guessed it, but hadn't wanted to confront it: beneath that unprepossessing, low-key, regular-guy surface was someone willing and able to kill when necessary.
And he was standing only a foot away. Her mouth went dry. She took a step back.
"You… killed one of them?" She tried to make out his expression in the dark.
"I like to think he killed himself—by being someplace he had no right being, doing something he had no right doing."
Alicia felt weak and shaky inside. She took another step back. "This is—very scary."
"You worried about them?" he said.
"I'm not a killer."
"But they are," he said softly, his eyes on the house, not her. "They killed your PI, they burned Benny the Torch alive, and they blew up your lawyer. What was his name again?"
"Weinstein… Leo Weinstein."
God, she'd almost forgotten about poor Leo.
"Okay. They blew him to pieces. And for what? For doing his job. You think Mrs. Weinstein would object to her husband's killers getting a dose of what Leo got? I don't think so."
"I wouldn't know about Mrs.—"
But Jack wasn't listening. He kept talking, his voice getting lower and colder.
"But I'm not doing this for Mrs. Weinstein, or your PI, or even for Benny the Torch, who I knew in a small way. I'm doing this for me and, whether you like it or not, you."
"Not for me," Alicia said. "I never wanted—"
"Because they're killers. And once you get on the wrong side of killers—and trust me, we're both on their wrong side—the only way to deal with them is to get them before they get you. If you don't, I guarantee you'll regret it. Because someday they'll find you—maybe by accident, maybe on purpose, but someday your paths could cross and then they'll snuff you out without hesitation. Or at least they'll try to."
Jack's casual, matter-of-fact tone chilled her.
What have I got myself into?
"Here they come," he said.
Alicia looked and saw two figures charging out the front door. She recoiled when he grabbed her arm, but he held her firmly.
"This way," Jack said. "And stay low."
In a crouch, he guided her to the car and carefully opened the driver side door. The courtesy lights stayed off—now she understood why he'd jammed the button with a toothpick. He motioned her in ahead of him.
"Crawl across and keep your head down," he whispered.
He got in beside her and eased the door shut. He inserted the key in the ignition but didn't turn it. Instead he leaned close to her and stared at the house.
"Now… watch. Won't be long."
18.
Fighting panic, Kemel crouched by the flat rear tire of the rusting truck in the front yard and watched the house. The mercenary he'd followed here huddled beside him.
How could so many things go wrong in one evening? How was it possible?
Earlier he had been upset, especially after learning that two of the guards had been killed. Two corpses could lead the police directly to Kemel, and thus to Iswid Nahr. He would be humiliated before Khalid Nazer. Baker had said he would make the corpses "disappear," but how much of that was bravado?
Perhaps none. Kemel had to admit that he had been quite impressed with the way Baker handled his men. They seemed well trained and responded with military precision to his commands. And he'd had the foresight to plant a tracer on the Clayton woman.
Baker was rising in his estimation. If only he weren't so headstrong…
But then the situation had rapidly deteriorated. One dead, another pinned in the house like an animal in a trap, and the house ready to explode in a few seconds.
And where was Baker now? Why was he still in the house? Was he trying to defuse the bomb?
Suddenly the mercenary who had been trapped, the one they called Briggs, burst through the front doorway closely followed by Baker and a redheaded mercenary.
Briggs ran toward the pickup while Baker and the other flattened themselves in the grass. Kemel ducked and held his ears.
A second later he faintly heard a retort—sharp, quick, like a shot.
After waiting a few more heartbeats and hearing no explosion, Kemel cautiously raised his head enough to see over the pickup's rear cargo bed. He saw Briggs standing on the far side, holding his bloody arm.
"You sons of bitches!" Briggs shouted. "You lousy fucking bastards! You left me in there to be blown to hell and the only thing that exploded was a firecracker!"
"What?" said the mercenary beside Kemel as he rose to his feet.
"That's right, Toro!" Briggs screamed as he staggered toward them. "A fucking M-80! And look at you assholes hiding behind that truck like the yellow-bellied rats you are!"
One of the mercenaries who had been guarding the rear of the house ran up to the truck.
"What the hell's going on?" He stared at Briggs's bloody arm. "What happened to you?"