“Just…no. Stop talking,” Turnbull said. “But I do have some questions and maybe, if you answer them right, I won’t splatter you all over your tacky modernist décor.”
Amanda walked in, looking first at Rios-Parkinson, then at Turnbull, then back at Rios-Parkinson. The Director scowled.
“Bitch,” he hissed.
“Bastard,” she replied angrily, but then a smile broke across her face as she saw his lap, and she began laughing while Rios-Parkinson fumed.
“Well, that seems to answer our willing accomplice or unwitting bait debate, right Junior? Well, I’m sensing some relationship issues here, Mr. Director, but you all can work those out by email, assuming you remain a going concern,” Turnbull said. Then he turned to Junior. “You and her finish up packing. We need to be gone.”
They returned to her room, leaving Turnbull and Rios-Parkinson together.
“Now that we’re alone, we can have a little chat.”
“What do you want?” the Director asked, straightening himself in the chair.
“For starters, I want to know how you started tracking us. No, hold on there, I can see those wheels in your head turning trying to figure out what to tell me, and I gotta tell you that I’m just not in the mood. If you waste my very limited time, I will put a round in your face, and I can tell by the smell of your used coffee that you aren’t one of those guys who’s not afraid to die. So let’s just save ourselves the hassle, cut the bullshit, and you go ahead and answer my questions.”
“We know someone infiltrated into Nevada through Utah and killed a squad of our volunteers.”
“Volunteers? Okay. And?”
“Somehow you got to Los Angeles.” Turnbull noted that they had apparently not pinned that unpleasantness in Vegas on him.
“Then?”
“My men spotted you in town.”
“Nope. You’re forgetting something. The hard drive. Right?”
Rios-Parkinson looked stricken.
“Yep, the hard drive. I figure that’s yours. I figure that if it gets out you let it slip away that you are massively fucked. Pretty much that? Well, from your expression I’m guessing I’m on the right track. Now, you didn’t just find us. You have a source, someone who narced us out to you. Who is he? Or she? Or xe. See, I spend some time over here and I start doing it too. Anyway, who was it?”
“His name,” Rios-Parkinson said. “Is Jacob.”
“You know, I don’t think you’re lying to me. And that’s good. Because now I can make you a proposition. It’s a good one, because you get something you really want out of it, which is me not blowing your brains out of the back of your head. Interested? Come on, I know you are.”
“What do you propose?”
“Well, how about I don’t shoot you for starters. But wait, there’s more. Word doesn’t get out about the hard drive even after I get it, which as I suspect we both know I will be doing as soon as I leave here. And you also get a safety net for when this dumpster fire of a country you and your friends ruined goes all to shit, and we both know it is going to shit really quickly.”
“I will take my chances,” Rios-Parkinson said, mustering all his remaining bravado.
“Stop talking. You’re soft and untrained. You’re not a soldier, you’re a glorified prison guard. What do you think you guys have? A month? A year? Two, tops? This is all coming down, and what happens to guys like you when their little regimes fall apart? Well, we both know the answer. Bad things happen to people like you.”
“What do you want?”
“I have a friend who would be very interested in talking to you. A friend from the other side. His job is very similar to yours, except he doesn’t arrest people for speaking freely or protesting. But you and he could develop a very mutually satisfying relationship.”
“You want me to spy for the United States, to be a traitor?”
“Yes, absolutely. You understand me perfectly. A modern day Benedict Arnold. You know who he was, right? No? Forget it. Yes, if you will work with my friend Clay, I won’t kill you here and now.”
“I guess I have no choice.”
“You do have a choice, only the wrong one will be the last choice you ever make.”
“What do I do?”
“Well, I assume through his magic he’ll find a way to get in contact with you. Trust me, you can’t hide from him when he wants to talk to you – I’ve tried. Then you do what he tells you. As for tonight, I still need to think through the logistics, but the spoiler is that you live. I don’t shoot you.”
Junior returned to the room alone.
“She’s almost ready.”
“Good,” said Turnbull. “Watch him. I gotta hit the head. Don’t shoot him either.”
Junior pulled out the Ruger as Turnbull holstered his Glock and turned away toward the bedroom. It was down a long hallway. Amanda was zipping the day pack closed on the bed when Turnbull entered.
“Don’t shut it. I gotta check it.”
“For what?”
“For my own personal safety. Do you have any phones, tablets, electronics, anything that has lights or buttons?”
“No.”
“Let me see. You’d be surprised how many people forget to mention shit that they can track us with.” Turnbull unzipped the pack and rifled through it. Socks, a jacket, some bandages – smart thinking. A wallet.
“What’s this?”
“My photos,” she said. “Hard copy prints.” Turnbull nodded and put it back in the pack. Then he walked to the master bath and slid the door shut behind him.
The commotion began as he was washing his hands; Turnbull heard the noise and threw the towel to the floor. He pulled the door open and drew his Glock at a run down the long hallway. At the other end, he heard a hail of gunshots and saw Junior coming up the stairs and dive onto the landing as a flurry of bullets slammed into the wall.
Amanda was standing stunned, and Turnbull pulled her to the ground.
“You hit?” he shouted at Junior, who held the Ruger in his right hand. Its slide was locked to the rear.
“He got the jump on me and ran downstairs,” Junior said. “I tried to shoot him through the wall as he went down the steps, but I don’t think the bullets went through the plaster, I ran after him, but he must have got the pistol off the dead guard. He can’t shoot for shit, though.”
Turnbull ran to the big window and looked out across the backyard. Nothing.
“He’s in the wind. Fuck. Okay, out front. Amanda, get your keys. We’re taking your car down to get ours and then hauling ass back to David’s.”
The trio ran out front, with Amanda dodging the bodies and Turnbull stepping on them. He slid into the Nissan’s passenger seat and, as Amanda drove out the gate and down the street, proceeded to open the back of Rios-Parkinson’s cell phone and slip out the SIM chip. That went in his pocket; he hurled the dead cell phone out his window into someone’s jasmine bushes.
Rios-Parkinson was out of breath – he was never an athlete and this scramble out of the house and across the yard, then over walls into other yards and down the streets, was probably the most physical exertion he had indulged in since his racist PE coach had made him do laps as a high school sophomore. The house ahead seemed to be occupied, but there was a wall and an iron lattice gate. He ran to it and pounded on it; nothing. There was an intercom, and he hit the button.
“Open the fucking gate!” he shrieked into the microphone. The lights inside the house went dark and none of his pleas or threats convinced the occupants to turn them back on. Finally, he gave up and ran down the street, looking for another house that might admit him.
It was another block before he found a house with no wall. He ran up the steps to the door and pounded. There were noises from inside, and an elderly man standing behind a walker opened the door a crack.