It was still early enough to avoid the parking lot the 10 became after quitting traffic. Gregor sat rigid, the mixture of Helen’s Percodan and Peter’s coke had taken his pain and sealed it into a soft little lock box.
“Put these on.” I passed him a pair of Ray-Bans. His crazy eyes were more than I needed to see.
Mikayla was counting out a fat wad of cash. She had given the wallets and documents to Peter. The cash and jewelry were her spoils.
“When this is over, where will you go?”
“It is never over.”
True for her, not for me. I was done, fried and baked. My life up to this point had been one long battle and I was ready to see it end. The citizens with their nine to fives looked real good.
This was bad.
Tired and weak was a quick way to get dead. Anya was out there, waiting. Nika was counting on me to save her sister. I owed her, hell, more than I could repay.
It was Clash time. Crank up the guitars. Turn the stereo to attack. Mikayla cringed at the sound, but said nothing.
“Give me a line,” I barked at Gregor. Dumping a fatty on the top of my hand, I took a blast. It was alligator heart time. Dump rage on top of the machine gun heartbeat. Angel, my beautiful pup, was still touch and go, the vet didn’t give her good odds. Fuckers have to die. Anya, her lips on mine, could have been true love, they fucked that. Her tears. Nika’s broken cherry, her blood on my cock. Mikayla’s severed breast. Fuck fuck fuck. Ahhhhhh!
My scream rose above The Last Gang In Town. In the rearview, Gregor grinned. He might not walk real good, but he was ready to take some heads.
Xlmen lay on his belly, in amongst the white sage he was all but invisible. Ripping a piece of deer jerky, he kept his eyes on the ranch. It had taken him a long day to discover that the gringo had been driven to Tecate. Bodies in the borderland had been found with the bitch’s cards. He had lost their trail in the southern tip of the Mojave. In the two days since crossing the border, he had followed the Russian. He figured they would not let what happened in Ensenada rest. Sooner or later, they would go for the big gringo and the tarot bitch or, the two would come for the Russians. Either way, he would be waiting. Senor Santiago had instructed him to let the assassin be, she was gone and that was all he wanted. A weak move. He had been sent to kill her. And he would. If he let this bitch best him, what would come next? He could feel the breath of old age tracking him, getting closer. He knew if he fell, the young street dogs would feast on his bones. His reputation was all that kept the curs at bay.
“Nailing yourself some midweek poon, huh?” The gap toothed clerk winked. After drifting in the foothills for forty lost minutes, I had pulled into a Stop-N-Shop for directions.
“If you say so.” The coke had my teeth grinding.
“Ain’t nothin’ to be ashamed of, no siree Bob. Man has a right to get his dick wet without needin’ to buy a girl no diamond ring.”
“How do I get there?” I was making a real effort not to reach over the counter and pinch his skinny neck.
“In a hurry, yup, know that feeling. Dang, they got some girls out there will wring the wiggle out of your worm. Call me a liar if it ain’t true.”
I was seconds away from calling in Mikayla and letting her get him to talk when he finally gave up the directions.
Rolling off the highway, we moved down an unmarked gravel road. The headlights pierced the black. No moon or streetlights. River stones the size of Volkswagens lined our way. Cresting a rise, a farmhouse glowed in the distance. I killed the lights and slowed to a crawl, keeping us on the road as much by feel as sight.
Wooden horse fences surrounded several acres of pasture, a freshly painted farmhouse and a barn that looked one good gust of wind away from falling over. From the sage a hundred feet above the ranch, I watched. Floodlights on the house and barn lit the surrounding area, no one was going to sneak up on them. Through the windows, people could be seen moving inside. Two men sat on the porch. One leaned on what looked like a rifle. In a corral behind the house were parked several Mercedes, a Suburban and a rusted GMC pick-up.
“What’s the plan, boss?”
“Go in hard, come out alive.”
“Works for me.”
We finished the toot in two lines. Gregor crunched a Percodan and racked a shell into the Remington auto loader.
“Put this on.” I tossed him the Kevlar vest I’d taken from the dead fed.
“You put it on.”
“I can run, can you?”
“Yes,” he lied. Pain in the ass.
“Put it on or I dump you here, let the coyotes have you.”
“Whatever, boss.” He shrugged into the vest.
Opening the trunk, I was confronted by the dead giant. His neck had been broken. Whatever his plans for the coming year, he wasn’t going to get to them. Fuck him, he chose the life. Pushing him to the side, I got to the guns we’d pilfered from the Israelis. I stuffed a Jericho.45 auto into my belt and the Beretta into the opposite side. Harry’s short barreled.44 went into my jacket pocket. I hung the strap of an Uzi around my neck.
“Got enough guns?” Mikayla stubbed out a cigarette.
“I doubt it.”
I keyed the Crown Vic to life and mashed down the accelerator. The V8-driven monster spat dust and gravel out the back as we soared toward the light. The boys on the porch jumped up as we splintered the gate. I was passing sixty MPH when I hit the E-brake, and racked the wheel to left. We slid sideways towards the porch. A shotgun boomed from the back seat. A painful ringing filled my ears. I fought to stop the beast before we collided with the house.
Shafts of light bore down through the dust storm we caused. The skid hadn’t ended before Mikayla was out the door and on the run around the building. From the second story, I saw the rapid flash of automatic fire. Bullets ripped through the car’s roof, tearing up the seat beside me. Rolling out the door, I put the car between me and the guns in the house. I thought Gregor would follow. The shotgun report told me he didn’t. Opening the back door, he sat with his back to me, firing up at the house. A manic grin was glued to his face. Never give drugs to an amateur.
A fresh burst ripped through the headliner. These fuckheads were doing a real job on my ride. Grabbing the scruff of Gregor’s jacket, I dragged him out the door. From the ground, he looked up at me like I was the asshole.
And that was when the shit got bad.
From the house, bullets punched ugly holes into the Crown Vic. From out of the barn, I saw a flash just before the dirt by my face exploded. We were trapped in the crossfire. Any way we went was death. The next bullet grabbed a piece of my leather jacket, pulling it open. Gregor, still grinning like an idiot, slipped fresh shells into the Remington.
I flicked my eyes up over the car to the house. He nodded.
Gripping the Uzi, I rolled into a crouch, leapt up and started to run toward the barn. Behind, I heard the shotgun; Gregor was firing over the hood of the car into the house. I hoped he could keep them from shooting me in the back.
I got twenty feet before the first bullet hit me. Flame popped from the barn. There were at least two shooters. I felt the hot burn along my lower left side. The Uzi jumped in my hand. One quick bone-rattling burst and it was empty. Thirty-two shots in a blast. I barely hit the broad side of the barn, but it had driven the shooters for cover and bought me ten feet free of their fire.
Dropping the Uzi, I pulled my Beretta and dropped to one knee. Aiming up at the door, I was ready when the bastard poked his head out. He was dressed in night camo and leveling a sniper’s rifle when I took off the top of his head.
Bursting through the barn door, I almost killed Mikayla. She was standing over a second Israeli in camos. He was wet and still.
“Looks like your trip wire didn’t take them all out.”
“They are dead now.” No smile. No pride. Just a fact.
Out the barn door, I watched, helpless, as Gregor fell. Bullets rained from the second story window. He slumped down behind the car.
Picking up the Israeli sniper’s rifle, I wrapped the strap around my forearm, just as Uncle Sam had taught me. Clicking the sight in, adjusting for distance, bullet drop, wind, I let the cross-hairs drift across the upper window. A man leaned out, searching the ground below for his shot at Gregor. His blonde hair was tousled, as if he had been woken from a restless sleep. In the scope, I could see his pale blue eyes. He was young. I let out a breath and pulled the trigger. A pink puff danced off his head. And he was dead. His eyes would haunt me later. But not then. Then, it was killing time.
Swinging the sights onto the next window, I waited, stilling my coke driven heart. A shadow moved behind a curtain and I fired. The bullet shattered the glass and flapped the curtain open long enough for me to see a tall man fall. I scanned the front of the ranch house but nothing moved. Dropping the rifle, I noticed Mikayla had disappeared.
When I got to Gregor, his breath was shallow. Blood streaked his left arm and he was missing his two middle fingers. Ripping his shirt, I wrapped a tourniquet on his arm. The vest was pocked with lead. His eyes fought to focus.
“I fucked her, boss.” His voice was a thin whisper.
“I figured.”
“I love her.”
“I figured that, too.”
His eyes drifted closed.
It was time to end this shit.
I stepped over the twisted bodies of the men Gregor had killed on the porch and kicked open the front door. A fat older man sat on the floor, holding a bleeding gut. He struggled to raise the pistol in his hand. I emptied the Beretta into him.
From the back of the house, I heard the gurgled gasp of a man with a slit throat.
Dropping the Beretta, I pulled the Jericho.45 and moved up the stairs. The landing led to a hall with doors on both sides. Red numbers had been painted on each door.
Behind door number one, a naked man with a farmer’s tan crouched behind the bed. He was holding a naked girl in front of him. One fist held her hair, in the other was a pocket knife, pressed to her chest, ready to plunge.
“Let me walk or I swear I’ll kill her.”
The slug entered his left eye and sprayed his skull across the wall. Dumb fuck John. As he flopped down, I recognized the screaming girl.
“Marina?”
She was way past realizing who I was. She just kept staring at the dead man and shrieking.
Doors two and three only held more panicked girls.
Door four was empty.
From downstairs, I heard a gunshot, only one. Odds were, Mikayla had ended it.
Pulling open door five, I was met by the burst from an AK. The doorjamb beside me shattered, spraying splinters and plaster into my face. The pain was distant, dulled by the coke numb. Dropping to the floor, I aimed up. I had to shake my head to clear the blood from my eyes.
Victor didn’t look so good, a cast covered one arm, a bandage was wrapped around his head and velcro held a brace to his leg. He should have stayed in the hospital. With his good arm, he tried to bring the AK down. Surprise flooded his face when my first slug caught his chest and pushed him into the wall. I’ll give him credit for balls, he still fought to get the rifle sighted in on me. I squeezed the trigger until the slide locked open.
Stumbling down the hall, I found the only door without a number. I put my boot to it. On the bed, Anya lay motionless. The white haired old man sat in a chair beside her. The silver revolver in his hand was pointing at me. The hammer was back. I held the.44 low, from the hip. I might hit him, might hit her.
“Look, my dear, your Galahad has breached the walls.” Anya’s limp form didn’t move when he spoke to her. “Shall we pull the triggers and see who walks out of this room?”
“Why the fuck not.” I fired wide, his eyes looked surprised. He hadn’t expected me to actually do it.
As the bullet ripped the wall above him he pulled the trigger. Flame leapt from his hand toward me. Pain burned in my chest where the bullet ripped at my flesh.
I dove at the old man, landing before he could get a second shot off. Toppling body on body. The chair collapsed beneath our weight. I could feel the revolver pinned between us, he was struggling to pull the trigger. My fingers locked around his wrinkled neck. The fine bones in his throat broke with a sickening crackle. His body went slack, defeat filled his eyes. A spasm wracked his body as it fought for air that wouldn’t come. His eyes bugged, went bloodshot, and then he was gone. I rolled onto my back and waited for death to take me.
Opening my eyes, a blurry Valkyrie kneeled over me. Valhalla couldn’t be far off.
“What are you grinning about?”
“Fuck, I thought I was dead.” It burned to speak.
“You’re not that lucky.” It was one of the few times I’d seen Mikayla smile.
“Is she dead?” Crawling to the bed, I looked down at Anya.
“Drugged. Strong pulse.”
Anya was so beautiful. I could see her on stage, that first time, so solid, so real. Now here we were. In the middle of all that blood and death. I knew now that I didn’t love her. Never had, really. What I fell for was the possibility of her and who I might be with her. I fell in love with my reflection in her eyes. Had she played me to get her sister back? Hell yes. But I went willingly. If Gregor survived, she would be with him, if he didn’t, she would find another. I had stepped too far off the map to ever be with a woman like her.
Mikayla looked from the sleeping girl to me and said, “You and me, we plant trees we’ll never be allowed to enjoy the shade of.”
“Ukrainian proverb?”
“African.” She dropped a card on the dead old man and helped me to my feet. “Can you walk or do I have to carry you?”
“Screw that noise.” The walls swam around me as I fumbled my way through the house, using the walls for balance. Mikayla took up the rear with Anya over her shoulder.
Mikayla loaded Anya and Gregor into the back of a stolen Mercedes while I leaned on the porch. She was walking towards me when I heard the crack of a rifle. Blood blossomed on her chest. Her legs dropped from under her and she fell forward. She was dead before she hit the dirt. Standing up, I spread my arms wide and waited for the shot to come.
Long seconds past.
I dropped my arms.