Armed and Dangerous (The IMA) (29 page)

“
Fucking bullshit. You don't give a shit about any of that; you'd see the world burn if they paid you enough.”

“
Spoken like a true mercenary.”

“
Just like they paid you to fuck with me.”

“
Well, yes,” the Sniper said. “I suppose it was too tempting an opportunity to pass up.” He circled around the chair again, until he was standing in front of me again. “I do not care for you, either, my dear. At least your death will be quick. You can consider that my favor to you.”

I spat at him. The gob of spit hit him right in the eye and made him wince.

My fleeting sense of satisfaction didn't last long. He hit me — hard. The slap echoed off the floors of the empty warehouse. It felt like hundreds of needles were pricking at my cheek.

“
Don't you fucking touch her, you son of a bitch. Don't take this out on her. It's me you want.”

“
Indeed.” The Sniper touched a knife at his belt. “I haven't forgotten about you, Michael.”

“
No,” I said. “What are you doing? Don't hurt him!”

I felt his body tense; a spasm went through him, betraying his pain. “Suits you, actually. Now everyone will know you for what you are. Better suited to the gutters and the streets.”

“Fuck,” Michael said hoarsely. “
Fuck
.”

“
What did he do? Are you okay?”

“
Goddammit. I'll kill him — ”

“
So nice to see you again. Hopefully it will be the last.”

The British man must have been waiting somewhere nearby, watching, because I heard the door open again as the Sniper approached the exit. “Have you said all that needed to be said?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“
What are you doing?” Michael snarled. “Are you fucking blind? You can't let him go. This man works for the IMA. He's Adrian Callaghan's right-hand man — he was sent here to betray you.”

“
I was under the impression that was your
position.”

“
I wasn't a traitor until I was cast into the role, and that wasn't by choice. I was framed then, and I was framed now. This asshole is one of their riflemen. He—”

“
Mr. Villanueva has already informed us that you would tell us this. It is easy to lie, isn't it, when you are superimposing your life onto that of someone else? Rifleman, photographer, contract killer — ”

“
What?”

“
He's lying!” I raised my voice to be heard over Michael's profuse swearing. “
He's
the one who does all that. Search him. He's probably got several cameras on him now.”

“
We have already searched him. He was clean.”

“
Fuck,” Michael snarled. “I don't fucking believe this. You've got your man right in front of you and you're too fucking stupid to see it.”

“
Permission to leave?”

Hawk barely glanced at him. “Granted.”

I watched the Sniper walk out, briskly but steadily. Why was he in such a hurry to leave? He hated us. He'd said so himself. Surely he'd want to watch us die.

Something was wrong.

Hawk picked up a metal implement. “Let's get down to business. You are going to start by telling me everything you know. If I feel you are lying, or withholding information, I'll start removing pieces from your friend. Starting from the bottom-up, I think. We'll save her face for last.”

I choked back bile. “Wait — please, you can't do this.”

“Christina,” Michael said, “shut the fuck up. Please.”

“
I know why he left. I know why the Sniper left. He's got another bomb. This time he's not leaving things up to chance.” The British guy looked at me. “Don't you see?” I fought to contain my rising panic. “He's going to kill us by blowing up the warehouse.”

Michael:

It all made sense.

The reason the BN job had reeked of such amateurism was because it had been. The Sniper didn't know shit about subtlety. Not unless it was on the other side of a magnifying lens on a rifle or a camera. His shoddy attempt at kidnapping Christina had been proof enough of that.

But making a bomb didn't require subtlety; it was the fucking
opposite
of subtlety.

“
Christina?” I pitched my voice low. “I have a plan, but I need you to work with me. Can you do that?”

I felt her give a full-body nod.

“Good. When I give the say-so, I need you to push with your legs and jump to your feet.”

“
What are you — ”

“
Just say yes,” I growled, “and follow my lead.”

Hawk came closer, still twirling that metal implement in his hand.

“Now,” I shouted.

It almost didn't work. Without the use of my hands, I couldn't get much lift. If we had been bound to the back of the chair we would have been goners. Luckily, we had the element of surprise on our side.

The metal chair clattered underfoot with a screeching sound on the stone floors. I swung around, using Christina's body for momentum, and kicked from the hip. Hawk was older, and didn't have the training to dodge the attack completely. Just to make sure he wouldn't be able to get back up, I kicked him a few more times, not stopping until I saw the blood dribble out of his mouth.

“
Are you insane?” Christina screamed.

“
You bet your sweet ass I am, darlin,” I said. I turned around, figuring I'd have a better chance at running backwards given her slow pace. “Now run for your fucking life.”

Hawk might have been down for the count, but he had called for reinforcements. Doors on the second story of the warehouse were sliding open. I heard their shouted commands to each other growing closer.

“Hurry — faster goddammit!” She headed for the door the Sniper had taken and cursed. “What's wrong?”

“
It's locked.”

Hawk had to have the key. I eyed his fallen body in the center of the room, beside the upended chair, which was now surrounded by guards.
Beaucoup de
fuck.

“
Michael — look out!”

I swung around, narrowly avoiding a clip to the head. Motherfucker. I dropped to my knees, yanking Christina down with me, and hoped to God I'd be able to get back up again.

“Slide,” I shouted. “Anyone comes within kicking distance, aim high, and aim hard.”

Hawk was wearing a lightweight coat, business casual, pockets on the bottom. I bent down and grabbed the hem of it between my teeth and shook — hard. Goddamn it. How
humiliating. Change fell out, a wallet, a cell phone.

“
What are you doing?” Christina yelped.

“
Trying to give him a fucking hard-on,” I snapped. “What the hell do you think?”

I leaned over him, to get at the other side of his coat, and saw a weak movement in the corner of my eye. Fingers curled into hawk-like talons — aimed for my face. That son of a bitch just wouldn't stay down. Now he was trying to blind me. I whipped my head back, and felt him sink his nails into the wound the Sniper had slashed with his blade and twist hard. “
Goddamn it motherfucking fils de putain bastard son of a bitch I'm fucking going to
end
you
.
”

I slammed my knee into his crotch, grinding his balls against the stone floor. He released my face with a high-pitched scream. I bent for the other pocket again, purposely putting more weight on that knee as I did so, and shook an electronic key loose. “Come on,” I said to her. “Move closer. Ignore Mr. Falsetto here and bend to the side. I need you to grab that card.”

I heard her grunt and felt the strain in the ropes around my wrist as she groped for the card. “Got it,” she gasped.

“
Drop it.” One of the guards pointed a gun at my chest. “Drop whatever it is you've got in your hand
now
.”

“
Michael, we're surrounded,” Christina whimpered.

“
Don't you think I know that?” I sucked in air, looking at each of the guards in turn. At their rifles, cocked and ready. Too bad I hadn't been trained as a negotiator.

“
Okay,” I said. “You got me. But listen to me. If you don't get out of here right now, this place is going to blow.”

I could tell the rookies straight-off; they were the ones who nudged each other and laughed.
Yeah, right
.

The veterans among them remained expressionless.

“That man who left, the man that
this
dipshit — ” I nudged Hawk with my boot “ — knows as Villanueva, is an IMA operative — better known as the Sniper.”

That elicited a reaction from some of them.

“Call someone.” Drops of sweat rolled down my spine. “I'm sure you've got some patsy keeping watch outside. Call them and see if he turns up anything. What have you got to lose? Apart from your lives, that is.”

Without lowering his rifle, the man across from me slipped a hand into his uniform and pulled out a cellphone. “Hello — yes, this is Berkeley. Yes…they say there's a bomb…I know, just check…real quick…”

Christina's hands were trembling. I stroked her palm with my thumb. “Don't worry,” I muttered. “We've lived this long. No reason to stop now.”

“
Shut up.” The gun dug into my neck. “No talking.”

I waited, counting my breaths as they filled the silence.

“Well, that settles it. He says there's…what?” The guard glanced at the phone, and his fingers tightened around the receiver minutely. A slight contraction of the metatarsals like piano wire beneath the skin. “Fuck.”

“
Is there a bomb?” one of the guards asked.

“
Fuck,” the first guard repeated. “Yes.
Fuck
.”

An ominous rumble shook the walls. On the other side of the cellphone, I could make out screaming.

“Run,” I said, to Christina. “Run.”

“
But — ”

“
Not that way,” I shouted. “Not the one he took! Other door! Back, back, back!”

We shuffled to the door. Christina slid the keycard through the door. Clean air flooded through my nostrils, tinged by smoke and plastic explosives. And then, as the blast burst through the door the guards had been foolish enough to open, the smell of cooking skin and burning hair.

Christina gagged. I heard her sobbing, and then praying, under her breath.

“
There's no time for that,” I said. “Run.”

Flames burst through the doorway, singing our backs, sending us rolling across the concrete in a tumble.

Using one of the parked vans for leverage, we struggled to our feet. “Keep running,” I said hoarsely. The smoke poured out heavy and thick now. If the flames reached the parked vehicles and their gas tanks, the explosions would only increase in strength.

We stumbled through the open metal gate ringed with curls of barbed wire. And then we walked through the endless zones of industry, with the warehouses, the parking lots, the abandoned train track with the parked cars covered with urban graffiti.

When we came to an open field, marked “land for rent,” we collapsed, and let the darkness take us.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Incentive

Christina:

A crow squawked overhead. I itched. And where I didn't itch, I ached.

When I opened my eyes, they were pierced by the blinding blue of the California sky. Then it came back to me — the warehouse — the explosion — the burning bodies. We had collapsed in the middle of a field. I could hear the distant roar of traffic, the calls of birds in the oaks nearby. No sirens.

How long had we been here?

I was still lashed to Michael, but I couldn't see him. I could feel him, though, the tension on the cord around my wrists marking his presence.

“Michael?”

I received a grunt.

“You there?”

“
What do you think?” his voice was hoarse from the smoke. “Come on. Let's see if we can get up. The barbed wire on that fence ought to be able to slice right through this shit.”

After Michael cut the ropes on the fence we trudged back into town. It felt like a death march. I would know — I'd been on one before.

After what felt like, and probably was, hours, Michael found a place that was willing to let him use the phone despite how dirty we both looked. He called Angelica, who gave us a ride back to the hotel. I was so tired, I fell asleep on the ride over, and then lost consciousness again the moment I made contact with the bed.

When I awoke, I felt refreshed but no less conflicted.

I had been thinking about what Michael had said about the Night Bureau. He had said that they were not much different from the IMA. Hawk seemed like solid proof of that — in some ways he was as bad as Adrian Callaghan. But since he had come alone, and appeared to be doing his dirty dealings with the Sniper on the sly, maybe he was the exception to the rule.