Last Call - A Thriller (Jacqueline "Jack" Daniels Mysteries Book 10) (33 page)

“Keep it low and horizontal, almost touching the ground,” Chandler said. “Long, slow sweeps, a full one-hundred and eighty degrees. If I’m right, you’ll start getting signals in—”

The
WHEEEE
! of the detector startled me so badly I almost dropped it. I took a few heartbeats to regain composure, and bent down, spray painting a reflective white X over the spot. Then I moved left, around the mine, and continued forward.

“Stay close to her, Herb. We don’t want gaps between you.”

The second mine I found didn’t frighten me as much.

By the fifth, I felt like I might actually survive.

“Slow it down, Jack,” Chandler said. “This isn’t a race. We’ve still got more than fifty meters to cross.”

The breeze was cold, but after ten minutes I was soaked with sweat. Most of my attention was focused on finding mines, but a detached part of my mind wondered what the hell had happened to the human race. Mankind was hardly the only species that murdered its own kind. Lions slaughter cubs from other prides. Chimpanzees fight wars. Dolphins kill for sport. But only man planted bombs in the ground to indiscriminately kill strangers.

I was fifty years old. That was five decades of knowledge and experience. And all of that could disappear in an instant because some asshole built a bomb that killed when you stepped on it, and some other asshole bought a bunch and buried them all in a field.

As a cop, I’d seen and contemplated death. But if you really wanted to question the meaning of life, walk through a minefield. It really messed with your head.

“I stepped on something, and heard a click,” Herb said.

Everyone froze. I felt myself become dizzy.

“Don’t move,” Chandler told him. “Jack, can you get over to him?”

I carefully worked my way around the last X I’d painted, staying away from the edges, and made it to Herb. He smelled like raw, sweaty fear.

Or maybe I was smelling myself.

“Hey, buddy,” I said.

“Hey, buddy.” He chuckled. “This kinda sucks.”

“You’re not going to die here, Herb.”

“You sure about that?”

I nodded.

“Jack,” Chandler told me, “move your detector over Herb’s foot.”

I did. When I heard the whir of metal, I almost lost it.

“Hear something?” Chandler asked.

“Yeah.”

“Does it sound like a mine?”

“I can’t tell.”

“Some shoes have a steel shank in the sole. Do yours, Herb?”

“How would I know that? I got them for thirty bucks at Sears.”

“Is there any clothing you don’t buy at Sears?” Harry asked. “You dress like the cast of
Barney Miller
.”

“McGlade, shut up. Jack, move the detector over to Herb’s other foot, see if the sound is the same.”

I listened to Chandler. “I heard something.”

“Does it sound similar?”

“I think so.”

“Herb, I’m pretty sure it’s your shoe, and you just stepped on a rock. But we’re going to get a few meters ahead of you, just in case. Jack, lead on.”

“I’m not leaving him.”

“Jack, I’ve got a wheelbarrow full of plastic explosive and blasting caps. I’m not the person to fuck around with right now.”

Herb nodded. “Go. It’s probably my shoe.”

I gave him a harsh stare.

“Get out of here.” Herb smiled, then winked at me. “I gotta do this one solo, partner.”

Slowly, reluctantly, I continued to go north, marking mines until the whole caravan was ten meters away from Herb.

“Are we clear yet?” I asked.

“Keep going until we’re all out. If the mine goes off, we’re going to have to deal with forty armed guards.”

I pressed onward. When we reached the north face of the bullfighting ring, everyone stopped.

“Okay, Herb,” Chandler said. “You can take a step now.”

“If you blow up, I’ll name another pet after you,” McGlade said. “Maybe one of those really fat elephant seals that grunts.”

There was no reply.

“Herb?” I said.

Silence.

“Herb?” I raised my voice, wondering if my ear radio was working.

“Chandler was right. It was a rock. Catch up to you guys in a minute.”

I sank into a pool of beautiful relief. Then I looked at my team.

Chandler was headed east. Heath was going west.

And Tequila was already gone, his wheelbarrow abandoned.

A
fter they parked, Donaldson waited for them to leave. His intent was to go inside the RV, find a weapon more suitable than his stolen scissors, and tail the group to Lucy.

But all of Jack’s friends hadn’t left.

Some girl had stayed behind.

And that same girl was on the roof of the motorhome, facing away from Donaldson.

She had a gun. But that was okay.

Donaldson was indestructible.

He crawled toward her, clenching the scissors in his fist.

The girl’s gun was big.

And Donaldson wanted it.

T
he hot plate was gone.

Lucy was sure she’d left it in Hanover’s room. But when she returned, after moving him to the playroom, no hot plate.

Could she have gotten the rooms mixed up? They all did look the same.

She checked every room the first floor. Couldn’t find it.

Checked with K. He didn’t have it, either, and Lucy left when he started quoting goddamn Shakespeare.

It wasn’t in the kitchen, or the pantry, or the dining area. She wondered if one of those idiot guards took it. So Lucy located a high-beam flashlight, then wandered outside to search.

W
e left the metal detectors next to the third wheelbarrow, and the four of us walked around the outside of the arena.

“Six guards,” Chandler whispered in my ear piece. “A pair on the east side of the stadium, smoking. Two on the south side of the house. And two more at a shed, on the northwest side. They’re cooking something on a hot plate.”

I shivered, my nervous sweat chilled by the cool desert air.

Herb, Harry, and I had done raids before, and I knew the hand signals to direct Herb to move around the house clockwise, and Harry counterclockwise.

“What?” Harry said.

“Go that way,” I pointed.

“Then just say
go that way
and cut the commando BS. I thought you were waving away mosquitos.”

“Go!”

He went.

“
Levanta tus manos!
” my ear bud crackled. “Get your hands up!”

I heard shouting, in Spanish and English. Then Chandler’s voice.

“They have Tequila.”

I dropped down, and turned to tell Katie to do the same.

But she was gone.

S
he was close. So close she couldn’t stop from trembling.

Years, she’d searched. For most of her life.

And her journey was finally nearing an end.

Katie tucked away the camera she’d easily picked out of Jack’s pocket, gripped the Colt King Cobra hard as she could to make sure she didn’t drop it, and sprinted toward the mission building as soon as the patrolling guard turned the corner.

She had already fulfilled one decades old promise she’d made to herself.

Now Katie was about to make two more come true.

L
ucy had been away for so long, Phin had allowed himself to hope that perhaps he’d gotten some kind of reprieve.

Then she returned. With the electric burner.

So much for hope.

“Sorry to keep you waiting,” she said, plugging it into the wall. “Some of the men took it to heat up a can of tamales.”

Lucy placed it next to his foot, close enough that the heat was uncomfortable.

“So, here’s the game. You touch your right foot to the hot plate and hold it there for ten seconds. I’ll count out loud.”

“And what happens after ten seconds?”

“Then we do it with your left foot.”

Phin squirmed. The heating element was already so close, it had begun to burn him. There was no possible way he’d be able to hold his bare flesh to that without jerking away.

“And what if I don’t do it?”

“Then I’ll do it to you anyway. But that will show me that I can’t trust you, and I’ll crank up the rack until your tendons and ligaments detach. I’ll make sure you don’t die, though. I’ll keep you alive so you can watch what I do to your wife and son when I have them brought here.”

A scream began to well up in Phin, and he didn’t think he’d be able to stop it.

“It’s okay to make noise,” Lucy said. “I actually like it.”

The two guards came in. “El Cometa needs you in the throne room.”

Lucy’s scarred face twisted into something that Phin guessed was a pout. “I’m in the middle of something.”

“An intruder was caught, trying to break in.”

Lucy let out an overly dramatic, teenage-girlish sigh. “I guess we’ll continue this later.”

She turned to leave.

“Lucy!” Phin said, shaking in pain, “Fire hazard!”

Lucy paused, looked at the burner just inches from his feet, reached for it—

—and switched it off.

She left. But Phin no longer hoped for a reprieve.

He was going to die. And die in agony.

But, if he proved himself, maybe he would get a shot at killing Kite.