Apollo snorts. “I am not sure I like the sound of that, but go on.”
“These guys sometimes have phones, right? Burners? Maybe one of them has a number for Spaulding? We just call him and…I don’t know. Here we are, come and get us yourself, you lazy coward piece of shit?”
Apollo laughs outright. “He doesn’t work that way. They won’t have his direct number. He will have some kind of redirect system in place. As in, they send a prearranged code to a dead-end number in a text message, like when you sign up for text message alerts or something, you know? And that code is forwarded to him, and he will then call them. They could not possibly directly reach Spaulding personally.”
“So we make one of them fake the code.”
“He would just ask for photographic proof of our death. Anything less than you and me obviously dead will just mean he deactivates that system and comes at us from a different angle. Different crew, different code system. He’s not stupid enough that we will easily corner him.”
I huff. “Dammit.”
“It was good a plan. You could not know the security systems a man like him has in place.”
I pull around another corner onto a long narrow alley, a street between the backs of two rows of buildings, overflowing dumpsters evenly spaced, trash littering the road, power lines draped in pregnant bulges between the buildings. I gun it, hurtling down the alley, squeal around the next corner, and again, all at breakneck speed, just to put some distance between us.
“Switch.” I shove the shifter into neutral. “I’m done with these fuckers. I’m getting pissy.”
He takes the wheel, holds it steady as the SUV bleeds off momentum; I climb over the console and into the back while Apollo takes the driver’s seat. He steadies the wheel with his knee, uses his good arm to pull the shifter into first, and then second—he switches his grip to the wheel and makes a right onto the thoroughfare, the engine sputtering as it struggles into too a high a gear for the RPMs. It catches all at once, and we jerk forward, rolling me to the tailgate. The backpack flops toward me, conveniently enough. I pull an HK from it, check the load, ready it to fire, and then wait with my hand on the inside latch.
“When I say now, you hit the brakes,” I call over my shoulder.
He nods. “Got it.”
The maroon Mercedes skids around the corner and accelerates to catch up; it’s just past dawn, now, the sky bleeding pink and gray, lightening. I wait until the Mercedes is less than half a car length behind us, the HK strapped over my torso, folding stock braced against my shoulder.
At that moment, my phone rings.
“Shit, shit, shit. Worst timing.” I pull the phone out, hit answer, shove it between shoulder and ear. “Hello?”
“Rinny.” My father’s voice, rough, harsh, emotional. It hits me like a ton of bricks, makes me feel like a little girl again, his voice alone able to make me feel better. “You’re alive.”
“Yeah, I am. I’m gonna need you to hang on a second, though, Dad.” I drop the phone onto the floor next to me, shift positions so I’m steady and braced, able to throw open the tailgate and grab my gun again swiftly. “On three, hit the brakes hard,” I call over my shoulder to Apollo. “One, two…three!”
On three, I shove open the side-hinge tailgate and then the glass. Apollo slams on the brakes. I brace hard against the opening, HK snugged against my shoulder. The Mercedes looms suddenly large, and I can see the men within—four of them, a driver and three passengers. I can see their guns, their faces; as has been consistent with Spaulding’s hiring so far, the men are a mixture of ethnicities, the desire to kill Apollo and me for money the only uniting factor.
I draw bead on the front passenger, click off three rounds at him. Before the driver can react, I plug him with three more rounds; the windshield spiderwebs at the first burst, shatters on the second. The passenger is bleeding from the shoulder but not dead, and I didn’t get the driver at all. I open fire again, but now they’re firing back.
A taillight shatters, the bumper dings and crunches—something buzzes past my ear and thuds into the seatback where I would be sitting.
I don’t quite spray-and-pray, because Sasha taught me better than that, but it’s close. I dump rounds in a tight horizontal arc, starting with the passenger and ending with the driver. The passenger slumps, twitching and the sedan skids sideways. We’ve all but stopped at this point, so I hop out and move in a crouch for the rear of the vehicle. I crack off a round to pop the rear passenger window and then strafe several more rounds across the rear bench—just in time, too. Something hot slices across my rib cage, plucking at my shirt and burning my rib just below my elbow. My bullets hit a microsecond after that, silencing them.
“Let’s go!” Apollo shouts. “We need distance between us and them.”
I jerk open the rear door, search the pockets of the dying man—his chest is holed and he’s sucking and wheezing—and retrieve his burner phone, more cash, and more magazines for our HKs. I do the same for all three, coming away with a tidy sum in cash and plenty of spare ammo.
I’m about to get into the Toyota when an idea hits me.
The burner is a cheap off-brand no-contract type, but it can still record video from both front and rear cameras. I pull up the camera and set it to recording video. I make a circuit of the Mercedes, going close up on each dead or dying merc. I focus on the one still gurgling and wheezing.
“Say hi to Spaulding,” I say. “Can you say hi? No?”
The man just glares at me balefully, each gasp audibly painful, and slowing.
I turn around so my back is to the car, and then flip the phone around to the front-facing camera. “Your guys are shit, Richard. Or, do you go by Dick? You’re more of a Dick, I think. You think you’re going to win this, Dick?” I bring the phone closer to my face. “I’m going to find you,Dick, and I’m going to kill you.” I feel hatred bubbling inside me, anger poisoning me, rage bubbling in my veins. “Keep sending your rent-a-thugs. I can do this all day.”
There’s only one number in the phone, and I send the video to that number.
Apollo is watching, twisted around in the driver’s seat, a wry, amused expression on his face. “Your dad is still holding, babe.”
