Part 18 (1/2)
”I'm going to swing us around,” Harris said, without looking at me. ”I want you to get down under the window as we pa.s.s them.” He accompanied his words with actions, downs.h.i.+fting to second and slamming on the brakes, hauling the wheel around so the truck juddered around in an arc, swaying and tipping precariously.
All five of the bad guys were lined up abreast, guns lifted to shoulders, pointing at us.
”Layla, get down!” Harris snapped.
Gunfire erupted from all five of them, and I heard several metallic thunks as rounds. .h.i.t the body of the Range Rover.
”f.u.c.k you,” I growled. ”Give me that.”
I s.n.a.t.c.hed the pistol from him, held it in both hands and pointed the barrel at one of the bad guys. I squeezed the trigger, expecting the roar and the kick but still shocked by it. We pa.s.sed by them so fast I wasn't sure if I'd hit anything, but it was the thought that counted.
”You know how to shoot?” Harris seemed surprised.
”I used to hook up with a guy who was a manager at a firing range. He showed me how.”
”Well it was a good shot,” he said. ”I think you winged one of 'em.” He grabbed the gun back as we bounced along parallel to the northbound traffic.
Holding the wheel and the pistol in the same hand, he s.h.i.+fted up into fourth and we went briefly airborne as we merged onto the blacktop, causing a pile-up when a little blue sedan had to brake and swerve to avoid us. I heard the crash behind us, but didn't spare it a look.
”Just like a Jerry Bruckheimer movie,” I said, hearing further metal-on-metal impacts.
”You should have ducked. I f.u.c.king told you to duck, G.o.dd.a.m.n it.” Oooooh s.h.i.+t. Harris was p.i.s.sed.
”Yeah, well...I never do what I'm told. Get used to it, buddy.”
”You want to live? You'd better learn to listen.”
”Are you really going to argue with me about this right now?” I asked, glaring at him. ”You haven't even said h.e.l.lo.”
He stared at me, incredulous. ”h.e.l.lo, Miss Campari. How are you? Having a nice day? Would you care for some tea?”
I flipped him the bird. ”Don't be a d.i.c.k, Nicholas.”
”I swear to f.u.c.k I'll throw you out of this car,” he snarled. ”Do not call me Nicholas. Not even my mother calls me that.”
”I'm having trouble reconciling the idea of you sitting in a tasteful Midwestern bungalow, drinking sun tea with your sweet little mother.”
This earned me a chuckle. ”Everyone has a mother, Layla. Even me. But no, they don't live in a bungalow in the Midwest, they live in a condo in Florida. And my mother is not sweet, nor particularly little.” A pause, and then he grinned at me. ”Although, she does drink sun tea, funny enough.”
”What does she call you, then?”
He didn't respond right away. ”Not Nicholas,” he said, eventually. He gestured behind us. ”See if they're back there. Look back several car lengths.”
I twisted on the bench seat, peering into the dense traffic behind us. ”s.h.i.+t. Yeah, they're back there. Quite a ways back, like maybe half a mile or so, but they're there.”
”Vitaly's men don't give up. They'll keep coming until we kill them or they catch us.”
”No s.h.i.+t. They don't dare go back to Vitaly without results to show him,” I said.
Harris glanced at me, his gaze sharp, and his voice soft. ”No?”
I shook my head as I returned to my seat and buckled up. ”No. They don't dare. He doesn't accept failure or excuses. You do what he tells you to do, or you die trying. If you show up and you haven't carried out his orders to the letter, he'll kill you. And you'll never even see it coming.”
”How does he kill them?”
I blinked hard. ”Knife to the ribs.” I tapped two fingers over my heart. ”He's got this switchblade, keeps it in his pocket. He'll just be talking, calm as anything. One second he's smiling, hands in his pockets, casual, the picture of understanding and congeniality. The next? That blade is between their ribs, and they're dead. He does it so fast, so easily. Doesn't even blink. I saw him do it at least six times in the four days I was his prisoner. He must pay those guys really well if they're willing to risk death any time they're in the room with him.”
”Recruit from the poor and desperate, pay them well, and they'll put up with just about anything,” Harris remarked. A few minutes of silence, and then he glanced at me again. ”Layla, when you were with Vitaly-”
I shook my head, cut him off. ”Not now, Harris. I can't go there right now.” I focused on breathing slowly and evenly, staring straight ahead, refusing to blink, refusing to unclench my teeth. ”Get me somewhere relatively safe first, and maybe I'll tell you what happened.”
Harris nodded. ”I can do that.” He checked his rear-view mirror. ”So I just gotta figure out how to lose these guys.”
”Do what you'd do if you were alone. Don't worry about me.”
”I just rescued you, Layla. I'm not about to put you in harm's way again.”
”Meaning you'd stop and shoot it out with them, if it were just you, right?”
He bobbled his head side to side. ”I'd ambush them.”
”So let's ambush them.”
”No offense, Layla, but I'm a highly trained combat veteran, and you're-”
”I stabbed a guy in the eyeball with a pen I'd kept hidden in my c.u.n.t for over a week. I shoved it so far into his f.u.c.king brain that he died instantly. And that was after I broke his arm like a twig. I did this because he was in the process of raping me. I put on his blood-soaked clothes, his smelly boots-I had to wear his clothes because Vitaly had kept me naked the entire time-and I stole a car, stopped for supplies, drove to f.u.c.king Guaruja, walked several miles in the blazing heat, most of that distance either in the sand or uphill, without having any food or water. And then I stole a car right out from underneath the very men who were hunting me.” I was getting a little worked up at this point. ”And then-and then!-then I was nearly shot several times just now by those a.s.sholes back there. So I think at this point, Nicholas, there isn't much that's going to faze me. Figure out how you want to ambush these f.u.c.kers, and I'll help you kill every single G.o.dd.a.m.n one of those p.u.s.s.ies.”
Harris's jaw worked up and down, as if he was trying to respond but didn't actually have any words. ”Jesus, Layla.”
”If you were hoping for a damsel in distress, you've got the wrong b.i.t.c.h. I may be in distress, but I'm sure as s.h.i.+t not a f.u.c.king helpless damsel.”
A long, tense moment pa.s.sed, in which Harris tried to figure out what to say. ”You called me Nicholas again.”
”Yes I did, and you can either deal with it or shove me out of the car. I don't care. I'll figure this s.h.i.+t out, one way or another, with you or without you.”
”You're f.u.c.king impossible,” he grumbled.
I laughed. ”You're just now figuring that out?”
He shook his head. ”No, you're just reaching an all-time-high impossibility factor.”
”Buddy, you ain't seen nothin' yet.”
”That's a scary thought,” Harris said.
”I'm from Detroit. Don't f.u.c.k with me.” I crossed my arms over my chest and kept an eye on the pa.s.senger-side mirror, watching as the black SUV closed the distance. ”They're getting closer. If you've got a plan, I'd start putting it into play if I were you.”
A body of water rippled pale blue in the distance; traffic was getting thicker and thicker by the moment.
Harris gestured at the water. ”Once we're past this causeway, we'll be hitting Batistini. I'll make my move there.”