Part 28 (1/2)

He shrugged. ”I don't know. It's a guy thing, I guess. Or maybe it's a military thing. We don't waste time with pleasantries. No point and no time.”

”Anyway, Thresh says to tell you he's on the runway, engines idling, and that he'll be in the cargo hold ready to cover our approach.”

”Perfect.” He gestured at my pistol. ”Reload.”

Turns out I didn't need to reload, because there was no one else behind us and we arrived at the airfield a couple minutes later. We got out of the SUV and ran up the ramp to the cargo hold of a ma.s.sive, twin-engine aircraft. The scene actually reminded me of that scene from the cartoon movie Rio, where the awkward American girl and the gumpy Brazilian bird guy are in the Carnival float, chasing the birds onto an airstrip. Except, there were no birds on the airplane, just all seven feet of Thresh-and holy Moses, St. Peter, Jesus, and Mary herownself...Thresh was s.h.i.+rtless, wearing nothing but a pair of cut-off cargo shorts, the ends frayed and ragged. He was the most heavily muscled man I'd ever seen, easily rivaling both Arnold Schwarzenegger and Dwayne Johnson-and I'd say Thresh probably had the advantage. I stumbled as I pa.s.sed him, gawking openly. I mean, that kind of build didn't do it for me, s.e.xually speaking, but it was still a h.e.l.l of an impressive sight.

He winked at me. ”Take a picture, sweetheart. It'll last longer.” He had a ma.s.sive machine gun in his hands, the kind of gun you usually see mounted on the sides of helicopters in Vietnam war movies.

”Don't call my woman 'sweetheart,' you big a.s.shole,” Harris snapped. ”I'll kick your a.s.s.”

Thresh glanced from me to Harris. ”Your woman?”

”You f.u.c.king heard me.”

”All right then.” He eyed me again, a.s.sessing rather than leering. ”So, when you say 'your woman', what does that mean, exactly, boss?”

Harris was in the c.o.c.kpit, flipping switches, settling a headset on his head. He turned around and glanced through the open door. ”It means shut the f.u.c.k up and mind your own G.o.dd.a.m.ned business, that's what it f.u.c.king means.”

Thresh's eyebrows rose. ”Whoa, dude. Uptight much?”

”Uptight?” Harris rose out of the seat, pulling at the headset. ”I'll show you-”

”Harris! Sit down, shut up, and fly the f.u.c.king airplane. We don't have time to measure d.i.c.ks.”

Thresh's eyes, already wide, widened further when Harris did as I said. The noise of the engines ramped up, and we bolted forward. Something sparked off the ramp and ricocheted around the cargo hold with angry ping-zzzzinggg-buzzzzz, and Thresh's hand-which was so big a fully-grown Pomeranian could have sat in his palm-shoved me to one side. He dropped to his knees, flipped a bipod out, and dropped to his belly. Our plane was howling down the runway, picking up speed, but Thresh didn't seem concerned by this as he took aim and opened fire at the black SUV roaring up behind us. I grabbed hold of the nearest object, which was a chain fastened to the floor and to the wall, clinging to it as I felt the ground fall away. The banging of the machine gun was the most deafening sound I'd ever heard, and it rocked Thresh's entire body back with each report. He fired in bursts of three shots, and on the fourth burst, the hood of the SUV crumpled, the front b.u.mper buried itself into the tarmac, and the entire vehicle flipped forward. Contrary to Jerry Bruckheimer movies, it didn't explode in a fiery ball, instead just flopping forward onto its roof and rocking a few times before coming to rest.

We were angled upward now, so the tail end was facing the ground at a steep angle. My stomach lurched into my throat. Thresh, meanwhile, calmly folded the bipod, shouldered the huge gun, and grabbed a chain near mine. He loomed over me, glanced down at me, and winked. The man was just enormous. It boggled the mind, honestly.

He slammed his palm over a b.u.t.ton, and the ramp folded up, darkening the interior and removing my view of the ground.

I let my head thunk against the wall of the plane, and I blew out a breath of relief.

”Well, that was nerve-wracking,” I said.

Thresh just chuckled. ”All in a day's work, sweet-I mean, Miss Campari.”

”Layla.”

”I'm sticking with 'Miss Campari,'” he said. ”Harris can be a vicious son of a b.i.t.c.h.”

I wasn't sure what he meant by that, so I just shrugged. ”Okay. Well...I'm going up to the c.o.c.kpit.”

Harris may have been a vicious son of a b.i.t.c.h, but I still felt Thresh's eyes on my a.s.s as I walked forward to the c.o.c.kpit. I turned and glanced at him, an eyebrow lifted. He just shrugged, making a face that said who, me? I don't know what you're talking about.

I laughed as I took a seat in the copilot's chair.

”What?” Harris asked.

”Just Thresh. He's funny. I like him.”

Harris gave me an odd look. ”Thresh is funny? Since when?”

I waved it off. ”So. We're finally going home?”

”Well, to the Eliza eventually, but our route there will be a bit...circuitous. We're stopping in Miami first, and then to the Bahamas, and then eventually we'll take a chopper from St. Thomas to the s.h.i.+p. Gotta make sure we really lost them.”

”Think we have?” I asked.

He didn't answer right away. ”I don't know, honestly. I told you I'd never bulls.h.i.+t you, so I won't. You killed his best friend. I don't think we'll ever really lose Vitaly's guys until Vitaly is dead. ”

”Best friend?” I swallowed hard at that.

”Reports are Cut was the only person Vitaly trusted, his best friend since childhood.”

”So I just made things worse, didn't I?”

Harris glanced at me. ”You did what you had to do. That's all you need to worry about.”

I didn't like the sound of that.

And the fact that Harris stayed quiet as we flew out over the ocean, his brow pinched, worry on his features...didn't do much to rea.s.sure me.

Nor did the roiling uneasiness in my stomach.

We weren't out of the woods yet.

17.

”I LOVE YOU,” FINALLY After Brazil, Florida seemed relatively temperate. As soon as we landed-once again on a too-short landing strip in the middle of nowhere, Harris effortlessly bringing the big aircraft down with a single gentle b.u.mp and bark of the tires-Thresh, now clothed in a tight T-s.h.i.+rt and canvas boat shoes, jumped onto a waiting Harley and roared off without even waving at me.

There was a Hummer waiting for us, but it wasn't the civilian version, the watered down derivative. No, this was the military Hummer, huge, wide, tan, with a sloping rear roof and a brutally spartan interior.

Harris turned the engine over, and it made a rattling ba.s.s diesel growl. I buckled myself in and laughed as a thought occurred to me.

”What?” Harris asked.

”Just, you. I wish I knew how you do it.”

”Do what?”

”Magically procure guns and airplanes and military Hummers-”

”It's not a f.u.c.king Hummer,” he snapped, ”it's a Humvee. A Hummer is one of two things: a piece of s.h.i.+t civilian vehicle that shares literally no DNA with what I'm driving right now, or it's a b.l.o.w.j.o.b. This is a Humvee. It should never, ever, be called a Hummer.”

I widened my eyes. ”Yes sir,” I said, with a mock salute.