The Persian followed, nonplussed by any of it. It was as if she was taking a leisurely stroll down a well-lit park path.
“We made a lot of money together,” I said as a fresh tangle of branches brushed against my face, tearing off one of the scabs Denise’s fingernails had left behind during our less-than-Rockwellian reunion. “It’s a shame you’re throwing it all away to turn corporate shill for that bitch, Trish, and her Board of Directors. I never pegged you for the sellout type.”
“How much further?” she asked.
“Not much, I can hear the stream.”
It was actually closer than I thought, waiting for us on the other side of a dense clump of thicket. We reached it and took a moment to pick bits of twigs and leaves out of our hair.
“So, they give you dental?” I asked as I patted my coat to knock loose any lingering bits of debris. “Vacation, holiday pay. What’s their 401(k) match look like?”
“Where do we go from here?” she said.
“Like, in our relationship? I was thinking couple’s counseling but wasn’t sure if you’d be into it.”
The gun barrel was back at my chest.
“That way,” I pointed upstream, “about twenty feet. You never did have a sense of humor.”
She gestured the Desert Eagle in the direction I’d indicated.
“Okay, we need to work on using our words,” I said.
She raised the gun and drew a bead on a spot just above the bridge of my nose. “Move.”
“See, that wasn’t so hard,” I said, hands up. “Baby steps.”
We baby-stepped our way along the bank until she suddenly said, “Stop.”
“What?” I asked, turning around. The gun was still on me, but her eyes were everywhere else. Scanning the trees, the ground, upstream and down.
“Where are you taking us?”
“To the box. That’s what the money in the bag’s for, right?”
Her eyes, still dancing, finally settled on mine. It had taken longer than I anticipated for her to get anxious about our walk in the woods. Then again, maybe I should have been flattered that she was worried at all. When you’re not known for being a hero, no one ever expects you to do anything heroic. “You go get it, then bring it back to me,” she commanded.
“A little paranoid, aren’t we? Besides,” I said, pointing to the tree just ahead, “it’s right there.” She scanned our surroundings once more, with the trained precision of someone who can spot a sniper by a single glint of light off a filling in his tooth. Seeing nothing but still not happy, she got me going again with a shove.
We made it to the tree, and to the rock at its base, the one shaped roughly like Montana. “There you go,” I said, tapping it with my foot. The Persian looked at the rock, then back up at me.
“There what?” she asked.
“There’s what you’re looking for, the box. Well, underneath the rock, anyway.”
“And how do we get it out?”
I stared at her blankly, then blinked. “You didn’t bring a shovel?”
“No.” Her anxiety had been replaced by frustration.
“I can’t believe Trish didn’t tell you to bring a shovel. I specifically told her to remind you to bring a shovel. I remember saying, ‘Trish, tell Nima to use the bathroom before she leaves and have her bring—”
The gun was back on the spot above my nose, but this time she cocked the hammer. What little patience she had was wearing thin. “Dig it up.”
“With what?”
“Your hands.”
“Fine,” I sighed.
I bent down, lifted the rock, and hurled it at her gun. She saw it coming, but not quite fast enough. A second sooner and the bullet she fired would have blown out the back of my head, just like Ian, instead of ricocheting off the tree behind me. In that regard, the move worked.
Except in the sequence of events I ran through my mind a hundred times throughout the course of the day, the rock hit its target and knocked the gun out of her hand. Turns out highly paid assassins hold on to their weapons the same way highly paid running backs hold on to the football, which meant I had to resort to Plan B:
Run. Or more specifically, run like hell.
Her second shot hit the tree again, but by then I’d ducked behind it. The trunk was wide enough to cover me as I sprinted to the next tree further upstream. She put a bullet into that one too, right after I spun behind it.
That was three shots. She had six left.
There were more trees in front of me, but their trunks were thinner and made for inadequate cover. I darted right, into the tangle of brush, and felt her fourth shot whiz past my ear, snapping branches and shredding leaves. Shot five actually tore a hole in my jacket as it flapped next to me while I ran. I dove face first into the loose, wet dirt, and heard shot number six sail high where my back would have been.
Down to three. Holy shit, how did I not have any holes in me yet?
There was another large tree off to my right, about twenty yards away. I crawled on my hands and knees, hoping the combination of thick brush and poor lighting would provide cover long enough for me to make it to the oak undetected.
That’s when the flashlight beam hit me.
