“Fuck,” I said. “Why did you get to keep yours?!”
Shots seven and eight kicked up bits of mud on my right and left, and that’s when it dawned on me. She wasn’t missing because she suddenly forgot how to aim, she was missing because she needed me alive in case I was lying about the location of the box.
Her goal wasn’t to kill me, just to slow me down. Turns out my bullet-dodging Matrix skills were not as advanced as I initially thought. Armed with a bit of extra confidence from this epiphany, I got to my feet and sprinted for the tree.
Almost made it, too.
Shot nine ripped another hole in my jacket, but this one took a chunk of my shoulder with it. I screamed and slid behind the massive trunk. About fifty feet away was a hunter’s perch, ten feet off the ground. I eyeballed it, gauging the distance. It lit up, or at least half of it did, as her flashlight beam fell on the tree at my back. I heard her release the spent Desert Eagle magazine and slam in a new one.
“I’d turn that light off if I were you!” I shouted.
“And why is that?” she asked.
The shots came almost simultaneously. There would be much debate afterward, but based on the brief muzzle flash I saw, the first originated from the hunter’s perch. It hit her in the chest, and would have been enough to finish the job on its own. I didn’t see shots two and three, but I saw their results. It wasn’t pretty. One punched straight through her neck, and the other entered her back and got lodged in her lung, causing blood to bubble out through both her mouth and the newly formed tunnel in her throat.
Nima’s eyes were open as she fell to the ground. The flashlight was still on, illuminating the ground in a widening cone from where it landed next to her. My shadow fell long behind me as I walked up to her and picked it up. I flicked it off, then shook it in her face.
“Makes you an easy target,” I said. I’ll never know for sure if she heard me before everything in her world went permanently dark, but I like to pretend she did. It’s a nice thought to hold on to.
That nice thought dissolved like powder in my stomach when I saw the phone in her hand. The four digit code that had been there back at the start of the trail, the one that would detonate the suicide vests strapped to Jimmy Ramirez’s little girls, was gone.
And her dead thumb was covering the Send button.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
John Stanton, who had been in the hunter’s perch, was the first to reach me. He was a rail of a man, his elongated face hidden beneath a layer of black face paint.
“Made that a little harder than it had to be, didn’t you?” he said as he slapped me on my wounded shoulder.
I winced and held up my finger as I dialed my phone, fingers trembling. The video stream still showed the two girls sitting on the floor, the vest very much unexploded, but that didn’t mean anything. The video had been playing on a loop for the last two hours.
“Pick up, pick up, pick up, you old son of a bitch.”
When he did, I let out a long exhale and wiped my hand across my forehead.
“Jesus Christ, Frank, you scared the shit out of me,” I said. “What took you so long to answer?”
“Sorry,” came Frank Cochran’s grandfatherly voice, “me and the girls were just finishing up a game of Candy Land.”
“Oh yeah, who won?”
“Laila won this round, and Lexi won the first two, but they cheat.”
I heard giggling in the background. Not the same giggles that came after they gave Maggie the world’s worst makeover, but good to hear nonetheless, especially given their current circumstances. “Too bad they don’t play poker, you could cheat them right back.”
“I might just have to teach them,” he said, his smile coming through loud and clear over the phone. “What were you so worried about anyway? You know I disarmed the vests hours ago.”
On my way to the Poconos, I’d made a few calls. Some were to arrange the group of hitters that had just taken out The Persian, Mr. Stanton here and two others I’d worked with during my early days. The other was to Frank, the only person I knew within a hundred miles of Jimmy Ramirez’s place that could observe his house without The Persian getting suspicious. After all, who would look twice at a cable repair guy nearing retirement age? The Comcast jumpsuit had been in the back of the old van when the cable company sold it to Enzo’s for scrap. Frank had hung on to both, liking the easy cover they provided if he ever needed it. After Nima left, I told him to enter the house. I thought it unlikely she’d be working with anyone who’d be standing sentry—Nima always operated alone—but told him to be wary of booby traps. There weren’t any, but he quickly spotted both the webcam and the two frightened young girls on the floor that it was pointed at.
“Can you disarm the vests?” I’d asked when he called to give me the lowdown.
“She’s using an older model TR-580 remote detonator. I’ve sold more of these in the last five years than I can count. Lots of wires strung between them meant to spook any amateur heroes, but anyone who knows what they’re doing can disable it in less than five minutes.”
It had taken Frank three. After he was done, I told him to stay with the girls until I called with the all clear.
“I know you claimed you disarmed them Frank,” I said now, “but until I knew for sure—”
“Until you knew for sure there was some doubt that old Frank had lost his touch, huh?” He sounded mad, but I knew he was just busting my stones.
“I don’t know what I was thinking,” I said. “You sure you won’t let me pay you?”
“For helping out these two little angels and getting me out of the house during the wife’s Scrabble party with that group of cackling old biddies? Not a chance. Happy to do it. Still need me to stick around?”
“Nope, Frank the Comcast Cable Repairman can call the police and let them contact Jimmy’s ex-wife so she can come be with her daughters until their daddy gets home.”
“I can do that.”
“Stick around in that old van until they get there, though, if you don’t mind.” I doubted the cops in the sleepy little Philly suburb of Ardmore were on Trish’s payroll, but the whole experience had my nerves on high alert. “There’ll be a six pack of beer in it for you, and I won’t hear any arguments about it.”
“Now that’s a fee I won’t say no to.”
“Don’t forget to take the looping equipment off the webcam before you go.”
“I may be old, Ricky, but I ain’t that old.”
Now it was my turn to smile, “See you around, Frank.” I hung up and turned to Stanton.
“What was that all about?” he asked.
