Killing Time (One-Eyed Jacks) (34 page)

He slid his gaze over the three of them, all that was left of the One-Eyed Jacks. That’s what they’d been—his boys, and he couldn’t help but feel a small twinge of regret. They’d been the best team he’d ever had, and they’d been their own worst enemies.

“You were too good,” he told them. “You couldn’t keep your heads down and ignore what needed to be ignored. It was a simple deal: drugs and guns. Lawson and I delivered the guns, and the Afghani warlords delivered the opium. But you guys”—he shook his head, and a small grin curved his mouth—“you guys just kept screwing their pooch. I don’t want you to think I gave you up. There wasn’t a choice to be made. It was purely a question of logistics. You had to go.”

“OSD was a setup from the get-go,” Mike concluded.

“And your own Salinas lead you into the trap.”

“Why not just kill all of us that night?” Cooper looked genuinely puzzled. “You knew we were out there hiding.”

“Ah, that was the genius of the plan. We could have killed you, yes, but then how did we explain what happened? Nothing like a whodunit to bring on a major investigation.”

“So you deflected the attention to us. Put the blame on us for killing those civilians.”

Brown always had been intelligent.

Brewster nodded. “Which got Karzai good and riled. He put pressure on the White House. Told the President that if he wanted to maintain any kind of presence in the region, he needed to pull all Spec Ops teams out or he’d blow this incident up in the international press to the point where it looked like Abu Ghraib all over again.”

“How’d you get it buried from the media?” Taggart wanted to know.

“Same way every potential political bombshell gets buried. Money. Karzai made out like a bandit. Plus he got his warlords off his back when the Spec Ops teams were booted—which was exactly what Lawson and I wanted. It got you out of our hair so we could continue to run our opium pipeline without interference.”

None of them had anything to say to that.

“If you had just left it alone”—he turned back to Eva—“everything would have stayed status quo. You’d all still be alive tomorrow.”

“Then why did you leak the OSD file to me?”

He frowned, puzzled, then let out a soft chuckle. “Someone leaked the OSD file? To you? God, that’s what set this whole thing off? Well, that explains a lot. Leak the file? No, that wasn’t me. Though now that I know someone’s playing fast and loose with information I had made certain was buried . . . well, when I find out who did it, they’ll be as dead as you’re about to be. And that’s the irony, isn’t it? Apparently they thought they were doing you a favor. Instead, they signed your death warrant along with their own.”

“So why are we still alive? Why not get it over with?”

Taggart. Always impatient, to his own detriment.

Brewster looked at the men who had once been under his command and actually felt regret. “Don’t worry. We will. But right now we have pressing business that can’t wait.”

Lawson’s walkie-talkie squawked, then a disem-bodied voice crackled over the radio. “ETA on the chopper, five minutes.”

“Stand by,” Lawson said into the radio, then looked at Brewster and nodded. “We need to cut this little reunion short. Our guests are about to arrive.”

“Your pressing business?” Cooper was insolent as ever.

“ ’Fraid so. Duty calls,” Brewster told them, then
regarded them with a regretful look. “I know you don’t believe this, but I am sincerely sorry about the way this turned out.”

Cooper, Taggart, and Brown all looked at him, looked at each other, then as one, lifted their bound hands and flipped him twin birds.

Arrogant bastards. “And that attitude, gentlemen, is exactly why you’re going to die.”

The silence that fell over their prison after Brewster and his entourage left could have filled a football stadium. It lasted all of five seconds before Taggart cut it off at the knees.

“Let’s get the fuck out of here. Steak dinner to the first one out of the cuffs.”

“You are
so
buying.” Cooper flashed a grin full of arrogance and attitude. “Sixteen ounces minimum. Not one of those baby cuts.”

Like old times, Mike thought, going to work on the plastic straps binding his wrists. They’d felt invincible once, and found out the hard way that they were far from it. But their lives weren’t going to end here. Not like this. No way. Not like rats in a cage.

Jesus. Brewster. He still couldn’t believe it. The man had been a verifiable hero in the Spec Ops community. He’d had the chops, done the deeds, and he’d made good, all the way to a three star—and then he’d gone bad. So fucking bad.

But there was no time for that now. He had to
get Eva out of this rat hole, and to do that
he
had to get out.

Thwup, thwup, thwup.
They all heard it at the same time and everybody looked toward the vaulted ceiling. Chopper. A big one.

“The nice men from Mexico must have arrived.” Cooper looked grim. “Sounds like a Shithook.”

Eva scowled. “A what?”

“A civilian version of the CH-47 Chinook,” Mike explained. “Big bird. Can carry a lot of cargo.” Like guns, they all thought, but didn’t voice.

“We’ve gotta boogie.”

It had to be over a hundred degrees in the small, airless room. Sweat ran down Mike’s forehead, burning like fire when it trickled into the cuts on his face, as he went back to work on the flex cuffs.

“Winner and new champeen,” Cooper crowed in a whisper as he lifted his hands, free of the restraints.

“I’ll make sure you get a medal,” Mike grumbled. “If my friend Simmons hadn’t tried to beat my face into hamburger, you’d still be second best.”

“Nice try, but your face has nothing to do with ditching the cuffs.” Cooper went to work on Mike’s cuffs. “Did sort of improve the way you look, though. Too bad you’ve lost your edge.”

As soon as Mike was free, Cooper helped Taggart finish up. Mike helped Eva.

“You up for this?” she asked as she worked the circulation back into her hands.

He got why she was concerned about him. One
eye was swollen shut, he could barely see out of the other, his lips were busted up, and he couldn’t draw a deep breath without gasping. Probably had a couple of bruised ribs, maybe broken.

“
Chica.
” His tone was tender yet chiding as he touched a hand to her cheek. “You have to ask?”

“Macho to the end,” she whispered.

“Anyone have any brilliant ideas?” Cooper glanced around the room, brows raised hopefully.

Taggart grunted. “Asked the man with the highest IQ. We rely on
you
for brilliance.”

“Ambush?” Mike suggested, staring up at the rafters.

Taggart looked up, too; checked out the electrical wire running from the switch by the door to the overhead light tacked to the center rafter. “I like it.”

“What do you want to bet there’s a big pomp and circumstance meet and greet going on right now?” Taggart wandered around the room looking for anything they might be able to use as a screwdriver.

“First deal with the cartel?” Mike grunted. “Hell, yeah. Brewster’s going to want to show them all around the facility, show ’em the guns, let them test them out. Make sure they know this is an operation that delivers. That there will be more deals in the future.”

“The kitchen staff has been working on something for days,” Eva said. “I didn’t put it together at the time, but they must have been getting a feast ready for this meeting.”

“So we probably have until after the shindig before Brewster sends the ice bitch for us,” Cooper speculated.

“That woman was flat-out spooky.”

Mike agreed with Taggart. “Wiki wiki, people. No time to waste.”

They spent the next few hours working out the details of their escape plan, gathering weapons, and waiting for dark, when they would have their greatest advantage.

Eva had found a rusty nail in the corner on the floor, and as night began to fall they got to work, with Taggart using the nail to quietly unscrew the switch plate from the light switch.

On Taggart’s nod, Mike let out a bellow—“Simmons! I need to
pee,
man”—to cover the sound of Taggart ripping the wires loose from the box.

“Go piss up a rope,” Simmons shouted back.

“If you really cared about me, you’d bring me a beer,” Mike wheedled, which netted him a “fuck you.”

“He loves me,” Mike mouthed around a grin that made him wince in pain.

With the electrical wire loose from the switch plate and the room effectively without a light source, Taggart gave Cooper a boost up. He grabbed onto the rafters, pulled himself up, then, agile as a monkey and quiet as a shadow, swung up until he was straddling the middle rafter. He scooted toward the center and unscrewed the lightbulb from the porcelain base. Then he tossed the bulb down to Taggart, who whipped off his T-shirt
and wrapped it around the bulb to muffle the sound of the glass he was about to break. After another nod to Mike, who started badgering Simmons again, he cracked the bulb against the floor.

They now had a knife. The jagged glass was thin and could never land a killing blow, but it could still cause a lot of pain if twisted directly into an eye socket, an ear, or a hand.

Using the same rusty nail Taggart had used on the light switch, Cooper went to work loosening the individual staples that secured the electrical wire to the rafters.

“Taking too long,” he whispered. “Give me a distraction.”

Taggart walked over to the door and started pounding and swearing a blue streak. Cooper gave the wire several hard, swift tugs. Staples popped like popcorn as the wire broke free all along the rafter and down the wall studs.

“My friend has a temper,” Mike pointed out when Taggart wound down. “You really don’t want to see him mad.”

“You don’t zip it,” Simmons growled back, “I’m coming in there and shutting you up.”

Cooper still straddled the rafter, working the nail into the screws holding the porcelain light fixture. He finally got it loose and tossed it down to Eva. The fixture was heavy and round, and since it was still attached to one end of the twelve-plus feet of electrical cord, it would make a helluva projectile missile if swung with enough velocity.

“Okay,” Mike said, barely able to make out their silhouettes in the dark, hot room. “Let’s do this. No shots fired, if at all possible, or we’ll have the entire camp on our asses.”

“Places, everyone.” Cooper softly clapped his hands together.

Taggart gave him a look. “Who are you, Cecil B. DeMille?”

Grinning, Cooper shimmied forward so he was hanging directly over the door.

Eva and Taggart, each gripping one end of the electrical wire that they’d strung low just inside the threshold, squatted on either side of the door.

They all glanced at each other in the thickening dark, just barely able to see as four thumbs went up in the air.

This was it.

“Oh, Simmmooonnns,” Mike sing-songed, doing his damnedest to irritate the hotheaded guard. He’d planted himself on the floor, legs stretched out in front of him at the far wall, dead center with the door so he’d be the first thing Simmons saw when he burst inside. If he played this hand right, the knuckle-dragger would be blinded by rage. “I know you’re out there, big guy. Got a question for you.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Simmons grated through the door.

Mike grinned, regretted it when his split lip let him know it wasn’t happy.

“Oh, come on. Don’t be a Mr. Cranky Pants. Just
got a couple questions. Lawson ever share any of his high-priced scotch with you? Man of your stature, seems he’d pony up some of that private stock. He shared with me, after all.”

Silence. Oh, yeah. Simmons was simmering in the stew Mike was dishing up. Mike loved baiting this guy.

“But, hell, there’re probably other perks. Gotta be to make up for tonight, right? I mean . . . important man like you, pulling a shit job like babysitting duty? Shame you’re missing the big shindig and all. Doesn’t that bug you? Seems like you should be out there rubbing elbows with the cartel. They should know what a key player you are.”

“If you don’t shut the fuck up, I’m coming in there. I’ve had it with your smart-ass digs.”

“Never have figured out your official title,” Mike went on, ignoring him. “Bootlicker in chief? Supreme bootlicker? What’s he pay you to do that, anyway? And do you get bonuses for all that ass kissing?”

A chair scraped against raw wood.

A key rattled in the lock.

The door swung open, and there stood Simmons in all his pissed-off glory. “I told you to shut up,” he said, planted like a tree in the doorway.

“Ask me nice.” Mike made a kissing sound.

Predictable to the end, Simmons roared, storming into the room, and Taggart and Eva snapped the electrical wire tight.

Simmons tripped midstride, landing flat on his face.
Taggart was on him like sweat on a hog. He jammed his knee between Simmons’s shoulder blades with all of his weight, grabbed his jaw in one hand, the back of his head in his other, and jerked hard right. Simmons was dead before Taggart jumped off of him and dragged his carcass to the side of the room.