Takedown (An Alexandra Poe Thriller) (33 page)

Guns came up and bullets began to fly.
 

Deuce cut through a doorway into the ballroom with Alex and Cooper at his heels, returning fire. Putting his head down, he plowed through the crowd of dancers, showing no mercy as he knocked them aside and headed across the room. More than once, he thought he heard the jangling of jewelry as they stumbled out of his way.

Guests started shouting and pushing at him, but he didn’t falter or slow down, determined to get to the front of the house before the weight of Valac’s body made it impossible to keep moving. He was running on pure adrenaline at this point, and he knew if they got out of this alive, he’d have one hell of a backache tomorrow.

Nearing the far side, they saw another of Valac’s men, a rodent-faced punk holding a FAMAS Infanterie assault rifle. Deuce tried to duck as the man scanned the crowd, but at his height and with Valac on his back, it was an impossible task. The punk spotted them and opened fire, shooting indiscriminately into the crowd. Around them, guests began to fall to the floor.

Holy shit,
Deuce thought.
This guy is out of his mind
.

With bullets dancing at his feet, Deuce dodged left and nearly plowed into Cooper as his friend raised his pistol and put a hole in the punk’s forehead.
 

Screaming in horror, the guests stampeded toward the exits, shoving at each other as they stumbled their way toward the front doors. Deuce, Alex, and Cooper used the pandemonium for cover, flowing with the crowd as Valac’s remaining men tried to fight their way toward them.

When they got outside, Cooper sprinted to the nearest limousine, threw the driver’s door open, dragged out the terrified driver, then leaned in and popped the trunk.
 

Deuce moved toward it as it swung open, and was only a few feet away when one of his legs finally gave out. With a groan, he buckled and fell onto the gravel driveway. His cargo tumbled across the grass, landing against one of the limo’s tires. If Deuce didn’t know Valac was tranked, he’d swear the guy was dead.

“Are you hit?” Alex said, dropping beside him.

“No. I’m okay. Help me up.”

Alex helped Deuce to his feet, and together they tossed Valac into the trunk and slammed it shut.
 

More shots rang out as the thugs broke free of the exiting crowd, bullets gouging the grass around Deuce and Alex’s feet. Alex raised her gun to return fire, but there were too many guests behind Valac’s men. She couldn’t risk a shot.

“Get in!” Cooper shouted as he started the engine.
 

The moment Alex and Deuce scrambled inside, Cooper hit the gas, the acceleration slamming their doors shut.
 

A cluster of shots punched the limo’s exterior and shattered the rear window as the car headed straight for the security gate. Hopefully, Valac hadn’t taken any of those hits, but if he had, Deuce wouldn’t lose much sleep over it.

Two rent-a-cops came flying out of the guard shack, waving their arms for Cooper to slow down, and Deuce felt the car pick up speed. The guards hurled themselves from Cooper’s path only seconds before the limo slammed through the security bar, shearing it right off its hinges.

The hit sent Alex flying sideways into Deuce.
 

She righted herself as Deuce shouted, “Dude, you want
me
to drive?”

But Alex knew Cooper couldn’t hear him. He was lost in the zone, the bulk of his brain matter focused on getting them the hell out of there. She’d seen him like this a hundred times in combat, a relentless blood-and-bone machine that would not rest until the job was done.

As Cooper rocketed down the winding drive, Alex checked their six and spotted two vehicles racing after them. Unfortunately, they weren’t limousines, or the usual fifty-year-old sedans St. Cajetan seemed to love so much. These were two black Jeep Patriots—an ironic name when you considered who was driving them.

One of Valac’s thugs leaned out a window of the first Jeep, gun in hand.

Alex shouted, “Down!” and pushed Deuce toward the floor as shots strafed the side of the limo.
 

She wondered if these idiots even knew they were putting Valac’s life in danger. If any of those bullets managed to pierce the trunk, that floatplane might wind up taking a corpse back to the US.

Another round of shots kept them pinned down as Cooper reached the end of the drive. As he jerked the wheel to make the wide turn onto the main highway, they were met with a long angry blast of the horn from a slow-moving ‘52 Cadillac heading straight at them. Cooper swerved to the side, missing the other car by inches, then righted them back onto the road and took off.

Seconds later, the first of the two Patriots came flying out of the driveway, whiffed the turn, and sank its nose into the rear flank of the Cadillac. Both cars went spinning, then the Patriot’s driver lost complete control and the Jeep went into a roll, two of its occupants flying out the windows and slamming against the blacktop in a burst of blood.

The driver of the second Patriot played it smarter, easing off the accelerator as the car went into the turn. Within seconds he was on their tail, close enough that Alex could see his pockmarked face and the grinning salamander on the seat next to him.

“These guys are going down,” Deuce said, and pointed his SIG Sauer out the rear window. But before he could get off a shot, the Jeep picked up speed and slammed into the rear of the limo, knocking him off balance.

Did these morons not know who was in the trunk?

As Deuce struggled to right himself, the Patriot glided into the oncoming lane and picked up speed again, pulling alongside them. With a whip of the wheel, the Jeep smashed into the side of the limo, causing it to veer toward the edge of the road as Cooper momentarily lost control.

“Oh, you are so gonna regret that move,” Alex said.

She brought her pistol up, shattered the passenger window with a bullet, then leaned out and emptied what was left of her magazine into the right front tire of the Jeep.

The tire exploded and sparks flew as the rim scraped blacktop and the Jeep swerved out of control.
 

Cooper hit the brakes, allowing the Jeep to careen past them, and the driver struggling to keep it steady, but it was no use. Less than a hundred feet ahead, the Jeep barreled off the highway and slammed into a ditch at the side of the road—an impact so brutal the Jeep seemed to fold in on itself, taking its passengers with it.

As Cooper once again sped up, Alex looked out the rear window, bracing herself for another round.

But to her relief, no one else appeared.

W
ARLOCK
WAS
WAITING
for them at the rendezvous point, a small secluded cove about a mile off the highway.

The floatplane sat on the glassy, moonlit surface of the water, its pilot standing on the dock, smoking a cigarette. He wasn’t a Stonewell employee, but a freelancer who was paid enough to know when to shut up and do his job.

Warlock emerged from the Buick as Cooper brought the limo to a stop. Cooper popped the trunk, and Deuce and Alex climbed out, and immediately went to check on Valac.

As they had expected, he was still out cold, and fortunately—or perhaps unfortunately—the only sign of physical damage was the bloody nose Alex had given him, which had started to crust up around his nostrils. He’d have trouble breathing through it for a while.

Deuce reached in and groaned as he lifted Valac by the shoulders.

“You wanna give me a hand?” he said to Warlock. “My back feels like somebody stuck a screwdriver in it.”

“Anything to hurry it up. Our pilot’s getting a bit antsy.”

Together, they pulled Valac the rest of the way out and dropped him to the ground. The asshole’s head cracked against it pretty hard, but none of them could muster up much sympathy.
 

Especially Alex.
 

After they dragged Valac onto the floatplane, she turned to Warlock and said, “Give me the keys to the Buick.”

“What?”

“The keys,” she said. “I need the keys.”

“Why?” Cooper asked.

She hesitated a moment. “I’m going back to the hotel.”

“
What
?”

“You heard me.”

“What the hell for?” Deuce said. “We can’t be waiting around while you take a joyride.”

“Deuce is right,” Cooper told her.

“Then go back to Key West without me. It’s only a short flight, so give the pilot a few extra bucks after you’ve landed and send him back for me. I should be done by then.”

“Done doing what?”

“Going to the hotel.”

Cooper sighed. “Alex, will you quit being so damn cryptic and tell us what you’re up to?”

“I’ll explain later.”

“Why do I doubt that?”

“Why does it matter?” she said. “There’s something I need to do. You remember when you told me you’re here whenever I need you?”

“Yes.”

“Well, right now, I need the keys to the car you rented.”

They all stared at her for a long moment, then Cooper said, “Warlock, give her what she wants.”

Warlock pulled out the keys and handed them to her, having sense enough not to make any cracks.

She turned to Deuce. “I’ll need a room key, too.”

He frowned. “I don’t know what you’re up to, but if you’re going back to that hotel right after we almost got our asses shot off, you’re gonna need company. I’m going with you.”

“No,” she told him. “I have to do this alone.”

“Alex…”

“I mean it, Deuce. I know you’re only trying to protect me, and God knows you had my back tonight, but if you try to tag along, I’ll have to hurt you.”

Deuce blew out a breath. “You’ve gotta be the most stubborn woman I’ve ever met.” He dug in his pocket and handed her his room card. “If you somehow manage to get yourself killed, I’m gonna have to track down your ghost and kill you all over again.”

“And I’ll help him,” Cooper said.

“Don’t worry. That won’t be necessary. This won’t take long.”

She started for the Buick, but Deuce stopped her. “Wait.”
 

She turned.

“You emptied that pop gun you’re carrying, right?”

She nodded.

He brought out his SIG, ejected the magazine, and replaced it with a fresh one. “Take this with you, just in case, and don’t tell me no.”

She took it from him without protest, crossed to the Buick, and got behind the wheel.

A few seconds later, she was on the road and gone.

T
HERE
WAS
NO
sign of any hostiles at the hotel. The drama that had unfolded at Pappy Leo’s mansion apparently hadn’t reached this part of the city yet. And even though Valac’s security men knew Alex’s face and name, she didn’t think she’d be running into them anytime soon.

One way or another, Uncle Eric would see to that.

As she rode the elevator to her floor, the other passengers kept staring at her. It annoyed her at first, until she realized she must look like hell. Her dress was torn, her hair was a mess, and after rolling around on Latham’s office floor trying to keep from being killed, she was pretty sure she had rug burns on her face, not to mention Favreau’s blood on her clothes.

When she got to her suite and stepped inside, it seemed as if a decade had passed since she’d last been there. She was tired. More tired than she could ever remember.

She looked in the living room and saw Warlock’s cart with three abandoned monitors sitting atop it. All other evidence of their planning had been cleared away and destroyed shortly before they’d left for the party.

But Alex didn’t want to waste time thinking about that. The job was done, Valac had been caught, and once she was finished here, she could leave this island forever. First, though, she needed to change her clothes, grab what she came for, and get back to the rendezvous point.

She pulled off her dress and dropped it to the floor as she crossed to the bedroom and flicked on the light. She ripped at the Velcro holding the tactical holster to her right thigh and tossed the rig onto the bed, along with her P380 and Deuce’s SIG.
 

Her underwear was a sweaty mess, so she stepped out of it, too, then looked over at the dresser for the item she’d come to retrieve:

Her hotel key card, or, more accurately, Favreau’s counterfeit card that contained the GPS coordinates.

There was only one problem.

It wasn’t there.

Alex could have sworn she had tossed it there once she realized it didn’t work. She moved to the dresser for a closer look, lifting up one of the hotel’s tourist maps and a room service menu, but the key card was nowhere in sight.

She opened the top drawer and rifled though the pairs of shorts Stonewell had sent to her, but still no card.

An uneasy feeling started to grow in her gut. And just as she was convinced she was either crazy or it had been stolen, she saw it lying on the carpet next to the dresser.

She let out a breath, then picked it up and carefully inspected the corners for the tiny nick Favreau had made.