The Five (50 page)

It has been a challenging hunt. Tracking them from city to city, driving past the clubs, marking where they stay, and being very careful not to let those men in the Yukons get a good look at him. He has not been trained for nothing. He knows his business, and he is a prince of his profession. A hero. The Bronze Star says so, and so does Mr. Salazar.

Gunny thinks very highly of him too.

Jeremy wears his Triple-T Truck Stop ball cap. He has taken his sunglasses off, the better to acquire his targets through the scope. The sunglasses had belonged to Grandmother America. They didn’t look like an old lady’s sunglasses, they were pretty cool. In the Accord’s locked glovebox he’d found a hundred and sixty dollars in a bank withdrawal envelope. Why did they call it a ‘glovebox’? Just wondering; it had been on his mind during the long drive from Tucson to San Diego. Gunny had occupied the backseat on part of that drive, but he had no opinion.

Now, Jeremy sees that they’ve gotten out of the van into that building. He feels a pressure here, because even though this place is a perfect shooting gallery—except for that van being in the way—somebody may come along at any minute and that would not be pretty. So he does feel a pressure. He felt that same pressure when he saw the van and the trailer go off the highway and he figured he’d better drive on a distance since the van was just sitting there, he didn’t want to spook them, but then the next chance to turn around had been fifteen fucking miles west because a trooper got behind him and to cross the sandy median would have made him visible.

So here they are. He has just shifted his position a dozen yards, and it paid off because the different angle gave him a clear shot at the guy with the skinned head. He thinks that was a good shot, right through a lung. He’s waiting for the man with the .38 pistol to get out. Okay… okay…here he comes, out the window the others shimmied through. And now he’s leaning over trying to help the guy on the ground. The pistol in his right hand. Little piece of shit.

Jeremy sights and fires, just to let that man know what he thinks of the pistol, and he sees the man’s right elbow explode and the pistol drop from the shot-stunned fingers.

Bite that, motherfucker, Jeremy thinks.

Oh, here comes the long-hair. The lead singer. Running out of the building. Jeremy wants to know if that dude, that fucking Nomad, thinks he’s walking on a street under a burning sun. If he thinks that his blood is red, white, and blue.

“Hope they bury you where the grass is green,” Jeremy says to the image in his scope. His finger is on the trigger.

Nomad has emerged from the building to help the man with the shattered elbow, whose arm is out of the action, Jackson. Now they both try to help the skinhead. Terry, that’s his name. Spitzenfucken or something. Terry is up on his knees. They are trying to get him on his feet. Now, look at this: here comes the hippie chick to help, and the drummer girl stands at the edge of sun and shadow for a few seconds and then she comes out too, and Jeremy can hear their voices drifting toward him, telling each other to hurry.

He has a shot right on Nomad’s head. Right between the eyes.

Gunny tells him to hit the hippie first. Gunny has gotten very troubled about that girl, though he won’t say exactly why. He says hit her
now
, stupid!

Jeremy has a shot, but he hesitates.

Say what you will, those people are not Blue Falcons.

They’ve almost gotten Terry standing.

Jeremy shifts his aim and sends another bullet into Terry’s back, and as Terry falls on his belly again and the others are frozen in shock Jeremy resights on the hippie chick’s head but the drummer girl has her by the arm and is dragging her toward the building, and—shit, that bitch must be strong, because she’s picking the hippie up and running with her the last few feet.

Then Nomad gets his head under the man’s broken arm and drags his ass into the building too, and Jeremy fires twice more into the shadows that have covered them.

It is time to reload.

Gunny asks what he thinks he’s doing. Gunny sometimes doesn’t seem to understand who is in charge here. Gunny doesn’t appreciate patience or understand that you can respect the bad guys, no matter how bad they are. Jeremy knows he would have been an outstanding gunnery sergeant, if they’d given him the chance. He would have been an example for the men. Of how you fight back from adversity. How you never say die.

Only they didn’t want him, did they?

No, Gunny is quick to remind him. They did not. He tells Jeremy to get his mind back on his business, and that he is going to have to go down there and finish the job with the .45 that is tucked in his jeans. And he is going to have to go down like right
now
, because this is what you call a Mexican standoff, except for the fact that Jeremy has two guns and the man who had one gun now has a broken arm and is bleeding torrents, so
move
before somebody comes along that road.

Jeremy wants to know what’s so special about that hippie chick. She’s a fucking
girl
, and maybe she’s a liar and dark-spirited, but why is she so
special
?

Gunny tells him that it’s over his head, that he’s on a mission he needs to finish before he can start his new life in Mexico. That he just needs to go down there and kill
her
, and then he can leave the rest of them to rot, as far as he cares.

But
why
? Jeremy wants to know. What’s the big deal about her?

Gunny seems a little agitated. A little pissed, really. He looks like he wants to spit blood and fire.

It’s about the war
, he says.

Yeah, Jeremy knows that already. It’s about that lying video. About the lies that say we went over there and killed children. Just shot them right out of their shoes. Shot them
knowing
it was murder. And then came back over here and didn’t tell a single solitary soul, because we were good guys, loyal and patriotic, and that’s not something you can talk about, not even to your buddy who does nothing but offer you an empty smile from his wheelchair at the Veteran’s Hospital in Temple.

Nice day for a white wedding
.

Yes it is, he thinks.

Jeremy stands up like a soldier. He begins walking through the rocks toward the road, and the building beyond. He is hot and thirsty and ready to finish his mission. With two more strides he goes
crash
into the first moment of the rest of his life and he walked to the white car. He held the rifle at the ready, and his other hand went under his shirt to touch the automatic pistol. He could feel Gunny, walking at his side. He passed the skinhead, lying on his belly alongside the crumpled van. Where was the pistol? It had fallen somewhere around here.

One of the others must’ve picked it up. He drew his .45 and, holding it ready before him, he eased toward the building, step after step. Gunny was beside him, and Gunny began to chatter about killing the girl like an excited kid on his way to a carnival.

< >

Terry heard music. It was himself, playing ‘A Whiter Shade Of Pale’ on the Vox Continental. He was hurting. He was fading in and out, like a broken speaker. His wires were severely damaged. But oh, that music he could hear. He knew he was dying, but if he could hear music to the very last…then what was death, but an all-access pass to a bigger stage?

But this thing underneath him, whatever it was, hurt like fucking hell.

It was underneath his left side, pressing into his ribs.

He slowly shifted his body. His breathing gurgled like the pipes in a motel he remembered. He felt under himself to move that hard pain so he could listen to the music in peace, and his hand fell upon something metal. His fingers made out what it was: True’s pistol.

He was aware of someone moving past him. Walking toward the building where his friends had gone. It was a man wearing a ball cap. It took Terry a few seconds to focus because his Lennon specs were gone and everything was blurry and turning red, but he could make out that the man was carrying a rifle and a handgun.

Terry thought he didn’t have a whole lot of time or a whole lot of strength left. But maybe he was where he needed to be, when he needed to be there. He put his hand on the grip and found the trigger.

He sucked in his breath and rolled over to bring the gun up, and as the man caught the movement and started to turn Terry squeezed the trigger just as he used to do on the firing range in Oklahoma City. The bullet went in low on the left side, a few inches away from the spine, and when he felt the jagged ripping pain Jeremy knew he was in deep shit, because it had been a killing shot. He staggered, and he heard Gunny give a sigh of exasperation, as if this was the stupidest thing that could ever have happened in the world, but Jeremy thought Gunny had been too busy crowing about killing that girl to be watching his back.

Terry tried to pull the trigger again, but his finger and hand would not obey. His arm gave it up too. The pistol fell to the ground. Jeremy walked to him, more angry at Gunny than anything else. He thrust the .45 out at Terry’s face, about to blow the head apart, and then he saw Terry faintly smile and Terry’s eyes glaze over as he died.

Fucker looked like he was hearing something that could not be heard.

Gunny told him to get in there and finish it, because now he knew where the gun was.
Kill the girl
, Gunny said.
Okay, kill them all, but kill the girl
first.

Jeremy nodded. He could feel the blood running out of him. His shirt was wet back there. Maybe a nicked artery. Sonofabitch. Fucking
amateur
had gotten off a pro shot. He wanted to laugh, but he feared he might start crying, and that was not how he wanted to go out. Besides, he did have the mission to finish. But he wasn’t getting to Mexico in this lifetime. Neither in this lifetime would he be working for the
federales
, or have a house on the beach, or find a new career as a hit man, or be much of anything in a very short while.

He did cry, just a few tears. He was crying when he walked to the edge of sun and shadow, and he saw them in there because they had nowhere else to go. Most of the roof had fallen in and the timbers and rubble blocked the way to the windows at the rear. The man with the shattered elbow was lying with his back against the stones, his face bleached by pain, a glass cut bleeding over his right eye, one arm supporting the shattered elbow. His polo shirt used to be white. The drummer girl was beside him, her eyes fixed upon Jeremy with terror. In her hand was a rock, like she was about to throw it. He said, “Don’t do that.” His voice sounded distant.

Nomad shifted his position. He was standing where he’d been desperately trying to dig through the debris to one of the windows, but it was hopeless. His right ankle had twisted as he’d tried to support Terry, and had twisted more severely when he’d helped True. Beside him was Ariel, her hands scraped and dirty from working at the same mound of rubble.

Jeremy sighed. He decided he would not finish them with the pistol after all. They were not Blue Falcons, and so he would take them out with respect. The pistol was so ugly, but the rifle was a work of art. He pushed the .45 into his jeans, and touched the wound at his back. His hand came back looking like a crimson glove. He chambered a round and saw with disgust that he was getting blood all over his weapon.

On the ground, True said hoarsely, “Jeremy. Sergeant Pett.
No
.”

< >

Kill the
girl
first, Gunny instructed, as if Jeremy had forgotten already.

Ariel had realized two things: Jeremy Pett was probably bleeding to death from the wound Terry had delivered, and he was going to kill them all.

Those were the facts. Another fact was: she knew what had brought him here.

Though her knees trembled and she peed a little bit in her panties, Ariel stepped forward.

“You want me,” she said.

Because it was the truth, and it was the only way.

“Ariel!” Nomad reached for her and limped after her but she didn’t even look at him. When he grasped her shoulder and tried to turn her to face him, she pushed him back.

“Yes, you do,” she told Jeremy. Her voice was calmer, now that she’d decided. She could look him right in the eyes and accept it. “I am what you want to kill. You and whatever’s with you.”

“Shit,” he said, amazed. “That’s Gunny. Can you
see
him?”

Ariel said. “I’ll go with you, out of here. If you kill me, would you let my friends live?”

A
trick
, Gunny said with a wary sneer.
Kill her where she stands
.

But Jeremy, who felt his time streaming from him, frowned and said, “Maybe.”

“No way! No way!” Berke’s face was streaked with tears. She stood up, still gripping her rock.

It had occurred to Ariel that if she could get him far enough away from the others, even if he killed her—
when
he killed her—he might not be able to get back.

“I’m ready,” Ariel told Jeremy. Her voice threatened to crack; she wouldn’t allow it. “The thing that’s with you wants me dead. So if you need to do that, I’m ready. I’m just asking you…
please
, to let my friends live.”

A
trick
, Gunny repeated.

< >

Nomad picked up a board with nails sticking out of it. His face was gray and bits of glass were caught in his hair. He tensed, about to lunge forward as fast as he could—
if
he could—and start swinging. Ariel saw Jeremy’s bleary eyes fix on him, and she said quietly, “John,
don’t
.”

She came closer to Jeremy Pett. She came right up next to him. She looked into his face without fear, and she said the three hardest words she’d ever spoken in her life.

“Walk with me.”

She reached out to take his bloody hand, and to guide him away from her family.

Jeremy stepped back.

Something is wrong here, he thought.