“Naughty girl, hoodwinking my poor guards,” Borgola said.
She closed her eyes as she felt his cold hands on her neck. With an awful certainty, she knew she would end up in that glass nails coffin thing with the nails poking into her. Would she die from bleeding to death, or from the nails piercing through the soft tissues of her brain? Or maybe the nails were staggered; maybe they stuck in a person at different rates, designed to prolong life and misery.
Maybe
. Hell, of course they would be.
Stop thinking about it.
He was saying something to her about operations, his inside man in the Association, whatever that was. She felt the prick of a knife at the side of her throat, the top of her shirt. She could feel the drip of blood tickle downward. She gazed calmly into his eyes, which were cold as pickled herring. Everything felt surreal, like none of it was really happening. But nothing
was
really happening yet. A man was talking at her. Men talked at her all the time. A prick of a knife, but that’s all it was.
You’re okay,
she thought to herself.
He was asking her about Cole now. It would be so very convenient for him that she’d gotten caught. A diversion.
“Don’t answer,” he hissed. “I’ve worked with Cole Hawkins long enough to know what he is. He’s a good soldier but not the brightest bulb in the box.”
Not the brightest bulb in the box. It seemed weird that Borgola would use a cliché that millions had used before, that millions would use in the future, but here he was, using it when he was about to film her torture and death.
She couldn’t deal with his eyes anymore, so she stared past his ear. If she was going to get out of this, it would be through calm; not panic. She was cool under pressure, but she’d never been cool in the limelight. Cole had been right about that.
“Maybe you even fed him the information about the Malibu heist. Worked to let the clues fall into his lap. He told me he’d solved the mystery himself, but I think you led him to it by his dick, am I right?” He frowned at her. He didn’t like her not talking. “Don’t bother playing dumb. You’re not here for the diamonds.”
She worked her throat, trying to swallow without him being able to see. She’d never wanted to hide so badly, and she’d never been in a situation where the option was so completely absent.
“I knew the Association was sniffing around.” He brought his mouth close to her ear. “I know all, honey. And soon I’ll know things about you even you never knew. Inside and out. And so will my camera.”
She shuddered as he removed the knife and went to the other side of her, pressed it to her cheek. “Sure didn’t think the Association would send me a tasty
chunga
. Their mistake; you weren’t quite fast enough or good enough. But you certainly are fuckable.”
The Association? Associates? What was he talking about?
The guard handed him the phone. “No transmittal, no photos.”
Borgola wore a little puff of a frown. “So what’s the game plan?”
She kept her mouth shut. It would go bad for her no matter what. He slapped her cheek. She closed her eyes against the sting.
“You didn’t transmit. You didn’t photograph anything. You didn’t take anything. Is it all up here?” He drew a finger over her forehead. “Do you Associates have photographic memories? Is that one of the prerequisites for bringing down big bad wolves like me?”
Bringing him down? An Associate? Is that what Cole was?
“But the Association can’t help you against me now,” Borgola whispered. “You’re in no-extraction territory. And those students on my ship are going to die. Sorry you couldn’t save them. But their deaths won’t be in vain. Their deaths will be motherfucking spectacular—in the original sense of the word.
Spectacles
to behold.” He smiled a creepy smile. “Just as yours will be.”
Borgola was planning to film a bunch of kids being raped and killed, just the way he would film her.
Cole had been so motivated—willing to throw her overboard, but just as willing to jump overboard himself, it had seemed. Was it about saving some kids? Was that why he’d kept on, even when the odds looked bad? Had she been wrong about everything? Her chest felt thick with something like grief. Would those students at least be safe now?
“So you can tell Dax that,” he added, as though that was significant. “You can tell Dax that I’ll make it my personal mission to dismantle the Association agent by agent. Or, excuse me, associate by associate. Oh, actually you can’t tell him, can you?”
Borgola hated the Association; that was clear. Angel decided right there that if he hated the Association, then she was all for it.
And she decided then that she would never tell on Cole. Borgola thought Cole was her dupe, and she’d let him think it. Cole didn’t deserve it, but keeping Borgola ignorant might well help those students. It wasn’t a big sacrifice—she was dead either way unless she turned the situation around.
The decision gave her a curious sense of peace. Strength, even.
She was doing something constructive, maybe even helping to save lives. She’d always loved helping people, she thought with a kind of baffled shock. Why hadn’t she done it more? It was the part she most enjoyed about doing people’s homes. The helping-Aunt-Aggie aspect was why she’d let Macy and White Jenny pull her out of retirement so easily.
“So how exactly did you hoodwink Cole? And where is Dax?”
She sucked in a breath, reminding herself that her silence might help some kids. It felt good, like something real to hold onto. And the strangest feeling came over her; it was as if, for the first time in her life, she located something real and good and important inside herself.
It was as if, at that moment, she located herself.
“You’ll tell me after we play awhile. You’ll tell me for the smallest of favors. A moment of relief.”
Borgola took back his camera and instructed one of the guards—Jeb—to cut off her shirt. “From the collar. Slowly. Don’t get too much skin but…” he licked his lips at her. “A man gets messy. You know how it is. Or, you will.” His lips turned up in a sick little smile. She knew what he was doing—he wanted her scared. She wouldn’t give him that. She would give him nothing.
She thought about her mother and father, her
abuela
and her brother. Macy and White Jenny. Her people gave her strength.
Jeb sawed at the collar of her shirt, began slowly to slit it down. She had her teeth and her forehead as her weapons at present. Borgola was standing pretty far out of range, and even Jeb was being cautious as he worked at her shirt, but one of them would get close eventually, and she would head butt him or rip out his jugular with her teeth, and it would kill him. It would be a start.
“Freeze.” Borgola lowered the camera. “The look’s not right. Jeb, stay right where you are. Manny, break a finger. Out of camera range.”
She braced as the guard grabbed her wrist and her left-hand pointer finger and twisted slowly. Stars of pain shot through her hand and down her arm. And then a sickening crack. She winced and felt her eyes moisten with pain tears.
“There it is. Priceless. Jeb, go, go, go.”
Jeb cut a few more inches before she got her face under control.
“Freeze, Jeb.” Borgola sighed. “You have ten fingers, honey, and ten toes, too, and we have all day. Manny, get the thumb. The little knuckle. That’s always good for a thrill.”
Angel gritted her teeth as the man took her wrist gently in his hand, hating that it looked like she was crying when she really wasn’t.
“There are two places to break the thumb,” Borgola said. Angel realized dimly that he was using that slimy comforting voice she’d once imagined he’d use at times like this.
Manny was closing pliers over the end of her thumb. She braced herself as he squeezed, feeling the rough metal surface.
A bang. Angel jumped. Manny slammed back and away from her, into a wall. Another loud bang. Movement all around. Manny lay motionless in a fast-growing pool of blood, pliers on the floor in front of him. Blood on the wall. He’d been shot. Jeb was hiding with Borgola; both had their backs to a pillar, guns up. Another guard lay motionless to the right.
Two other guards hid behind a different pillar, and they fired at a metal table that had been overturned.
Pop pop.
Somebody shot back.
Cole?
Angel jerked at her restraints as gunfire continued. Her broken finger burned. There was more gunfire, and suddenly Borgola was at her side once more, and he had the gun at her head. “You have ten seconds to come out of there or I blow her head off.”
Angel held her breath. Was it Cole? Why would he come for her? She was plan B, the expendable one.
And then he stood, jaw set hard as granite, eyes lit with fury.
Cole.
“Let her go.”
“She’s an Associate, you idiot. She duped you,” Borgola said. “Hendel, disarm him. Manny, get a visual of Cole as he gives up his gun, and then point the camera over here. On her face. We’ll work in that earlier footage. This’ll be good. Let’s go, Cole. Lose it or we’ll blow your head off. You know those clips sell just as well.”
Cole gave up his gun. Then he set aside his glasses and raised his hands. “It just needs to be us. You and me.”
“So gallant.” Borgola put his face close to Angel’s. “An Association boy wouldn’t do this, would he? An Association boy would stay on track or Dax would have his head, am I right? Should I put him in the iron maiden? I saw you looking at it. Or should I blow his brains out? That might add dimension to your stage presence.”
Borgola turned the gun on Cole. There were four guns on Cole now. But Borgola’s nose, which marked the most vulnerable part of his face, was turned to her, and just close enough that she could use one of her two weapons—the head butt. Careful not to telegraph, she drew in a slow breath, visualizing the move as she’d been taught to. She imagined the arc her head would follow, snapping over to the left, the bony part of her forehead ramming into his face like the flat surface of a sledgehammer square on his nose, breaking bone, hopefully forcing some clear into his brain.
And then she went for it: she swung her head in a tight arc like the weapon it was, slamming it into his nose with all the force she could muster. She heard a crunch. His gun went off. He was down.
Another shot and a flurry of action; Cole was fighting with two guards now, locked in a whirl of fists and elbows, moving in jerks and grunts. She couldn’t believe Cole was fighting two guys—and winning. Then it was just one guy. Then she saw bloody Jeb up from the floor, heading toward them, aiming.
“Cole, this one’s got a gun!”
She didn’t know if she’d helped or hurt with that, but the struggle seemed to change in character, the guard trying to give Jeb a clear shot, Cole trying to prevent it. And then he threw the guy right into Jeb, diving after him. The men hit the floor and Jeb’s gun skittered into a far corner, and they were all on the ground. It wasn’t like in the movies where guys fight one at a time—it was both of them teaming up on Cole. Angel spotted two guns on the floor, one quite near her. She wished she could get to it, to do something, anything.
Blood racing, she eyed Borgola, sprawled below where her right ankle was cuffed to the wall. Was he dead? She didn’t think she’d gotten him hard enough.
A scream. One of the men writhed on the floor, clutching his elbow, leg stomping sideways at the air. Nearby, a bloody Cole fought Jeb, and Cole wasn’t winning—he was trying to get away, crabwalking backward as Jeb hovered over him, seeming poised for a killing blow. Suddenly Cole scissored his legs around Jeb and actually tossed him, using his legs like arms. Jeb’s head struck the corner of a table and he came to rest in a lump on the floor. Cole sprung up, grabbed him by the hair, slammed his head into the table once more, punched the man with the elbow, then rushed over to Angel.
“Cole—” she eyed the dark red stain on his T-shirt, horrified.
“What the hell?” Cole said. “You come back in here?”
“One of my hair beads dropped. In the safe.”
He kicked Borgola. Unresponsive. He took his gun and checked it, then tossed it. He checked the other guards. “Keys.”
“There.” She tipped her head at a hook on the wall where Borgola had hung the keys. Cole grabbed them off and unlocked to cuffs. “Your finger.” He unlocked the left hand cuff gently.
“Not like I was shot,” Angel said as he moved to her ankles. The blood stain on his shirt seemed to be spreading. She rested her good hand on his arm as she stepped down, then she pulled the two halves of her T-shirt together and made a quick knot.
He grabbed his glasses and set them back on his face, then he snatched a gun off the floor, checked it. “Is every gun in here empty?” Angrily he tossed it away. Angel grabbed her tool.
Yelling came from the hall. He stiffened. “We have to get out of here.” He looked over to where Borgola was, hesitated, then pulled her across the space to the exit. “There’s a tunnel hatch under his desk out there. We have to get to it—fast.”
Angel shut the door behind them and spun the lock. They crept out the outer door into Borgola’s quiet office.
“Here.” Cole pulled the chair away from the desk.
A crash broke the silence. The menacing guard from earlier—Mapes—burst in. With a gun.
“Hawkins. This is interesting.”
“Proceed, Angel.” Cole pushed her aside. Angel gasped as he started stalking toward the man.
Mapes smiled. “You know you suck at disarms.”
Cole kept on, and then his foot flew up out of nowhere, right into the guy’s hand. The gun was airborne as Cole unleashed a flurry of elbows and kicks. The man was down. Cole took his gun.
Proceed
, he’d said. Angel lifted the side of the desk and yanked the rug out from underneath it. There was indeed a hatch, with a loop set into the hardwood floor. She yanked it up. “Ready.”
Cole came around the desk and knelt, sniffing the air. “You smell that?”
“Faintly,” she said. “A cleaning product?”
“Tear gas.” He slammed the hatch shut with his foot. “Can you run?”
“Oh, yeah.”
“Change of plans. We have to get to my vehicle. We’re going to have to cross some open tundra.”