“I need at least three choppers filled with Marines to meet me here on Meda Island, ASAP,” Jules said. “Can you please get that for me? Over.”
There was a pause. It was the kind of pause that came in front of a negative response.
And crap, he’d started bleeding again. No wonder he was so dizzy.
The radio crackled. And here it came . . . “I’m sorry, sir. Can’t do it. Over.”
“Very good,” Max said. “Thank you, Colonel. I’ll bring him on out.” He turned off the walkie-talkie.
It was the moment he’d been praying for. And dreading, at the same time.
Molly was crying, but only because Jones had already gone downstairs. He’d stood up the moment that the colonel had announced he was ready to take Grady Morant into custody. He’d asked Molly to stay up here, and he’d kissed her goodbye, then he’d gone into the kitchen to make himself look dead.
Now it was Max’s turn to go.
Gina was fighting hard not to cry, too.
“Keep the door closed,” Max told her, holding her close. “It’ll lock when I shut it behind us. Don’t open it for anything.”
She nodded. “Except for you. I’ll open it for you.”
“Not even for me,” he said. “I don’t know what I’m going to have to say to the colonel to convince him we’re on the same side. If Jones is right about him, he might demand that you and Molly be arrested, too. And we definitely don’t want that. So don’t open the door for me.”
“How about if we have a code?” she suggested, her fingers in his hair, her body soft against him. “If you say it, then I’ll know it’s okay to let you in.”
“Do you know that one of the things I love the most about you is that you’re really smart?” Max told her.
Gina smiled, but he knew that it was forced. She wanted to stand here, holding him forever. He knew, because he wanted that, too.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t an option.
Max kissed her and she clung to him because she knew this was it. Neither of them had dared to say it, but they both were well aware that this could be their last kiss.
Ever.
“The code is an Elvis song,” she pulled back to tell him. “Any Elvis song. You sing me an Elvis song and I will open that door. If not . . .” She shrugged.
Max laughed. “You just want to hear me sing.”
“Absolutely. And if you dance, too . . . Well, there’s no telling what’ll happen after that door is open.” She pushed him into the hall. “See you in a few, Wild Thing.”
As Max went down the stairs in search of Jones, he realized he was grinning his ass off.
And instead of worrying about the coming face-to-face with Colonel Subandrio, he was mentally reviewing all of his favorite Elvis songs, trying to figure out which one was going to make Gina’s smile the widest.
It was possible he was enjoying himself a little too much.
Christ, he was a twisted mess.
But it didn’t matter. He knew that Gina loved him anyway.
The gunshot from the kitchen startled Molly.
She’d been waiting for it, dreading it, but it still made her jump.
Gina reached over and took her hand. “This is going to work,” she said.
“I know,” Molly said, trying to sound as if she believed it, too. “I trust Max. He was incredible, talking to that colonel. I almost believed him—that he was willing to hand over Grady.”
She crawled closer to the mirror, angling it so she could see the street in front of the house.
They both heard the door shut, and now Gina came over to look, too.
“Oh, Lord,” Molly breathed.
Max was carrying Jones in a fireman’s hold, over his shoulder.
Jones’s head was hanging down, and as Max moved slowly away from the house, she caught a glimpse of his face.
It was covered with blood, his hair matted with it.
“That’s not catsup,” Molly said, panic rising. “Dear Lord, Gina. What did Max do?”
Max reached the halfway point.
He’d mentally marked a spot in the square that was almost exactly equidistance to both the house behind him and the barricade of jeeps, trucks, and that massive tank in front of him.
The fact that he’d made it that far without being filled with bullets was at the very least, a small victory.
Add the fact that, in addition to Jones, he was also carrying a compact little .22 caliber pistol. It was right in his hand, in full view of his entire audience.
Of course the range on that thing was similar to a peashooter.
He kept moving forward.
Walking was challenge enough with his bullet wound, forget about adding 190 pounds of dead weight into the equation.
But he was moving. He was getting the job done.
Except, so much for the suit and tie—he’d already sweated through it. Jones, the bastard, had also bled all over it.
The morning sun was ridiculously hot. It had rained last night, but the moisture had evaporated hours ago.
Max could see Colonel Subandrio, peering out from behind the tank, looking much as Jones had described him. A short, heavyset man, with one of those faces that seemed to swallow his neck and puffy cheeks that went all the way down to his shoulders.
Max kept going, one painful step at a time.
Gina followed Molly into the kitchen.
“That was blood,” Molly said. “Max shot Grady!”
“No, he didn’t,” Gina said, even though she wasn’t quite convinced that he hadn’t. Was this what the two men had been discussing, so quietly and seriously, while they’d sent Molly and Gina down to the weapon pile, to select guns that they felt comfortable holding?
What if there had really been two plans—one that Max and Jones told Gina and Molly, and one in which Max actually did deliver Grady Morant to the colonel?
“Oh, dear Lord,” Molly breathed. There was definitely blood on the kitchen floor, on the table, smeared on the knob of one of the cabinets.
Blood even tinged a bowl of water that sat near the sink.
As if someone had rinsed their hands after committing a grisly murder.
“Grady said they had to make it look real,” Gina reminded Molly, reminded herself.
Max wouldn’t do something like this.
Would he?
Molly broke down into tears. “I’ll kill him,” she sobbed. “I’m going to kill him!”
“Molly, wait. Where are you going?” Gina called, as Molly turned and ran for the stairs.
“Halt.”
The order finally came, and Max was nowhere near close enough. But he stopped, because the last thing he wanted was to piss off the colonel.
The man was still peering at them from the far side of the tank, about twenty yards away, standing among several other officers.
“Drop your weapon.” The order came from the man who’d been in command of this debacle before Colonel Subandrio arrived, courtesy of the interpreter.
“We’re all on the same side,” Max reminded them. “Morant wasn’t keen on a reunion with you, Colonel. He resisted, and . . . Well, I was told he was wanted, dead or alive, so I decided to make containing him easier on everyone.”
Gina dashed up the stairs after Molly. “Whoa,” she said, going into a crouch as she entered the room. “Wait. You don’t know—”
But there, out the window, she could see Max tossing Jones onto the dusty ground.
He landed completely bonelessly, absolutely lifeless.
Dear God . . .
“It’s an act,” Gina told her friend, told herself. “He’s not really dead. They’re just trying to convince the colonel. Mol, lookit, there was a knife downstairs. I think he used it to cut his hand—see, he’s got something wrapped around his palm. And if Max
had
shot him, there would have been a spray of, you know, blood. On the wall or . . . somewhere . . .”
Max was talking. She could see that from the way he was standing.
She could see the ugly little colonel, unwilling to come out from behind the shelter of that tank, probably because Max was holding a gun.
And then she saw Max turn away from the colonel. He pointed that weapon at Jones and . . .
Boom!
The gunshot echoed, and Gina and Molly both crouched there, stunned.
And then Molly completely lost it.
Holy Jesus!
Max, that motherfucking psycho, had actually shot him.
Right in the fucking leg.
Jones had to use every ounce of self-control he had—and some he didn’t know he had—not to shout or scream. He didn’t so much as move.
The pain was like a flame, and he focused on breathing shallowly and slowly. Colonel Subandrio would definitely notice if the dead man started gulping for air.
“He’s dead,” he heard Max tell Subandrio. He heard the sound of velcro, too, as Max holstered the .22 and buddied up to the man. “It’s nice to finally meet you, Colonel. I’ve heard a lot about you. You’ve certainly caught President Bryant’s eye. He mentioned meeting you in Jakarta.”
“We’ve never met,” the man said, in that oily voice that Jones still heard in his nightmares.
“I must’ve misunderstood him,” Max covered effortlessly. “He mentioned a trip to Jakarta—it must be something he’s planning. He mentioned your name—it must’ve been that he wanted to meet you. Forgive my confusion. It’s been a rough couple of days, tracking Morant down and . . .” He laughed. “I’m sure you know what that’s—”
“Max! You bastard!”
What the fuck? Jones discovered new reserves of control as he stayed completely still. That was Molly’s voice. Thin and distant, but completely clear.
“I’m going to kill you!” she shouted. “I’m going to kill you! You promised you wouldn’t hurt him! You promised!”
Did Molly actually think . . . ?
“Molly, come on, stop it! Get back from the window.”
But Gina took a step back as, sobbing uncontrollably, Molly picked up one of those submachine guns that Jones had showed them how to fire.
“Okay,” Gina said to the least violent person she’d ever met in her life. “That’s enough. Put the gun down. Right now. Molly, look at me. Look at me. Have faith in Max, okay? You’ve got to have faith in Max!”
“That was his wife,” Max explained to the colonel. “I had to knock her out before getting hold of Morant. I guess she regained consciousness.”
Colonel Subandrio bought it.
Max didn’t know whose idea it was to shout like that from the window, but it was beautiful.
Because it made the colonel come out from behind the tank.
The spineless CO was right behind him, eager to prove that he wasn’t spineless. The interpreter, clutching the walkie-talkie, was behind
him.
Max nudged Jones with his foot. “Grady Morant doesn’t seem so dangerous anymore, does he?”
“He was guilty of some terrible crimes,” the colonel said. “He won’t be missed.” He came closer, glanced across the square at the house. “Well, except for his . . . wife, you say?”
Ah, shit. This was the type of game where information was never willingly volunteered, and he’d just tossed Subandrio one hell of a bone.
Jones didn’t move, but Max could feel his anger, radiating upwards.
Meanwhile, the colonel moved closer. “He usually doesn’t marry them. He usually just kills them when he’s through with them. At least that’s what he did with my sister. We never found her body.”
The lying sack of shit.
Jones didn’t move. He didn’t jump up shouting about shit-eating liars, and that the first place he’d look for the asswipe’s dead sister was in Subandrio’s own flower garden, beneath the roses.
But here was a dark thought: It was possible that Max might believe Subandrio. A colonel in a fancy uniform, versus a confessed former associate of a murdering drug lord . . . What if Max actually thought . . .
But Max was making the proper condolence noises, as the man Jones had watched torture children in front of their weeping parents brought the conversation back to Molly. “I’d like to meet her, this wife of Morant’s.”
It was going to be hard for him to do that—from
hell.
Max skillfully segued away from the topic. “I don’t think we’ll convince her to come out until the helicopters arrive,” he said.
His words weren’t quite a lie. Max had simply omitted the fact that they hadn’t yet contacted the Marines who flew those choppers. But they would—as soon as they got their hands on a radio.
“Helicopters?” Subandrio inquired.
“Standard procedure,” Max told him. “They should be here any minute. They’re coming from a carrier just east of Meda Island. Is that east?”
Jones’s eyes were closed, so he didn’t see Max pointing up toward the mountain, but he knew he’d made the gesture.
It was their signal. And sure enough, Molly and Gina opened fire from the window of the house.
As Jones erupted back to life.
“Look out!” Max shouted, as he tackled the CO. His shoulder connected with the man’s chest, and they both went down, down into the dirt. He scrambled to restrain him, his weapon drawn—not the wimpy little .22, but a limb-ripping .44—while making it look as if he were shielding the CO from an attack.
Jones was on top of the colonel, like some kind of zombie gone mad. The whites of his eyes stood out in his blood-covered face, as he dragged Colonel Subandrio with him at gunpoint, so that his back was against the tank. Good plan.
“Hold your fire,” Jones shouted as the shooting finally ended.
Max scrambled to his feet beside him, using the CO as a shield, side-arm at the man’s throat. “Hands where I can see them,” he ordered. Jones told the colonel the same thing in more colorful language.
The interpreter was flat on his face in the street, and Jones kicked a spray of dirt in his direction. “Hey, you! Tell them to hold their fire, or I’ll kill him and then I’ll fucking kill you, too!”
Fire the weapons for a count of four, no more, then get the hell down.
Jones’s voice rang in Gina’s ears, along with the ringing that came after four solid seconds of high-decibel destruction.
She pulled Molly down with her, beneath the window, their backs to the wall.
“He moved, did you see that?” she asked Molly, who nodded, tears still streaming down her face.
“I thought he was really dead.”