Sumit slowed to make the turn into the unplowed side road, shifting the Mercedes into four-wheel drive.
Sanj said, “Three more miles of this shit and we’re there.”
Turning the radio down, Sumit said, “So last night I’m having drinks at the Tryst, this woman, she’s got to be fifty—but classy, well put together—bitch comes out of nowhere and tells me her name is Crystal and if I buy her a Mai Tai she’ll give me a night I’ll never forget.”
Sanj said, “More like a disease you’ll never forget.”
“Didn’t strike me as the type. Looking at her, I’m thinking newly divorced or maybe she caught her old man boning the help. Anyway, it’s late, I’ve got a glow on, but she’s almost as old as Maa so I tell her no, but in a nice way, polite. She gives me a pouty look and catches me scoping that fine big ass as she’s walking away. Throws a little smile over her shoulder and keeps on going.”
Sanj said, “Wait, you’re actually considering it at this point?”
“Fuck, no, man. I’m just playing with her. I’ve never slept with a woman older than twenty-five.”
“What about that Japanese beauty last summer, remember? Broadzilla? You’re late, Ed’s waiting outside, I walk in and there you are on the bed with this skank’s got to be forty, has more hair on her ass than you.”
“Fucking Saki, man, fucks you up. Where I met her it was dark.”
“Keep telling yourself that, little brother.”
“You take that video off your phone like I told you?”
“Make me late again you can watch it on YouTube.”
“Assrag.”
“So’d you do the MILF or not?”
“Why should I tell you?”
“Because you want to.”
Grinning, Sumit said, “So a half hour goes by, I’m paying my tab and here she comes again, stoked to the gills now, and tells me if I drive her home there’s a mother-daughter tag team in it for me. Says it’s all arranged.”
“Now we’re getting somewhere.”
“Her apartment’s just a couple blocks away so I drive her, we go inside, she flips on the light and shouts up the stairs, ‘Hey, Mom, you still up?’”
Sanj laughed and said, “Please tell me you didn’t go for it...” but then the road dead-ended and both men fell mute.
Sumit brought the Mercedes around and switched on the high beams, fixing the light on the lake-facing side of the cottage, Sumit saying, “Is that a fucking plane?”
––––––––
Dale said, “You hear that?”
Tom said, “I bet that’s our rescue. See? I told you we’d be all right.”
“One vehicle?” Dale said, getting a bad feeling. “Weren’t you talking about helicopters and shit?”
“Maybe they sent in the local police. What difference does it make?”
Tom started to rustle around in the cockpit and Dale said, “
Shh.
Listen...”
The slam of a car door now, followed by another, then a voice that made Dale’s skin crawl, Sumit the psychopath saying, “It
is
a fucking plane.”
Lowering his voice, Dale said to Tom, “Don’t say a word. Don’t even breathe. These guys are stone killers and they’re here for me.”
Moving fast, Dale grabbed the gun off the dinner tray and squirmed down into the tub with it, then popped back up for the rest of his stuff, getting it all out sight.
He heard Tom say, “What’s going on?” and scrunched himself down as far as he could into the foot of the tub, just managing to squirm around onto his elbows and knees under the fuselage, keeping the gun aimed at the hole in the debris. He said, “Play dead, okay? If they come anywhere near you, just play dead.”
“But—”
“Just do it.”
––––––––
Mandy snugged Steve’s covers across his chest, the little guy lying flat on his back in bed now, so worried about his dad he forgot his teddy on the chair, so exhausted he could barely keep his eyes open. His party had been a wash, the poor kid sitting on Mandy’s lap in front of the radio until his guests finally gave up and went home. He hadn’t opened a single gift, telling her he’d do it when his dad got home because it was his birthday, too. It wasn’t until she promised to wake him as soon as she heard anything that he’d finally agreed to come up to bed.
She got his teddy off the chair and tucked it under his arm, then sat next to him on the bed, offering one last reassurance as she stroked his hair. “Try not to worry, sweetie,” she told him. “Your daddy’s a good pilot. I’m sure he just landed to get out of the storm and the weather’s messing up the radio. It’s happened before.”
“The rescue team is looking for him?”
“They sure are,” Mandy said, and kissed him on the tip of his turned-up nose. “I already talked to them, remember? They said they’d have news for us soon.” She kissed him again. “Try to sleep now, okay? When you wake up, this will all be over.”
But the boy was already fast asleep.
As Mandy stood, she got a fresh jab of pain low in her abdomen and her fingers went to it instinctively, pressing as if to extinguish it, and after a moment it was gone.
In the kitchen she poured herself a mug of stale coffee, then returned to the radio in front of the picture window, as black now as the night that pressed against it.
––––––––
Sanj said, “Look at this mess.”
They stood staring at the wreckage in the wash of the GL’s high beams, the aircraft’s tail section jutting out through the window, the severed wings and skis lying twisted against the foot of the building.
“Unreal,” Sumit said. “You’re sure this is the right place?”
“According to the map.”
“Doesn’t look like the kind of thing you walk away from,” Sumit said. “Maybe we got lucky and it clipped Ed’s asshole brother for us.”
“Give Ed his bullet back.”
“Lights are still on in there,” Sumit said, drawing his weapon. “Shall we?”
Sanj pulled his silenced 9mm and followed Sumit to the front door. Sumit turned the knob and the door swung open on silent hinges. They took up positions on either side of the frame for a long moment, listening, then Sumit stepped inside, bringing his gun to bear. Sanj moved in behind him, stepping around him now to get the lay of the land.
The place was small, the lit foyer leading into a hallway that ran parallel to the side of the building the plane had come through, the hallway itself opening onto what looked like a kitchenette on the left and a sitting area on the right. There was a single closed door halfway down on the right, the lights on in there, a film of snow and plaster dust on the floor in front of it, blown there through the crack under the door.
Sanj pointed at the door and Sumit nodded. Sumit stepped past him and kicked the door open, snapping it off its top hinge then shifting fast out of the opening to press his back to the adjacent wall. Sanj took a quick look inside, scanning for targets, then relaxed, holstering his weapon. “Shitter,” he said. “It’s clear.”
Sumit followed him into the bathroom, both men pausing to take in the scene: the room trashed, the front third of the plane’s fuselage resting across the rims of the tub, snow blowing in from the window ten feet away on the other side of the demolished wall. No signs of life.
Sumit said, “Shouldn’t we check the rest of the place?”
“Forget it,” Sanj said. “He’s long gone. The bitch must’ve made us and told him to hide in the store.”
“I checked the store. No way he was in there.”
“Then he spotted us and ducked out the back,” Sanj said. “Either way, he’s in the wind.” He stepped up onto the edge of the tub, straddling it now to look into the cockpit. “There’s a guy in here,” he said.
“Is he dead?”
“Who am I, House? He looks dead. Blood on his face.”
“Check his pulse.”
Sanj had to yank hard on the door to get it halfway open, the door binding against the bent frame, then he reached in and felt the guy’s neck. The guy moaned and Sanj flinched back, saying, “Holy shit, he’s alive,” then said to the guy in the plane, “Hey, man, are you okay?”
* * *
Tom gripped his emergency flare gun, holding it out of sight between the seats, but he wasn’t sure if he should use it. All he had to go on was what Dale had said about these guys, and if Dale was wrong he’d be shooting at one of his rescuers with a live flare. And if Dale was right...well, there were two of them, and while bringing a flare gun to a gun fight might be better than bringing a knife, it was still no hell against seasoned killers.
He let the flare gun slip quietly to the cockpit floor and pretended to come to, bringing his head around to see a young East Indian guy leaning over him with an expression of concern on his face, the guy smelling of cologne, no hint of threat about him. Still, the fear in Dale’s voice had been very real and, either way, Tom believed he had a plan that could defuse the situation and get them both out of here alive.
He acted dazed for a moment, like he didn’t know where he was, then drew a panicked breath and the guy touched his shoulder, saying, “Hey, friend, calm down. Your plane crashed but I think you’re okay.”
“I must’ve blacked out,” Tom said. “Is this your place? I’ve been yelling for help for a while now. Thought I was going to die up here.”
Assessing Tom’s situation, the guy said, “Shit, man, you’re really wedged in there.” He leaned in and tried to shift the stud off Tom’s thighs—giving Tom a close-up view of the handgun holstered under his arm—but couldn’t get it to budge.
Now the guy turned to face the room, saying, “Get up here and give me a hand,” and Tom felt the fuselage shift as a second East Indian popped up to find his footing on the rims of the tub.
Tom was a lapsed Catholic, but he prayed that neither of these guys fell through the shelf of debris that hid Dale from view. If that happened, it would be the end of them both.
As the men tried to free him, Tom said, “Sorry about your place. I’m fully insured.”
“I wouldn’t worry about it,” the first guy said. “Let’s just get you out of there.”
With one guy working from outside the aircraft, gripping the butt end of the stud where it came through the fuselage, and the other reefing on the section across Tom’s thighs, the board started to move, wood screeching against metal until Tom was able to shimmy his legs out from under and bunch himself into a squat in his seat, feeling like he might black out now for real.
The first guy backed out of the doorway and lost his balance, shifting his foot back to brace himself as the second guy reached out to steady him. The first guy said, “Shit,” and Tom saw his bracing foot plow through the overlapping layers of debris, sinking to the ankle before the second guy had him. Tom thought of grabbing the flare gun again, but now both men were laughing about it, the first one leaning on the other to pull his foot free.
Then they were helping Tom down from the wreckage, the second guy looking at him like he was a celebrity, saying to his partner, “We should take this guy to the track with us, man. He is one lucky son of a bitch.”
Tom let the men take his weight until his feet were flat on the bathroom floor, then he leaned against a section of undamaged wall, waiting for the circulation to return to his legs and flush out the numbness.
The first guy stood right in front of Tom now, getting in his space, not laughing anymore. “So you didn’t see anyone else?” he said.
“Not a soul,” Tom said, favoring his right leg, pretending he was hurt. He said, “Would you guys mind calling me an ambulance? I think my leg might be broken.”
The first guy said, “Sumit, give me a hand with this guy.” Then to Tom: “Don’t worry. We’ll take you into the city.”
That was when Dale popped out of his hole and started shooting.
* * *
His first two rounds slammed into Sumit, killing him instantly. He fired next at Sanj, seeing Tom in his peripheral vision diving for cover, but the shots went over Sanj’s head as the man crouched to draw his weapon. Dale followed him down, but Trang’s gun was empty now, the slide locked open, gun smoke wisping from the muzzle.
Sanj rose from his crouch, the 9mm aimed at Dale’s face, then bent to feel Sumit’s wrist for a pulse, even though it was clear the man was dead.
“Something you may not know about Sumit,” Sanj said to Dale with an eerie calm, rising now to his full height. “He’s my baby brother. Apart from Ed, you’re the only person in this country I’ve ever told that to. Even Copeland has no idea. Given the nature of our work, we thought it best to keep our relationship private.” He glanced again at Sumit’s body. “And now you’ve killed him. Fitting, I suppose, even ironic, considering the task Ed sent us here to complete.”
While the maniac talked, Dale felt around in the tub for the splinter that had pierced his arm, knowing it wouldn’t do him any good but believing he’d feel better about dying with a weapon in his hand. His fingers fell instead on an empty syringe and he wished he could do one last hit, the drug his only refuge from a life that had never fit him. He saw Tom on his feet behind Sanj now, pressed against the wall in fear, and felt a dull regret for the man, with his wife and kid and another one on the way, all of that gone now. Sanj would leave no loose ends.
Dale braced for the bullet he knew was coming, but then the crazy fucker holstered his gun and drew a switchblade from his belt, the
snick
of the blade making Dale’s skin crawl as Sanj moved toward him.
Sanj said, “Your brother told me to make it quick and painless. Fuck him.”
Then Sanj lunged and Dale threw Trang’s gun at him and tried to squirm down into the tub, but Sanj caught him by the wrist and pulled him back up, sweeping the blade toward his neck. “No you don’t, you little—”
And Tom hit the man in the back of the head with a broken stud, the sound like a baseball being struck, Sanj slamming to the tile floor like a felled tree.
The two men stared at each other for a long moment, Dale in his hole, Tom standing over the bodies, then Tom tossed the board aside and knelt next to Sanj, feeling his neck for a pulse. “Oh, Jesus. I think I killed him. I fucking killed him...”
Dale whooped. “Fuck him, Tommy, you saved my
life
.”
Startling Dale, Tom rose up and bellowed at him: “It’s
Tom
. And why the
fuck
didn’t you stay out of sight? I had them out of here.”