Ambush (Michael Bennett #11)(87)

“Fuckers blew him away,” one of the men said.

Dougie’s voice in my ear. “Six on patrol.”

I waited until the sound of footsteps receded. “Roger. Proceeding to T3 and T4.”

“I’m at Zeta.”

The airplane hangar.

I peered out from beneath the trailer. No sign of movement. Clyde and I returned to the training center, sprinted past the now closed back door, and stopped at the far end.

The next cluster of trailers was a hundred yards away. No one was in sight. I gave Clyde the go sign, and together we dashed across the open space.

As soon as we reached the first trailer in the cluster, Clyde took a final sample of the air, then lay on the ground, his eyes on me, tail swishing through the weeds.

Just like that, he’d won the game.

He’d found Cohen.

We scooted into the dying grass that filled the two-foot space beneath the trailer. I shifted the rifle around to the front for accessibility, then pulled my Glock with the suppressor.

Voices floated down through the floor.

“You want me to keep going?” a man asked.

“Hold off,” a woman said. “We might still need him.”

Radio static. Then, “Ms. Almasi, there’s a Detective Gorman from the Denver Major Crimes Unit to see you at Gate 2.”

Well, that was certainly interesting.

“Get him the hell away.” Laura Almasi. Her voice was a sexy rasp. A smoker’s voice. “We have a situation here.”

“I told him you weren’t on the compound, but he says he saw your vehicle. Says he’ll wait.”

“He’s been watching the road?” The rasp turned cold. “Tell him I’m in the middle of a meeting and will join him to go over his contract when I’m finished. Then suggest he and I meet at four o’clock at the Capital Grille instead. Let me know what he says.”

“Roger that. Out.”

Almasi said, “Cheap bastard like him, he’ll want a contract and a free meal.”

The man in the trailer chuckled.

With the man’s laugh hanging in the air, I whispered over my radio microphone. “T3. Cohen is here.”

Nothing.

The radio in the trailer crackled. “Ms. Almasi, the detective says he needs to ask you a few questions relating to the Jeremy Kane murder.”

“Bastard’s actually doing his job?” A pause. “Tell him I don’t know how I can help, but regardless, he’ll need to wait. These meetings can drag on. Don’t offer any water or shade. If he insists on staying, let him bake for an hour or two.”

“Roger. Out.”

Overhead, the trailer creaked as someone moved.

“Bring him around,” Almasi said.

There came the smack of flesh on flesh. A man groaned.

I gripped my pistol. The voices came from the north end of the trailer. I crept along the ground, heading toward the door set halfway down. I signaled Clyde twice to stay in place. Stay. Really, stay.

I didn’t want him exposed during whatever came next.

“He’s out,” Almasi said. “Get some water.”

The floor creaked as footsteps came down the length of the trailer and stopped directly overhead. Water splashed into a sink—the man was standing above me, a foot away from where I lay.

Time to act. Get the man while he was away from Cohen.

A lit fuse of adrenaline raced through my body and exploded in my chest. I closed my eyes and took a deep, steadying breath. I imagined Cohen and Almasi and the man she’d sent to get water. I pictured where they stood or sat, what weapons they might have.

Then I opened my eyes and slid through the grass, my passage covered by the sound of running water. I emerged near the door, stepped onto the first stair, and tried the knob.

It turned.

I wiped my sweaty palms on my thighs, then yanked the door open and leapt inside, pulling the door closed behind me and turning the lock even as I spun to the left. The man stood in a tiny kitchen, his left hand holding a water glass, his right working to free a gun. Beyond him, the trailer was empty.

The glass slipped from his hand and shattered against the linoleum floor. He brought the gun around.

I fired two shots with the suppressed Glock, center mass.

As he dropped, I whipped to the right. At the far end of the trailer a woman stood watching me, her mouth an O of surprise.

Two feet from her, Cohen sat with one hand cuffed to the chair, the other forced onto a table and duct taped at the wrist. He looked worse in person than he had in the photo. His eyes were closed, his head tipped back against the seat. My heart stopped until I saw the rise of his chest.

I told myself that later I would process how much they’d hurt him.

Right now, it was enough that he was alive.

My eyes went back to Almasi. Early sixties, iron-gray hair, eyes with an odd light in their gray-green depths.

“Hands up where I can see them,” I said.

She raised her arms.

Behind me, the water still ran. The trailer was hot, the air close. Plumbing but no electricity. I looked over my shoulder. The man I’d shot was very dead. I moved to the end of the trailer, glanced at Cohen—who hadn’t moved—then frisked Almasi. I stepped back, holstered the Glock, and snugged the M4 into my shoulder.

I centered the muzzle on her chest.