Ambush (Michael Bennett #11)(91)

He said, “You killed Jeremy Kane because he discovered what you were doing out here. He was connecting the dots, and that threatened to ruin your plans.”

She stayed silent.

He leaned on the table and thrust his face into hers. “And if the Feds learned of your agreement with Iran, you’d lose everything. Your daughter. Your business. Your aspirations. You’d spend a couple of decades in prison and come out so old you’d piss yourself every time you rolled over in bed.”

She reared back. “Miriam. Arvin would—God knows what he would do.”

“You’ll never stop, will you?” He grabbed her head. “You’ll keep killing and killing, knocking everyone out of your way as if they were nothing more than pieces on a chessboard.”

His knuckles whitened, and the tendons stood out as his hands tightened against her skull.

She moaned.

Part of me wanted him to kill her. Part of me knew he wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he did.

I touched his shoulder. “We need to go.”

He looked at me, his chest heaving with his rage. “If we leave her, she’ll kill us.”

“No, she won’t. She knows that if we die, the video she wants goes to every news agency in the country.” I touched him again. “Come on.”

Cohen held on a moment longer. Then he shuddered and dropped his hands. He shot me a look I couldn’t read and returned to the window.

But Almasi smiled, a straight seam in the granite of her face, as cryptic as the Mona Lisa’s.

“What video?” she said.

My hand brushed the pocket holding my phone. I hadn’t heard from Sarge, who should have boarded the plane by now.

And nothing from Dougie.

“We have company inbound,” Cohen said. “Two men.”

“Guards?”

He nodded. “That ride coming?”

“I don’t think so.”

My gaze met his. A question stood in his eyes as clearly as if he’d spoken. He was asking who I was. What I was willing to do. Which lines I would back down from and which lines I would cross.

I knew he was asking himself the same questions.

“This is your show,” he said. “You’ve been fighting this battle as long as I’ve known you. I’ll play it however you want.”

I nodded.

We could throw open the door and shoot the men before they knew what happened. Dougie would have told us to do just that.

He would have been right.

But every death leaves a mark, no matter the justification. No matter what you might tell yourself. Ask any combat veteran. Or any cop who’s had to fire on someone.

My eyes went to the man I’d killed, lying on the floor of the tiny kitchen.

We all have to live with our ghosts.

I dropped the pliers, returned to Almasi, and pushed aside the table. “Looks like you’re our golden ticket.”

I yanked away the tape and lifted her out of the chair. She wasn’t a big woman, but she seemed made of iron—rigid and strong. I pulled her close and pressed the muzzle of the Glock to her temple.

“Know this,” I told her. “Your life means nothing to me. Less than nothing. Because as long as you’re alive, I’m dead. So if you don’t convince your men to let us pass, I will blow your brains out.” I shook her. “You still have something to lose. Remember that when you’re talking to those men out there.”

Her throat moved as she swallowed. “I understand.”

Cohen went to stand by the door. Our eyes met again, and in his I saw an echo of my own rage, formed by his realization that darkness was not only ever present, but also wide reaching.

For a moment, I thought the dark would swamp him.

But he shook it off. “We’re going to fix this.”

“Yes, we are. But first, we’ve got to get out of here. Don’t leave my side.”

“Like shit on a shoe.”

I thought he had the shoe and the shit mixed up, but I didn’t argue.

“Okay,” I said. “Here we go.”

I half dragged Laura to the door. “Tell your men to hold their fire. Shout it so they can hear you. We’re going out.”

“You want to be Butch Cassidy?” Cohen asked. “Or the Sundance Kid?”





CHAPTER 26

You can do everything for the right reasons, and still fuck it up.

—Sydney Parnell. Personal journal.

“Don’t shoot!” Laura said as I kicked open the trailer door.

I shook her. “Louder.”

“Hold your fire!”

We emerged from the trailer into the heat and wind. The sun stood almost directly overhead, casting everything in high relief and giving the world an over-bright feel of unreality, as if we were actors on a studio set. The only sounds were the unrelenting distant snap of plastic and the creak of Cohen’s footsteps as he moved down the stairs and took a position to my left, the M4 comfortable in his arms.

Clyde remained beneath the trailer. Silent.

Safe.

Another man had joined the first two. All three had their weapons tight on us, fingers in the trigger guards. Their eyes moved back and forth between me and Cohen, assessing.

“Nobody panic,” I said.

I dragged Almasi down a couple of feet to the section of the trailer that held the kitchen. The refrigerator would provide extra coverage in case someone decided to try a shot from the other side.