Falling(56)
You idiot, he cursed himself as he made the connection.
Without checking for traffic, Theo sent the vehicle into a screeching U-turn. An oncoming car swerved out of his way, bleating its horn as another car swerved to miss it.
Theo pressed his foot on the gas and the tires squealed in response as the SUV shot forward and away from the airport.
He barreled down the road as cars moved to the right, out of his way, when up ahead, he spotted a black SUV with flashing lights stuck in traffic going the opposite direction.
“You’ve gotta be kidding me, Liu,” Theo said to himself as he slowed to the speed limit and flicked off his own lights and sirens.
As he passed the vehicle, he glanced over quickly, not wanting to attract attention—and saw two of his colleagues craning their necks, trying to figure out a way to circumnavigate the cars. They never noticed him.
Were they backup? Or, in the middle of an operation, with lives on the line, was Liu willing to waste two of her agents by sending them to find Theo and drag his ass back in? He didn’t trust her enough to wait and find out. Accelerating the SUV, he left them behind.
* * *
Cool, fresh air blew in off the open sea, a startling contrast to the hot stuffiness of the van. Carrie gazed out at the inky water of the Pacific. Waves crashed on the shore in a ceaseless cadence of indifference. Tomorrow the tide would go out and come in just the same as it did the day before and would do the day after. She found relief in knowing that the earth would keep turning and that, ultimately, it didn’t care.
On the far end of the lot, out on the beach, a bonfire spat orange sparks up into the stars with a satisfying crackle. Behind the blaze, a couple reclined, their feet propped up on the gray concrete fire pit. Carrie inhaled deeply the smoky scent of nostalgia and immediately felt the cold barrel of a gun pressed to the back of her neck.
“I wasn’t going to yell,” she said. “I was just… savoring.”
“Let’s get this over with,” Sam said, pulling her arm in the other direction.
Together they walked away from the van toward the other end of the parking lot. In that corner, the bulb in the streetlamp was out. A pile of sand and discarded construction equipment underneath took on eerie shadows in the moonlight. A seagull perched atop another lamp, his head cocking from side to side as he watched them go by. Carrie considered them from the bird’s view: two people, shrouded in explosives, calmly moving into darkness. The salty wind blew her hair across her face and she shivered.
“Back at the house, you said you had plans,” she said. “But then your father died.”
Sam nodded. “Ben and I were all set. Our paperwork and visas were done. We’d been saving our money for ten years. Our flights were booked. And then four days before we were supposed to leave, he died.”
“So you stayed and Ben left without you?”
Sam nodded. The sand crunched beneath their feet. He walked just enough ahead of her that she could see the handle of the gun sticking up over the waist of his pants against his back.
“Did you resent him?”
Sam turned his head. “Ben?”
“Yeah. When he left you behind.”
They had almost reached the end of the lot and the pile of discarded rubble.
“No. Never. I made him go. He wanted to stay, didn’t think it was fair. Which it wasn’t,” Sam said with a shrug. “I told him to go and I made him take my money too. It would make it easier for him. I said he should get a head start and I’d join him when I could. And seventeen years later I did. But at the time, I just couldn’t leave.”
“But your family. What happened? What happened to Ahmad?”
The name of the youngest sibling, the deepest wound, hung in the air after it left her lips. She knew instantly it would have the effect she thought. She braced herself.
His pulse beat visibly against the side of his neck as he turned on her, stopping himself just before he struck her. She flinched and tried to run but he grabbed her under the jaw and pulled her back toward him, his fingers wrapping around her neck. Bringing her close, he turned her head to the side, his lips lingering over her ear. His breath painted a warm dampness across her cheek and she squeaked involuntarily as his fingers dug into her skin.
“Do not bring his name here,” Sam whispered into her ear.
Don’t fight. Don’t fight. Don’t fight. Carrie desperately tried to override instinct. Closing her eyes, she focused on the sound of the crashing waves.
Slowly, his grip began to loosen until he released her completely. She stumbled backward, taking deep breaths. Bending over, her hands went to her knees. She averted her gaze.
Sam motioned toward the pile.
“Hurry up.”
* * *
The stoplight turned yellow. Theo accelerated, checking both ways as an afterthought. The light was red before he even reached the intersection, but he barreled through anyway.
To his left, a plane tore down LAX’s north runway in its takeoff roll. Theo checked his speed. Seventy-five miles per hour. The speed limit was thirty-five. With a glance over at the plane as its wheels left the ground, Theo pressed his foot into the pedal and the needle went over eighty.
Westchester Parkway ran parallel to the airport. Traffic was light and the few cars that were on the road obediently slowed and pulled to the right when they heard the siren and saw the flashing lights. Theo surveyed the area, desperate for visual cues that would fill in what his memory left out. It’d been years since he’d gone this way. The area looked different from how he remembered.