Chapter 13 #2
Then Dane did something he hated to do, something he had a solid rule about.
Never shoot a man in the back, especially not when he’s running away.
But there were always exceptions to the rules.
In this case, he knew the man in question was only running for cover and he’d turn and shoot at his first opportunity.
So, Dane pulled the trigger and hit him in the neck, knocking him forward and down in a bloody puddle.
He heard another shot coming from further down the alley where he’d been and turned to see the man he’d shot in the leg now sitting.
He had a gun in his hand, but Dane realized he hadn’t shot it.
Oscar came out from a doorway with his gun raised.
They converged on the sitting man with their guns aimed at him.
He was half kneeling half lying in his blood.
He wasn’t quite dead, but he was no longer raising his Rueger at them.
O’Keefe was right behind Oscar. When Oscar took aim to shoot the man, O’Keefe said, “Don’t. ”
“You want to let him bleed out here? Maybe live to ID us?” Dane said.
Oscar lowered his gun. “Let’s get out of here. We can call the ambulance once we’re away.”
O’Keefe glared at Dane. Dane glared back. Then he looked at the bike. O’Keefe said, “Nice going. We’re on foot now—they’ll spot us again before long.”
“No they won’t.” Dane nodded toward the SUV parked at the end of the alley. He collected the weapons and checked the IDs of the fallen men. None of them had IDs. Oscar and O’Keefe helped.
He jogged to the SUV, threw the weapons in the back and then jumped in the driver’s seat. O’Keefe jumped in the back.
“Small favors—push button ignition. Now we’re hoping the key is somewhere inside.” He pressed the ignition and the engine started.
Oscar came from behind the car and climbed in the front passenger side. Letting out a deep breath, he said, “You know your way out of this place? You have a place we can go?”
“Yes and yes.” Dane pulled the SUV into the street and turned east, heading them back in the direction of the highway north. Back to where they started the day. Almost out of trouble.
“What about David?” O’Keefe asked. He was still tense and agitated.
“He’s already on his way to meeting Shana and Acer. Call them and tell them we’ll meet them at the landing pad. We’re not going back to the rental place.”
“So we’ll add grand theft auto to the murder charge then,” O’Keefe said from the back seat.
Dane was about to retort. They’d called the ambulance for the man who was still alive—he’d probably live. For what that was worth. He’d just saved O’Keefe’s ass and he was complaining, but Oscar put his hand up. “Think of it like police doing their duty in the name of the law—”
“We’re not the police. At least not down here.”
“No, and our victims are not boy scouts,” Oscar said. Then he reached back and clapped his friend on the leg. “Take it easy. You know it was self-defense.”
Dane nodded a fraction and said, “I have the business card for the rental place. I’ll send him some money to make him whole after we get back. We can’t afford to stop now. It won’t be long before Tavares figures out we have his vehicle. Then we’re dead meat.”
They hit the highway and made the forty-five-minute drive from there in silence.
*****
Before they arrived at the hangar, Dane called Acer to let him know he’d be approaching in a Black Navigator.
“How’d you change a bike into a Navigator? You the next David Copperfield?”
“Long story. We have Oscar. O’Keefe is with me. David is on his way if—”
“David is already here. Pulled in two minutes ago. That piece of shit scooter barely made it here. No one followed him—they’d never think to follow some middle-aged man on a girls bike.”
He heard David in the back ground say, “It was the perfect ruse—brilliant undercover work—completely unsuspecting.” Dane smiled.
It was good to hear David Young’s sense of humor coming through replacing the tension that had been there.
He wanted to hear Shana. He didn’t ask to speak with her.
He’d see her in a minute. A familiar tug assaulted his gut like the beginning of the spin cycle in a washer.
He hadn’t decided if it was a good feeling or a bad feeling.
It was his anticipating-Shana-feeling. Some of both. Either way, he couldn’t wait.
Dane honked the horn in two short bursts and waited for Acer to open the hanger door to pull the vehicle inside.
It was one of those mysterious principles of the universe that time slowed to a near stop when you wanted it to move fast and the closer you got to that anticipated moment the slower time moved.
He wanted to lay his eyes on Shana. He couldn’t stand the trickle of seconds as he sat in the humming vehicle with Oscar and O’Keefe. The silence and the wanting conspired to make time so sluggish he could feel the sweat drip down his back, tracking down cell by cell.
The door opened a foot and then stopped.
It started again and he could see Acer heaving it upward.
The interior was relatively dark. Dane couldn’t see inside.
He stopped himself from straining to see, he didn’t lean forward.
He looked straight ahead and drove, concentrating until he stopped the car and turned off the engine.
When he opened the car’s door and saw Shana standing there, his heart lurched and his chest tightened to hold it in place.
She opened her arms to him and he stepped forward enveloping her, his nerves on fire, everything in him on fire and racing.
She pressed against him and he smiled into her hair, nuzzling her neck and combing his fingers through her hair.
“I was worried,” she murmured into his chest. He pulled her closer, one arm circling around her back, pushing his hips as tight as they would go. She laughed and looked up at him, “Is that a roll—” she started to say, but the others interrupted, dragging them into the larger reunion.
“We finally found you,” David said to Oscar. They were man-hugging and backslapping.
Acer clapped Dane on the back. Dane let go of Shana as she went to Oscar to give him a hug.
“Let’s get the hell out of here,” Dane said to Acer.
They stood in a circle a few feet inside the walk-through door of the hangar. Their bags were where they left them earlier near a pallet along the wall ten more yards in.
“I already started preparations. Checking on the last few things,” Acer said. Then he frowned at his phone. “There’s a thunderstorm north of here. We can’t move. We need to sit tight to wait for it to clear. Looks like a few hours.” Dane met his gaze. Everyone stopped talking.
The unsettled feeling roiled in his gut. He couldn’t let up off the red-button until they were back home. The tension couldn’t be healthy and he wondered why he didn’t have ulcers. He itched to put his arms back around Shana.
“Damn.” Dane fisted his hands. “Keep monitoring it—weather changes.”
“Any chance they can find us here while we’re waiting?” O’Keefe asked.
“Unlikely,” Acer said. “Unless someone followed you.”
“I wasn’t followed,” David said. “In spite of the clever cover of my inappropriate motor scooter and attire, I didn’t leave it to chance. I watched my back and made several loops in my route to be sure.”
“We weren’t followed,” Dane said. He left it at that. Oscar nodded his confirmation. Oscar had switched their plates with a nearby parked car before taking off to make sure. Floyd had taught him well.
Shana said, “We sure as hell weren’t followed.
” She’d had her hair up and under wraps to reduce her recognizability.
“This is a big crowded city. They wouldn’t necessarily expect us to be flying a bird.
They’re probably expecting us to drive north to Sao Paulo to the airport there.
That’s what we’d do if we didn’t have Acer. ”
The swell of pride took Dane by surprise. His girl had said everything he’d been thinking. She was damn good.
“We can take turns watching. We have no choice,” Dane said. “I want to get out of this hell hole yesterday. But we wait until Acer says the weather’s clear.” He nodded at Acer.
“The very first second it’s halfway safe to fly—my specialty—we’re out of here. Best guess at least two hours—maybe three.”
Dane decided not to add to the edge of having to wait for the weather to turn with talk about what to do about the CIA traitor.
Not at that moment. Shana gave him a look—an arch of her fine brow, a flick of her cat-green eyes, a huff of breath that wasn’t exactly relief, more like a disturbance, restlessness.
He sensed it in her—unless he was projecting his own restlessness on her.
Their synchronicity sometimes unnerved him. This time he appreciated it.
He reached out an arm and took a fist full of her trussed up hair in his fingers and tugged.
*****
She moved toward him, not with a resisting lurch, but in a natural lean as if she were being drawn in on a mesmerizing wave.
She felt his heat, smelled his scent before her body landed against the hard, reassuring wall of his body.
The arm circled around her like always. But where it felt like a snare sometimes, today, now, it felt protective.
The well of heat inside her was partly from shame that she should feel so comforted by this man’s protection, feel so needy of it.
When his arm tightened, she realized it was because she had reflexively stiffened, holding back with her strange inner rebellion against her neediness.
There was no way to reconcile her conflicting emotions when it came to this man.
She blew out a big breath and gave into it, relaxing and leaning on him.
“In the meantime we can rest,” David said.
“And celebrate,” Oscar said. “We’re all in one piece and not incarcerated.”