Runaway Model (29 page)

"I'll shoot you right now if you don't stop it."

"I'm ready. Shoot me, mate. And then they shoot you and dump your body in this fucking swamp."

"Stop it. Stop it."

"Kill me. Shoot me. Splatter my bone and blood all over your body." Kyle did a crude grind against Nigel's torso. "You'll never wash it off."

The creep shuddered. The gun wobbled upward to Kyle's ear.

***

"T
he fuck is he doing?" Roberto asked. They couldn't hear what Kyle was saying but they could see the way he humped the perv's leg.

"Trying to get the creep off his game from the looks of it," Wilton said. "Probably doing a decent job too."

Bryce and Arnold had joined the three soldiers outside the jet. Bryce felt naked. He'd given his Kevlar vest to Arnold.

"Time for the counter offer," Johnston said.

Bryce swallowed. He didn't feel like shouting out the terms. He took the phone Johnston thrust in his hands—the Cessna pilot's cheap black phone.

A tinny tinkle of Mozart sounded off in the distance. Nigel's ringtone. Bryce couldn't hear what they were saying, but evidently Nigel instructed Kyle to pull the cell from his pocket. He kept his own hands on the gun he now held partly shoved into the boy's right ear.

Kyle answered. Put it on speaker.

"Your pilot's dead," Bryce said. "As you can see, we have his phone and his plane."

"We know that shite already," Nigel said. He sounded harassed. "Don't waste my fucking time."

"This is the trade. We won't give you the jet. My insurance company would hang me out to dry if I did that. But my pilot is willing to fly you out in your plane. It's already fueled up and ready to go. He'll take you wherever you want. No arguments."

"Then where he is? Show me your pilot."

Arnold Geurne stepped forward.

"Take off your jacket."

Arnold complied.

"All of it."

Arnold took off the shirt and Kevlar vest too. Naked from the waist up, he shivered visibly in the December morning, his belly fat wobbling.

"Happy now?" Bryce asked. "He's a pilot. That's all he is. He's not interested in having a gun battle with a psycho."

"Then we're all in agreement. I'll load the boy into the plane and be on my way."

"Not so fast," Bryce said. "You only get the pilot if you give us the boy. You don't get both."

"This isn't a fucking negotiation we've got going here!"

"Actually, you're wrong. Very wrong. That's exactly what it is." Bryce had stared down an 800 million dollar offer for his business. He could stare this creep down too.

"You have a choice about what your future will be. This is our final offer. You decide. Fly away or go down in a hail of bullets. Your choice. My snipers tell me they can have you dead on the tarmac before you get the hammer down on your piece of shit handgun. They tell me they can take the boy alive. Before I let you waltz off with him, I'm willing to take the chance that they're right."

Nigel's weapon was trembling visibly now. "I came too far to leave this boy behind. He's mine. I didn't spend all these years..."

Kyle was much too close. Of course the snipers wouldn't be able to take down Nigel before he got off a shot. But Bryce had to make the threat.

What the hell was Kyle doing anyway? Was he licking the perv in the ear?

Whatever he did, whatever he said, the perv was shaking. The gun was lower now, at the hollow of the boy's lower back instead of his neck.

Bryce forced his own voice to sound as calm as an inch of ice on a winter's lake.

"You're not leaving this place with Kyle Marchane. My pilot won't transport a teenage boy for you or anybody. He says I don't pay him enough."

"Nobody could pay me enough for that," Arnold said.

Roberto also knew how to keep his voice steady. "How this ends is up to you, Mr. Nigel. You can die here or walk away a free man. Your option. But you're not taking the boy. That was never going to happen on my watch. You're dealing with the US Army here."

"Don't be a fucking cowboy," Nigel said. "I'll get the first shot off. I will. The boy will be dead too. He's just a child. He's only eighteen. His death will be on your hands."

"I can live with that," Roberto said. "You think a boy of eighteen is a child to me? I've fought alongside eighteen-year-olds. I've fought and killed fourteen-year-olds. A gunshot is a merciful death. I won't let you take him to do the dirty things you pervs do to good-looking boys. That I can't live with."

Nigel trembled. But he remembered to raise the gun. It was back to Kyle's neck again.

"You'd cut off pieces, wouldn't you?" Roberto said. "In Iraq there was this one creep. I found him eating some of the pieces. I took great pleasure in killing that creep. I'll take great pleasure in killing you."

"You don't understand our relationship. Nobody understands." Was Roman Nigel weeping? "It's special between me and Kyle. I'd never hurt him. I'd never do... that ugly thing you said."

"Oh they're all special, aren't they, Johnston?" Roberto nodded at his Army colleague.

"Remember that dude that collected the children's ears?"

"I remember how he screamed when we shot off his dick."

Christ. Bryce hoped these stories were manufactured for Roman Nigel's benefit. These boys were seriously scaring the shit out of him. And he thought
he
was a good negotiator.

"I can't hold back these men much longer," Bryce said. "As you can see, they have very strong opinions about pervs who kidnap young boys. It's up to you, Nigel. We can fight about it and everybody dies. Or you can send Kyle over, and I'll send over my pilot."

Nigel's shoulders slumped. "Send him over to the plane. Get the engine started."

Arnold started to pick up his shirt and jacket.

"Leave that shite. Just go get the plane ready for take-off."

Naked from the waist up, Arnold obeyed.

The roar of the Cessna's engine seemed very loud.

***

"T
hey'll shoot me down walking to the plane if I let you go now," Nigel said into Kyle's ear. "You have to stay with me, lad. Just for a few more minutes." His voice sounded as if he were being strangled. He was choking on the defeat.

But Kyle could breathe. Nigel was going to let him go. Bryce had won. He let his arms drop from around Nigel's waist.

"Don't do one of your runners. Stay nice and close. I still have the gun." Nigel tapped it against the back of his neck.

Kyle didn't reply. He was out of words.

They scurried over to the plane, giving the propellers a wide berth.

"If that boy gets on that plane, the deal's off," Bryce said. He was shouting even though the phone was still open. It gave his words an echo effect.

Nigel didn't reply. He was out of words too.

They reached the plane. It was the most dangerous moment. Nigel could still try to bundle Kyle onto the Cessna. Bryce's sharpshooters could still try to drop Nigel. If guns started firing, Kyle had no doubt he'd be the first man to go down.

They paused at the passenger side door.

***

"T
ell your men to drop their weapons," Nigel said.

"You won't get one fucking inch into the air if you take that boy," Bryce said. "My pilot won't fly. You heard what he said. What everybody said."

"I'm not going to let you shoot me down on the steps," Nigel said. "I'll let go of the boy when your men drop their weapons."

Bryce nodded. Roberto, Johnston, and Wilton lowered their Glocks.

"Drop them!" Nigel screamed. "On the fucking ground. Now."

They did.

Nigel gave Kyle a sudden sharp shove in the back at the same time he jumped into the passenger seat of the Citation. Kyle ducked low and twisted to avoid the propellers as he ran back toward Bryce.

Roberto, Johnston, and Wilton were already scrambling for their weapons.

"Get this plane in the air!" They could hear Nigel shouting over the roar of the Cessna's engines. The phone was still open. He'd forgotten to end the call.

There were reflections in the windows of the Cessna that made it difficult to see in. But Bryce had a pretty good idea that Nigel had his Saturday night special aimed at Arnold's head. "Now, you wanker! What the fuck are you waiting for? If you're not going to fly this bird, you're going to die."

"You'll die too," Arnold said. His voice didn't echo as strongly from the cell. He sounded calm. Ready.

"You'll die first."

"Strangely enough, that doesn't bother me. I can wait five minutes to see you in hell. We'll have eternity."

"Fuck you."

"We're both fucked." If anything, Arnold sounded cheerful. "You really thought they'd give you a pilot? I don't have clue one how to fly this bird. I've never flown a fucking plane in my fucking life."

Nigel had reached the end. He fired one bullet.

B
ryce pulled Kyle's face hard against his chest. The boy was warm and real. How he'd missed holding him. "Don't look. Get in the jet. Don't ever look."

"I have to look, mate." Kyle touched Bryce's cheek. "I have to see for me self that he's dead. Myself that he's dead."

It touched Bryce's heart that Kyle was still trying to practice his American English even in a situation like this.

***

T
he Citation's engines turned off. Arnold climbed out of the pilot's seat. His naked chest was smeared with blood and gore. There were splatters on his face too. He stood by the plane a minute, apparently a little stunned.

"You've seen enough," Bryce said. "He's dead."

"No, mate," Kyle said. "I haven't seen enough. He's a fucking magician. He's popped up out of nowhere on me for four fucking years."

"He won't be popping out of that plane."

But it wasn't a time for rational argument. Kyle needed to make his own decisions. Get back some sense of control over his own life.

Bryce squeezed his shoulder and let go of him.

Kyle swallowed hard, his Adam's apple bobbing in his smooth throat.

He walked over to the plane. Looked at Arnold. The big man nodded. He understood why Kyle had to see this. "I'm here, son. It'll be OK. He's dead."

Kyle went around to the passenger side door. Yanked it open. A headless corpse slumped partway out.

Kyle looked through the plane to Arnold. "That's brass balls, mate. He could have shot you instead of himself."

Arnold tried to shrug it off. He wasn't an action hero but he knew from the movies they were supposed to be modest.

"I didn't think he would, kid. Our people would blow him away. He had only one way to go out on his own terms. There's things we'll never know about him, but we do know he had a need to always be in control."

"You still took one hell of a chance for some lad you don't even know. I've got to say, mate. I've never seen anything like that. I'm just... you're me brother now. Anything you ever need, anything I can ever do for you, tell me and I'll do it."

"It's OK, kid. I didn't do it for you anyway. I did it for Bryce. He's my best friend in this life. If you want to do something for me, just treat him right. However you feel about him... just treat him right. Don't fuck him over just for fun."

Kyle nodded. Arnold thought he was a player. And Kyle couldn't really blame him.

"I won't," he said. "Bryce is a good man. He's special. He doesn't seem to know that. But he is."

***

"W
e've got to get a move-on," Roberto said. "We've got incoming." They could all hear the distant sound of land vehicles approaching from the road.

"Shit," Bryce said.

"It's OK." Stoney Rockland came out of the jet. "It's my people. Three vehicles. They'll be arriving in ten."

He walked up to Kyle. Touched him briefly on the shoulder. Nodded. Bryce was surprised at the distance between them. Weren't they supposed to be lovers?

Of course neither man smelled very sweet at the moment, thanks to the tender attentions of one Roman Nigel.

"Are your people stand-up?" Roberto asked.

"They'll have to be," Stoney said. "Nobody's got a job if I'm in some shite American prison, innit?"

Johnston: "We'll need to clean up this mess."

"I have a few ideas about that," Wilton said. "We can very easily make this look like a situation between rival drug smugglers."

"We don't have quantity," Roberto said. "I stocked just enough to keep us going during operations. It would be trace amounts. Not enough to convince anybody they were in the business. A lot of people do a little speed before they fly. It might be dangerous as fuck but it doesn't make them traffickers."

Wilton looked apologetic. "You're not the only one who has access to product."

"Fuck, Wilton," Arnold said. "You're supposed to be getting out of the business."

"I am getting out of the business. I just had some leftovers I didn't want to sell, and it was too valuable to flush. I was saving it for a rainy day, and I figured the storm was coming so I brought it along."

"What about the pilot?" Johnston asked.

"What about him?" Arnold said. "He's still out like a light. He missed the whole party. He knows fuck-all about what happened and who we are."

"He saw the three of us," Wilton said. "He saw Bryce. It's possible he could come back and identify us some day."

"He was never here. It wouldn't make sense." Arnold smiled. "I've already filed a post-dated theft report on the Cessna with the New Jersey State Police. I went into their data base, and it looks like he filed a week ago. He'll go along with it. He'll have every motivation to stick to the story that somebody else took off in his plane. There's no percentage for him to admit he was ever here. He doesn't want to find himself neck-deep in a federal case."

"I don't want to drop him in New York," Bryce said.

"We can drop him in fucking Youngstown, Ohio for all I care. Doesn't much matter. He's going to make up some story his friends are going to have to believe. He knows the day he's brought in as some kind of bullshit federal witness is the day his wonderful colleagues give him the double-tap."