The Night Charter (28 page)

“M
IDNIGHT,”
C
AMARO SAID
without greeting.

“You whore,” Matt said.

“You want to end this or what?” Camaro asked.

“I'll end it with a bullet in your head. Where do I give it to you?”

“Right where I left your friend.”

“You're using my own spot,” Matt said.

“You weren't using it for anything.”

“I'm gonna kill you.”

“That's what you said. You can try.”

“Oh, yeah, you're dead.”

Camaro looked around the Denny's parking lot. She tried to imagine where Matt was. She hoped it was comfortable, because it was the end for him. “The smart thing for you to do is take that money you stole from the Cubans and run, Matt.”

“Run from
you?
I don't think so.”

“Just remember I gave you a chance.”

“Go fuck your—” Matt began, but she cut the call short.

She went to her bike and sat in the saddle as she typed in an email for the men of Alpha 66. She gave them the place, and she gave them a time: two o'clock. There was a warning not to come early or the deal was off. Maybe they wouldn't listen, but she believed they would be gun-shy after Liberty City. They would do as they were told.

Only then did she call Ignacio through the main switchboard at the police station. He picked up after a transfer. “Detective Montellano,” he said. He sounded exhausted.

“It's me,” Camaro said.

“Camaro,” Ignacio said, audibly awakened. “Why are you calling?”

“Tonight's the night Matt Clifford's passing Chapado to his friends.”

“When? Where?”

“Early morning. I'll let you know where.”

“Tell me now.”

“You know I can't do that.”

“Goddamn it, you have to give me something to work with here! You've been stringing me along this whole time. Where is Matt Clifford, where is Chapado, and where is this all going down?”

“I'll tell you tonight,” Camaro said. “But be ready. You won't have much time.”

“Camaro, don't leave me hanging.”

“I have to go. Remember what I said: be ready.”

She closed the line and turned off the phone.

With Lauren's weight gone from the bike there was a strange lightness to her ride. The helmet she had bought the girl was held to the pillion seat's backrest by the chinstrap. Camaro didn't know what she would do with it.

There were no police at the motel when she returned, and she heard no noise from the room when she approached. She let herself in and went to the bathroom. Chapado sat there quietly. “You see?” he said to her.

“It's time to go,” Camaro said. She crouched and unfastened the handcuffs. “You can ride with the cuffs on or off. It's up to you.”

“I will go without if it makes no difference to you.”

“Fine,” Camaro said, and she put the handcuffs in her back pocket.

She fetched the shotgun from its place by the bed and checked through the partly opened door for watchful eyes before stepping out with the weapon. It went behind the saddlebag, and she and Chapado went on the bike. She pressed the starter, and the engine revved into life. “You try to jump off, or if you give me any problems…,” she said.

“I understand.”

It was not far to the warehouse complex, and Chapado made no protest when they parked in the concealment of a tall Brazilian pepper and Camaro armed herself again. They walked side by side, not like captor and captive, and went through the hole in the fence one after the other.

“Watch your step,” Camaro told him when they reached the side door of the warehouse. They crunched into the broken glass on the other side, and she showed him how to knock his toe against the floor and shake off the larger bits. “You don't want to end up kneeling in any of that.”

Camaro showed him her hide and motioned for him to sit down. She went to the center of the warehouse and switched on the floodlights. The batteries would last at least long enough to get them through what she had to do.

When she was done, she sat down next to Chapado in the hide and put the shotgun across her knees. “Now we wait,” she said.

“For what?”

“For Matt to cheat. I told him midnight. He'll be here by eleven. No later.”

“A long time from now.”

“You're used to waiting,” Camaro said. “Wait a little bit more.”

They let the hours slip past them. Camaro sweated in the oppressive heat of the warehouse. Chapado's face was wet with perspiration. A sauna would have punished them less, and the reek of Soto's corpse was pervasive.

The illumination from the plastic ceiling panels dimmed, as did the light through the warehouse windows. The sun went down completely. The night sounds began.

She heard an engine somewhere out on the road about ten thirty and knew it was Matt. He would come through the front gates as quietly as he could and creep up on the warehouse, watching it for movement and listening for a hint of sound. There would be none. Then he would come closer, his weapon out, until he was at the door. He would pass through.

Matt's foot crunched in the broken glass near the office. Camaro rose to a crouch and put a finger to her lips. Chapado nodded. She heard Matt curse and then the quiet footfalls of a man trying his best not to be heard.

Camaro came out of the hide and slipped through the shadows of the stacked crates. She could hear him and feel him moving toward the center of the warehouse, drawn inexorably toward the light like some kind of stupid insect.

She stepped out of cover at Matt's back and closed the distance between them with the shotgun up. “Stop right where you are,” she told him.

Matt froze. He raised his hands, with his pistol still in his grip. “Don't shoot,” he said. “You got me.”

“Gun on the floor.”

Camaro waited as he crouched down and placed his weapon lightly on the concrete. “You knew I'd come early,” he said. “So you came earlier.”

“Kick the gun away.”

He did. “Now what?”

“Turn around.”

Matt turned to face her. He was silhouetted by the brightness of the floodlights. The empty chair where Chapado had been held was like a waiting torture rack. “You gonna shoot me? Just like you shot Sandro?”

“I should.”

“Go ahead then.”

“No.”

“So…what? We gonna stare at each other all night? Why don't you put that gun down, and you can show me how tough you are. Bitch.”

Camaro felt the handcuffs in her back pocket. She looked at the chair. “You're stupid,” she said.

“And you're nothing without that shotgun. Come on, lady, show me what you got.”

Camaro let her hand slip from around the pistol grip of the Mossberg and held it by the forend. “You want to see how you do against me?” she asked.

A thin smile danced around Matt's lips. “Let's do it. One on one. I don't have no gun, and you don't have one. I'll put you down in a second.”

“Okay,” Camaro said.

She squatted to the floor and laid the shotgun down flat before standing again. Matt lowered his hands and rolled his shoulders. His hands made fists. “You just made a big mistake,” he said.

“I don't think so,” Camaro said.

She drew the Glock from the small of her back and shot Matt in the stomach before he had a chance to move from his spot. He folded in half at the waist, and his knees buckled. His body teetered. He toppled onto his side. Blood escaped between the fingers he clutched around his belly.

Camaro put the Glock away and grabbed Matt by the arm. She dragged him across the floor past Soto's body and into the center of the warehouse. “Get up,” she said. “Into that chair.”

Matt mumbled as she muscled him partway onto his feet and then into a seated position in the chair. Camaro took out the handcuffs and secured his wrists behind the chair's stiff back. Matt bled into his lap. “You cheatin' bitch,” he managed to say.

“Don't complain,” Camaro said. “You could be dead. It'll take you a long time to bleed out from that wound. And by then you won't be my problem anymore.”

“Fu-fuck you.”

“Just shut up and sit still,” Camaro said. “You don't have to—”

A foot crunched on the glass near the entrance. She saw the first man appear in the space between two stacks, a submachine gun gripped in his fists. He opened fire.

C
AMARO THREW HERSELF
to one side as the submachine gun barked. She tucked her shoulder as she hit the floor and rolled, coming up by the standing sentinel of a floodlight. The Glock slipped into her hand and then she was moving, even as a second man came storming forward. His bullets chewed a crate to flinders and thudded on the objects inside.

She turned as she fled, firing twice at the exposed gunman and catching him high in the chest. He spiraled to the ground, a quick flash exploding from the muzzle of his weapon as his dead finger convulsed on the trigger. Camaro faded into the shadows, aware of the rush of feet moving around the warehouse, a spreading fan of armed men.

The hide was a place to go, but then she would draw the enemy directly toward Chapado. Instead, she dodged back and back again, burying herself more deeply in the maze of boxes and crates, even as the men shouted to one another in Spanish.

One appeared in her peripheral vision, and she ducked before a flurry of slugs cut the air where she had just been. Camaro snaked around the corner of the stack, looking for a clear shot and failing to find one.

They were in front and behind. Camaro heard a shout less than ten feet ahead of her. She reversed direction, keeping low. A man with a shotgun passed through her field of vision, but he did not glance her way. Camaro surged forward and made the corner in time to see his exposed back. She raised the Glock to fire, but he sensed her at the last moment and turned. The barrel of his shotgun hit the Glock and sent it spinning from her hand. Camaro stepped in, past the muzzle as the shotgun detonated. She punched the man hard in the face and he staggered.

His grip slackened on the shotgun. Camaro grabbed it in both hands, and they wrestled for it, the weapon between them. He twisted the gun, but they both lost their grip, and it struck the floor. Camaro's stunned ears barely heard the clatter of it on the concrete.

The man punched, but she blocked it away, moving inside to drive an elbow into his stomach. He grunted and laced an arm around her throat, hauling her backward and clear off her feet. They fell together to the ground.

Camaro scrambled over onto all fours. The man caught her by the neck of her shirt and knotted his fingers in the material. He punched her with his other hand, and instantly she bled from the nose.

She got a leg over his hip and drove down with her elbow again and again, the point of bone cutting deep gashes on the man's forehead. Blood gushed from her nostrils, raining onto his face. Her nose was broken.

There was the flash of silver in the corner of her eye, and she put a hand out just fast enough to catch the man's wrist as he stabbed a knife toward her side. He wrenched her off her knees by her collar, the material giving way, and drove the point of the blade downward into her exposed thigh. Camaro screamed and pressed a thumb into the man's eye, gouging deep into the socket until she felt hot wetness. Now he screamed, too.

Camaro lunged away from the man toward the fallen Glock, her shirt tearing down the front. Her hand closed around the butt as the man stabbed her in the leg again. She fell on her side and shot him in the ear twice. He was still.

Two were down, but she did not know how many there had been to begin with. There were still at least three distinct voices, but the sound of their running footfalls made them sound like many more. She struggled to stand up.

“¡Ahí está!”
called a man, and Camaro realized one had slipped behind her. She spun and nearly toppled. He raised his submachine gun, the weapon black on black. Camaro emptied her pistol into him. He danced with the impacts, tripped over his own feet, and collapsed.

The Glock was useless. She dropped it and swayed on her feet. Men were closing on her from two directions. Camaro limped to a short stack of crates and clambered up onto them, feeling the hot blood pulsing down her leg. Her mouth was full of the salt taste of it. She made it to the top of the stack, and for a moment she saw a pair of men in motion, armed with automatic weapons, navigating the warren formed among the towers.

She dropped down on the far side and her leg gave way. She clawed at the crates nearest her for handholds and stood again. She cut to her right, but finding the breaks too small to wedge through, she channeled toward the rear wall of the warehouse. The men were shouting to each other again, voicing confusion. Camaro went to her boot.

The karambit was five ounces in her left hand, nearly weightless as the adrenaline coursed through her. At the end of the row, she circled back, homing in on the raised voices, hobbling on her bloody leg. She could identify them by sound now: a young man and an older man, the latter's voice roughened by cigarettes. Camaro closed on the young man, tracking through the stacks, sweat slicking her skin and her heart thundering. She spat blood from her lips.

They nearly collided as they reached the same corner at the same moment. The young man's eyes bulged in the shadows, showing white, and he swung the muzzle of his submachine gun around. Camaro caught the weapon in her right hand and ripped with the left. The karambit laid the man's throat open deeply, and there was a hot shower of red in the air as his carotid erupted.

The older man appeared at the end of the row, and Camaro let the karambit slip and fall. She seized the dying gunman by the shoulders and dragged him around even as his comrade opened fire. Bullets crashed into flesh, most of the impacts absorbed by the meat of the young man's chest and belly. Other bullets streaked by and another punched through, caroming off bone to strike Camaro in the hip. She felt the bite of the bullet as it slashed her.

Camaro's hand closed over her shield's right fist. She brought his arm and his weapon to bear in the same motion, triggering finger on finger and letting the submachine gun explode into a fully automatic blaze that lit the narrow row.

Slugs tore at the crates around the older man, but others sank home. He staggered under the shots and fell back against a tower. It teetered at the collision and then fell over, raising a riot of noise as wooden cases shattered and their contents spilled.

Both men were dead. Camaro let her shield crumple. Camaro fell, too. She put her hand on her hip and felt where the bullet had laid open the flesh but missed the bone. She gathered up her blade again and listened, but there was no further sound.

“Chapado?” Camaro called. She sounded weak.

“I…I am here.”

“Stay where you are. I'm coming to you.”

Getting up took all her effort. She stumbled to the hide and saw Chapado curled up in the shelter of the crates. His eyes widened when he saw her. “The blood,” he said. “You're hurt.”

Camaro wanted to collapse on the floor beside him. “I'm alive,” she said.

“They are all gone?”

“I think so.” She gripped Chapado's arm. “Come with me.”

“You are hurt. I should help you.”

“Just come on,” she said, and she hobbled through the stacks to each of the dead bodies in turn, Chapado in her wake. “Is this one of Alpha 66's?” she asked him every time. He shook his head.

They came to the last, the older man she'd heard among the others. She lifted his head by the hair and showed his face to Chapado. “Is he one of them?”

“No,” Chapado said. “But I know him.”

“Who is he?”

“He is Cuban. Intelligence Directorate. His name is…Galvan. No, it's Galdarres.”

“They're not even your guys,” Camaro said.

“They came to kill me. I owe you my life. But it doesn't matter. You're bleeding.”

“Help me sit.”

Chapado helped lower her to the ground. She stripped off the ragged remains of her shirt and tore it into pieces. “Put pressure there,” she said, pointing at her leg. “You do that one. I'll do the others.”

Long needles of pain lanced through her when the wounds were pressed on. Camaro felt faint and clung to Chapado's sleeve when her vision flickered. They stayed in place for a long time, breathing together, as the torn fragments of her shirt slowly soaked with blood.

After a while, she took pressure off her hip and the blood didn't flow. Her nose was stuffed completely, but the streaming had stopped. She let go of the knife wound on her thigh. It oozed only slightly. Chapado did the same. They still bled, but the worst was past. “You need a doctor. Stitches.”

“I'll worry about that,” Camaro said. “I need to get up. I need my gun.”

Chapado provided a shoulder, and Camaro searched through the warehouse until she found her gun. She tucked it away. “What now?” Chapado asked.

“Matt.”

They went to him. Matt slumped in the chair, his stomach and legs sodden with blood. The bullet wound in his forehead was perfectly round and placed directly over the left eyebrow. His eyes were open.

“Son of a bitch,” Camaro said.

Chapado was there. “Is he…?”

“Yeah, he's dead. I wanted him alive for your friends.”

“I will tell my people you tried to give him to them.”

The karambit came into her hand. Camaro stepped into Chapado and brandished the blade against his throat. He froze. “You don't tell them anything about me. You never saw my face. You never heard my name. You don't know who I am or where I came from. If you owe me your life, then you will swear I was never here.”

Chapado swallowed. “I saw nothing. I know nothing.”

Camaro stepped back. “Your people will come for you,” she said. “You just have to wait.”

She wiped the karambit clean on Matt's shoulder and put it away. Then she brought out the throwaway phone and called out. She waited until Ignacio answered. “Camaro,” he said.

“It's time,” she said.

“Are you okay? You don't sound too good.”

“Just come and get them.”

“Where?”

“You're a smart guy. You figure it out,” Camaro said. She cleaned the phone on her T-shirt without ending the call and let it fall to the floor.

She picked up her shotgun from where it lay and left the warehouse behind, dragging her leg as she went.