This Wicked World (41 page)

Taggert yanks open the driver’s-side door but slips climbing in and falls to his knees. Another round smacks into the door, which is now between him and Mando, protecting him from the waist up. If he can get inside before the pain registers, he’ll be able to start the truck and run them down, or at least distract them enough that he and Olivia can escape.

“Oh my God,” Olivia screeches. “Oh my God,” and he wishes she’d shut the fuck up. What happened to me? he wonders. When did I forget everything I know?

T
HE
M
EXICANS ADVANCE
on the Explorer, the one with the cowboy hat firing a pistol, the big one what looks like a MAC-10. Taggert is struggling to pull himself into the driver’s seat, and Olivia leans over to grab his arm as the big guy sprays the Explorer, spiderwebbing the windshield.

Boone steps out into the street. He was about to order everyone to hit the dirt when the shooting started, but now his only thought is to keep Olivia alive long enough to find out where Amy is being held. He squeezes off two bursts into the mud in front of the Mexicans and shouts, “Drop your weapons.”

The big guy whips the MAC around and sends a string of bullets his way. Boone drops to the ground and rolls behind an old concrete foundation. The sodden ski mask has twisted around to cover his eyes, so he tears it off.

The Mexicans run to the Silverado and scramble inside. The engine starts, but before they can get moving, there’s more gunfire, and half a dozen rounds chew up the grille of the truck. The engine emits a shrill scream, then grinds to a stop.

Wind-driven rain is pounding down harder than ever, and Boone can barely make out Robo, who is advancing cautiously toward the two vehicles, covering both with his M-16.

“Jimmy, where are you?” Robo shouts.

Boone rises to his knees and waves. “Over here. What are you doing?”

“Coming to help. I thought they got you.”

“Go back to cover. And no more shooting.”

The Spider-Man walkie-talkie beeps incessantly. Boone takes it from his pocket, keys it, and says, “Yeah?”

“We got to go,” Carl says.

Boone watches Robo waddle toward a cabin on the side of the road. Before he gets there, shots come from the Silverado, and he falls to the ground.

“Bring the truck,” Boone yells into the walkie-talkie. “Wait for us by the depot.”

W
HEN
O
LIVIA MANAGES
to haul Taggert into the Explorer, he slumps in the driver’s seat, his breath coming in stuttering gasps. There’s blood all over his face, and bright red gouts of it spurt from a hole in his thigh. He clamps a hand over the wound to stanch the flow.

“What do we do?” Olivia asks, shaken by his suffering.

Taggert looks past her out the passenger-side window. She follows his gaze and sees the fat man in the ski mask who just went down. His body lies in the road, ten feet from the Explorer.

“Get that guy’s gun,” Taggert hisses.

“I can’t,” Olivia wails.

He shoves her hard. “Do you wanna fucking die out here?”

Frightened into action, Olivia shoulders her door open and leaps out into the storm. Three long strides bring her to the body. The man is on his back in the mud. Olivia snatches up his rifle, then spots a pistol in the pocket of his fleece vest and takes that too.

A flash from the Silverado pulses in the corner of her eye, and bullets crack and whistle all around her. She half crawls, half runs back to the Explorer. More rounds ding into the truck, metal hitting metal. She and Taggert cower beneath the dash until the shooting stops.

“The M-16,” Taggert says, reaching out the hand that isn’t applying pressure to his leg.

“What?” Olivia says, confused.

“The fucking rifle.”

She passes it to him, and he uses the stock to punch a hole in the shattered safety glass of the windshield, then releases his hold on his thigh long enough to draw back the bolt and fire at the Silverado.

“Take the keys out of my pocket,” he says. “Put them into the ignition.”

His voice is slurred, his tongue uncooperative. They killed him, Olivia marvels. She fishes in his pants with tears in her eyes. Her hand comes away coated in blood.

T
AGGERT LETS LOOSE
with another burst. Got to keep their heads down until he can start the truck. He’s getting weaker, though, feels the juice draining out of him. The round in his thigh must have hit an artery. As soon as he and Olivia break out of here, he’ll have her apply a tourniquet.

The girl fumbles with the keys. As she’s pushing them into the slot, her door pops open. It’s the fat man who, just a second ago, appeared to be KIA. She screams and slides over the center console in an attempt to get away from him.

“Let me in,” the fat man says. He’s bleeding from a wound in his side, looks half crazy.

“Shoot him,” Taggert snaps at Olivia.

She kicks the guy, catches him in the chest. He falls back into the mud.

“Shoot him,” Taggert yells again.

She bobbles the Glock, gets it straight, and leans out the door to point it down at the motherfucker.

“Stop!” someone new shouts and knocks her arm sideways before she can pull the trigger. “He’s with me.”

Boone. The son of a bitch who came asking about Oscar crouches behind the door and fires at the Silverado with another M-16, like he’s on their side.

“What are you doing here?” he asks Olivia.

“I… I don’t know, I…” she stammers. “What do we do now?”

“Hey, it’s your fucking plan,” Boone says.

Everything becomes clear to Taggert then. Not the dirty details, but the gist of Olivia’s betrayal is right there in front of him. She was fucking him over too, had something cooked up with this Boone, some sort of double cross that fell apart when the Mexicans started shooting. The little bitch has been playing him all along. He must have Alzheimer’s or something, not to have seen this coming. He must have stroked out and not even realized it.

His vision is fading, and there’s a chill in his guts. He’s done for, no getting around that, but he’ll be damned if these snakes will watch him die.

“Get out,” he says to Olivia.

“Wait, Bill,” she says.

He lifts his right hand from the hole in his leg, balls it into a bloody fist, and punches her repeatedly in the face and body.

“Get. The. Fuck. Out.”

Olivia retreats under the hail of blows, backs awkwardly out of the truck. Taggert starts the Explorer and pops it into drive. He can’t feel his right foot anymore, so he uses his left to jam the gas pedal to the floor.

The tires spin in the mud, then catch, and suddenly he’s moving toward the Silverado, picking up speed. Mando and his partner fire wildly through their broken windshield — at him, at Olivia and the others, who are now pinned down with no cover.

Taggert grips the wheel in one hand, the rifle in the other. At least he got out of Kentucky. At least he got to be boss. He fires the M-16, peppering the Silverado with bullets. Mando and the big man duck, but not fast enough. Both take rounds, jerk, and slump. Taggert can barely keep his eyes open. He dreams he’s back at the ranch, in bed with Olivia. What’d she say that day? “More good times than bad, baby, that’s all we can ask for. More good times than bad.”

T
HE
M
EXICAN IN
the cowboy hat bails out of the Silverado an instant before the Explorer plows into it. A spark hits gas somewhere, and an explosion blooms, its fiery petals unfurling into the lowering sky. Boone throws himself on top of Robo as bits of jagged steel gouge the mud around them. When he lifts his head, both vehicles are burning, the conflagration mirrored in a thousand flickering puddles.

“You’re squishing me,” Robo says.

Boone rolls off him and rises into a crouch, his rifle trained on the crash. Thick black smoke rises up to join the clouds. There’s no movement in the wreckage.

“How you doing?” Boone asks Robo.

“Great, ’cept for this hole in me,” Robo replies.

He tries to sit up, but Boone puts a hand on his chest. “Hold it,” he says. “Someone’s still kicking.”

The Mexican in the cowboy hat is lying next to the burning trucks. He raises his arms and yells, “Help me.
Por Dios
.”

“Toss the gun away,” Boone shouts at him.

A pistol arcs into the air and splashes down near the side of the road. First things first though. Boone looks around for Olivia. He spots her lying facedown in the mud and duckwalks to where she’s sprawled and turns her over.

Her breathing is labored, and her eyes bulge with terror and pain. A glimpse of blue intestines and yellow fat makes Boone flinch. Something — a bullet, shrapnel from the explosion — has torn a hole in the girl’s stomach. Boone wipes mud from her face and brushes back her matted hair. He’ll have to work fast.

“Can you hear me?” he asks.

Olivia nods, white lips trembling.

“We’re taking you to a hospital,” he says. “But first you need to tell me where Amy is.”

Olivia shakes her head. “Hospital,” she grunts. “Now.”

“Listen to me. Where is Amy?”

Olivia grimaces, shakes her head again.

Boone pulls the Ruger from his pocket and shows it to her. What he’s about to do sickens him, but he can’t think of any other way to go about it.

“You’ve got a hole in you the size of my fist,” he says. “Tell me where Amy is, or I’m going to shove this gun in there and stir everything around until you do.”

“Hospital,” Olivia hisses.

Boone presses the pistol’s barrel to the wound. Olivia gasps and arches her back. Boone takes the gun away, and she settles into the mud.

“Okay,” she gasps.

“Tell me,” Boone says.

“You love her, huh?”

“Tell me.”

Olivia swallows hard and whispers an address, then says, “Hospital. Now!”

Boone stands and looks up at the warehouse. Carl eases the Xterra out of the ruin and starts down toward the depot.

“A few more minutes,” Boone says to Olivia.

He slips the M-16’s strap over his shoulder and covers the Mexican with his pistol as he approaches him. Both trucks are fully engulfed now, the flames like greedy, caressing fingers. Hot steel hisses under the steadily falling rain.

The Mexican lifts his head. “Help me, amigo,” he says. “I got money, dope, whatever you want.”

Looks like he’s been hit in the chest, the legs, both arms. Hard to tell with all the blood. His hat lies beside him in the mud.

Boone hears splashing and turns to see that Robo has managed to get to his feet and is now staggering toward Taggert’s grocery bag and the stacks of bills scattered around it. The big man lowers himself to the ground next to the money just as the Xterra’s horn blows once, twice, again.

“The fuck’s his problem,” Robo says.

Carl is stopped on the bluff above town. He’s standing on the running board of the truck, waving frantically. Boone lifts his arms in a “What?” gesture.

“Run!” Carl shouts.

A grinding, frothing roar rises above the din of wind and rain, and the ground shakes beneath Boone’s feet. Thunder, he thinks. Or an earthquake. He looks to where Carl is pointing and sees a five-foot wall of brown water sluicing toward town down a previously dry wash. A flash flood triggered by the storm.

He takes a step backward, bewildered, agog, then sprints to where Robo is shoving soggy bundles of cash into his pockets. Water is swirling around their ankles when he jerks the big man to his feet.

“Whoa,” Robo says, shaking off his hand. He’s ready to fight until he spots the torrent bearing down on them. Frozen in place, he gapes at it, and Boone has to grab his T-shirt again to get him running toward the bluff.

They pass Olivia. Her eyes are closed, and she isn’t moving. Boone considers dragging her along with them, but then Robo stumbles and almost goes down, and he’s forced to turn his attention back to him.

They reach the rocky slope below the bluff and scramble up it as the flood slams into town and courses down the main road, sweeping away everything in its path. Robo is behind Boone, and the water quickly rises to his knees. The current sucks at him and threatens to yank him off his feet.

Boone grabs his arm with both hands and pulls, heels braced against a boulder. The pain from his injured ankle makes him yell, but, step by shaky step, Robo emerges from the maelstrom, until he collapses beside Boone and enthusiastically thanks sweet Jesus for saving his life.

Boone watches as the flood surges through the town. The vehicles have been pushed farther down the road and now lie wedged against the old stone post office, everything above the waterline still burning furiously.

Olivia is nowhere to be seen, borne away to a muddy grave.

The Mexican too. The counterfeit bills, what was left of Taggert’s money, all of it gone.

Lightning flashes, followed by a heart-stopping peal of thunder. Carl appears above Boone and Robo at the top of the bluff and slides down to where they’re lying.

“Y’all are some lucky motherfuckers,” he yells over the noise of the storm and flood.

Boone wipes the mud off his face and watches a drowned cow float past. The water level is already dropping. The way these desert storms work, in an hour the torrent will be little more than a trickle. Nothing left but the scars.

R
OBO STRETCHES OUT IN THE BACKSEAT OF THE
X
TERRA
and lifts his T-shirt so Boone can examine his injury. Looks like the bullet passed right through a roll of fat, missing any organs. There’s not even much blood. Boone presses a bandanna to the wound and tells Robo to keep it there.

Carl barrels through a puddle that turns out to be deeper than it appeared. Muddy water splashes up onto the windows, and the tires lose traction briefly before digging in and lifting the truck out of the bog.

They’re headed north, toward the 15. The map showed more pavement that way. Even with all the luck in the world, though, it’ll still take at least three hours to get back to L.A. Boone settles into the passenger seat and adjusts the vent so that cool air blows in his face. He needs to ready himself for what’s coming next. Rescuing Amy could prove to be hairier than what he just went through. Close quarters, no idea of the layout or how many people he’s up against. A real learn-asyou-go situation.