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“You did, didn’t you? You got some biker dick in you and now you can’t get enough of it.”
“Fuck off, Harris,” she said. The more he talked, the more Piper saw how small he was, how lost, how he kept grasping for straws. “Stop trying to put this on me. I see what’s going onhere. You’re stuck in some sort of shitstorm of your own making and you wanted to throw me under the bus to try to get yourself out of it.”
He looked like he was about to retort when his eyes went over her shoulder again, looking at something behind her. This time, instead of firing back and continuing his argument with her, Harris began backing away from her, holding up his hands like he was giving up.
“You don’t see anything,” Harris said, still backing away from her. “I did everything I could. Now it’s out of my hands.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Piper said, then when Harris glanced behind her again, ice water began to pour through her veins.
Something was behind her. Someonewas behind her. It had to be.
Piper spun on her heels, already reaching for her gun as she turned to face whatever Harris had coming up behind her. A part of her didn’t want to believe it, couldn’t believe it. Despite all that Harris had done to her, the idea that a federal agent would set up another agent to get killed was simply unthinkable to her.
And yet, there they were, as soon as she spun to face them. Two men, coming in fast, already close, already raising pistols. The kind of men she’d seen plenty of during her trip to Juarez. Killers. Cartel killers, hard as nails and merciless as wolves.
Her hand slid under her jacket with practiced ease, and even found the grip of her pistol, but Piper knew she was destined to lose this race. The bad guys already had their guns out and aimed at her, and nobody could possibly out-draw that.
The gunfire split the night, shaking it with an angry fist. Piper wasn’t sure how many times the killer fired, but she felt the impact of two rounds hitting her in the chest.
The first one hit high on her vest, and like the shootout at the cabin, didn’t really put a stutter in her step. But the second one hit her lower, still on the vest but right over her liver, and that one hurt like a bitch in heat. In fact, it knocked the wind right out of her, dropping her to the ground, wheezing, as she fumbled her weapon out of its holster.
Too slow. She was too slow, she knew it even as she struggled to suck air into her lungs, trying and failing to regain her feet. She’d had the wind knocked out of her before, plenty of times, and she knew that trying to fight your way through it was like trying to struggle through thick tar. For the next few seconds, until she had a chance to recover, she’d be moving like a turtle while her attackers moved like lightning.
Their guns came up as the two killers came closer, walking almost right up on top of her to finish her off, and still she struggled through that thick tar, wheezing, trying to get her gun up, living through the nightmare of knowing she’d be too slow to make it.
22
Pony eased his motorcycle into the alleyway, cutting the engine and walking it most of the way down the alleyway’s length. It was dark, now, and he’d been following Harris all day.
He had a lot of time to think, as he followed Harris at a comfortable distance away from the clubhouse and through the back roads toward town. It was an easy tail. Harris had a lot on his mind, clearly, and the last thing he would expect was somebody tailing him.
What made it even easier was the obvious destination. Harris was heading back to his office at the local FBI headquarters. No big surprise. The entire convoy of FBI vehicles that had taken part in their botched raid was doing the same.
From a distance, Pony watched though a small pair of binoculars as they parked their vehicles and marched into the building, heads down, scratching at bewildered scalps. No doubt wondering what had gone wrong.
He had to wait several hours before Harris came back out, but that was nothing new for Pony. He’d spent countless hours watching and waiting, patiently, back in his Army days. One time, he’d spent seventy-two hours straight watching a single target building from a handful of tiny bushes in Afghanistan. This was nothing by comparison.
Harris finally came back out. The fed looked like someone had sucked the majority of the life out of him. He dragged his feet all the way back to his car, hesitated for a moment next to it, and then slammed his fist repeatedly on the roof.
“Having a bad day, looks like,” Pony said.
Once again, tailing Harris was easy. The man was clearly distracted; Pony saw him almost hit another car twice while changing lanes. Something was definitely weighing on his mind.
Pony followed him all the way back to a house in an upscale suburb, the kind of house that was usually described as a McMansion. The kind of place that usually housed a sizeable family. But there was no signs of anyone but Harris as the FBI agent pulled in to his house, parked, and stumbled toward the door like a man who’d just walked a thousand miles.
Again, there wasn’t much to see for hours. It became dark out and Pony was just starting to think that there wasn’t going to be anything to see when Harris suddenly came barreling out of his front door, talking animatedly on his phone.
“Something’s up,” Pony said to himself, watching as Harris piled quickly into his car and pulled off at a quick pace.
Again, it was easy to tail him. As distracted as Harris was, Pony was able to follow him without difficulty until Harris pulled over and parked in the small parking lot of a tiny municipal park. Pony had to take care to drive past, over to a series of buildings nearby the park, and secure his bike in the alley.
Why here?he wondered. A small park, on the edge of town. Secluded. Not another person in sight.
Not another person in sight.
It was the kind of place you went for privacy. To be alone.
A meeting?Pony thought. Had to be.
