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“He’s not lying,” Patrick/Vaughn said, and grinned. He looked different, suddenly, as if another person inhabited his skin. Creepy. “Son of a bitch screwed me on a deal. I grabbed him and took him for a ride. Just wanted to teach him a valuable life lesson. ”
“You kidnapped this prick and brought him here? To my house?”
“He screwed you, too, Walt,” Patrick said. “That’s the beauty of it. Remember that shipment of Stingers that you paid for and didn’t get? Well, meet the man responsible. He jacked it and sold it to the Taliban. ”
Walt looked away from Patrick this time, to study Reynolds, who was looking shocked now. “I—I don’t know anything about this!” he said. “This man kidnapped me and if you just call my people—”
“Hang on a second. My friend here just told me that you sold my Stinger missiles to the Taliban, so they could shoot down American planes. You don’t think we should discuss that just a little bit first?”
Reynolds wet his lips. He looked sweaty and scared, and Bryn knew that would probably, in the eyes of Walt and his men, translate into guilt. “I don’t know what he’s talking about. ”
“He’s talking about me paying somebody half a million dollars and getting two of my men arrested when they went to pick up the goods, and getting no product. You the man? You the one who was behind the jack?”
“I’ve got nothing to do with weapons! Nothing!”
“He’s right,” Patrick said. “He’s a middleman who sells whatever people want. Drugs, weapons, hell, pirated DVDs for all I know. Doesn’t matter. He’s the one. He pocketed the cash and called the feds and walked away clean as a whistle. Until I found him. ”
“He’s lying!” Reynolds was trying his best to look sincere now, but he wasn’t doing a very good job of it; too scared, and too confused. “I told you, I’ll give you money. What did you say, half a million? I’ll double it. A million dollars to call my people and let me go. ”
“Good offer,” Walt said, and nodded. The men on either side let Reynolds go. He looked relieved, and straightened up as much as he could in the too-small jumpsuit. “Too bad I don’t believe you. ”
He raised his gun and shot Reynolds straight between the eyes. Large caliber round. It left a significant hole in the front, and though Bryn couldn’t see much of it from where she sat, there wouldn’t have been a lot of skull left around the exit wound. A gout of blood sprayed a few feet from the back of Reynolds’ head, and his eyes rolled up to show the whites, and . . . he was down. Crumpled like a dropped toy.
The sound of the shot echoed sharply from the surrounding mountains, but nobody reacted in any way. Not even a twitch.
“Right,” Walt said. “Get him out of here. ”
“That was stupid,” Patrick said. “You could’ve gotten paid. ”
“I did get paid,” Walt replied. “That why you left? Looking for him?”
“One of the reasons,” Patrick said. He stretched his legs out in front of him and crossed them at the ankles, very much at ease even with his hands still pinned behind him. “Couldn’t stand looking at Queeg’s ugly face anymore, either. ”
Queeg showed teeth, and Bryn had to admit, he didn’t look like something she’d want to wake up to, either. “Fuck you,” he growled.
Patrick puckered lips in a silent kiss. “Missed you, too, Queeg. What are you going to do with him?” Meaning Reynolds, who was being dragged off by Walt’s men toward the darkness. Bryn was wondering, too.
“Dumping him in a ditch for the night,” Walt said. “We’ll take him out and bury him good and deep tomorrow. ”
It was a deadly shot, of course, but there was every chance that Reynolds would recover in a matter of an hour or two, and if he was just dumped in a ditch, he’d be off and running. Even out here, eventually he’d run into a hiker or hunter or ranger with a cell phone.
They could not let him get away now. Not now.
Walt was gesturing to his men again, but this time, they hauled her and Patrick up to their feet, turned them around, and released the handcuffs. She automatically rubbed at the sore places the metal had left on her wrists, but she was thinking fast, and she knew Patrick was doing the same. She locked eyes with him as she turned, and before he could speak, she said, “You let him kill our payday? You asshole! I needed my share!”
He got it, instantly, and shoved her backward. “Stow it, bitch. You’ll get paid when I say you get paid. ”
“I didn’t sign up for this cracker militia shit, and your friends just put a bullet in the skull of the man I found for you. You think that isn’t going to ruin my life just a little bit? You burned me, Vaughn. I’m not going to forget it. ”
Patrick looked at her with the deadest eyes she’d ever seen in him, an absolute zero of emotion, and in one smooth motion reached sideways, took Walt’s gun, and aimed it at her heart.
“Fuck you,” he said, and pulled the trigger.
She felt it. Not an instant death, not quite; there was time for the shock to travel to her brain, for her heart to struggle to beat and fail and fibrillate, for shock and panic to set in. Her mouth worked, opening and closing for breath she couldn’t seem to pull into her lungs. The pain was sudden and shocking, but brief.
She saw red, and then she saw black, and then she was just . . . gone.
Chapter 17
