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Hud pulled open the back doors and set his barrel inside. “All the same, going up in a meth chemical explosion isn’t the way I’d want me ma to hear how I went out.”
Pyke and I grabbed the remaining two barrels, placing them carefully inside.
“Now, let’s get moving,” I said. “We’ve got a little powwow to have and…” I checked my watch, “…nine minutes to make it in.”
“Nine minutes for what now?” Hud asked, putting his hands on his hips, and bowing his elbows out.
“Just get in the truck!” I said. “I’ll explain on the way.”
We piled in without another word, Hud taking the driver’s seat, Kid riding shotgun, and Pyke and I getting in back to strap the barrels down and make sure they didn’t go anywhere. Once we were on our way, I yanked the laptop out of my backpack and pulled up the email from Major Tom.
“Alright! This one’s from the Major. I’ll give you guys the bullet points. Uh, no pun intended.” Another round ofping-ping-pingssounded against the back of the truck, letting us know the gang was in hot pursuit. “Anyway, the jobs in this country called…uh, Candara?”
“Never heard of it,” Pyke said, taking off his backward baseball cap and revealing the rest of his blonde hair. “Sounds made up.”
“Candara’s in eastern Europe,” Kid said. “Well, kind of on the border of eastern and western Europe. Country’s small, about the size of the New York metro area.”
“Thanks, Wikipedia,” Pyke said with a smirk.
Kid laughed, taking off his own baseball cap and whipping it at Pyke. “Hey, I know you Americans think your country’s the only one on earth, but the rest of us know there’s a whole other world out there.”
Kid was born in Russia and raised in the US. But that didn’t stop him from making cracks about Americans whenever he wanted to get a rise out of Pyke and me.
“Anyway!” I said, more bullets hitting the back of the truck. “Job is to escort a ‘high-ranking member of the royal family,’ as per the email, to an undisclosed location. Once there, it’s a standard bodyguard op. But, uh, there’s nothing standard about this payday.” I turned the laptop to the guys, allowing them to see the amount the royal family was offering to pay for the job.
“Woah!” Pyke’s eyes lit up, making it obvious how he felt about it. “Youkidding? That’s more than we make in a year!”
Hud glanced back, taking his eyes off the road just long enough for him to check out the screen.
“Shite,” he said, a tone of wonder in his voice. “Not a bad little payday.”
“One sec,” Kid said. Pistol in hand, he angled himself out of the open passenger-side window and fired off a few rounds. That done, he slipped back into the seat and took a look at the screen. His dark, thick eyebrows arched, and while I had no damn idea what the meaning of the words were that he said in Russian, I could tell by his tone that he was impressed.
“But here’s the deal,” I said. “We’ve gotminutesto take this job. Once we do, Tom’s going to arrange for our exfil out of Bostontonight. We’ll catch the redeye to…Rouge Bois, looks like that’s the capital of this place, and we’ll meet up with the member of the royal family who’s in hiding. From there, we’ll find out where the undisclosed location is and move out.”
Kid fired a few more times. “Who’s the member of the royal family?”
Pyke snorted. “Probably some spoiled prince or something. I’ve guarded enough of those types to know if they want to drop off the radar like this it’s because they got caught doing something they shouldn’t and need to lay low for a while. Probably a boring op, but man, you can’t argue with that kind of cash.”
He was right. My mind was already on how I’d spend it.
“Well, we’ve got literally two minutes to decide.” Right as I said the word, another email from Tom came in, this one short and to the point, letting me know that if we wanted to take this job, he needed to know now. “Vote!” I said. “Let’s do this. I’m in. What about you guys?”
“Can’t say no to that kind of money,” Hud said from the front. “I’m in.”
Pyke nodded. “There are worse ways to spend the next few months besides babysitting a prince in scenic Europe. Let’s go.”
“Count me in, too!” Kid called out.
I didn’t waste a second. I replied to Tom’s most recent email, letting him know we were on board. He responded immediately, sending an email with the address of a private airfield just outside of town where we were to meet his contact in three hours.
Morepingssounded from the van still in pursuit.
“Fucking hell,” I said, shaking my head as I slung my rifle from over my shoulder. “Don’t these assholes know when to quit?”
Reaching forward, I opened the back doors to see the van behind us. We were on a lonely industrial road, so I didn’t worry one bit before taking aim with my rifle and opening fire. The bullets hit the windshield in a hail of orange sparks. It didn’t look like I’d broken through, but the shock was enough to send the van careening off the road and slamming into a telephone pole.
“Alright, boys!” I said, shutting the doors. “Let’s drop this shit off. I don’t know about you, but I’m ready for a damn vacation!”
