Cut to the Bone(108)

Davis scooted to a fresh location as bandit bullets thumped where he’d just been. He aimed carefully, put another gunman in the spin cycle, hunted for the next-

“Phone,” he muttered, astonished he hadn’t thought of it already. He reached for the cell strapped to his belt . . .

. . . and slapped shredded nylon.

He looked around frantically and spotted a small moonlit object on the goat path, halfway back to Charvat. There’s my cell, he realized. It ripped off my belt during the knife fight, when we scraped against that rock.

He bit back his disappointment and got back to work.

“Ayyyy!” a narco bleated as he twisted into the ground. A compatriot joined him a moment later, brains splattering on a nearby cactus.

A battered Land Rover bounced into view. “The transport!” Garcia shouted. “Load the cargo!” The surviving gunmen fired as they retreated from rock to rock, hauling the narcotics backpacks to the SUV, trying their best to save the white powder draining from bullet holes.

“Faster, damn you, faster!” Garcia shouted, his voice a braided whip.

“Derek! Ground that Rover!” Charvat hollered.

“Working on it!” Davis yelled back.

The knob of a saguaro disintegrated inches from his elbow. He speed-crawled to the next protective outcrop and risked a quick peek. Gunmen were ignoring him momentarily to pitch overstuffed packs into the back of a vehicle bearing Texas plates. He memorized the number. Put his sights on the closest narco. Stroked the trigger.

Click.

Davis tossed the jammed rifle in disgust and grabbed the dead man’s AK-47. A splintery piece of skull was wedged inside the trigger guard. He poked it clear, wiped the gore from his trigger finger, reinserted, aimed, and squeezed, praying the sights hadn’t been knocked adrift . . .

A gunman spun screaming. The next one flopped atop him, forming a bloody cross.

“Rosito. Grenade that bastard or we’re all dead,” Garcia ordered, whirling and firing at the scorpion in the rocks. But his man was hugging the rear tire, whimpering. He’d never been in a firefight this extreme and was scared to death.

“Next time, wear a skirt,” Garcia cursed, knocking Rosito aside. He picked up the launcher and swung it toward the rocks. Prayed the Yankee rifle stayed silent long enough . . .

The rocket grenade leapt like a bee-stung horse. It covered the distance in less than two seconds and exploded in a fiery crump.

“Uhnnnnhn,” Davis grunted as a big hand bounced him off a tree. Disoriented, he staggered like a drunken ballerina into a clearing between the rocks.

Narco guns roared like lawn mowers. One AK bullet entered Davis’s chest, below the right nipple. It deflected off a rib and exited through his armpit. Another ripped a deep, U-shaped groove across the left side of his head, creating the shock wave of a ball-peen hammer. Other bullets laid crimson his belly, feet, and legs.

“I got him! The bastard is down!” Garcia crowed when he saw the agent collapse.

“Guhh,” Davis said.

Then faded to the pinpoint of grandpa’s old TV.





Chicago

“What are you, Dudley Do-Right?” Chicago Police Lieutenant Robert Hanrahan growled through the window of his unmarked car, his craggy Irish face pulled into a horseshoe of annoyance. “We don’t do catch and release. We fry our fish.”

“He was a nice guy,” Superstition said.

“So was Ted Bundy.”

“Tommy Bahama wasn’t a serial killer,” she said. “His wife dumped him. He was lonely, so he dolled up and came out here. He’s human, Robbie, and he made a mistake.”

“Yeah, by asking you for a ‘date,’” Hanrahan said as the remainder of the vice team pulled to the curb. Four men with quarter-inch crew cuts scrambled out of their unmarked car and walked her way, limbs loose and jangly. “Just like he was supposed to, considering how glammed up you are.”

She touched her Creamsicle skirt. “What, this old thing?”

Hanrahan cursed in Gaelic, then sighed. “All right, you felt sorry for the guy,” he said. “No harm, no foul. But next time, remember your job isn’t to judge these creeps, it’s to arrest-”

“He wasn’t a creep, and I’d let him go again,” Superstition said, crossing her arms. She was the one wearing the Crayola-colored happy sack to reel in the men who hunted prostitutes. The rest of the team shadowed her on the street or waited in the adjoining hotel room, ready to pounce when the unlucky john said any approximation of Here’s plenty, let’s party. “I’m the girl on the griddle, so it’s my decision.”

“That’s right, Loot,” the tallest of the squad hooted as the others clapped and cheered. “Girl on the griddle makes the call, that’s what you always say.”