"Is that the all clear?" she muttered.
He kept wagging.
She leaned in for a closer look. It didn't take long to see all there was to see. Impressed, she turned and walked back to the Humvee. Daniel was standing beside the open driver-side door, looking unsure what to do. He still didn't appear to be having any kind of shock reaction.
"Nice shot," she said. One bullet, literally right between the eyes. It couldn't have been more perfect.
"I wasn't very far away."
He stepped toward her, closing the distance, and his gloved hands wrapped tightly around the tops of her arms. Then he gasped and spun to the side, wheeling her around so that the light was no longer behind her.
"How much of this blood is yours?"
"Not much," she said. "I'm good."
"Your ear!"
"Yeah, that's not going to help anything, is it? You handy with a needle and thread?"
His head jerked back in surprise. "What?"
"It's not hard. I can talk you through it."
"Um..."
"One thing first." She shook out of his grasp and ran back up the porch stairs. Lola was still curled in the same spot. She raised her head and thumped her tail limply when she saw Alex.
"Hey, Lola, good girl. Let me take a look at you."
Alex sat cross-legged in front of her. She stroked Lola's side with one hand while searching for the wound with the other.
"Is she okay?" Daniel asked softly. He was on the other side of the porch banister, his elbows resting on the edge of the floorboards. He seemed unwilling to get any closer to the house. She didn't blame him. Lola whimpered as Alex felt along her legs.
"She's lost some blood. It looks like the bullet went through her back left leg. I can't tell if it hit bone, but the bullet definitely passed through. She was lucky."
He reached through the slats to rub Lola's nose. "Poor girl."
"The stuff in the back of the Humvee must be in total chaos. I'm going to hunt up the first-aid kit. Keep her calm, will you?"
"Sure."
Einstein followed Alex back to the vehicle, just as he'd trailed her to the porch. It surprised her how the silent support buoyed her, made her feel safe despite all the evidence to the contrary.
She opened the back of the Humvee, and an impatient Khan almost knocked her down. She dodged out of his way just in time as he sprang over her. She imagined the cargo hold was tight for him, though she had plenty of space as she crawled inside.
Guns and ammo were strewn haphazardly, loose bullets rolling under her knees. There wasn't time to organize. Her conversation with Hector had been cut short; she hadn't been able to ask one last vital question. What happens when the job is done? Who was expecting a call, and when? At least there was the third house still waiting. Unless Hector had made a call between the first and second stops.
Had he called his manager, told him which address had been cleared and which he was heading to next? Was the manager waiting for another call? Would he have realized that the call was overdue?
She located the duffel that held her first-aid kit. There was nothing she could do now except move fast and make the right decisions. The only problem was she still didn't know exactly what those right decisions were.
"Okay," she huffed as she and Einstein arrived back at Lola's side.
She knelt beside Lola's legs and quickly realized it was too dark for her to see what she was doing.
"I need you to bring the Humvee around and give me some light," she said.
Daniel lurched away from the porch, a massive shadow hulking beside him: Khan still on duty. She wondered how Khan and Einstein had decided to switch assignments. She pulled off her tactical gloves and replaced her bloody latex gloves with a fresh pair. She was just injecting Lola with a mild sedative when the brilliant lights of the Humvee came shooting through the banister slats. She adjusted her position so the glare was out of her face and on the wound. It looked like a clean through-and-through. She waited for Lola's eyes to droop before she started cleaning the wound. Lola's leg twitched a few times, but she didn't cry out. Antiseptic, then ointment, then gauze, then a splint and more gauze. It should heal well, if she could keep Lola off it.
She blew out a sigh. What were they going to do about all these dogs?
"What's next?" Daniel asked when she was done. He was on the ground beside the porch, rifle in hands, scanning the dark plains around them.
"Can you throw a couple of stitches in my ear while I've got the stuff out?"
He balked. "I won't get it right."
"It'll be easy," she assured him. "Haven't you ever sewn on a button?"
"Not through human flesh," he muttered, but he slung his rifle over his shoulder and started up the stairs as he spoke.
She lit a match from the kit and sterilized the needle. It wasn't the highest standard of medical technique, but it was the best she could do under the circumstances. She waved the needle quickly back and forth to cool it, then poked the suture thread through the eye and knotted one end.
She held it out to him along with a fresh pair of gloves. He put the gloves on and then reached slowly for the needle. He didn't seem to want to touch it. She tilted her head back and poured antiseptic across the wound, waiting for the scorching sting to run the course of the cut all the way to her ear. Then she angled her jaw toward him, making sure she was in the brightest beam of light.
"Probably just needs three little ones. Start at the back and pull through."
"What about a local anesthetic?"
"I've got enough painkiller in me already," she lied. She could feel the slash across her jaw like a brand. But she was out of Survive, and anything else she could use would incapacitate her at least partially. This wasn't an emergency, it was only pain.
He knelt down beside her. He put his fingers gently under the edge of her chin.
"This was very close to your jugular!" He gasped, horrified.
"Yeah, he was good."
His face was out of her sight, so she couldn't interpret the little hitching sound in his breath.
"Do it, Daniel. We have to hurry."
He sucked in a deep breath, and then she felt the needle pierce her earlobe. She was braced for it--she kept it off her face and didn't let her hands clutch into fists; she'd learned to localize her reactions. She clenched the muscles in her abdomen, letting the pressure vent there.
"Good," she said as soon as she was sure she could keep her voice even. "You're doing great. Now just fit the pieces together, and stitch them in place."
While she spoke, his fingers moved quickly through the task. She couldn't feel the needle in the severed bottom portion of her earlobe, so she only had to deal with the pain when he perforated the top half. Just three little stabs. It wasn't too bad after the first.
"Do I... tie a knot or something?" he asked.
"Yes, in the back, please."
She could feel the pull of the thread tightening as he worked.
"It's done."
She looked up at him and smiled. It tugged at her slashed jaw. "Thank you. I would have had a hard time managing that on my own."
He touched her cheek. "Here, let me bandage this for you."
She held still while he covered the wound with ointment, then taped a strip of gauze to her cheek. He wrapped her ear front and back.
"Probably should have cleaned it first," he muttered.
"It will do for now. Let's put Lola in the Humvee."
"I'll get her."
Daniel gently lifted the sleeping Lola into his arms. Her long front paws and ears dangled out from his arms and wiggled with every step he took. Alex felt a bubble of inappropriate humor rising in her chest, and swallowed against it. There was no time for hysteria. Daniel laid Lola in the space behind the passenger seat. There were only the two front seats in the Humvee. Kevin had removed the rest to leave room for cargo, she guessed.
"What now?" Daniel asked as he walked back to where she was still sitting o
n the porch. He was probably wondering why she wasn't doing something proactive. He didn't know she was procrastinating.
She took a deep breath and steadied her shoulders. "Give me the phone. It's time to talk to your brother."
"Should we be moving?"
"There's one thing more I need to do, but I want to tell him first."
"What?"
"We really ought to burn the house down."
His eyes widened as he stared at her. Slowly, he pulled the phone from his vest pocket.
"I should make the call," he said.
"He already hates me," she countered.
"But this was my fault."
"You weren't the one who hired a team of hit men."
He shook his head and pressed the button to power up the phone.
"Fine," she muttered.
As she packed up her first-aid supplies, she watched Daniel from the corner of her eye. He pulled up the only number that had ever called, but before he could touch it, the phone rang again.
Daniel sucked in a deep breath, the same way he had before making the first pass on her ear. She imagined this conversation would be the harder of the tasks.
He hit the screen. She could hear Kevin shrieking so loudly that at first she thought the phone was on speaker mode.
"YOU DON'T HANG UP ON ME, YOU--"
"Kev, it's me. Kev! It's Danny!"
"WHAT THE HELL IS HAPPENING?"
"It's my fault, Kev. I was an idiot. I ruined everything. I'm so sorry!"
"WHAT ARE YOU BABBLING ABOUT?"
"Arnie's dead, Kev. I'm so sorry. And some of the dogs, I'm not sure how many. It's all my fault. I wish I could tell you how--"
"PUT THE POISON LADY ON THE PHONE!"
"This is on me, Kev. I messed up--"
Kevin's voice was calmer when he interrupted now. "There's no time for this, Danny. Give her the phone. I need someone who can talk sense."
She stood up and reached for the phone. Daniel watched anxiously as she held it a few inches away from her ear.
"Are you secure?" Kevin asked.
Surprised by his businesslike detachment, she answered in the same tone. "For the moment, but we've got to move."
"Have you torched the house?"
"I was just about to."
"There's kerosene in the closet under the stairs."
"Thanks."
"Call me when you're on the road."
He hung up.
Well, that had gone better than she'd hoped. She handed the phone back to Daniel. His expression was blank with surprise. The gas in the house would long since have dissipated, so she didn't bother with the mask. Daniel followed her inside, but she made Einstein keep watch at the door.
"Get some clothes out of Kevin's room," she instructed. She could have sent him upstairs for the first set he'd borrowed, but that would take more time, and she didn't know how he would react to the bodies. She could see his eyes cutting away to the sofa that obscured Arnie, and then back to her. They both had to keep it together. They still had a long night ahead of them if they were going to be alive tomorrow. "When you have enough for a few days, get to the kitchen and grab anything that's nonperishable. Water, too, as much as we've got."
He nodded and headed down the hall to Kevin's room. She darted up the stairs.
"Do you want these guns?" he called up after her.
She dodged around the bodies, careful not to slip in the blood slick. "No, those've killed people. If we get caught, I don't want to be linked to anything. Kevin's guns will be clean."
In her room, she stripped off her blood-spattered clothes and pulled on clean jeans and a T-shirt. She gathered up her sleeping bag, wrapping the rest of her clothes in it, then grabbed her lab kit in her open hand and kicked the bloody clothes into the hallway. She hurried back down the stairs and out to the car with her awkward load. While Daniel foraged in the kitchen, she located the kerosene. Kevin had three five-gallon gas cans stashed together. He could only have intended them for lighting up the house. She was glad that he was so prepared and businesslike. It meant his reaction--once Daniel was safe--was likely to be more pragmatic than violent. She hoped.
She started upstairs, making sure her clothes and the bodies were well saturated with the kerosene. The wooden floors wouldn't need as much help. She splashed the baseboards in all three rooms, then trailed the rest down the stairs. She grabbed another can and hurried through the ground floor. It was the first time she'd seen the other bedrooms. They were both large and well appointed with luxurious attached baths. She was glad Arnie had had a comfortable life here. She wished she could have done something to spare him this. But even if she and Daniel had left the first day the missing-person trap had run on the news, Arnie would still have ended up like this. It was a depressing thought.
Daniel's fingerprints were in the dogs' outbuilding, but there was no way to fool Carston's counterpart at the CIA into thinking Daniel--or Kevin--had died here, so it didn't really matter. They would know Daniel was on the run. She didn't want to torch the outbuilding and endanger the animals. It didn't have a wide gravel skirt like the house did, which would hopefully prevent a wildfire. No doubt Kevin had laid the gravel for exactly this reason.
Daniel was waiting for her in front of the Humvee.
"Back this up," she said, waving toward the Humvee. "See if you can get the dogs to move, too."
He got to work. She had the pack of matches from her first-aid kit. She'd left a nice thick trail of kerosene down the middle of the porch steps, so it was easy to set that trail alight and then get out of the way before the blaze really got going. When she turned, the dogs were automatically backing away from the flames. That was good.
Alex opened the driver-side door and called for Einstein. He jumped over the seat in one bound and then positioned himself next to Lola. His ears were up and his tongue out. He still looked eager; Alex envied his energy and positivity.
Daniel was walking through the crowd of surviving animals, giving each one an emphatic "At ease." She hoped that would help when the fire trucks started rolling up. The noise of the shootout wouldn't have carried to any of the distant neighbors, but the orange light of the fire against the black night sky was another matter. They had to run now. She couldn't think of anything else she could do for the dogs. It felt like failure--these animals had saved her and Daniel's lives.
A rumble just behind her head startled Alex. She spun and found herself face to face with Khan. He was staring at her in what seemed like an impatient way, as if he were waiting for her to move. His nose pointed over her shoulder toward Einstein.
"Oh," she said as she realized he was trying to get into the car. "Sorry, Khan, I need you to stay."
She'd never seen an animal look so offended in her life. He didn't move, just stared into her face as if demanding an explanation. She was the more surprised of the two of them when she suddenly threw her arms around his neck and buried her face against his shoulder.
"I'm sorry, big guy," she whispered into his fur. "I wish I could take you with me. I owe you huge. Take care of the others for me. You're in charge, okay?"
She leaned away, stroking the sides of his thick neck. He looked slightly mollified and took an unwilling step back.
"At ease," she said quietly; she patted him once more, then turned to the Humvee. Daniel was already belted into the passenger's seat.
"Are you all right?" Daniel asked quietly as she climbed in. It was obvious he wasn't talking about physical injuries.
"Not really." She laughed once, and there was an edge of the hysteria she was fighting in the sound. Khan was still watching as she pulled away from the house.
Once through the gate, she donned the goggles and turned the headlights off. It was safer to drive the Humvee across the open plains rather than stay on the only road that led to the ranch. Eventually, they reached another road--it was even paved. She ditched the goggles and put the headlights on as she turned northwest. She didn't have a destination in mi
nd, only distance. She needed to get as far away from Kevin's ranch as possible before the sun rose.
CHAPTER 20
Kevin picked up on the first ring.
"Okay, Oleander, where do we stand?" was his greeting.
"We're headed north in the Humvee. I've got Daniel, Einstein, and Lola with me. We managed to scavenge some of what we need, but not much."
She heard him blow out a relieved breath when she said Einstein's name, but the edge was still there in his voice when he asked, "The Humvee? The truck is blown?"
"Yes."
He thought for a second. "So, only night driving until you can find something new."
"Easier said than done. We've both got major face problems."
"Yeah, I saw Daniel on the news. But yours can't be that bad anymore. Throw some makeup on."
"It's gotten slightly worse over the course of the evening."
"Ah." He clicked his tongue a few times. "Danny?" he asked, and she could hear the tension he was trying to hide.
"Not a scratch." The hands didn't count; they'd done that to themselves.
"She made me stay in the car," Daniel yelled loud enough for his brother to hear.
"Good job," Kevin responded. "How many were there?"
"Six."
He sucked a breath in. "Agents?"
"No, actually. Get this--they put a hit out with the Mob."
"What?"
"It was mostly muscle, but they had at least one authentic professional in the group."
"You took out all of them?"
"The dogs did most of the work. They were magnificent, by the way."
He grunted in acknowledgment. "Why'd you bring Lola?"
"Shot in the leg. I was afraid that if someone found her, they would put her down. Speaking of, should I call Animal Control?" she asked. "I worry that when the firemen get there..."
"I'll take care of it. I've got a contingency plan in place for them."
"Good." She would never think of herself as the most prepared again. Kevin was the king of prepared.
"What's your plan now?"
She laughed--and there was the sound of hysteria again. "No idea, actually. I'm thinking we camp out of the Humvee for a few days. After that..." She trailed off.
"You don't have a place?"
"Not one where I can park this beast or hide two large dogs. I've never felt so conspicuous in my life."
"I'll think of something."