All Through the Night (21 page)
W
ayne doubted many pizza delivery drivers bounced the curb hard enough to lift all four wheels. But as far as he could tell, no one in the house took notice.
Wayne used the truck for cover until it was midway down the drive and passing a stand of pink oleander. He dove and rolled and crawled in a training ground sprint. By the time Julio pulled up at the front door, Wayne was on the house’s other side between the bougainvillea and the concrete side wall. The bougainvillea had thorns like a cactus that sliced through his shirt. But he couldn’t pull away. Because right then he spotted the first shooter.
The man was inside the house and moving fast. Wayne tracked him past three windows.
Wayne still wasn’t sure how the game was going to play out. But he knew he had to do something. Standing there with a thorn in his rib and the heat pounding his head and shoulders, the clearest sound was of the clock ticking.
Julio whistled his way up the walk. The chains he wore for a belt jangled with each step. His jeans flopped over his shoes. He rang the front door bell.
Wayne waited until he was certain the man was not going to answer the door. He searched the front lawn once more. Saw nothing.
He stepped out far enough to spot Jerry standing exactly where they had agreed, back where the road met the drive, hidden by the live oak where Wayne had crouched. Wayne waved his hand.
Jerry nodded back. He slipped behind the tree and disappeared. Across the street from his hideaway was the telephone pole connecting the house to the island grid.
Julio hammered on the front door. “Domino’s delivery!”
There was a moment’s silence, then a sharp
pow
down at the roadside, followed by a
crack.
The sparks flying off the transformer were less visible in the afternoon sunlight than at midnight, but impressive just the same.
Julio started to look back, but caught himself and pounded harder still. “I got the pizzas you ordered!”
The shadow inside the house moved to the doorway leading to the front hall and stopped.
Julio gave a shrug that could only be called theatrical, and started back down the stairs. He jangled and whistled his way down the walk and disappeared around the corner of the house.
The shadow followed.
Wayne ripped his shirt pulling free of the bushes. He sped across the front lawn, his back itching from the sniper’s scope he feared might be tracking him. But he made the distance and took the portico’s railing like a chest-high hurdle. He applied his forward momentum to the front door, punched the lock clear out of the doorframe. He stumbled slightly on the polished marble floor but kept his speed high enough to catch the shooter in the process of raising his gun.
The shooter had one finger pressed to his earpiece and his back to the front entrance. His arm was across his chest and blocked his shooting arm. He spun around and gaped at Wayne’s charge and did his best to aim. But Wayne was faster, covering the distance in three giant strides. He hammered the shooter with an elbow to the throat and a fist to his chest. He gripped the shooting arm and wrenched the pistol free. He kept spinning around and applied the pistol butt to the same point where his elbow had struck.
The shooter flew backwards and crashed into the stools lining the half wall separating the dining area from the kitchen. He went down hard.
Wayne stripped the mike control box off the shooter’s belt and fitted the unit into his own left ear. Still at a full sprint, he sped past the glass doors opening onto the pool area. He saw two men seated by the pool, or part of them, because the umbrella had been moved to where their faces were blocked from the house. Wayne moved to his right, the shooter’s pistol in one hand and the communicator in the other. He heard two voices, both hissing for Paulie to reconnect. Another voice, one that crackled slightly, complained that they had lost all the leads to the house.
The house was shaped in a stucco U surrounding the rear pool with the Gulf sparkling in the distance. The right-hand room behind the dining area held a massive flat screen TV, entertainment center, and leather cinema seats. Wayne checked the rear doors again, saw just the legs of two men seated at the pool. A second umbrella had been dragged over and positioned so they were effectively protected from all sides. The suited visitor had slung his jacket and tie over a side chair. Wayne had time for an instant’s wonder over the home’s soundproofing, that a man crashing over a trio of wooden stools wouldn’t even cause them to uncross their legs. Then he spotted the second shooter.
Julio came around the side of the house and raised his three pizza boxes in greeting. The shooter was half hidden in the shadows of the outdoor kitchen’s roof overhang. Wayne opened the French doors and used Julio’s loud approach as the only cover he was going to have.
This shooter was faster. He spun and got off his shot without trying to either crouch or aim. A half second more and Wayne would have been breathing through a new chest hole. But the bullet
whacked
as it passed him. The doors he had just passed through shattered. Wayne slapped the gun aside and chopped the guy in the throat. The shooter dropped his chin, but not fast enough. His eyes widened with the sudden effort it took to breathe and he gave a tight “Ack.” He made his mistake then, trying to bring his gun around rather than protecting himself from Wayne’s next blow, which was to hammer the shooter’s left ear with the fist holding the communicator. The shooter’s eyes fluttered. Wayne hit him again, this time with the hand holding the gun.
The shooter collapsed.
“
Down
, Julio! Get
down
! “ Wayne did not take aim so much as let his gut direct him, taking him back and to the side. The third shooter rounded the house at the same moment. Wayne was one giant stride away. He leapt and caught the gun that came into view and wrapped both hands around it, dropping his own gun in the process.
The shooter got off two random blasts, blowing out something made of glass. Wayne was too busy to inspect for damage. He wrestle-danced his way across the pool deck, the guy using his free hand to land a trio of close punches. Wayne protected his head best he could with his near shoulder, kept a two-fisted clench on the gun hand, and raced for the blue.
They took their deadly tango into the pool.
Wayne came up for a single breath. Then he rolled and let the guy’s struggling weight take him back under. Making sure to keep himself between the shooter and the surface. Focusing his strength upon the gun in his double grip. The shooter tried for Wayne’s eyes, then his throat, missing both times. Then his roaring bubbles and his struggle slackened somewhat. Wayne pushed harder until the guy scraped against the bottom.
The gun hand released. Wayne wrested the pistol free. He swung around behind the guy, gripped his throat from behind, and kicked off the bottom. Headed for light and air.
The shooter came up choking and floundering for the poolside. Wayne let him dog paddle for them both. When the shooter made the side, Wayne swung onto the ladder. He shifted his grip on the pistol and came out of the water aimed for the pair still seated under the umbrellas.
“Do us all a favor and point that thing somewhere else, won’t you.”
Wayne stripped the water from his face. Saw Julio rise slowly to his feet.
“Excellent. Now the gang’s all here. How convenient.”
Wayne squinted hard, working to bring the man into focus. Try as he might, the guy seated beside Trace Neally remained Eric Stroud. Tatyana’s ex.
W
ayne said, “Keep your hands where I can see them.”
“By all means.” Eric Stroud was far too relaxed. “How’s this?”
Wayne was still doing a one-handed wipe of his face and getting used to the fact that Tatyana’s ex-husband sat at the poolside when Jerry came around the side of the house. The former cop looked very glum and held his hands higher than the lawyer.
Which was hardly a surprise, since he had a pistol jammed between his shoulder blades.
“Who woulda thought,” Jerry said. “Thirty years’ practice and I still get blindsided by a limo guy hiding in the shrubs.”
Wayne said to the lawyer, “This is your one and only chance.”
He knew something was seriously awry when Eric leaned back in his chair and laughed. “Excellent line, Mr. Grusza. But it happens to belong to me.”
Wayne motioned with the pistol at the two approaching shooters. “Call off your dogs.”
“By all means.” Eric asked the driver covering Jerry, “Did you show him?”
Jerry answered for the driver. “They got Tatyana, man. In the trunk.”
“Bind their hands.”
Wayne knew they expected him to resist. He saw the glimmer of metal as the second shooter stepped to a firing angle, one that would let him get off a shot without risk of hitting his mate. Wayne held himself perfectly still. The man behind him dripped on his arms as he fitted the plastic tie and drew it tight enough to pretty much halt the flow of blood.
When they tied up Julio, he yelped. “Ow, man, not so tight.”
“Take it easy on the kid,” Jerry said.
A voice replied, “I’ll give you easy.”
The man turning out Wayne’s pockets used the process to get in a few quick punches. The limo driver searching Jerry said, “Hey, Mr. S., this guy’s packing a badge.”
“Let me see that.”
“That’s right,” Wayne said. “You’re actually ready to kidnap an Orlando police officer?”
“Retired.” Eric slipped the leather wallet into the pocket of his jacket. “If they were the least bit interested in what this grandfather had to say, they’d have paid more attention at the gate.”
“Who says they didn’t,” Wayne retorted, and heard how lame it sounded before the words were even formed.
Gold fever. Wayne recognized the glitter in Eric’s eyes. He had seen it often enough before. Guys trained in every conceivable form of violence, facing the terror of a tomorrow when their only skills became outlawed. They could dump it all in a carryall and hide it under floorboards in a closet, or they could pretend it was all just over and done. Or they could turn rogue. A lot of Wayne’s former buddies had talked the dream. Joining the mercs and taking on a major score. Night-times in the desert had been good places for such tales. Wayne had seen a lot of other eyes show that same feverish gleam, as the ultimate questions were finally asked. How much would it take? And what would they do to get it?
No question. Eric’s number had come up on the screen. And his response was locked in the trunk of his limo.
Eric turned to the shooter still covering Wayne and said, “Go get Tommy.”
The guy Wayne had laid out still wore grass stains on his face. “He’s just coming to.”
“I didn’t ask how he was. I said get him.” He turned to Neally. “Up.”
The board member had observed the entire scene with a look of helpless tragedy. Wayne said, “They nabbed your family?”
“Borrowed,” Eric corrected. “I’m an attorney. I prize proper syntax. We borrowed them. Temporarily.”
Wayne asked the silent, defeated man, “You believe that?”
Eric said, “I could gag you if you want.”
Wayne asked, “What is it you’re after?”
“That is no longer your concern. Not that it ever was.” Eric picked up Wayne’s phone from the glass-topped table and dialed a number. “You have two choices. You can tell the man what has happened, or I will have the gentleman you dunked shoot you in the knee. I will hold the phone while you scream. Then I will say the words. It hardly matters.”
Wayne knew before the phone was pressed to his ear that Easton Grey would be on the other end. He said, “They have us.”
“Wayne?” The man sounded weak with confusion. “Triton has just made a ridiculously low offer to buy my company.”
He felt the pistol barrel drill into the point where his jaw met his ear. “Me, Jerry, Julio, Tatyana. They have—”
Eric took the phone away. “Do what is required, Easton. And all this will go away.”
He tossed Wayne’s phone into the pool and said to the driver, “Put all three of them in the trunk.”
“It’ll be a tight fit.”
“Good. Fit this one in close to my ex. They were so chummy at the club. I wouldn’t dream of keeping them apart for an instant longer than necessary.” He did not smile at Wayne so much as reveal what lay beneath the surface. “If this one gives you any trouble, break something.”
W
ayne knew he was going to have one chance. Not even that. A fragment of a chance. Maybe less. Maybe the only way he could do it was take a hit. One thing for certain, though. Wayne was not going inside that trunk.
What did they call those people, the ones that got stuck with arrows or boiled in oil, and got their agony frozen in colored glass for their troubles? Martyrs. Right. That was him. Wayne Grusza. A martyr for broken promises and impulse control.
Just like now.
“Move.”
Wayne wanted Eric talking. A talking guy meant part of the brain was occupied with something other than watching. “Why, Eric?”
The shooter behind him said, “No questions.”
“Why did you—”
Wayne stopped because the guy he’d dropped in the pool whacked the back of his skull with the pistol. “Shut up.”
But Eric took the bait. “Why does anyone do anything? Profit and personal gain.”
“Triton?”
The space between the house and the property’s side wall was constricted by the limo and the shrub border. Tall blooming oleander in shades of ivory and coral framed the drive and hid the cement wall. The ground underneath Wayne’s feet smelled of the cedar chips bordering the trees. Wayne’s every sense was on full alert.
Jerry was directly in front of him. The cop shuffled with shoulders slumped and wrists bound behind his back. Julio was in front of Jerry. One shooter stood by the open trunk. Another, the guy from inside the house, was out back somewhere readying the boat they used to get here. The limo driver stood on the car’s other side, watching it all with a sardonic smirk. The other shooter followed directly behind Wayne, his wet pants flapping with each step. Wayne slowed slightly, as though uncertain where to go. The shooter stepped in close enough to prod the pistol into his spine. “Step it up.”
Eric said, “I had always considered the islands too restrictive a place to live. But that was before Triton introduced me to the pleasure of flying by Lear.”
“Talk about flying.” Wayne saw Julio glance into the limo’s trunk and blanch. “Sorry about what happened to your Ferrari.”
The pistol jammed Wayne’s skull this time.
“No. Wait.” Wayne heard the approaching footsteps. “What’s the matter with my—”
Wayne used the limo’s fender as a launching pad. He climbed straight up, the last thing in the world they expected. He knew that because of how they all stared as he tightroped two steps alongside the open trunk lid, pausing only to spin and toe-kick the wet shooter in the temple, sending him flying into Eric. The limo driver had his gun raised but was clearly worried about hitting his boss. The guy behind the limo was blocked by the open trunk. Or so Wayne hoped.
He pounded across the limo’s roof and sprang impossibly high. He crested the oleanders and the wall, but barely. He did not so much step across the wall as try and keep himself erect for the landing.
The wall’s opposite side was laced with gravel bordered with rail ties. His hands were bound behind him, so he just rolled and rolled until his face met grass. A rock or rail tie or something had jabbed him hard. The way it hurt when he pushed himself to his knees, using his chin for balance, Wayne feared he might have cracked a rib. He stumbled away from the muffled shouts coming from the wall’s other side. He jackrabbited over the low hedges lining the front walk and raced around this home of stone and mock coral.
Wayne was spurred on by his one glimpse into the limo’s trunk. When his climbing had rocked the lid, the opening between the lid and the car had sliced across a vision of dark hair, taped mouth, and terrified grey eyes.
The boundary walls were faced in stone like the house. Shouts and curses bounced at Wayne from every side. He could not tell where they were, but he knew they were coming.
For once, he hoped for motion sensors in the lawn. But he couldn’t count on them. Tatyana’s survival depended upon his getting the one chance not just right, but solid. So when he rounded the neighboring home’s rear corner, instead of peeling for the water like he should, Wayne raced midway back across the lawn.
Then he turned around and took aim for the home’s rear glass doors.
Fast as he could.
Head down and legs pumping almost to his chest.
Not even thinking how much it was going to hurt when he hit.
Wayne’s catapulting leap took out not just the glass but one entire door panel. He slid on the interior tiles and heard the broken shards beneath his body. He knew he was going to pay for that one. But right then he didn’t feel any pain, not even from his rib. Because out front was the sweetest melody, a constant
whoop-whoop
of the house alarm.
“Come and get me!” He actually yelled it out loud.