Seventy-Three

Mr. Machine Gun hadn’t tied our ankles. I considered the option of kicking him in the face. But then what? It wouldn’t knock him out, and he’d either kick me in the face or shoot me with the machine gun. Didn’t seem like a win. Rage coursed through me. Then again, it might be a good way to go.

Sal and Talevi climbed out of the car and opened our doors.
My head and shoulders lurched into space as the door’s support disappeared.

Sal looked into the car and said to Machine Gun, “You didn’t tie their fucking feet? What’s wrong with you? If one of them starts running we’ll be out here all fucking night.”

Machine Gun took two more sets of plastic zip ties and slipped one set over Lucy’s ankles. He cinched them up, running his hand up her thigh as he did so. Lucy ignored him, but I didn’t. I slipped past reason.

Machine Gun slipped a loop over one of my ankles. As he reached for the other ankle I kicked him square in the nose with the heel of my shoe, catching him at the bridge. Blood spurted across the car. Machine Gun’s eyes rolled back in his head. He let out a shuddering sigh and fell to his side.

Sal, standing outside the car, said, “Goddammit, Tucker, now look what you did.” He reached over me, putting a knee into my chest and wrestled my second ankle into the restraint. He zipped the tie, then put his ear next to Machine Gun’s mouth. He backed out of the car, crunching my chest.

Lucy was out of the car. Talevi had dragged her away. I was left lying on my back, looking up at Sal through the door.

Sal called out, “Hey, Talevi! Your fucking idiot back here just got himself killed.”

Talevi appeared. He climbed over me and felt Machine Gun’s neck. Machine Gun wasn’t moving. He slapped at him. “Sami? Sami! How did this happen?”

“Tucker kicked him right in the fucking nose.”

“Sami is dead!”

“I told you he was dead. Tucker killed him.” Sal tapped me lightly on the cheek with open fingers. “You popped your cherry, little cousin.”

Talevi let off a string of what must have been Persian expletives and dragged me from the car next to where Lucy was kneeling. He dropped me and I fell to my side. “Kneel next to her.”

I lay on my side and said, “Fuck you,” through the tape. It came out as two grunts.

Talevi kicked me in the stomach. “Kneel!”

Sal said, “What the fuck, Talevi, we’re not making some fucking snuff film. Let’s just do it and get out of here.”

Talevi pulled my jacket open and saw the Paladin plans. He smiled, reached in, and grabbed the plans by the binding. I tried to pin them with my arm, but he gave a hard yank and they slid out. My breath wheezed through my nose. Lucy shuffled on her knees and whimpered, the gravel digging into her skin.

I rolled to a sitting position and then to a kneeling position next to Lucy. I had gotten her killed. The least I could do was kneel next to her. The gravel dug into my knees.

Sal crunched behind us and waited. I heard metal on leather as he slid his gun out of his holster, then a double metallic click as he jacked a bullet into the chamber. Blood’s supposed to be thicker than water. What bullshit.

They say you see your dead relatives when you go to Heaven. If I went to Heaven, I didn’t want to see anyone except my mother. I wanted to meet the beautiful young woman who had borne me before she was twisted by rage and betrayal.

Talevi stood in the headlight, flipping through the stolen plans. He started reading slowly, then flipped pages faster and faster. He stormed over to me. Kicked me in the leg, and shook the book in my face. “I have this version, you idiot! I’ve had it ever since your father gave it to me twenty years ago!”

My father? My father? In the preternatural slowness of my last moments, the shattered jigsaw picture of the mystery coalesced in my mind like a movie played backward. Talevi had provided the final, unimaginable clue. All the pieces fell into place. JT’s murder became the inevitable result of desperation and betrayal played out over twenty years ago. I saw it all, and I was grateful to have the gift of this epiphany just before I died.

I reached out with my bound hand and touched Lucy. She would not die alone.

Talevi yelled, “Fool!” and threw the book into the gravel. He waved his hand at Sal. “Shoot them. Shoot them both.”

Sal said, “Right.”

He pulled the trigger twice, putting two bullets into Talevi’s chest. Talevi looked at his chest, looked at Sal, and reached for a gun. Sal put four more bullets into him, ranging from Talevi’s navel to his forehead. Talevi stumbled in front of me and fell into the gravel. His head hit the stones with a sickening crunch as he emitted a rattling final breath.