McGarvey had just come around the rear corner of the building when he heard a woman cry his name. The blacks he’d talked with had dispersed—some of them inside the buildings where they would take up positions on the balconies as lookouts, others on the west side of the apartment complex.
The nearest one to him was the kid with the gun, still out front watching to the east, toward Rautanen’s house.
Everyone was pretty much within hailing distance to warn him their company had arrived.
He pulled out his pistol. Trailing his left hand against the side of the building he hurried in the direction of the woman’s voice. It was dark back here and he was within thirty feet of the east side of the building before he could make out the figure of a slightly built woman, two black kids towering over her, holding her against the wall.
They didn’t spot him until he was ten feet away. One of them turned, a machete in his hand. “Who the fuck are you?” the kid demanded. He had a Caribbean accent, maybe Haitian.
“The woman’s with me,” McGarvey said. He held his pistol more or less out of sight at his right side. “Back away and nothing bad will happen here tonight.”
The other kid, whose left hand was on Ayesha’s chest, holding her against the wall, raised a knife to her throat. “Motherfucker, I’ll slice the bitch.”
“I don’t think so,” McGarvey said, raising his pistol.
The kid with the machete laughed. “So she dies,” he said. “In the meantime I’ll have half the hood down here covering your honky ass.”
“Right now a world of shit is about to rain down on this place. At least four German Special Forces guys armed with automatic weapons are coming this way to kill me, and they won’t give a shit who they have to take down to do it.”
“Bullshit.”
All of a sudden McGarvey recognized the woman. “Didn’t expect to see you here,” he said. “Though I can guess why you came.”
“I came looking for you,” she said.
“You found me.”
“I told Pam that you were talking with some kids out front. They’re less than a block away.”
“Voodoo bullshit,” the kid with the machete said. He was high on something.
“Why do you suppose she’s really here?” McGarvey asked. “Why do you think someone like me is here? To shake up dumb sons of bitches like you and your pal who’re only big enough to shove a woman around?”
The kid with the machete suddenly lunged forward, raising the blade as he came.
McGarvey side-stepped him at the last moment. Just as the machete was coming toward his head, he slapped the kid’s hand aside and grabbed him under his arm, just above the elbow, and then shoved him against the building.
The kid was like a wild man, bouncing all over the place, kicking, screaming incoherently.
“I’ll slice the bitch,” the kid holding Ayesha said.
McGarvey brought his gun around and shot the kid with the machete in the left kneecap. He grabbed the blade and twisted away as the kid howled and dropped to the ground, holding his destroyed knee with both hands.
McGarvey tossed the machete away and strode to Ayesha’s side, pointing his pistol at the kid’s head. “You’re dead in three seconds.”
The kid froze.
“Three, two, one—”
The kid suddenly released Ayesha and stepped back.
“Drop the knife and help your buddy get the fuck out of here before the shit hits the fan.”
The kid did as he was told. Warily eying McGarvey, he hustled to help his friend up, and the two of them limped across the parking lot to one of the buildings in the back.
“Mac,” Pete called from behind him
He turned as Pete came around the corner, her pistol drawn. “Otto monitored a call from her cell phone to Pam. They’re on their way.”
Two of the black kids came around the corner right behind her.
“She’s with me,” McGarvey told them, and they pulled up.
“They know you’re here,” Pete said.
“That’s what I wanted to happen,” McGarvey said. “I want you to take her back to Rautanen’s and keep your head down.”
Pete suddenly reared back. “Mac,” she shouted.
McGarvey turned on his heel in time to see Ayesha just about on top of him, the kid’s knife in her right hand, coming in for the kill. He feinted to the left as she lunged.
Pete fired one shot, catching the woman in the chest just below her left breast.
Ayesha’s momentum carried her into McGarvey and her legs gave out from under her, the knife slipping from her hands.
He helped her to the ground. Her eyes fluttered and she said something indistinct.
He lowered his head so that his ear was at her mouth. “What is it?”
She said something in Punjabi, her voice barely audible.
“In English,” McGarvey said.
“For Ali,” she whispered. “It was for my husband. Always for him.”
She stopped breathing at the same moment automatic weapons fire, what sounded to McGarvey like a suppressed MAC 10, raked the side of the building inches from where he was down on one knee.