Fade (2005) (31 page)

He was so tired. Just a little catnap. He closed his eyes and ha d almost drifted off when Buckner spoke again.

"You're driving me crazy in that tank top, honey. Hopefully I'll b e able to do Fade first so we can spend some time together."

"What's the difference?" he heard Karen reply. "He's all tied up.

You're not afraid of him, are you?"

Good try, Fade thought, but unfortunately Buckner was nowhere near a s dumb as he looked.

"All that jujitsu shit, right?" he said, laughing. "You're thinkin g you can get one of those arms around my neck, aren't you? It'd be fu n to let you try, but the truth is that everyone who's ever turned thei r back on Fade is dead now. I think I'm going to try to learn from thei r mistakes."

Karen's voice cleared his mind enough for him to remember that sh e probably wasn't as ready as he was to be dead. She still had a life, a family, a future. He managed to focus for almost a minute but n o brilliant escape plans came to mind. Despite the fact that he wa s sitting on a virtual arsenal Isidro had put the back seat on a hing e and it flipped up to reveal a sniper rifle and compact submachine gu n cradled in custom foam he had no way of getting to it. And perhap s even more frustrating, he had no way of telling Karen that th e flip-down armrest between her and Buckner contained a similarly store d .45 and combat knife. James Bond would be so disappointed.

The ring of a cell phone interrupted his train of thought and Fad e craned his neck to watch Buckner put it to his ear.

"Yeah."

There was a long pause before he spoke again. "I understand, but ho w the hell would I know who else he might have talked to? Yeah. Okay.

But I'll need someone to drive my car outta here. Uh-huh. Tell the m they'll see it parked in the trees about a mile off the main highway.

They should just pull up behind it and call me on my cell."

"Bad news, sweetie," he said, stuffing the phone back into his pocket.

"Looks like Fade is going to kill you and then commit suicide. Tragi c story."

Fade closed his eyes, wishing he could drift off into the darknes s again.

This was his fault. Karen was going to die because of him. He jerke d pointlessly against the zip ties holding his wrists, knowing that h e was cutting through his skin but unable to feel it. How could he hav e been so stupid?

"Do you have this bitch brainwashed or what?" he heard Buckner say.

"She looks like she thinks you're going to jump up and save her an y minute now. Are you her knight in shining armor, Fade?" Th e scrunching of leather suggested that he was turning back toward Karen.

"So is that what you think? That he's a hero? Well, let me tell you a story about that. We're in Syria to take out some guy I can't eve n remember his name anymore. Anyway, the guy comes out of his house wit h his family his wife, their baby, and his son who was probably ten o r something. So Fade takes the shot and hits the guy dead center. Th e bullet goes through him, through the baby who the mother is holding , through her, then deflects like ninety degrees and takes the son's hea d off." Buckner laughed hard enough to almost start coughing and Fad e opened his eyes, watching him rock back and forth gleefully. "You kno w what your hero said? Do you remember, Fade? No? He said 'oops."

That's it. "Oops.""

Karen didn't respond.

"You don't believe me, do you? Come on, Fade, tell her. She wasn'
t ever gonna fuck you anyway. Talk about going for the unobtainable. Yo u should see a shrink."

"You talk a lot, don't you?" Karen said finally, eliciting a quie t snicker from Fade.

"Oh, so you are alive back there," Buckner snapped. "I guarantee yo u I'm going to make you wish you weren't."

"Look, if you're going to kill me," Karen said, "why don't we just ge t it over with?"

"We got a little while before my guys show up. You in a hurry to b e dead?"

"It's got to be better than sitting here listening to you run on at th e mouth."

Fade snickered again and Buckner twisted around, glaring down at him.

The sun had gone behind the mountains and, combined with the dens e foliage overhead, there was no way to see his expression. He coul d imagine it, though.

"If it was anyone but Fade back there, I'd be doing a lot more tha n running on at the mouth. Nah, I think I'll wait on killing you. I d on't want to put a hole in those museum class tits until I absolutel y have to."

He pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and tried to tap one ou t while still keeping an eye on his two prisoners. It fell to th e floorboard and he leaned sideways, feeling around for it with his fre e hand. The combination of the deep shadow on the floor and the fac t that he would only allow himself brief glances down made the searc h less than successful. Finally, he motioned toward Karen with his gun.

"Hit the lights a second, would you, honey?"

A surge of adrenaline suddenly brought Fade fully alert.

"Fuck you," Karen said.

Buckner's only response was to swing the butt of his pistol into he r face. Belted into the seat and with no room to maneuver, she took a pretty hard shot across her cheek. Over the seats, Fade could see he r trying to shake off the effects of the blow. It didn't take long. "A m I supposed to start crying now and do exactly what you say? Turn o n your own goddamn lights."

"For God's sake, Karen, just do it!" Fade said. "He'll kill you."

She twisted around and looked down at him for a moment and then face d forward again, searching the dark console in front of her. "Fine.

How?"

"It's on the floor," Fade said, trying to keep his voice a quie t monotone. "About one o'clock from the accelerator. It tends to stic k so you have to stomp on it."

Buckner leaned right again, obviously wanting to be ready so that th e lights remained on as briefly as possible. A moment later, Karen foun d the switch.

There was an explosion of compressed air and Fade watched the passenge r seat shoot violently upward, followed by the sound of crunching glass , bending metal, and a short, surprised squeal from Karen. He was abou t to shout "Go! Go!" when he realized that he hadn't seen Buckner fl y from the car as expected.

It was a bit of an effort, but he managed to roll on his back and ge t his foot under the seat, which seemed to be jammed about a foot up o n the telescoping rail beneath it. A little pulling with his good le g and he was sitting upright.

Karen had her back pressed against the door and there was bloo d splashed artistically across her face. Buckner hadn't fared quite a s well. Apparently, his knee had caught under the dash when the ejecto r seat activated and the force had snapped his leg; but not before it ha d acted as a fulcrum and swung his head which was now kind of flat on on e side into the spider webbed windshield.

"It worked better in Dr. No ..." Fade said, leaning forward.

The sound of his voice snapped Karen out of her catatonia. She yanke d off her seat belt and jumped to her feet in the driver's seat. "Wha t the hell was that?"

"It's supposed to be an ejector seat, but it seems to have a fe w bugs."

"An ejector seat? Your car has an ejector seat?"

"What, are you complaining?"

When she finally looked down in his direction he turned so she coul d see his hands, which were dripping blood around the zip ties an d leaving large smears on his leather upholstery.

"Jesus," she said, dropping to her knees in the seat. "Is there a knife in the glove box? I don't "

"The top of the armrest flips up."

She played with it for a few seconds, finally getting it open an d staring at the neatly arranged weapons inside.

"Have you ever considered seeking professional help?" she said , cutting the zip tie from his wrists and then handing him the knife. Th e combination of the blood coating his palms and the complete numbness i n his hands made it impossible to hold. She picked it up off the sea t and cut his ankles free, then helped him out of the car.

He limped in circles, trying to get his right leg working, while sh e leaned into the passenger seat and checked Buckner for a pulse.

"Dead," she said.

"Finally. I should have killed that asshole years ago."

After he'd circled the car a few times, the pins and needles wer e completely gone from his left leg and he had about 50 percent mobilit y in the right. Suddenly, he felt good. In fact, he felt downrigh t giddy.

He grabbed an overhead tree branch, ignoring the pain in his hands a s the blood flowed back into them, and did a few sloppy pull-ups.

"Uh, Fade? Now might not be the time for a workout. This guy calle d someone and they're going to be here any minute." Her tone wa s reminiscent of a kindergarten teacher talking to a slow student.

Obviously, she thought he'd lost it. Maybe she was right.

Fade let go of the tree branch and limped back to the car. "Give me a hand," he said, dragging Buckner's body out and dropping i t unceremoniously on the ground. "Get in the back seat and push down. I t hink it's bent."

She jumped in and they both put their full weight on the passenge r seat, managing to return it to almost its normal position. When it wa s clear it wouldn't go any farther, Fade leaned in and retrieve d Buckner's gun.

"What are you doing?"

"Getting ready."

"For what?"

"For Roy's guys to show up."

"Why?"

"Uh, because I'm going to kill them?"

"Or better yet, we could just drive the hell out of here."

Fade frowned as he examined a deep scratch in his front fender. "Thin k about it, Karen. Hillel's got to keep this as quiet as he can and tha t means he has to limit the size of his team. If I take out three o f them, I've got to think he's going to be temporarily crippled. Tha t gives me more time to track him down."

"You can't kill them, Fade."

He glanced up at her and then went back to surveying the damage to hi s car. "Well, the leg's not ideal, I guess. But I've got surprise on m y side .. ."

"You know what I meant!"

"I'm sorry about getting you involved in this, Karen. It was my faul t and it was stupid. But you are involved and that means that if I don'
t get these guys today, there's a good chance they'll be showing up o n your doorstep tomorrow."

"I'm not going to let you just go out there and murder them. That'
s not who I am."

Fade looked up at her. "Okay. You're right. Relationships are abou t compromise. What if I just shoot them in the kneecaps?"

She shook her head angrily, muttering something he didn't catch an d climbed back into the driver's seat. "We're going to get the hell ou t of here and think this thing through." She twisted the key in th e ignition and began slowly backing, steering carefully around Ro y Buckner's broken body. "I just need a few goddamn minutes to think , okay?"

The trip out was faster than the one in, since Karen was showing n o regard at all for the Caddy's delicately tuned suspension. Fad e decided to let it go, though, figuring that he'd rather she took ou t her frustrations on the car than on him.

They came onto the two-lane rural highway without so much as a tap o n the brake and he watched one of his custom hubcaps go spinning off int o a ditch. Even worse, though, was the fact that a set of headlight s visible about two hundred yards back suddenly seemed to be closing.

"Is that car chasing us?" Karen said, glancing calmly in the rearvie w mirror.

"Looks like it."

"Damn it!" she shouted, hammering her hand on the steering wheel. "I f you hadn't been screwing around climbing trees we'd be ten miles dow n the road by now."

"Oh, so now it's my fault. The way I remember it is that if it weren'
t for me, you'd be dead right now."

"If it weren't for you, I'd be sitting in my office drinking coffee."

She slammed her foot to the floor and Isidro's engine shoved them bac k into their seats. "But instead I'm driving around with the guy wh o killed my men while we get chased by government assassins."

"I said I was sorry."

The headlights behind them receded steadily, but then the road turne d winding and the bulk of the Cadillac became a disadvantage.

"Shit," she yelped, ducking at the sound of a gunshot behind them.

"They're shooting at us!"

Fade looked back at the car bearing down on them and saw the dar k outline of a man aiming a rifle out the passenger window.

"Yup."

"Well, do something!" she shouted over the wind whipping through th e car's open interior. "Aren't you supposed to be good at this kind o f thing?"

"Hey, I wouldn't want to hurt anybody."

The next shot put a neat hole in the windshield between them. No bi g deal, Buckner's head had already trashed it.

"Fade!"

He shrugged and lay down across the seats, resting his cheek on he r bare left thigh. It was kind of comfortable firm, almost hard, muscle s covered in smooth, dry skin .. .