Lisa Unger - Smoke

“As soon as he starts to move on us, unload your weapon into him. Don’t wait for him to fire first. They want us dead.”

The door to the white van opened and a man identical in dress and hairstyle to the guy whose ass she’d kicked early, stepped out onto the road. An eighteen-wheeler whipped past them, horn blaring. Jesamyn felt the Explorer rock in its wake.

When he stepped into view, her heart did a flip from her chest to her stomach. He was taller than the other man, broader through the shoulders. She couldn’t make out his face very well in the dark but she could see clearly that he had some kind of huge gun in his right hand. She couldn’t tell what it was… a shotgun or an assault rifle; something big and nasty.

She breathed hard against the dread that was growing in her.

“Stay calm, make sure he’s in range, and then just let it rip,” Matt said weakly.

In the way far distance she heard the sound of sirens. They were far, maybe five or six minutes away. They won’t get here in time, she thought, as the monster lifted the gun and started moving toward them slowly.

“Stay down,” she yelled to Mount. She opened fire through her rear windshield and the air around them came alive with sound and light and a blizzard of glass.

The Gulf slapped lazily against the white sand and a sliver of moon hung over palm tress that stood perfectly still in the windless night. Lydia lifted the beer to her lips. It wasn’t as cold as it needed to be and there was no lime but it still tasted okay. Jeffrey grimaced as he drank it.

“It’s warm,” he complained.

“It’s something.”

Lily was finally sleeping in one of the queen beds and Lydia and Jeffrey sat outside on the cinderblock patio in white plastic chairs drinking Coronas. Agent Hunt had left to return to the scene, leaving behind two agents to ensure they made good on their promise to stick around. Lily had had a tearful conversation with her mother on the phone and then collapsed into bed after Jeffrey called Striker, asking him to send someone to protect Lily’s mother and to send a lawyer down to Florida. Chances were the ATF would just let them go at a certain point, as long as things went their way. But you never could tell when federal agencies would be looking for a scapegoat; Lydia was glad Jeffrey took the precaution of getting a lawyer.

“What about Dax?” she asked.

“He’ll be fine,” Jeffrey said, turning to look at her.

“How did he know where we were?”

“Lydia,” he said. “Over the years I’ve learned that, with Dax, the fewer questions you ask the better.”

She frowned at him. “What kind of answer is that?”

“He saved our asses, right? He got us out of there. What more do you need to know?”

She looked at him, incredulous. “You’re kidding, right?”

He didn’t say anything, took a drink of his Corona and avoided her eyes.

Then, “It’s none of our business.”

She was quiet for a second. “So that’s what he does? He works for one of those Privatized Military Companies? So was he working for them tonight or was he working with us?”

Dax had never really answered her and now Jeffrey was being equally tight-lipped. She got the idea that he knew more than he was telling her and the thought made her crazy.

“So we’re going to start keeping things from each other now?” she asked.

Jeffrey turned his eyes on her.

“No, Lydia,” he said, softly. He reached for her hand. “I know as much about what he does as you do. But I know Dax . I trust him. I trust his friendship. And I figure if he needs to hold certain things back from us, then maybe it’s for our safety or for his. That’s okay with me.”

Her heart fluttered a little as a dark form emerged beside Jeffrey, stepping around from the side of the building. She stood quickly and then saw that it was Dax as he stepped into the light.

“But it’s not okay with you, is it, Lydia?” he said quietly, holding her eyes.

She sat back down and looked away from him. She was glad to see him, glad they’d let him go, but there was something between them now that prevented her from being entirely comfortable with him in the way she’d always been.

Jeffrey handed Dax a beer. He pulled up one of the plastic chairs and straddled it like he was mounting a horse. He popped the lid with his hand even though it required a bottle opener.

“We got what we came for, right? What are we still doing here?” he said.

“Waiting for you, for one,” said Jeffrey. “And we told the ATF we’d stick around for a while.”

“Fuck the ATF,” said Dax, taking a long swig of his beer and drinking nearly a third of it down. “Let’s get that girl home where she belongs. It’s done, right?”

Lydia looked at him. It was done. They’d come looking for Lily and they’d found her. She told them what had happened to her and now she was safe. The ATF and supposedly the FBI got what they wanted, the scene that allowed them to go into The New Day and the publicity that would follow would take care of the rest of the organization. This cult that had been stealing people’s will and all their money was finished… or at least mortally wounded. But it didn’t feel finished, not to Lydia. There were giant holes, myriad unanswered questions. She could sense them, even if she couldn’t exactly verbalize what was bothering her.

“Dax, how did you find us? How did you get us out of there?”

“Someone wanted us out of the way,” said Jeffrey. “Hence the fall down the hole and waking up in a cell.”

“Same thing happened to me. Only when I woke up, the door was open and I was still armed.”

“So what happened?” said Jeffrey, leaning forward in his chair.

“I left the cell and went looking for the caves Grimm mentioned. I found them, saw the weapons stored there. I mean, we’re talking like an arsenal that would make the U.S. Army proud. Unreal.

“I heard an explosion then, some gunfire. I came to the surface and the Feds were running all over the place, buildings were burning. I figured that there had been some kind of screw-up and I was out of luck. I came to get the two of you.”

Lydia shook her head. “That doesn’t make any sense. I thought the whole point was that the FBI couldn’t go in after Rhames. That’s why they secretly supported Lily; that’s why they came to see us. Why was the ATF able to go in? Why didn’t Grimm just piggyback on their investigation? According to Hunt, they had the compound under surveillance in preparation for the raid.”

“Maybe Grimm didn’t know. Government agencies are notorious for not communicating with each other,” said Dax, reaching for the last Corona from the six-pack by Jeffrey’s feet.

“Right,” said Jeff slowly. “But it makes more sense if Grimm doesn’t actually work for the FBI, that he works for someone else with their own agenda for getting to Rhames.”

Lydia thought about it for a second, looked at Dax.

“So we got duped?” she said.

“We were going in anyway,” answered Jeffrey.

“What difference does it make?” asked Dax. “We got your girl. We’re all alive and kicking. Let’s go.”

“I still don’t understand how you found us and how you got us out.”

“Not your problem. Just be glad I did.”

Not my problem, thought Lydia. She looked at Dax but his face was blank. She took another sip of her warm beer and wondered if she’d ever know the whole story behind what happened to them tonight-or if she was going to have to add that to the list of unanswered questions in her life. She glanced behind her at the sleeping form on the hotel-room bed. Lily was the whole reason they’d come and she was safe now. It was over.