Annoyed, he turns around and starts shooting at the men shooting at the Jeep now. “Who told you to come back?”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” I retort. “I should’ve left you here to die.”
The Pillar jumps in, still holding onto the Executioner. The children scream when they see him in the car. The Pillar pulls him to the far side, away from them.
“Where to now?” I shout in the rearview mirror.
“Drive through the mushrooms.” The Pillar pulls out a small device and dials a number. “A chopper is coming for us now.”
I don’t have the guts to ask about the chopper or what just happened. Anything to save us before the machine gun men catch us.
In the mirror, I see the Pillar gently pull a kid’s hand and look at the lost fingers. He pats the kid’s hand and nods. The kid nods back.
I keep holding on to the wheel, chugging through the muddy ground and mushrooms.
The chopper shows up in the distance. The Executioner’s men are still on our tail.
“They’ll land right there.” He points. “Slow down a bit until they do.”
“I can’t slow down with those men tailing us.”
“Figure it out, Alice,” the Pillar roars.
“Alice save us!” the kids chirp.
“Yeah, of course.” The Pillar rolls his eyes. “I kill the bad guys, then it’s ‘Alice save us.’”
Chapter 39
We send the kids safely into the chopper, and the Pillar insists bringing the Executioner along.
Once inside, the chopper takes off, evading the showering bullets from the machine gun men. When I turn to thank the pilot, I am stunned to see it’s the Chauffeur.
“You’re supposed to be dead.”
“I suppose I am supposed to be!” he snickers. “I jumped with my parachute. The Executioner had to think you burned all bridges behind you so he’d trust you.”
“So you did all this for him to trust you?” I turn to the Pillar, who is holding the semi-conscious and badly hurt Executioner. “All those games and tricks? But he could’ve shot me dead on the table.”
“I mixed his gun with marshmallow bullets,” the Pillar says, his eyes on the Executioner. “Would you like to go back to your people?” he tells him.
The Executioner, now weakened and helpless, still spits and swears at the Pillar in a foreign language. It thaws the kids off. They tuck themselves in the far corner of the chopper.
“You want me to let you go?” The Pillar hands him a parachute. “Sure. You’re free to go!”
“Just like that?” I say.
The Executioner puts the parachute on and jumps out of the chopper.
“Like what?” the Pillar says, snaking his way through the kids toward the pilot.
“You let him live?”
“Not at all.” The Pillar sits next to the pilot. “I let him fly.”
It takes me a second to get it. A smile forms on my face. “The parachute isn’t working.”
“That’s an understatement,” the Pillar says. “First, it won’t be working. Then, when he pees himself to death in the air, it will start working.”
“And?” I am confused.
“Then I push this button.” He pulls out a remote control and pushes a button. “It won’t work again.”
“And now he dies?” I ask. The Executioner is too far down for me to hear if he is screaming or asking for help.
“Not so soon.” He presses another button. “Now it works again.”
“You’re playing games with him?”
“At this precise moment, he is looking at Mushroomland with all the hope in his heart.”
“And I suppose you’ll push that button and make the parachute not work again?” I am trying to figure this out.
“Nah, it’s not me who pushes the button.” He summons one of the kids and tells him, “You want to punish the Executioner for what he did?”
The kid nods. I am not comfortable with getting the kids into this, but I need to know what the Pillar has in mind.
“That’s it.” The Pillar grins after the kid pushes the button.
“Now, the Executioner’s parachute won’t work anymore,” I say.
But then I hear a loud explosion below.
“Boom!” The Pillar jokes with the kids, who laugh from their hearts.
“The Executioner exploded,” I say. “Why all this?”
“I could have simply killed him, Alice. But I gave him hope three times and then killed him. Oh, if you only knew how that hurts.”
The kids clap their hands from the back. “Senor Pillardo!”
“Now it’s him who is cool?” I fold my hands jokingly.
“When you kill a villain, never make it easy for him. I hate when they do that in movies. If I could burn the Executioner in an oven, resurrect him, and burn him all over again, I’d do it.” The Pillar pulls out a map and points the pilot where to fly.
“So we’re going to this Dodo place?” I stick my head between them. “I hope it’s not far.”
“Not really.” The Pillar adjusts his hat, looking in the mirror. “Peru is just a few miles away.”
Chapter 40
London