“Do you have any other available funds, Mr. Merrick?” Bo Huntley asked for the third time.
Merrick didn’t see how that was relevant. He held a handkerchief to his cheek and dabbed at the blood. Veronica had scratched the hell out of his face and, judging by her torrent of threats, would do it again if Ogden let go of her arms. The veins on her forehead stood out impressively, and she’d screamed herself an unattractive shade of purple.
“Where’s my money? How can there only be one penny in this account? What have you done with my money?”
Merrick wanted to shove his fist in her mouth, but she had a point. Where was the money? He needed a phone. What had that idiot bastard of his done?
“We had a deal, you son of a bitch,” Veronica spat.
“Mr. Merrick . . . ?” Huntley prompted.
“Preposterous,” he said again and felt his mind going blank.
“I’m going to need you and your family to exit the vehicle.”
“You can’t seriously intend to leave us here. My ex-wife put down a sizeable deposit.”
“And we delivered you to the airfield as promised. That’s as far as the deposit takes you. I ask again: Do you have any other funds?”
“They’ll kill us.”
Huntley had the look of a man sick of arguing with a five-year-old. He rubbed a spot between his eyes and came to a decision.
“All right, everyone out. You have ten seconds, and then we drag you out. You too, Ogden.”
With that, Huntley exited the limo and began barking orders to his team. Ten seconds after that, the dragging out commenced in earnest.
Lea walked up the runway, following the taillights of the two Gulfstream aircraft as they rose into the night sky until she lost sight of them among the stars. It was a beautiful, cloudless night, and the sky was awash with stars. Had there always been this many?
She’d known it was Gibson the moment her father went ashen at the computer. She didn’t know how he’d managed it but hoped it was the van, because then she’d at least played a part. But it really didn’t matter. Watching her father’s meltdown in the back of the limousine was the most satisfying thing she’d ever witnessed. Goddamn, it was perfection. She smiled, and she felt strangely at peace—for perhaps the first time in her life.
Which was funny, because she also saw what a foolish, wasteful thing she had done. This revenge of hers, if you could even call it that, had been a mistake. A stupid, selfish waste of her time, and probably her life. Of all their lives. But knowing that now, as she did, she still would not have changed a thing. That was the thing about mistakes: often you had to make them to see them for what they were. And she wouldn’t trade this feeling of clarity for anything in the world. There would be a high price to pay, but she would pay it gladly.
She slipped off her heels. She wasn’t about to die with sore feet. At the end of the runway behind her, depending on one’s perspective, a comedy or a tragedy was unfolding. Perhaps both. Pilots unpaid, both aircraft had departed, and her parents stood amid her mother’s luggage, piled unceremoniously on the tarmac, arguing with the security team, who ignored them as they loaded back into their convoy of vehicles. Huntley offered Ogden a ride out of there, but the CIA man shook his head.
“I think I gotta stay.”
“You sure?” Huntley asked. “Things are about to get loud.”
“Yeah.” Ogden didn’t look any too excited about it.
“Your funeral.”
Damon Ogden stood to the side as the convoy departed, cell phone in hand, still trying in vain to get a signal. For all the good it would do in the time remaining. They were in denial about what was coming. It didn’t really matter. Acceptance was overrated.
Like Ogden’s, her phone had no bars. She’d wanted to text Gibson good-bye. Thank him for everything. She doubted that she’d get another chance, so she wrote the text anyway. It wouldn’t send now but would store in the phone’s outgoing folder, and maybe someone, perhaps not her, would carry the phone within range of a cell tower. It would send then. Not like there was a rush, and it felt good knowing he might get it—her electronic message in a bottle. As an afterthought, she texted Margo a simple message:
You were right.
There was nothing else to say.
Lea watched as the convoy crossed the airfield and disappeared down the hill. When they were out of sight, the scavengers that had been lying patiently in wait for the lions to abandon the carcass turned their attention to the Merricks. Lea walked back toward her parents. If they were to die, they would die together.
The first gunshot sounded like a handclap in the distance. The night quieted itself, curious to see what came next. Then another. And another. And then it was a string of fireworks, dancing in the street. Ogden crouched beside her father. Lea knelt beside her mother, who was using a suitcase as a shield. She thought about drawing her pistol, but at this range it would be like throwing pebbles into the wind. They huddled together behind the luggage and listened to the gunfire and breaking glass. It wasn’t until the first screams drifted across the airfield that Lea realized that no one was shooting at her. They were killing each other over there. Whatever unofficial truce existed among them had run out the moment the security team left, and they were fighting it out for the right to claim the Merricks.
At this distance, it all seemed like an abstraction, the muzzle flashes oddly beautiful in the night. The entire skirmish ended in a matter of moments. A final volley and then nothing but the odd gunshot. A few stray vehicles fled. Men moved among the remaining cars and settled up with the wounded or the dying. Her mother tried to take her hand, but Lea wrenched it out of her grip. The time for pretending was over. Across the airfield, two vehicles separated from the pack and sped toward them.
The bill had finally come due.
THE GIANT, CRAZY BIRD
Don’t you know about the praying mantis that waved its arms angrily in front of an approaching carriage, unaware that it was incapable of stopping it? Such was the high opinion it had of its talents.
—Zhuang Zhou
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX