Just before they came around the corner again, before the street that would take them past that blind alley with the loading bay, Angela gestured to the side. “Okay, park back here. Back before the corner. I don’t want them to see us drive by again or it will alert them.”
“Are those two men standing beside the alley men you recognize from Cassiel’s memory?” he asked as he pulled to the curb and leaned forward to try to look out past her.
“Yes,” she said as she pushed him back in his seat before she popped open her door. “Silvino and Ronaldo. Back up a little so they can’t see your car.” When he did, she said, “Okay, wait here.”
“What do you think you’re doing?” Jack asked.
“I need to take out the lookouts. When I come back out of that loading alley, I’ll signal, so be looking for me, then you can come in the back entrance with me. Do you have all your magazines on you?”
“Yes. What do you mean you’re going to take out the lookouts?”
Angela didn’t answer as she got out and shut the car door.
All four of her pockets were loaded with five or six magazines each. That was far more than she expected to need, but as her grandfather always told her, you can never have too much ammo. At times it felt like he was with her, reminding her of a hundred little details.
Leaving the car waiting back around the corner, she strutted down the street to where the two men were leaning against a wall beside what at first glance looked like an alley. Rather than an alley, though, it was a short dead end, deep enough for a large truck to park and unload at an elevated dock at the rear. The dock had wooden stairs to the left.
She recognized the two men standing watch beside the alley—Silvino and Ronaldo—because Cassiel had spent a good deal of time with Rafael and all his men. She recognized them the same as he would have. None of the men really liked Cassiel—he was an outsider.
For his part, Cassiel didn’t respect or care about any of them, either. He had only been with them until a time came when he could make an escape and again be on his own.
Once the bomb went off and the entire team was dead, their minders back in Iran would think he had died along with them. Having escaped death twice, he would then be free to hunt again. But the third time had been the charm. He died hunting Angela.
When she walked past the pair, they grinned, then pursed their lips to make kissing sounds as they grabbed their crotches. Angela stopped and smiled at them.
“You called?”
“Maybe,” Silvino said.
“Well, do you want something or not? I ain’t got all day, ya know.”
“Maybe you could suck my cock?” Silvino asked with a grin.
She stepped close and ran a finger along his collar.
“Maybe.”
“How much?”
“Ten. With a condom. Twenty without.”
“Is good for me. Twenty dollars.” He pointed a thumb back over his shoulder. “We go back there.”
Ronaldo leered down at her legs, his gaze coming to a stop on her crotch. “How much for fuck?”
“Forty. But I’m running a special today. Two for sixty.”
Silvino whispered something to his buddy.
Ronaldo looked somewhat annoyed. “This is my last chance for co?o,” he answered back. “If you don’t want, you can wait here.”
“No, I will have co?o too,” Silvino said, finally giving in. “We both will have this American puta.”
Angela smiled and sauntered into the blind canyon of brick. The wall at the back was whitewashed halfway up. Windows to the side were boarded over from the inside. The short, blind alley was filled with garbage and trash of every sort. She saw the desiccated carcasses of rats among the rubble. A truck tire without a rim sat to the side.
The men pointed at the dock.
“Disgusting,” she said. “I’m not going to lay down in this trash. You got someplace a little nicer and more private for a lady?”
“Yes,” Ronaldo said, nodding eagerly as he started up the wooden stairs at the side of the dock. He pointed at the metal door. “In there.”
Angela let them both usher her up the steps onto the dock and then through a dented metal door. Inside was an empty space with iron posts. Scraps of stained, ripply cardboard lay scattered about among bits of junk. She looked around in the dim light of a few high windows to make sure there weren’t men inside. She saw a stairwell far back in the right corner.
Satisfied that they were alone, she turned around. Both men were staring at her legs as they were unbuckling their belts. One of them had laid down a bed of cardboard scraps for her to lie on.
Angela pulled out her gun as they were staring at her legs.
“Up here, boys.”
When they looked up, she shot both men between the eyes—two quick pops. The bullets ricocheted around inside their skulls, scrambling their brains in a lethal instant. With no motor function, they dropped straight down. With everything from their motor cortex to the brain stem scrambled, their eyes remained open in death. They hadn’t even had time to close them.
Gun in one hand, Angela used her other hand to pick up the scraps of cardboard to cover the bodies in case anyone came down to check on them. She went back out the door and out the alcove to peek around the edge of the building. She saw Jack taking a stealthy look around the corner. Angela waved for him. He came at a trot.
“That was quick,” he said.
She gave him a look. “Did you expect me to fuck them first before I shot them?”
Angela hadn’t meant to snap at him, but she was already sinking down into a familiar, merciless mood she knew all too well. He seemed to recognize it, so he let it pass.
She pressed the lever at the bottom of the trigger surround to release the magazine. She’d already used three bullets. She put in a fresh magazine and put the partially empty one in her back right pocket where she wouldn’t use it unless needed. She wanted a full ten rounds when it started.
Jack followed her into the blind alley. “Tell me about the building, and where the men will likely be located.”
SIXTY-SIX
Angela and Jack stood quietly inside near the cardboard-covered corpses of Silvino and Ronaldo. There were bales of scrap paper piled nearby, along with stacks of beat-up cardboard boxes.
In the dead silence she spoke in a low voice, briefing Jack on what she knew from Cassiel’s memory about the interior layout and where Cassiel had last seen the men.
“Keep in mind that what I know could miss a lot of important stuff and the men could easily not be in the same places as before. From this point on, they could be anywhere. Cassiel wasn’t at all interested in dying for Allah. He wanted to be out of here before the bomb went off. He was only watching for a chance to slip away so he could come and kill me. I was on his Constantine kill list. That’s what he was thinking about.”
“I understand,” Jack said. “Whatever information you have from his memory is better than nothing, but we shouldn’t rely on it.”
“Right. Once it starts,” she said, “it’s going to take on a life of its own.”
“If I didn’t know better, I’d say you’ve done this before.”
In a way, she had. “We both know what we need to do, so we just have to go in and do it.”
Jack nodded as he looked around, watching for any sign of trouble. “Agreed.”
“I’m going to go first,” she told him.
“I don’t think—”
“If they see you, they’ll shoot first and ask questions later. If they see me, they’ll ask questions first.”
Jack made a face as he glanced around again. “I hate to admit it, but you’ve got a point. Do you know how many of them are armed?’
“All of them carry AK-47s. They trained with them and know how to use them, but shooting was never part of their plan. They rarely spent time target practicing or in firearms training. Their training was focused on physics and machining skills. These are sophisticated bomb makers, not soldiers.
“They consider other terrorists who use guns little more than unskilled amateurs. These men think they’re smarter than that, deadlier than that. And they’re right. They have guns more for the testosterone factor than anything else.”