Читать книгу Hot and Badgered - Shelly Laurenston - Страница 11

chapter THREE

They hadn’t left the Swiss center yet, and Charlie knew the longer they stayed, the more concerned those orderlies were going to become. Already there were five of them standing outside the front doors, waiting for the pair to leave.

Hoping to calm them down, Charlie found a map in the glove compartment and spread it out on the hood of the Mercedes.

Max watched her and finally asked, “What are you doing?”

“Trying to calm them down by looking like we’re lost,” she softly replied.

“Why?”

“Because we’re making them nervous.”

“We make everybody nervous. Who gives a fuck?”

Charlie placed her hands on the hood and asked, “What’s it like to be you, Max? Not to care? Ever?”

Max shrugged. “It’s awesome.”

Charlie let out that sigh she was convinced she only used when it came to her middle sibling.

“I’m not going to argue with you today,” Charlie announced. More for her own benefit than for Max’s because Max didn’t give a shit. “We have too much going on.”

“So, do you want me to look intensely at the map like it’s still 1982?” Max asked. “You know, rather than just using my fucking phone to take us anywhere we need to go in any part of the world?”

Charlie briefly wondered if slamming her sister’s head against the SUV’s hood would be considered “arguing” when the front doors of the clinic burst open and her baby sister came rushing through.

An orderly instinctively reached out and grabbed the hysterical Stevie, but that was not a good move. Not a good move at all.

Stevie spun and slammed the palm of her hand up, ramming the orderly’s nose and crushing it. He released her and, even though the others hadn’t moved, Stevie kicked one orderly in the groin, another in the leg, breaking the fibula with a cracking sound that echoed around the quiet area. Another got a punch to the face that seemed to break his jaw and cheekbone, and the last was punched in the throat.

The orderly that had followed her outside had spun back around and returned to the safety of the center in order to get reinforcements.

That’s when, screaming like she was on fire, Stevie ran for her life, so oblivious to everything around her, she didn’t even see Charlie and Max standing there, watching her. She just took off running. And, with the tiger blood flowing through her veins, she hit forty miles per hour pretty damn quickly.

Max watched their panic-riddled sister tear off across the front lawn and hit the road that would lead out to the main highway. “Guess the doc told her we’d been here.” Then she laughed because, well . . . it was kind of funny. “Look at her go! I think sparks are coming off her feet.”

“Come on,” Charlie ordered Max, tossing the map off the SUV hood. “We have to catch her.”

They scrambled into the SUV and sped after their sister, heading down the long road that led to and from the clinic. On both sides were thick forests.

“If she goes into the woods—”

“She’s panicking,” Charlie reminded Max. “She’s just gonna run until she can’t anymore.”

“She’s so fast.”

“In short bursts. She has no stamina.” Not an insult, just reality. Again, it was the tiger in her. The wolf and honey badger in Charlie meant she could trot for hours. Not that she ever did. Why bother when she could just as easily rent a car?

Max suddenly hit the brakes and Charlie let out a relieved breath when she saw her baby sister standing in the middle of the road, taking in deep gulps of air and sobbing.

“I’ll get her.” Charlie opened her door. “And when I bring her back, you be nice!” she warned.

“I’m always nice!” Max laughed.

“Shut up.”

Charlie walked around the car and over to her baby sister’s side, but she didn’t touch Stevie. She didn’t put her arms around her and hug her. That was just a quick way to get her face torn off.

“Stevie.” She said her sister’s name flatly, with authority; her voice low. “Stevie,” she repeated.

Blinking away tears, Stevie straightened her back and focused on Charlie.

“Charlie?”

“Hey, bubs.”

“Charlie!” Now Stevie was in her arms, hugging her tight, and Charlie hugged her back because she was no longer worried about getting her face ripped off.

“You didn’t leave me. You didn’t leave me,” she chanted.

“Of course we didn’t. We were just trying to find a way to get to you without the staff knowing.” She stroked Stevie’s hair. She’d started dyeing it a nice, safe blond. Charlie kept hers brown, and Max dyed hers any color she was in the mood to see for a few weeks or months. They did this to avoid the questions. So many questions about their hair.

“How bad is it?” Charlie asked.

Swallowing, Stevie took a step back, her gaze focused on the trees behind Charlie’s head.

Charlie knew that look.

“Is anyone dead?” Charlie now asked, worried about her sister’s answer.

“No! No.” Her voice lowered even more. “No.” Stevie cleared her throat. “Someone may have lost an eye, though.”

“Okay.” Charlie grabbed her sister’s arm and quickly led her to the SUV, pushing her into the backseat and getting in beside her.

“Go, Max.”

The car took off and Charlie held her baby sister’s hand and calmly spoke to her. “Deep breath in. Deep breath out. In. Out. Close your eyes and just focus on the engine sounds. The road beneath the wheels. The air against the car.”

“Your whining against my nerves,” Max joked from the front seat.

Stevie’s gold eyes popped open and she rammed the flat of her hand against the back of Max’s seat.

“Hey!” Max barked.

“Do you know what I’ve been through?” Stevie yelled. “Do you have any concept?”

“Keep yelling at me, and I’ll give you something to really whine about.”

Unable to stand another second, Charlie slapped her hands together several times and yelped, “That is enough! We don’t have time for you two psychotic females to be bickering like we’re still in grade school!”

“Wait,” Stevie said, the anger in her voice gone, unfortunately replaced by hysteria. “Do you hear that?”

“Stevie, you need to—”

“No. Listen.”

Charlie did . . . and she heard it too.

“Is that a chopper?”

As soon as Charlie asked the question, the military-type chopper charged past them, so close, Charlie was surprised it didn’t hit the roof of the car.

Max slowed to a stop.

The chopper turned and came back, hovering about fifty feet away.

“Dude!” Max demanded, trying to look back at Stevie over her seat. “What kind of mental hospital did you go to?”

* * *

The target and her sisters waited in the SUV.

“Stay here,” he ordered the pilot. “Give them a minute to figure out what’s about to happen.”

“Got it.”

The original plan had been to take the target in the clinic, but he’d just been heading toward the building when she’d run out, hysterically screaming. He’d immediately gone back to the copter. Especially when he realized the two older sisters were still alive.

His orders had been painfully simple. Pick up the target and bring her to the safe house. Two other teams had been dispatched to take out the troublesome older sisters so they couldn’t get in the way. Apparently they had a reputation that had his clients concerned. But somehow those two had gotten away from full tactical teams. He still wasn’t sure how they’d managed that.

The sister on the driver’s side eased out and headed toward the back of the SUV.

“Want me to take her out?”

“No,” he replied immediately. “We keep them alive until we have the target. They’ll keep her pliable.”

“She’s probably going for a weapon.”

He wasn’t worried. The copter could handle a few gunshots.

Tapping the mic, he began the negotiation process.

* * *

Still in the backseat with Stevie, Charlie focused on her baby sister and ignored whatever the man in the chopper was saying. Most would be concerned with the chopper guy, but he was the least of her problems. Already Charlie could see the panic welling up again in Stevie. And if Stevie snapped . . .

“What’s going on? Who are these people? They’re not from the center! What did Dad do now?” Stevie spit out in rapid succession. Then she asked, “Why are they doing this? What are we going to do?”

There it went. That high-pitched squeal that said Stevie was moments away from going into full panic mode.

“Don’t worry about them,” Charlie told her sister. “Let’s focus on your breathing.”

Stevie calmed down enough to glare at Charlie. “Seriously?”

“I’m trying to help.”

“I’m not an infant.”

“Fine. Then balls the fuck up!”

“Don’t snarl at me!” Stevie shot back, her panic finally overridden by anger, which Charlie welcomed. “If you only would—”

Both sisters screamed and ducked down, hands over their heads; the entire SUV bucked from the explosion. They waited a few seconds before sitting up and staring out the front window with their mouths open, as the remains of the chopper landed all around their vehicle.

And with the chopper were the remains of several men, their charred bodies—and pieces from those bodies—banging against the vehicle and ground with nauseating thuds.

Charlie heard Max humming and turned to see that she had the back door open and was returning the weapon she held to its case.

“A rocket launcher?” Charlie exploded.

“Oh, my God!” Stevie gasped.

“Have you lost your mind?”

Max shrugged. “What? I wasn’t about to get into a shoot-out with them. That’s a military chopper. Did you see the Gatling guns on the sides?”

“I don’t care, you idiot! What are we supposed to tell the Swiss authorities?”

Frowning, Max asked, “Why would we talk to anybody about this?” She closed the back door, went around the SUV, and got into the driver’s side. She stared out the front window for a moment, got back out of the SUV, and walked around the front, kicking bodies and big, burning chunks of the helicopter out of the way to make a path through the debris.

When Max returned to the vehicle, she buckled her seat belt and glanced back at Charlie and Stevie. “Ready to go?” she asked, smiling. Chipper even. In fact, extremely chipper. Like they were going to brunch.

How did she do that? Unlike her sisters, Max was all honey badger, and yet she had the most pleasant, happy, almost sunny disposition Charlie had ever known.

Charlie had never met another honey badger like her.

“Stop smiling,” Charlie ordered her sister.

And, of course, Max’s smile grew until it took up most of her face.

Charlie nearly had her hands around Max’s throat but Stevie wrapped her arms around her and dragged her back against the seat.

“What are you mad at me for?” Max asked, oblivious as always.

“Just go,” Stevie ordered. “And shut up.”

“Both of you are so moody.” Max took the car out of park and drove through the path she’d created until she was able to enter the woods. This got them off the road and, hopefully, away from any law enforcement who’d be heading this way.

* * *

So this was what it was like to be a true “maestro.” Berg thought he’d “gotten it” before, but he hadn’t. Not until men came from the Vatican, sent personally by His Holiness so that they could escort Coop to his next venue.

Even cooler? They were waiting to board a private jet that was only used for His Holiness. The Pope had sent it to transport Coop and his entire team, and apparently he wouldn’t take no for an answer.

Coop had tried. Politely. Not wanting to put the Pope and his attendees out in any way. And Coop wasn’t bullshitting. He really didn’t like to put people out, but again . . . His Holiness wouldn’t hear it.

Of course, Coop had not asked for any of this, but his sister. . . ?

Well, Toni Jean-Louis Parker Reed was a different matter. Plus, she was trapped in Siberia at the moment and couldn’t make her way to Italy just now. At least not in time to help. So she’d called the Vatican herself—of course she did—and had them make all these arrangements. For her brother’s safety, she’d said. A sentiment that Berg could only roll his eyes over.

“Hey, Berg,” Coop said next to him.

“Huh?”

“My sister is sending even more backup, to get us home.”

Berg rolled his eyes again. “Oy.”

The jackal chuckled. “Don’t take it personally. It’s just my sister’s way. She can be obsessive when it comes to her siblings. Among jackal families, she’s considered the gold standard of proper older sibling behavior.”

“Is she sending someone I’m going to hate?”

“I don’t think so. But I can never tell with you and your brother, which people you guys hate. Unlike your sister, who is very direct about her hatred.”

“You do always know where you stand with my sister.”

“I heard she’ll be the one ‘handling’”—he made air quotes with his fingers—“Toni when she gets here.”

“Well, Dag and I weren’t going to do it.”

“Nope,” Dag muttered.

“I don’t blame you. She wanted to fire you guys, by the way. But I said, ‘Absolutely not. They’re my friends. And so what if they put me in grave danger and put my life and, more importantly, my God-given gifts at risk? A loss that would deprive the entire world, maybe even the universe, of something truly amazing. They’re still my friends.’”

Berg gazed down at Coop. “How big of you.”

“I thought so.”

“We’re friends?” Dag asked.

“The jet is ready, Maestro,” one of the Vatican’s men announced.

With Dag on one side of Coop and Berg on the other, the trio began to walk toward the door that would lead them to the private airstrip. But as they passed the front desk, Berg caught sight of the TV behind the attendant.

Both he and Coop stopped walking and briefly watched the Italian-language news announcement about a helicopter in Switzerland that had been shot down on a private road.

Berg didn’t understand Italian but he got the gist of the story from the visuals.

He looked at Coop and the jackal stared back, both of them silently asking the question.

Then, after several seconds, they both said together, “Nahhh.” And continued on toward the awaiting jet.

* * *

“Get out. I have to set this thing on fire.”

Charlie stared at her sister. “Are you just on a rampage? What are you doing?”

“Don’t worry. We have another car waiting right there. We’re totally covered.”

With another pleasant smile, Max walked off.

“She’s going to get us killed or put in prison for the rest of our lives,” Stevie informed Charlie. “I just want you to know that.”

“I wish I could argue with you,” Charlie admitted. “But I can’t.”

They got out of the car, each grabbing a duffle bag from the back of the SUV, and headed in the direction Max pointed out to them.

As Charlie walked, she smelled smoke from behind her just before Max ran up to them. Another bag was hanging from her shoulder. And the . . .

Charlie stopped and her sisters stopped with her. “You brought the rocket launcher?”

“You expect me to leave it? Do you know how much these things cost? Especially these really compact ones? Are you nuts?” she scoffed before heading off again.

“You know,” Stevie noted, “we could kill her here and bury her and no one would ever know.” She frowned, shook her head. “I guess that was a horrible thing to say.”

“No, sweetie. It was just a honey badger thing to say. Nothing to worry about. I say honey badger things all the time but never do them.”

They followed Max, reaching a brand-new Range Rover painted a very bright red.

“Subtle,” Charlie said to Max. Her sister grinned, oblivious, and quickly began packing the trunk, stopping to answer her vibrating phone.

“We’re all going to jail, aren’t we?” Stevie suddenly asked as she and Charlie finished up the trunk packing.

“Not if I can help it,” Charlie promised. “I’ve worked too long and hard for any of us to go to prison now.” She paused a moment, then added, “But if we have to sacrifice someone, it’ll be Max. She could handle prison way better than either of us.”

After a few minutes, Max returned to their side and Charlie knew, as soon as she saw her sister’s face, that something had changed.

“What?” Charlie asked when Max didn’t say anything.

Max glanced at Stevie, then back to Charlie. “I just got a call . . . from New York.”

“Oh, God,” Stevie began. “Oh, God, Oh, God, Oh, G—”

“Stevie,” Charlie said, raising one finger. “No.”

She could see her sister was readying herself for another panic attack, and Charlie simply didn’t have the patience for it right now. Especially when Stevie could go from zero to hysterical in six seconds.

She was the Ferrari of panic.

“Breathe,” she ordered Stevie before facing Max. “Who do we know in New York?”

“Not a lot of people. But . . .” She cleared her throat, glanced at Stevie who was now doing her deep breathing exercises. “It’s Dad . . .”

Charlie briefly closed her eyes. “Let me guess. He’s in jail. He wants bail. Well, fuck him! I’m a thousand percent positive that we’re on the run because of him. So he can stay in jail until he rots.”

“He’s dead,” Maxie abruptly announced. “They need someone to identify the body.”

Stevie put her hand to her chest and turned away from them, her head bowed, shoulders beginning to shake, her pain and grief clear to anyone who might be near.

Charlie and Max, however, didn’t hesitate to silently bop around each other, performing dance moves they really shouldn’t because they just didn’t have the talent for it. However, it wasn’t a dance of skill, but of excitement. Of relief. Of downright giddiness.

Neither sister spoke as they boogied around each other because words weren’t necessary. But despite their silence . . .

Stevie slapped her hand against the Range Rover and snarled, “I know what you two are doing back there and stop it! He’s still our father!”