Metro Girl (Alex Barnaby 1)

And then he kissed me with a lot of tongue, and his hand on my ass.

“Your hand’s on my ass,” I said when he broke from the kiss.

“Are you sure?”

“Well, someone’s hand is on my ass.”

“Guess it’s mine then,” he said.

I shoved Puke Face with my foot and rolled him over onto his stomach. He had ten darts in his back. The darts were big enough to take down a moose. Torres had three in the chest.

“I see you used the tranquilizer darts like we talked about,” I said to Hooker. “Someone’s a real marksman.”

“Darlin’, this is NASCAR. We’re beer-drinkin’, skirt-chasin’, speed-crazy rednecks. And we can shoot.”

Someone threw a switch inside the garage and the outside was flooded with light, letting me see for the first time the full extent of the operation. I’d counted twenty-three men with Salzar. It looked to me like Hooker had sixty men. Maybe more. Hard to tell in the activity.

NASCAR uses big tractor trailers to transport their cars and equipment. One of Hooker’s eighteen-wheel transporters was parked back by the garage doors. His service truck was next to the transporter. There was a herd of Harleys and half a dozen big-boy customized pickups parked in the same area. There are three sounds that give me goose bumps every time. NASCAR starting their engines, a well-tuned Porsche, and a Harley with Python pipes. The Harleys in the lot were totally pimped, Pythons included. No wonder it had sounded like thunder when they rolled in. A second transporter and service truck from another race team were backed up to the side of the building. Men were working, moving the welding equipment off the roof and onto the trucks.

The stench of burning aviation fuel hung in the air. The dust was settling over the helipad, and the frenzy of the attack was reduced to ordered confusion.

“It’s over,” Hooker said. “Salzar’s gone, and we have Torres. We’re turning Salzar’s men loose in the swamp. Good luck there. Except for Puke Face. We have plans for Puke Face and Torres.”

Hooker and I went back inside the building and watched Bill motor the forklift over to a rental van. Bill loaded the crated gold into the van and pulled away from the pallet. Hooker and I closed and locked the van doors. Then Bill drove around the building, and we loaded the still unconscious Pukey and Torres onto the forklift and dumped them into a crate in Hooker’s transporter. Bill backed off with the forklift and jumped in to help Hooker nail the crate shut.

The deal Senator Gil made with his contact in Cuba was that they would trade Juan Raffles for the gold or for Salzar. Our choice. Senator Gil’s Cuban contact had made it known that Cuba considered Salzar an enemy of the government, and the government would be happy to trade him for Juan. I suspected the Cuban contact would be even happier to open the crate and find Marcos Torres. Sort of like Christmas come early. One less political piranha for Castro to worry about. Castro would open the crate in the dark of night in Havana and maybe dispose of the contents. Not my problem.

We carefully tucked the canister, still wrapped in Judey’s blanket, beside the crate containing Puke Face and Torres.

Judey was doing his nurturing thing for Maria. He had her in a chair, drinking coffee, eating a granola bar. I walked over and sat with them, taking a cup of coffee for myself.

“Are you okay?” I asked Maria.

“No permanent damage. Older and wiser.”

“We’ve made arrangements for your dad.”

“Judey told me,” she said softly.

Maria’s eyes filled, but she didn’t cry. More than could be said for me. I was on emotion overload. I was willing to cry at the least provocation. I drank a cup of coffee in one gulp and ate a granola bar without even realizing it. I looked at the empty wrapper in my hand. “What’s this?” I asked Judey.

“Granola bar,” he said. “You ate it.”

The garage doors were open, and I could see the motorcycle guys were leaving. The NASCAR guys were staying to help with cleanup, scouring the area, picking up darts that missed their mark, and collecting spent casings from real bullets. Police would be responding soon, chasing down the smoke that was still billowing fr

om the downed helicopter. We wanted to be out before they arrived.

Hooker’s public relations car had gotten rolled out of the transporter to make room for the crate containing Torres and Puke Face.

“I came in the transporter,” he said, “but we can go back in the dummy car.”

“Okay,” I said, “but I get to drive.”

“Are you crazy? I’m not letting you drive my car. You’re a maniac.”

“I’m not a maniac. Besides, it’s just a dummy car. And I should get to drive because I’ve had a very traumatic experience.”

“I should get to drive because I rescued you. I’m NASCAR Guy.”