One Rough Man - Brad Taylor [73]
USING THE GIANT SIDE MIRROR OF THE SUBURBAN, Jennifer watched Pike approach the vehicle and peer through the driver’s side window. She watched him rear back with the hammer, shielding his face from potential flying glass. Saw him shatter the window, only to be met by an ear-splitting alarm. Saw him running back toward her like a scalded dog.
She jammed the SUV into drive and hit the gas as he jumped in. She threw a rooster tail of dirt, fishtailing back onto the highway, weaving left and right. She started laughing uncontrollably, tears in her eyes, fighting to stay on the road.
Pike first looked indignant, moving on to aggravated, and ending with plain angry. “What’re you laughing at? Christ! Watch where the hell you’re going!”
Between hitches of laughter, Jennifer gave a poor impression of Pike’s baritone. “I can rip that car off. Shouldn’t be any trouble.”
Pike shook his head, looking out the window. Jennifer continued to laugh, unable to stop, letting off pent-up emotion. The laughter was genuine but had a little bit of a brittle edge. She finally calmed down enough to look at him. Seeing his annoyance, she tried to mollify him. “Come on. You have to admit that was funny. You looked like a teenager caught in the girlfriend’s bed by her father.”
I TRIED HARD TO MAINTAIN MY ANNOYANCE, but it was a losing battle. Running through what had happened, I broke down with an embarrassed grin.
“Who in the hell puts an alarm on a vehicle like that? Who would steal that piece of shit out here?”
“Maybe there’s a huge market for twenty-year-old American-made cars in Guatemala. Or maybe a lot of commandos come through here after blowing the hell out of Guatemala City and he’s sick of them taking his cars for a getaway.”
“Okay, okay. Let’s find another car.”
“Are you sure? Maybe we should stick with the Suburban while we’re ahead. I’m not saying you can’t do it. If you say you can, then I’m sure you can. I just don’t want you to be forced to kill half the village to prove it.”
She looked at me mischievously. “I’ll bet you never ask anyone for directions, either, huh?”
She saw me grimace and said, “I’m just teasing. We’ll do whatever you think we need to.”
“We need it, and I won’t kill anyone to get it. I have done this before. Trust me.”
She lightly touched my arm. “I do trust you.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. I was completely unused to being on the receiving end of someone’s trust, and it did nothing but embarrass me. Before the silence could grow uncomfortable, I saw a Chevy Cutlass ahead on the left side of the road, circa 1984.
“All right, mission number two. Same plan. This time, if an alarm goes off, wait for me to get inside the vehicle before you act like Dale Earnhardt, okay?”
“You got it. You want me to honk when we pass it? See if I can save us some time with the alarm?”
Man, she’s got some balls.
“Please just pull up a hundred meters.”
I exited the vehicle and cautiously moved up to the Cutlass. The doors were unlocked. This was more like what I expected from the back-woods of Guatemala. Opening the door, I sat down behind the wheel. I took out the hammer and began smashing at the base of the turn indicator on the left side of the steering wheel stalk, attempting to get at the mechanism underneath the sheath of alloy steel. I opened up the steering column, with the cheap alloy coming off in quarter-inch flakes. I jammed a screwdriver into the mechanism usually rotated by the key and yanked backward. The car sputtered, coughed, finally catching itself as it warmed up. Satisfied that the vehicle would run, I took the wheel and began forcefully yanking it left and right, breaking the lock holding the steering wheel in place.
I hit the lights to warn Jennifer I was on the way, pulled onto the deserted highway and picked her up, and transferred the weapons and assault kit to the Cutlass.