Page 62 of Omega

“I mean it. Youstay…there. I don’t care what you see or think you see, you stay fuckingput. And keep your head down.” An engine roared somewhere, and tires squealed. Harris cocked his head, listening. “They’re close. We don’t have much time.”

He unzipped the duffel bag, and sure as shit, it was full of guns. “Well fuck me running, Harris, where the hell’d you get your hands on all that?”

“You forget I work for an ex-arms dealer,” he responded, digging a pair of black 9mm semiautomatics out of the bag and handing them to me.

“I didn’t actually know that,” I said. “Roth was an arms dealer? No shit.”

He glanced at me, digging four spare clips out of the bag and handing them to me as well. “Well, now you know.” He gestured at the guns in my hand. “You can reload those, right?”

I showed him I could by ejecting the clip, checking it, and sliding it back in place, tapping it home with the hell of my palm—gently, contrary to popular silver-screen mythology. “Where do you want me?”

He pulled a short, compact assault rifle out of the bag, unfolded the stock, stuffed extra magazines in his back pockets, and slung the weapon by the strap on his shoulder and let it hang, then grabbed another handgun, this one a monster silver thing straight out ofDirty Harry. Zipping the bag, he secured it on his back and then led me at a trot through the knee-high grass toward the row of rusting trailers. There were a good half a dozen metal drums lying scattered in the grass, the kind of thing you’d see hobos warming their hands over in movies. Harris rolled one to lay between two closely parked trailers, grabbed a second and righted it, hauled it over, and then tipped a third to lay against both of the others, creating a makeshift barricade. The wall behind me was fully intact and all of ten feet high, so I didn’t think anyone would be coming up from behind. I tucked the spare pistol into my waistband at my back—which is not as comfortable as TV would have you imagine—and the clips in my pockets.

Lying down prone, I glanced up at Harris. “Well? Don’t just stand there, doofus. Go find your own spot.”

He shook his head at me, a smirk quirking the corner of his mouth. When he was gone I closed my eyes and let myself feel the fear. I was fucking terrified, to put it frankly. None of this was normal, even for me. I’d been through some shit in my life, but lying in wait, preparing to ambush men who were trying to kill me? It was new. And not fun.

I do not recommend it.

But I’ve learned something important in going through all the crazy-ass bullshit life has thrown at me: if something heavy is about to go down, give yourself a moment to feel the emotions. Let them go, let them out, let them boil. And then shut it down—hard—and do what you gotta do.

A few moments of sweating balls in the blazing Brazilian heat, and then I heard tires on gravel and an engine lowering down to idle, doors opening and closing, men talking. Slides being pulled, footsteps crunching. Words were exchanged, voices were raised. A gun went off, making me jump, and then more shouts. Silence.

I couldn’t see Harris anywhere.

I was on my belly, a pistol in my hands, pointing it through the gap in the stacked barrels at the opening in the wall where the bad guys had to come through. I checked the weapon in my hands, made sure the safety was off—it was a Glock, apparently, since it didn’t have a safety. That was a little factoid I’d learned from Oliver, the guy who’d run the firing range: Glocks didn’t have safeties.

I pulled the slide, doing so as quietly as I could, and then set it in the grass at my right hand, took the spare from my waistband, checked it, racked the slide on that one, and arranged my extra clips where I could grab them easily.

My hands shook.

My pulse thundered in my ears.

I wasnotready for this. Killing a guy in self-defense was one thing. But lying in wait to kill people in cold blood…that was another prospect.

I couldn’t do it.

Shit.

Shit.

What was I thinking?

A hand appeared in the fence break, holding onto the grip of some kind of compact machine gun. Harris would probably have a proper name for it, but I didn’t give a shit what it was called. A kill-Layla device. That was all that mattered. The body followed, a short, stocky man with sweaty hair and a stained T-shirt.

My finger twitched on the trigger, but I waited; I’d start shooting only after Harris had. I didn’t want to spoil the ambush by shooting too early.

Heh. I didn’t want to shoot too early; I wondered idly if Harris had that problem. Probably not.

Jesus, Layla. Now is not the time to be thinking about Harris’s sexual prowess.

Yes it was. It was always a good time to think about Harris’s sexual prowess. He probably had a lot of prowess.

A second man followed the first, and then a third, and a fourth. And a fifth. They were each armed with a machine gun. They all looked extremely unpleasant.

The first man was about ten steps into the field as the fifth and final man was stepping over the makeshift area of fence. And that was when Harris cut loose. It happened so fast I barely registered it: there was a loud chattering crash, and the fifth man collapsed, falling into and effectively blocking the open section of fence. This happened in an eye-blink.

Another loud detonation—CRACKCRACKCRACK—and the first man in line fell.