“Are you all right?” Aiden asked Edgar. “Did they hurt you?”
“He’s walking and talking,” Walsh said. “So he’s fine.”
Sweat trickled down the side of Aiden’s face from the steamy jungle atmosphere as he raised an eyebrow. “Well, I haven’t heard the talking part yet.” For all he knew, they’d cut out the man’s tongue.
“Tell him.” Walsh poked Edgar in the cheek.
Wincing, Edgar recoiled. “I’m fine.” His voice was low and hoarse, like he’d been screaming and lost it.
“I want a closer look at him before any exchange. Bring him up here.” Aiden waved them up the right set of stairs.
As Edgar limped up the steps with Sideburns behind him, the other man set a foot on the left staircase.
“No.” Aiden drew the suppressed Beretta he’d stolen from Devlin and pointed it at him. “You and Walsh stay there. Just them.”
Edgar and Sideburns continued walking. The others stayed put.
Aiden backed up, drawing them in to where he wanted, without the gunman feeling crowded, threatened. Shifting to the side, Aiden guided them to move clockwise, ninety degrees. Right where the proverbial X marked the spot.
Sideburns held the back of Edgar’s shirt collar with one hand and leveled the gun at his head with the other.
Looking over Edgar, Aiden noticed his eyes were bloodshot and swollen, and he kept swallowing in a weird way, like his mouth was sore. Hundreds of tiny red marks covered his face, throat, hands.
Were those bug bites?
Aiden had a plan to keep the conversation going until Garcia arrived. Edgar’s current state was the perfect thing to pursue and draw things out, but every second he wasted stalling was one more second that Devlin had to kill Charlie.
“Where’s the flash drive?” Walsh asked.
In his peripheral vision, Aiden caught the one wearing the ball cap slip his gun from his holster and creep up the left staircase, one slow step after another.
“Set the briefcase on the ground,” Aiden said, tracking the progress of the one moving. By the time Walsh did as he was told, the other man reached the midway point on the stairs.
Precisely where Aiden wanted.
They were always going to try to close in around him. No warnings or threats were going to stop it, only delay it. So he had to prepare for the inevitable.
With the lush jungle environment, leafy tropical plants and verdant vegetation, it was easy to miss all the items that Aiden had hidden.
He let the guy take one more step. Then Aiden pulled the Smith & Wesson from his waistband with his left hand, aimed at the booby trap and pulled the trigger.
The portable fire extinguisher taped to a pole and concealed with palm fronds exploded in the guy’s face. He shrieked and slipped backward down the stairs.
Aiden dropped to one knee—anticipating Sideburns would refocus the barrel of his gun away from Edgar’s head toward the threat—and took aim in his direction. Edgar instinctively cowered, his hands covering his head, arms in front of his face as Aiden fired again.
With a loud pop, a second extinguisher exploded, sending a cloud of dry white chemicals bursting through the air around the pavilion.
Sideburns screamed, throwing an arm up to cover his face.
Aiden coughed from the particles in the air but had turned away to avoid getting any in his eyes. He reached out and pulled Edgar to the ground, getting him out of the way, and shoved him into the corner.
A bullet hit a nearby wooden post. Walsh was firing at them.
“Stay down, here,” Aiden said to Edgar. Then he jumped up and threw a side kick into Sideburns’s chest.
The blow drove the thug backward, the momentum carrying him over the rail of the pavilion into the piranha tank below.
Aiden launched himself down the right staircase, spraying a volley of suppressive fire from the 9 mm with the silencer.
If Walsh had gone left toward the stairs leading to the Mayan Reef, he would’ve got away without a scratch on him. Instead he ran in the direction in which he’d come, back toward the other exhibits on the second floor.
Aiden aimed and fired. Not at Walsh. And he was out of fire extinguishers. His bullet hit a cluster of paint ball grenades. The yellow liquid color sprayed in multiple directions, making the floor slick.
He could always count on Charlie to get creative in a pinch.
Running, Walsh couldn’t get any traction in his fancy shoes and slipped around like he was trying to walk on ice.
Aiden punched him in the face, knocking Walsh to his butt, and kicked the gun from his hand.
A bullet struck a tree beside Aiden’s head. The one in the ball cap had recovered, but the chemicals from the extinguisher had messed up his eyes. His aim was off.
Aiden returned fire.
The guy ducked and hit the stairs, going for Edgar. Heavy footfalls pounded up the right staircase, followed by more gunfire.
Leaping into action, Aiden rounded the corner and saw Edgar making a run for it across the wooden bridge and down the steps on the left side of the room. Aiden popped off a round, clipping the gunman in the leg.
The man dropped onto the stairs.
Staying on him, Aiden bounded up the steps, but the guy rolled onto his back. At that distance, a blind man could’ve shot him.
Aiden darted to the side at the right moment, avoiding a hot slug to the chest. He stilled and controlled the squeeze of the trigger. One shot to the wrist, forcing the man’s fingers to open and drop the weapon. The guy howled, clutching his wounded arm.
Pulling out a zip tie, Aiden flipped the guy onto his stomach.
Edgar kept going. Darting down below, he scooped up the briefcase full of cash and took off running.
“Wait, Edgar!” Aiden called as he disappeared down the stairs toward the Mayan Reef.
Walsh was up on his feet, gun back in his hand, and hot on Edgar’s heels.
Aiden yanked the man’s arms behind his back and got his wrists and ankles restrained with zip ties. Then Aiden was up, on the move, again.
But as he ran down the stairs, he realized he had to make a choice.
Go after Edgar and Walsh. Or find Charlie.
Everything that they’d gone through—running from the law, taking on gangsters, going toe-to-toe with dirty SWAT officers to clear their names—would be in vain if they lost Edgar. Their careers, their future, would go down the drain.
His heart throbbed with immediate resolution. There was no choice.
* * *
CHARLIE FINALLY SPOTTED one of Devlin’s men in the Gulf of Mexico Exhibit. The area was dimly lit so visitors could clearly see the seventeen-foot-deep, 400,000-gallon tank with sharks and other marine life, and a quarter-scale replica of an offshore oil rig.