Hawke

Cigarette. That would steady the old nerves. He reached down and picked one up and popped it between his lips. Then he leaned over toward the MP’s light, put the end of the cigarette right on the glass lens, and started to drag on it, trying to get the damn thing lit.

“Hell’s wrong with your lighter, sir. Can’t even get—”

It wasn’t a lighter, he saw now, hell no, it was a damn flashlight. He’d tried to light his smoke on a flashlight! Sent a bad signal, probably.

“Step out of the vehicle, sir,” the MP said. “Now!”

“Absolutely” he said, moving his foot off the brake and flooring the accelerator. He hit something, felt like a deer, maybe one of the damn MPs who wouldn’t get out of his way, and then his new Humvee was tear-assing across a few lawns and driveways and drainage ditches. He had the ideal “Escape and Evasion” vehicle, all right.

There were a whole lot of flashing blue lights in his rearview now. Shit, looked like the whole damn military police force was on his ass. Too late, kiddies, too damn late! He knew a shortcut to Sparky’s tower. He could be there in two minutes. He banged a wall hanging a hard right and banged walls a few more times going down the alley, sending trashcans flying left and right.

His watch said three minutes till twelve. He was going to make it, goddammit. He was going to pull this big bad mother out of the fire.

He burst out of the alley and there it was. Tower 22. Home of his best buddy, Sparky Rollins. All he had to do now was cross that baseball diamond and then a big open field and he was home free. No flashers in the rearview now. Good, they musta missed his shortcut. He accelerated across the diamond and decided to take out a row of bleachers down the right field line just for fun. Hell, it wasn’t his Humvee.

Then he was tear-assing across the open field, friggin’ airborne half the time. What a ride! His old heap would never have made it across all these damn flooded ditches and bushes and shit. To his left, he could see a train of blue flashers as the Humvees came to a stop in the parking lot of the baseball field. Then they too started racing across the diamond towards him. He managed a peek at his watch.

Thirty seconds.

He skidded to a stop a hundred yards from Sparky’s tower, jumped out, and ran over to the base. Cupping his hands, he yelled up to the tower.

“Sparky! My man! Sparky, you up there?”

“Sparky’s off duty tonight,” a guy up in the tower yelled down. “Identify yourself! Who the hell are you and what the fuck are you doing?” Guy had an M-16 pointed right at him.

“I’ll show you what I’m doing!” Gomez said, jumping back in his Humvee. “Watch this, asshole!”

He reversed back a hundred yards and stopped. The fleet of Humvees was racing across the field toward him, all fa

He looked at his watch and saw the second hand coming around, come on, baby, come on, yes! He had the RC in his lap, staring at it. Twelve midnight on the button! Two buttons actually and he pushed both of them simultaneously just like Julio Iglesias had told him.

The red numbers instantly started rolling backwards.

The Big Bug Checkout Countdown had begun.

The whole U.S. cavalry was maybe two hundred yards behind him now and coming fast. He rammed the Humvee in first and floored it. He was headed straight for the fence, screaming at the top of his lungs. Glass was shattering and hitting him in the face and he realized the guy on the tower was shooting at him!

One of his own guys was shooting at him! Friendly fire? No such luck, pal. Court-martial time for somebody!

He was going eighty when he hit the wire fence. It slowed him down a little, and he took a lot of goddamn fence with him and he musta hit one leg of the tower by mistake because it looked like it was starting to topple over, but goddammit, he was headed for the promised land now!

He took a quick look over his shoulder. There was the guy on the tower, only now he was pinwheeling in the air, headed for the ground. He saw that all the Humvees had stopped short of the fenceline. Of course. You’d have to be crazy to drive across a goddamn minefield on a rainy night, right? He was peering over the top of the steering wheel, wondering if the mines would be like little bumps that he could steer around, when he felt his pecker humming.

He jammed one hand down inside his jeans and pulled out his cell phone, put it to his ear. Damn, it was hard to drive with one hand but what else were you supposed to do?

“Roach Motel,” he said, realizing that his mind was totally clear but that he was screaming.

“Any vacancies?”

“No. No fucking vacancies for thirty hours.”

“Muchas gracias, amigo. Viva Cuba!” the guy said.

Then there was a click in his ear and then a much louder noise, some kind of explosion, and he felt the entire Humvee lift into the air, seeming to break in half as it rose. Then it was falling end-over-end and he seemed to be upside down and there was this terrible ripping pain in both legs, hurt so bad he couldn’t believe it and then—

He opened his eyes.

He was lying on his back in a ditch full of water. Rain was still falling hard, stinging his face. Stuff was on fire all around him. Shit, his own T-shirt was on fire! He scooped a handful of muddy water from the ditch and put it out. Had to get moving. Had to deliver the RC and get his money. He could even see the Cuban towers now, they all had their spotlights trained on him. He’d been so close!

He’d just have to walk this last part, that’s all. He felt woozy, but he could do it if he could just get his legs to move. But he couldn’t. Couldn’t even feel his legs in fact. He reached down to where he thought they were and—

Oh, God. They weren’t there. Just blood. And some other stuff. What? Bones? Guts? Jesus. He was, what, cut in half? He was—

He felt something humming in his hand. He lifted his arm and looked at his hand. His cell phone! He still had his goddamn cell phone in his hand. He put it to his ear. He could call for help. He was going to make it. He—

“Hello, honey?” Rita said in his ear. It was Rita!

“Yeah, baby,” Gomez said.

“You all right? I’m worried about you. It’s real late. I know you’ve been drinking, but you come on home now and come to bed like a good boy.”

“I can’t, uh … honey, I can’t move my … we were going to be so rich and … uh …”

“You still there? You don’t sound so good, baby.”

“Well, I’m not … all that good. I wanted … see … I’ve been . meaning to tell you about the teddy bear.”

“The teddy bear?”

“Yeah. The teddy bear’s got … a tummy bug and—”

“Honey, just come on home, okay? You’re not making a whole lot of sense here, okay? Mommy will make it all better.”

“I wish I could, you know. I just really … really wish I could.”

“Baby? Baby? Are you there?”

“I wish—”

“Baby? Baby?”