Hitman vs Hitman - L.A. Witt Page 0,37

It felt a bit more like stalking than he would have liked, but it was reality in this line of work. Couldn’t be too careful with people he had to trust with his life, which meant doing some shady shit that violated privacy and made him feel like half scumbag, half guy-who-didn’t-want-a-bullet-in-his-head.

As they crossed the county line and left suburbia for sprawling farm country, August made an annoyed sound and shoved the phone into the cup holder. “I’m not getting anywhere, and the signal is going to shit.” He looked around. “Which… Okay, no wonder I’m down to a bar. Where the fuck are we?”

“Lower Manhattan,” Ricardo said dryly.

August tsked, and Ricardo had to admit he was probably enjoying the idiot’s aggravation just a little too much. On the other hand, annoying each other was a distraction from all the laser dots they probably had on the backs of their heads, so whatever. It had kept him and his spotter relatively sane during his sniper days. And kept him from shooting the guy.

And who would be worse right now? Entitlement Auggie or Sandman?

Hell, maybe those two would shoot each other and solve a lot of his—

“Why exactly are we in banjo country?” August demanded, as if it offended him to be so close to farms and cow shit. “Do you have a safehouse under a dairy farm or something?”

“No.” Beat. “It’s under the slaughterhouse.”

August sounded like he’d choked on air. “Please tell me you’re not serious.”

Ricardo snorted.

“For fuck’s sake,” August growled. “You know what? Go back to being a stuffy asshole with no sense of humor. You were a lot easier to put up with. Seriously—why are we—” He gagged. “Oh God, what is that smell?”

“I’m pretty sure you know what that smell is. And to answer your other question, we’re out here because this is where we’re probably going to find my liaison.”

“Find—” August sounded like he was on the verge of getting sick. “What, buried in a field somewhere?”

Ricardo’s humor was gone now. He sincerely hoped his contact wasn’t buried in a field somewhere, because if she was, then they’d probably be joining her in short order. “Just shut up and see if you have any signal.”

“Out here?” August snorted as he grabbed the phone again. “Are they putting antennas on cattle or—oh, hey, I do have a couple of bars.”

Thank God. At least that gave August something to do, even if he did keep making little disgusted sounds and gagging noises as Ricardo drove through some areas that even he had to admit smelled a bit ripe.

After a few miles, the air smelled slightly better, and farmland gave way to forests and some rundown industrial areas. Ricardo hadn’t seen another car in ages, aside from a rattling farm truck going the opposite direction and a fully-loaded hay truck not far behind that. Unless they were being followed by a drone, it was safe to assume they were safely away from anyone who wanted them dead. For now, at least.

He turned off the highway onto a badly maintained county road that took them past a decrepit gas station that may or may not have been open, a country store with a blue tarp over part of its roof, and a Methodist church with paint chipping off its steeple. If this area had ever had anything close to glory days, they were long past.

He slowed, signaled, and turned into a rundown trailer park.

August peered out the window, and Ricardo could hear the wrinkled nose in his voice. “Your liaison lives here?”

Ricardo tamped down his impatience with his snobbish sidekick as gravel crunched under the tires. “She doesn’t live here. This is where she goes if shit goes south.” He could sense the questioning expression coming from the passenger seat. “I’d rather start here and see if she’s already left, as opposed to going to her house, realizing she’s bugged out, and then leading someone to her safehouse.”

“Hmph.” August shifted in his seat. “Okay, I guess that makes sense.”

“Don’t sound so surprised.”

Trailers in varying degrees of maintenance lined the sides of a cracked asphalt road. Ricardo followed it to the end, turned left, and then pulled up in front of a single wide that was mossy on one end and half-collapsed on the other. A rusty beater car was… Well, “parked” was being generous. He was pretty sure what was left of the tires had long since become one with the weeds, and it looked like some small woodland creatures