Diego nodded and he and Mateo fled.
Puller shouted at the others in every language he knew to follow the boys to safety.
All the prisoners still alive were free now and escaping the room through the door.
Meanwhile, Mecho gutted one guard while he shot another. A pistol round tore through his left forearm, but he kept fighting with his right.
Puller was slashed on the leg by another guard’s knife an instant before he put a bullet in the man’s head.
The two men looked around and saw no more opponents.
Mecho grabbed blankets and attempted to beat the flames down. Puller snagged a fire extinguisher off the wall and hit it from the other side. Smoke poured out of the now dying fire.
Puller dropped the empty extinguisher, turned, and stopped.
Landry stood there with smoke misting around her. She looked like the sole survivor appearing from an apocalypse.
Puller noted that her gun was pointed directly at him.
He said, “I wondered where you had gotten to.”
“Sorry about this,” she said.
“Like hell,” said Puller.
She pulled the trigger two quick times.
The gun fired just as it was supposed to.
Yet Puller still stood there, unharmed.
She pulled the trigger two more times.
Again, her pistol fired twice.
And again Puller simply stood there.
“No body armor,” he said. “You can take a head shot if you want.”
She did, right between the eyes.
Nothing.
She turned when she sensed him behind her. Mecho ripped the gun from her hand and bent her arm behind her back. She cried out in pain as he drove her elbow to an angle it was not designed to go.
Puller took the gun from Mecho and slid out the clip.
“I carry blanks in my duffel, as a means to fire warning shots without doing any damage. I substituted them for your live rounds when I was getting the weapons ready. And if you got your hands on another gun and tried to kill us, Diaz up there had orders to take you out. It was probably why she was nervous, killing a cop and all. Goes against her instincts, I guess. Even when the cop is dirty.”
They all looked up to see Diaz pointing her weapon directly at Landry’s head with a determined look on her features.
Landry gasped, “If you knew, why did you ask me to come out here?”
“Simple. Friends close and enemies closer.”
“I don’t understand how you could have known.”
“It’s all a matter of timing, really, Cheryl. Just timing.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’d explain now, but we’ve got a few more things on our to-do list. And you’re going to help us cross them off.”
“I’m not helping you.”
“Yes you are.”
“Go to hell.”
It only took a second, but Landry whipped her body around and slammed a knee into Mecho’s crotch. He doubled over. She grabbed the knife from his belt and was about to deliver a killing strike to the back of his neck when the blade was knocked from her hand.
She turned in time to see Puller’s fist coming at her.
That was the last thought she had before Puller slammed his fist into her jaw.
“That’s what happened.”
“I know. But I talked to your former police sergeant. What I found out was from that moment forward you were a changed person. You didn’t seem to care so much about doing the right thing. It seems that instead of wanting to get the scum even more badly after your father was killed, you went the other way. You ended up just not giving a shit. And then you got into business with Lampert and things really took off.” He paused. “I also checked on your condo.
Four hundred thousand. And your mortgage is less than fifty thousand. Cops don’t make that kind of money. At least honest ones. Maybe that’s why you wanted to live in Destin. I take it you never had anybody from the police force over for drinks. It was stupid of you to have me over, Landry. It made me start thinking.”
He looked at Mecho. “The Storrows were killed by someone on the beach. Mecho was there. He saw it. More to the point, he saw you. You pumped rounds into their heads and dragged them out to the surf. You’re plenty strong enough to do that, Cheryl. All that paddle- boarding you do, it would have been easy. Two old people, they weighed nothing to you.”
Landry said nothing but she looked at Mecho with hatred.