Massive Attack (A Guy Niava Thriller Book 1) by Dana Arama (diy ebook reader TXT) 📕

detox and clean her up…’ But outwardly I smiled at him like I was in on the joke. I released the safety catch on the Cripple’s rifle, which still hung over my shoulder, aimed it at the captives and shot them with no hesitation.

I put Joaquin’s hat on the seat, where the splattered blood hadn’t reached. I jumped out of the van carefully, but still felt a slight twinge in my ankle. It was still tender. I grabbed the ends of Manuel’s pants and pulled him out of the van. His long, narrow body was lighter than I had anticipated. Under his clothes he was apparently just skin and bones and a lot of white powder. I readied myself to drag him into the woods and hide his body in the bushes.

Despite the pain in my ankle, I managed to lift him on my shoulder, as if I was carrying a sack of potatoes, and walked into the forest until I reached the third line of trees. Further out, the forest was too thick, and less forgiving of people attempting to hide bodies. I put Manuel’s corpse on the ground and looked at him for a moment. A wave of nausea arose in me. I had just taken a man’s life. He was important to someone, a sister or mother or girlfriend. I took a deep breath and walked back towards the van. This was not the time for sentimentality.

Joaquin’s body was another story. He was solid and heavy. I managed to drag him across the floor of the van, over the trail of blood that served as a lubricant. But then his shirt soaked up all the blood and he became harder to pull. I tried to pick him up, but his body was rigid and too unwieldy. Left with no choice, I dragged his body through the clearing and toward woods. His head clunked each time it bumped one of the steps of the van or a rock on the ground, and the noise was nauseating, but it didn’t stop me. When I reached the first line of trees, I was sweating profusely. If I had known this would be so hard, I might have just walked off, leaving the two bodies behind.

When I had finished moving the two bodies to the forest, I stood over them and crossed myself. It was strange, especially since I considered myself an atheist. God and I had turned away from one other years ago, under a bridge, in a flash of purple light, with the shrill sound of the truck’s blaring horn echoing over everything.

I picked up Joaquin’s hat and straightened it on my head, then walked to the other side of the van and sat in the driver’s seat. The key was still in the ignition. I still had ten minutes before I had to be on my way, so I waited. They’d said it would take them an hour and a half to get there. I estimated that the two of them would do it in less time. I intended to drive in while everyone was dealing with the two infiltrators. I hoped to get there after they’d been found out. The guards would see the car and recognize the hat and be happy to see backup. The gates would open up before me. We had eliminated the original team who had taken this vehicle quite a distance away from here. News wouldn’t travel that fast, especially since no-one was left alive to tell what happened there. My plan was to sneak in and look for Gail without interruption. Once I found her, it shouldn’t be too difficult to get her into the van and escape with her. And then, only then, would I give my uncle the location. That was the condition we had agreed upon, and it was one that would help me keep my job.

Then, planes would arrive at the exact coordinates of the compound, and bomb it, destroying whoever was in the house.

Guy and Zorro would manage fine. Guy had said that the information was important to him. He had said his friends would get him out of there in time.

Gail was the only important thing now. My imagination worked like a roller coaster whose brakes had failed. Open-ended questions filled me with doubt. Would I find her, after all this time, in good health? Had she become an addict? Would she recognize me and want to return with me? Would she be able to walk on her own or would I have to carry her on my back? Only now that I was so close did I allow myself to think these thoughts that I had suppressed for so long. Gail… A drug addict. My Gail, who, from the moment she’d taken her first breath, had been mine to worry about. My little Gail addicted to drugs because of me. Because I had abandoned her.

We’d moved in with my mother’s brother after the accident and the adoption had become official shortly afterwards. Adulthood had brought the clarity that my uncle must have pulled some strings for it to happen. How else could one explain how a single man had been allowed to adopt his two nieces, with whom he’d had no contact. Our mother, his sister, had estranged herself from him years before we were born, no doubt because she knew his true character. And within a mere month after Gail and I had moved in with him, I knew what my mother must have known. I was thirteen, pretty and athletic, and the only one uninjured by that horrific accident. I was a girl whose happiness had been taken away from her in one fell swoop. All I can remember of him is that he was heavy. Even today, the thought of it sucked the breath from my lungs, as if his weight was sitting atop my chest, preventing the air from entering and filling them up…I can’t breathe. I remember him groping