Hot Ice (27 page)

The assailant was still groggy and gave no resistance as Jason grabbed him by the collar and threw him across the bed. He switched on the overhead light and was not surprised to see one of the men from the airport, the one without the bandage.

“You guys don’t give up easily.”

The man didn’t answer. His eyes flitted around the room, no doubt searching for his weapon.

“I kicked it under the bed,” Jason said calmly. “Afraid somebody might get hurt, playing with guns.” He watched the man’s reaction to the fact he was now unarmed. “And if you’re thinking about going for one of those Spetsnaz pig stickers …”

He waved the iron lamp threateningly.

“Now, we are going to have that little conversation that seems to keep getting delayed.” Jason had intentionally placed himself within range of the prone man’s legs. “You’re going to tell me …”

Jason’s BlackBerry rang.

In the split instant of startled indecision, the man on the bed lashed out with a scissorslike kick that took Jason’s legs out from beneath him and crumpled him on the floor. The intruder made a quick judgment: instead of attacking, he bolted for the open French doors, his injured hand held in the other.

Jason watched him go, gratified that, so far, his plan had worked. Then he realized the cell phone in his pocket was still ringing.

Who … ?

“Hello?”

“Jason?” It was Judith, of course. “You OK? I was worried.”

Oh, swell!

Jason had to clench his jaws not to say what was on his mind. “How thoughtful of you. Perhaps it might have served us better had you waited until I could have called you. I was, emphasis on the
was
, sort of busy.”

“Guess I fucked up.”

No,
I
fucked up by bringing an untrained, unqualified person along on a mission where professionalism is required, he thought.

But he said, “If that’s your only mistake, everything will be fine.”

“You didn’t tell me
not
to call,” Judith said, miffed. “I was worried about you.”

“I’m fine.”

“You sure?”

“I’m sure. Now do your part.”

Jason pressed the Disconnect key. With him momentarily off his guard, if that guy had attacked instead of fled …

He shoved the BlackBerry back into his pocket. At least the first part of the plan had worked.

Judith watched the blur of a shadow bolt from Jason’s room onto the terrace. The man was hunched over as though he had been hurt. Her impulse was to go to Jason to make sure he was all right, but there was no time and she could tell he was already angry with her.

All she had wanted to do was make sure Jason was all right. Some people, apparently including Jason, were just prickly by nature.

Stepping over to the door of her room that opened onto the corridor, she pressed an ear against it, waiting for the soft sound of footsteps on Spanish tile as the man leaving Jason’s room entered the side of the cloister. As he passed, she kicked off her high heels, slipping her feet into a pair of sneakers that would make no noise on the cobblestone streets. Snatching up her purse, the one with the shoulder strap, she waited.

She waited until she heard the faint whir of the elevator before she bolted from her room and took the stairs two at a time. The elevator was leisurely passing the second floor as she dashed through the lobby and outside to seek shelter in the shadows of the plaza across the street.

Backing into the darkness under a towering ficus tree, she was certain she could not be seen from the hotel.

A sound, a flicker of movement, some sixth sense made her suddenly aware she was not alone. The man sent to kill Jason had backup.

The streets were brightly lit but she could make out little within the penumbra of shade cast by the tree. She could not see who shared the darkness, but she was certain he meant her no goodwill. Warily, she moved backward toward the line that demarcated a puddle of light from a streetlamp and the ficus tree’s thick foliage.

Then, like a comet out of the night, a streak of silver sliced at her midsection. More from reflex than thought, she bent and recoiled like a batter avoiding an inside fastball.

Either her sight was adjusting to the night or she was getting closer to the streetlights, for she could make him out now. Or at least part of him. Tall, shaved, polished scalp. And the right side of his face, including the eye, were covered by a bandage. The latter possibly explained why his first strike missed: the loss of depth perception. She could see his teeth, exposed in a smile that said he did not anticipate his next assault would fail.

Jason stepped into the hallway, noting that Judith’s door was ajar. She had left in a hurry, as would be the case if she were to get outside and into a position to follow the would-be assassin. Or at least get a license-plate number of a getaway car.

He knew he should stay in the room rather than chance spooking the man Judith was to tail. Instead, he took the stairs down to the empty lobby, arriving just in time to see the fleeing back of his attacker. Jason flattened himself against the wall next to the elevator, hoping Judith had made it into position across the street.

When he was certain the man had cleared the lobby, Jason followed to the hotel’s entrance to see the back of his attacker disappear around the corner to his left.

Where was Judith?

A flash of movement caught the corner of his eye. Judith, barely visible in the shadows of a huge tree, seemed to be engaged in some sort of motion, twisting, swaying to no music Jason could hear. As he moved closer to the street, Jason saw she was not alone. His throat caught as he recognized the man with the bandaged face. Though he couldn’t see the blade from where he stood, Judith’s movement told him she was dodging a knife. As a rank amateur, she would be easy prey. The bastard was toying with her.

With a final glance at the point at which the intruder to his room had disappeared, Jason ran down the steps and across the narrow street. Careful to move as quietly as quickly, he kept the ficus tree between him and the man he was certain had a knife.

Judith looked directly at Jason as she dodged another swipe of the blade. If she saw him, as was all but certain, she gave no indication, only giving ground as she slowly backed away.

On the balls of his feet, the man made a balanced thrust. No doubt he had been trained in the use of the weapon.

With the grace of a matador avoiding the bull’s horns, Judith stepped aside, using an open palm to knock the arm wide of the mark.

An amateur, perhaps, but not bad.

Jason was at the tree now. The time for stealth was past. “Freeze, fucker!”

The man with the knife did just that if only for a split second, an instant in which Judith landed a kick in his groin. “Shit-ass!”

With a muffled grunt, he bent double just in time to meet her knee squarely with his nose. The sound was like that of a ripe melon hitting concrete.

As he stumbled forward, his one good eye masked in blood from his flattened nose, Jason grabbed the wrist of the hand that still held the knife. A downward snatch and the blade spun into darkness as the man pitched forward, face-first, onto the ground.

Jason barely noticed Judith slip away.

For one of the few times in his life, training, common decency, and a sense of mercy deserted him simultaneously. In their place was the memory of the death of Boris and attempts on his own life. He waited for the man to struggle to his knees before delivering a running kick to the ribs. Jason imagined he heard bones crack.

“That’s for Boris,” he growled.

Impatient for the prone figure to attempt to rise again, Jason bent over and grabbed the shirt collar, twisting it tight against the Adam’s apple until his victim gagged for breath.

“And this is for fucking with me and an unarmed woman!”

Later, Jason would be thankful someone had overheard the noise and called the police. Had not the approaching wail of sirens gotten his attention, he had little doubt he would have killed the man in his rage. He had killed enough in his life, but this bastard and his shadowy organization had pierced the wall of cool professionalism that had allowed Jason to go about his work without any qualms.

As the plaza filled with pulsating blue light, he slipped into the shadows.

Judith was gone.

There seemed little else to do but merge into a crowd of the curious that gathered with surprising alacrity considering the hour. Minutes later, he was back in his hotel room.

Judith wasted no time as soon as the man with the knife was no longer a threat. If she hurried, she might yet catch up to the man she had intended to follow. As she rounded the corner of the hotel, the streetlights caught a figure turning into an intersection two blocks away. She forced herself to move far slower than she wished. Anyone on the street at this hour would attract attention, and someone in a hurry even more so.

Moving from one pool of darkness to another between lights, she edged up the cobblestones’ slight incline. She stopped at the first intersection, peering around the corner. She could well have been in a graveyard. Other than a pair of rangy cats exploring street-side garbage bins, there was no sign of life.

She hurried to the next crossing a little higher up the gentle slope. Her back absorbing the cool stucco surface of a building, she risked sticking her head around the corner. She almost missed it, a figure darting into a house. She counted. Five, no, six, doors down.

Though tempted to follow, she knew better. If that was the place to which Jason’s assailant had retreated, someone would watch the street to make sure he had not been followed. Better to check it out in daylight when neighborhood activity would make her and Jason less conspicuous.

Looking up, she squinted at the street sign to make it out: Calle Luna.

Sitting at a table at the hotel’s patio alfresco restaurant, Jason and Judith listened to the buzz of conversation around them, all on the same topic: the attack and near murder of a man in the plaza just in front of the hotel last night. There seemed to be two versions. The first held that the event was simply a brutal mugging.

A chubby woman with a distinct New York accent at the next table stated her anxieties at venturing forth from the sanctuary of the hotel at night, tossing curls that possibly could have been that blond twenty years ago. Her companion, a young man who might have been her son were it not for his dark Latino complexion, told her that one of the guests, unable to sleep, looked out of a window and saw a woman. Perhaps a lovers’ quarrel turned near deadly?

Judith used her fork to spear the last pineapple section of her fruit plate. “If everyone here speaks the truth, we had an audience as big as the Super Bowl.”

Jason nodded before popping the final bit of omelet into his mouth. “Something exciting happens, everybody is a witness. Until subpoenas start getting handed out, that is.” He wiped his mouth with the napkin. “Then nobody saw anything, nobody remembers anything, nobody wants to get involved. By the way, that was some fancy footwork on your part last night. And slapping the knife aside … Sure you never had Special Forces training?”

“May as well have. Had three brothers, all older. And I was ticklish. You learn quick.”

“Any of them survive?”

She smiled. “All of them, but they learned early on that their baby sister could take care of herself.”

Jason held up the coffeepot. She shook her head. He drained it into his cup, lowering his voice. “I’d like to take a look at this house. Calle Luna, is it?”

Judith nodded. “I doubt they are giving tours.”

Sarcasm along with agile feet.

Jason ignored it. “‘Tour’ sounds like an idea. Maybe we should take a walking tour of Old San Juan.”

Judith glanced at her watch. “He will be in the Parque de las Palomas in ten minutes.”

“Who?”

“The tour guide from the service I called this morning. They give walking tours, mostly for cruise-boat passengers, but they can fit us in.”

Maybe bringing Judith along was not as bad an idea as Jason had thought last night.

Park of the Pigeons was aptly named. At the lower end of Calle Cristo, it was located on top of the old city wall with a view of the cruise boats in the harbor below. Beyond, a curtain of clouds was already devouring the green slopes of the El Yunque rain forest. Like the Piazza San Marco in Venice, pigeons and their droppings were everywhere: coating the old stone wall, the few benches, tree limbs, and anything else that was still for more than a few minutes, including the occasional unfortunate tourist. Like their Italian counterparts, the birds feared no man, as if well aware of their protected status.

An old woman, occupying a lime-drenched bench, tossed pieces of bread into a seething mass of feathers.

Judith wrinkled her nose. “Pigeon fecal matter causes fungal infections,” she announced disgustedly. “Filthy!”

“‘Fecal matter’?”

“‘Pigeon shit’ to you.”

“Sky rats,” Jason agreed.

A minivan with a cruise line’s logo on its side stopped at the entrance to the small park. Ten or so people were climbing out. None was under fifty. All had varying degrees of sunburn. Each wore white sneakers, white socks, white shorts, and T-shirts from various Caribbean Islands. Only the types and sizes of hats and cameras differed.

“This must be our group,” Judith said.

“What was your first clue?”

By this time a man in a polo shirt and khaki shorts was herding his charges into a group. Jason and Judith went over and introduced themselves.

An hour later, the tourists had seen the crafts market, the old jail (now the tourist bureau, but with a few cells sanitized and preserved for viewing), the one remaining old city gate, and several museums, including one of primitive Caribbean art, with emphasis on
primitive
.

As the day got warmer, the tourists moved at a slower pace uphill toward the old fort.

Just as they drew abreast of the intersection with Calle Luna, Jason suggested, “There’s a place down the street there. I’ll bet they have cold drinks.”