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But David didn't let that happen. A backhand swipe with the sap caught the guy just under his eye. Bone cracked and the guy folded, dropping into a heap behind the desk.

David drew his pistol again and pointed it at Fat Jon. The Turk's eyes were wide. He hadn't made any move to flee or fight and had gone pale.

David kept the gun on him as he circled behind the desk to examine his handiwork. The man was on the floor, but trying to push himself up, head twitching and wobbly. David brought the sap down hard on the base of his skull and that shut him down for good.

“Do you need a key or anything to take the elevator up?”

“The call button is behind the desk.”

David found it and pushed it. A moment later it dinged and the doors slid open. David handed the red wrapped package back to Fat Jon who took it like he was being handed a rattlesnake.

David paused a moment when he felt his phone vibrate in his pocket. He took it out and read the text from Amy.

Where are you???

He ignored the message and returned the phone to his pocket.
She's going to be pissed
.

With his pistol, David motioned Fat Jon toward the elevator. They boarded.

Then up.

*   *   *

“He said to wait, so we wait.”

The Chechen shrugged, went to the sideboard, and poured himself three fingers of bourbon. The name he'd taken since being relocated to America was Reagan Washington, a choice he now regretted, but it was too late to change his driver's license, passport, and other forged documents. He sipped the bourbon. At least Dante Payne's booze was good. Dante had expensive tastes. Reagan glanced around the room in which they'd chosen to wait. Billiard table. A long, richly polished wooden bar, leather chairs and tables. There were three doors leading out to plush bedrooms, a full kitchen, and a wide veranda with an excellent view. It looked like a London club for MPs and the nobility had been transported to Payne's building. Dante Payne was worth millions.

Which is why Reagan supposed Payne had hired five men to do a job Reagan could easily have accomplished solo. He supposed men with copious amounts of wealth cared little for how they wasted money.

“If I'm told to wait then I will,” Reagan said. “But I'm not going to pretend to like it. My time's as valuable as anyone else's.”

“Drink bourbon or kill a man,” said the Arab behind him. “You're paid the same, so why rush? Why worry?”

Reagan shrugged again without turning. He didn't need to see the Arab or the other two. He'd memorized the room in an eye blink before turning away to pour his drink. The Arab sat at the bar drinking a cup of strong black coffee. Whereas Reagan was a lean, wiry man with angular features, the Arab was thick like a wrestler, light skinned, head bald and gleaming, a jaw so square it made him look like a cartoon character, dark blue stubble like icing.

The other two sat on opposite ends of the leather sofa. The one who looked a little too old to be here was also an Arab, gray at the temple and a salt-and-pepper mustache. He wore the most expensive suit in the room and seemed more like a prosperous merchant than a hired killer. He spent most of his time glaring down at his smartphone. The man on the other end of the couch paged through the style section of yesterday's newspaper. Reagan guessed he might be a Serb. He had a dour expression and sunken cheeks and smoked a harsh foreign brand of cigarettes.

Reagan hadn't been informed yet if they were working as a team or individually, so he'd put off learning their names.

He filled the glass with more bourbon, no ice.

“Go easy on that.”

Now Reagan did turn around. Slowly. It had been the other Arab who'd spoken, the one on the couch. “Is that advice?” Reagan asked. “Or are you telling me what to do?”

“I'm telling you that if we have business tonight, I don't want a drunk watching my back.”

Reagan drew breath to spit an insult, but the other Arab chimed in first.

“He's right. I never touch liquor. It addles the brain. Let me call the serving girl back. She can fetch you a coffee.”

Two against one now. Reagan elected to change tactics. “What about you?” he asked the Serb. “You don't talk?”

The Serb's gaze flicked up from the newspaper. His eyes were like two polished, black river stones. “I talk,” he said softly. “When I have something to say.” He went back to reading.

Reagan turned abruptly back to the sideboard and filled the glass with bourbon, loudly clinking the bottle against the glass and spilling some over his fingers. He turned back and scowled at the others, tossed back the bourbon in one go. It burned going down, and Reagan liked it.

It occurred to him that he should summon up some kind of clever insult, for the Arab on the couch at least. Something subtle to show he would not endure a slight, but nothing harsh enough to provoke—

A ding.

Four heads turned toward the elevator door.

It slid open and two men walked out, a fat one with a slow face and a Christmas present in his hands, and behind him some tall American. The way he was standing behind the fat one …

Reagan's mind shifted into a different gear, everything going into slow motion. His brain processed and ordered a thousand bits of information in the split second it took his hand to flash inside his jacket and draw his pistol.

He recalled the file Dante had sent him and the picture of the woman he wanted eliminated, the lawyer from the district attorney's office. He could also vividly picture the third photograph in his mind.

The husband.

Reagan lifted his pistol to shoot, but before he could squeeze the trigger, the room shook with gunfire.

He saw the Serb shooting in his peripheral vision. Reagan was fast. It was impossible the Serb could be faster, but Reagan put it together in a fraction of a second. The Serb's pistol had been in his lap the whole time, hidden underneath the newspaper.

Everyone in the room was in motion.

The fat man with the Christmas gift died first.

When the Serb opened fire, the husband grabbed the fat one and dragged him along as a shield as he moved rapidly to the side. Bloody red flowers bloomed across the fat man's chest, and the husband's pistol came around him to return fire, bucking in his hands and spitting lead.

That's when the coffee-drinking Arab at the bar went down, a shot ripping through his throat. Blood sprayed, and the Arab's hands went up uselessly to staunch the hot flow as he tilted from the barstool and hit the floor with a thud.

The two on the couch had already rolled over the back of it, ducking behind as the husband blazed away, stuffing flying up in white puffy clouds.

Reagan squeezed the trigger three times fast, but the husband shifted his shield and the shots smacked meaty and wet into the fat man's gut.

In the slow-motion scene that unfolded before him, Reagan saw what the husband was doing. He was trying to keep the shield on his feet long enough to make it to the door on the other side of the billiard table. But the fat man was full of holes and bleeding. His legs had turned to noodles, and the only thing keeping him up was the husband's grip on his collar. What had started as a shield was now a liability, the dead weight slowing him down.

The husband dropped the body as he darted for the hallway beyond the billiard table. That's what Reagan had been waiting for. He lifted his pistol to fire just as the husband leaped for the open doorway. He fired twice, missing his target by a fraction of an inch.

“Shit!”

He looked back at the second Arab and the Serb who were emerging from behind the couch. They were both slapping fresh magazines into their pistols.

Reagan waved his gun at them. “Come on! He's getting away!”

Reagan headed for the doorway, sensing the others behind him. He rounded the corner cautiously, gun up and ready. In this sort of situation, the prey had the advantage over the predator, especially if the prey had teeth. The husband could flee as fast as he pleased, but Reagan had to round each corner carefully, gun raised in anticipation of a possible ambush.

He moved down the hall to an intersection where another hall led out to a wide veranda. He waved the other two down the hall toward the veranda and followed the main hall himself. He came to a narrow stairwell and spiraled down.

And down.

On the ground floor, he paused at an outside door and looked at a row of eight hooks screwed into the wall. Car keys hung from seven of the eight hooks. He kicked open the door into the ground-floor garage, went into a crouch, and brought his pistol up to the ready.

Nothing.

He stood, looked around. The garage door to the street was open. Eight parking spaces and only seven vehicles. The space between a mint condition 1965 Corvette Stingray and a brand-new Land Rover was empty.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck
.

Reagan sighed heavily and returned to the billiards lounge upstairs where he found the Arab and the Serb waiting for him.

The Serb held the red gift-wrapped package in his hands. “This is what Mr. Payne was waiting for.”

“Don't open it,” Reagan said.

The Serb's face remained blank. “I wasn't.”

All of their cell phones rang at once.

Reagan looked at his phone. No name but a number he recognized. “It's him.”

 

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

David dropped the fat man and dove through the open doorway as the pistol shots whizzed over him. He tucked, rolled, and came up running. Down the hallway and then down the stairs.

That didn't go like I'd hoped
.

David's plan had been to catch Dante Payne and his cronies flat-footed. If there was a chance to end all of this quickly, David wanted to seize it. Instead, he'd walked into a shooting gallery. He'd wanted to go on the offense, but now found himself running. Whatever advantage of surprise he might have had before was blown now.

He paused at a line of hooks on the wall with the car keys and examined his options. One of the key chains said Audi. He grabbed it and rushed into the garage.

Dante apparently enjoyed spending a chunk of his wealth on expensive automobiles. The Audi was a silver R8 Spyder convertible. The top was already down, and David hopped in and cranked the ignition. The garage door opener was clipped to the sun visor. David mashed the button. The garage door went up, and he pulled out onto the quiet residential street. He drove to the end of the block, and when he didn't see any pursuit in his rearview mirror, he flipped on the headlights and pointed the Audi toward Midtown.

David fished his phone out of his pocket and composed a text to Charlie.

Two hours. You pick the Chinese restaurant. Prefer midtown.

A moment later:

Imperial Garden on 55th.

David confirmed the meeting and headed for the hotel as fast as he could without drawing attention. He'd ignored three more of Amy's texts and was entering dangerous marital territory. Facing a room full of gunmen was something David was used to. God help him if Amy felt ignored.

He arrived at the hotel and eschewed the ramp down into the parking garage, choosing instead to park out front, uniformed parking valets scurrying out of his way as David brought the Audi to an abrupt halt.

One of the college-age valets stepped forward to open the driver's side door for David. He was pretending the smudge on his upper lip was a mustache. “Valet-park it for you, sir?”

David pulled a roll of cash out of his pants pocket, peeled off a twenty, and handed it to the valet. “Can we keep it close? I might have to leave in a hurry.”

The kid sheepishly looked from David to the twenty-dollar bill in his hand and back to David. “Honestly, sir, I'm supposed to keep this lane clear. Lots of taxis. Lots of pickups and drop-offs. Just policy, you understand.”

“How about doing me a favor? Just this once.”

The kid looked pained. “I'm really not supposed to.”

David gave the kid three more twenties.

“This car won't budge from this spot, sir,” the valet said. “Count on it.”

“Thanks,” David said. “Leave the keys in, okay? I might not have time to look for you.”

“Understood, sir,” the valet assured him.

David headed into the hotel lobby at a brisk walk, eyes darting into every shadow. His instinct was to hunt down Larry and find out if anything had changed. It was difficult to disregard his training. Secure the perimeter. Reinforce the defenses, plug the holes. But he had to see Amy. His wife was alone. It wasn't fair to leave her sweating it out up there, not knowing what was happening. So he headed toward the main bank of elevators. He'd see Amy and let her know that—

He saw the bellhop on an intercept course for him.

At first glance, the kid didn't seem like much, skinny and young. David scanned his clothing for pistol bulges but didn't think the bellhop was packing. He tensed as the kid continued toward him, a basic instinct telling him to draw his weapon.

A more sophisticated instinct told him not to.

The bellhop dodged drunken Shriners and doggedly beelined for David. He clutched the rolled-up newspaper with purpose.
Gun,
thought David. It would be simplicity itself to hide a pistol in the newspaper. Again, he itched to draw his pistol on the approaching bellhop but restrained himself. David's eyes pinballed around the lobby again in case the bellhop was a decoy, but didn't see anything obvious.

The kid stopped abruptly in front of David, bowed crisply, smiled, and offered the newspaper. “Mr. Sparrow, here's the newspaper you asked for.”

A pause. Then David reached out and took the newspaper. “I almost killed you.”

The smile dropped from the bellhop's face. “What?”

“Never mind,” David said. “Thank you for the newspaper.”

The bellhop nodded curtly, turned on his heel, and sped away.