Stay (28 page)

And I need to stay alive for any of it to matter
.

He took hold of the main power switch and yanked it down. There was a loud
fump
and then darkness.

David flipped on the Maglite and headed back through the laundry.

Shots rang out from the darkness, and David dropped low, scooting behind an industrial clothes dryer. He killed the Maglite, waited and listened.

Apparently, they were doing the same thing because David didn't hear anything. He tried to recall what was back the other way, if there were another passage or hallway, but he already knew there wasn't. Just the electrical room. The only way out was back past whomever was shooting at him.

He reached the flashlight around the side of the dryer and switched it on.

The attackers immediately shot at the light, the bullets flying past just inches away. David dropped the flashlight and yelled as if he'd been hit.

David waited. One thing you learn as a solo operative is patience, and in a situation like this, a minute or two can seem like an eternity. Breathe, listen, wait.

They almost out-waited him. David was just about to try something else when he heard a low scraping, then movement. A whispered conversation.

There's more than one
.

A few seconds later, the sounds of movement came toward him. One of them was coming to confirm the kill.

When David had dropped the flashlight, he'd tried to angle it just right. He gripped the Browning and held his breath and waited.

A second later, his opponent came into range of the flashlight, casting a huge jagged shadow on a washing machine across the aisle. David made a good guess from the shadow about the man's position, stuck his head and the Browning around the side of the dryer, and fired.

He shot the man in the groin, and the guy went down screaming. He shut him up with a shot to the head.

The other one was already returning fire, lead tinging off the dryer.

David kicked the flashlight away, and the beam played wildly over the room in a jerky motion, drawing more gunfire.

All or nothing time.

David stepped out from his hiding place, drawing the Glock with his other hand, and when the other man fired again, David zeroed in on the muzzle flash.

He poured fire onto the spot with both pistols, attempting a wide spread in the hopes of catching him with at least one of the shots.

When David's pistols clicked empty, he rushed forward, scooping up the Maglite as he went and ran for the spot as fast as he could, raising the flashlight high for a strike, but it wasn't necessary. He'd hit his target twice, once high on the chest and again in the throat.

David aimed the flashlight at his face. A slightly older man, gray at the temples. He looked more like somebody's dentist than a hired killer, but that was probably an advantage sometimes.

David didn't linger, didn't want to be caught again in a dead end. He went back through the laundry room and up a different set of stairs than the ones he'd come down.

The next level up put him in the same service corridor he'd been in before when he'd fled from the two cops. One way led around the corner to the bar, and the other way led to the kitchen. Dim battery-powered emergency lighting along the floor cast just enough light to walk.

He turned the corner toward the bar—

The sharp crack of a pistol shot, and David dropped the Maglite, slapped a hand over the shallow wound on his upper arm as he ducked back around the corner. It wasn't bad, just a gash, but it stung and bled.

He ejected the magazines from his pistols and reached for spares. There was only one left for the Glock. None for the Browning.

Shit
.

He tossed the Browning away, turned the corner, and blazed down the hall with the Glock.

Yousef Haddad returned fire, shots gouging the walls on all sides of David.

He returned fire until the Glock was empty and then tossed the gun away and ran in the other direction. At the end of the hall he pushed through a swinging door and into the hotel kitchen. The only light was from the gas stove. The burners had been left on and the flames cast a weak blue glow. He took a big cleaver from a set of knives and hid himself between two metal cabinets.

A second later Yousef burst through the swinging door. He stopped and scanned the darkness, pistol in hand.

“I know you're in here, government man,” Yousef said. “I saw you toss down your pistol. You are getting tired and sloppy. You should not have been so careless with your bullets.”

It was true. It hadn't even occurred to him to notice until Yousef had mentioned it. David was running on fumes. It had been a long night.

But it would be over soon. One way or another.

Yousef went to the stove and cranked up the burners, the flames swelling larger. It cast a little more light in the kitchen but not much.

The door to the kitchen swung open and a man wearing an apron entered. “Hey, everyone is supposed to be out of—”

Yousef turned and shot him between the eyes.

David burst from his hiding place, cleaver held high. Yousef turned back just as David brought the blade down, catching David's wrist to fend off the strike. Yousef tried to bring the pistol to bear, but David knocked it away, sent it clattering across the kitchen floor.

Yousef punched, and David was too slow to block it, took the fist in the gut. He grunted and dropped the cleaver.

Yousef moved in with a combination of punches, David blocked one and then another and then countered with a short pop to Yousef's ribs. Yousef stepped in close and brought an elbow around that rattled David's teeth.

David stumbled back, shaking the bells out of his ears. Yousef pressed his advantage and leaped at his opponent, but David got a foot up and kicked him hard in the chest. Yousef flew back.

And landed on the flaming stove top.

Yousef screamed.

David rushed forward, put a forearm against Yousef's chest to hold him in place, the flames burning his hair and licking along the flesh of his ears and his neck. The scorched smell was sickening.

Yousef tried to twist and struggle up from the stove top, but David punched him in the side to take his air away, drew back, and punched him again.

The screams that came next were so shrill with animal agony that David almost let him up. Then he remembered the picture of Gina, the promises Yousef made, what he'd do to Amy. What he would do to his son and to his daughter.

David leaned in with all his weight and held Youself flat against the fire.

Yousef's hands shot up and latched on to David's throat.

David didn't let up, kept pushing Yousef against the stove top. The hands around his throat tightened. He couldn't draw air. Tiny spots hovered before David's eyes, a cottony darkness seeping in at the edge of his vision.

Yousef squeezed harder.

David glanced up at a line of cast-iron skillets hanging from hooks over the stove. He reached, stretched, grabbed one that might have worked well for fried chicken.

He brought it down hard on Youself's forehead with a dull clang. Yousef's grip didn't ease.

The strength leaked from David. He didn't have much left, but he summoned what he could and struck Yousef again. He still wouldn't let go. David bashed him again and again, and when the grip loosened, David took hope and bashed him one more time.

Yousef let go and his arms dropped.

David backed away, gasping desperately for air. His throat was raw and ragged. It hurt to draw breath.

David didn't mind. Breathing was better than not.

Yousef's body slid off the stove top and hit the kitchen floor with a thud, where it lay smoldering.

It was the smell of human flesh that put him over the edge, and the long night and the fact he'd been strangled. All of it together.

David fell to his knees and vomited.

He gagged and dry heaved a few more times before lurching to his feet, dizzy, and pushed through the swinging kitchen door into the service corridor beyond. He followed the emergency lights to an employee restroom and entered.

He bent over the sink, turned on the cold faucet, and splashed his face. Then he scooped water into his mouth. Swallowing hurt his throat, but he scooped in several more mouthfuls.

There was a Knicks coffee mug on the edge of the sink.

God, the Knicks suck
.

He realized his mind was drifting and drank more water.

When he finished drinking, David backed away from the sink until he hit the wall, then slid down into a sitting position.

He closed his eyes for a little while.

 

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

David's eyes popped open.

He took a moment to orient himself. How long had he been out? Maybe five minutes. No more.

He had one more problem.

Payne.

To come through so much, to come this far, and not get Payne. It would all be for nothing. It would be dozens of broken eggs without an omelet to show for it.

David took out the cell phone and dialed.

*   *   *

Dante Payne fumed in the back of his limousine.

He drank Scotch and spilled some down his front. He cursed as if it were the Scotch's fault.

They made him wait.
Him
. Payne built his organization from the ground up. In those early days, he'd gotten his hands dirty, and the men respected him for it. He had been feared.

Now he was treated like … what? Some delicate, milk-skinned prince? Yes, he had men to do his dirty work for him now, but to be treated like he couldn't do it … like he didn't have the stones …

His phone rang.

Payne grabbed it quickly off the car seat next to him. Maybe this was good news. Perhaps Yousef and the others had at last accomplished their mission.

He looked at the screen. It wasn't Yousef. It was one of his men.

“Ramirez, where the hell have you been?” Payne said.

“It's not Ramirez,” said a different voice. “I borrowed his phone.”

“Who is this?”

“David Sparrow.”

A pause. Then Payne said, “You have brass ones, my friend.”

“Your men are dead,” Sparrow said.

He could have been lying, but something told Payne he wasn't. “I can get a hundred more men. And then you'll be dead. Just a little later. That's all.”

“I know,” Sparrow said. “I can't beat you.”

Payne didn't know what to say to that. Was Sparrow going to beg for mercy?

“That's why I called,” Sparrow continued. “I can't beat you, but maybe I can make a deal. But we finish this. Tonight.”

“What kind of deal?”

“I give you the flash drive,” David said. “But then you call it square. The DA's office can't prove anything without it, and there's no other evidence. You go your way, and we'll go our way, and you have my guarantee the DA doesn't bring any more charges against you. Ever. For as long as my wife works there. Otherwise you'll get us eventually. You've got power, money, influence. You're holding all the cards. A deal is our only chance.”

Payne thought about it. “I suppose I'm to meet you in a dark alley, so you can give me the flash drive there.”

“I know you're not going to fall for anything amateur,” Sparrow said. “I'm still in the hotel. I'll leave it in a place out in the open. On the second-floor mezzanine there's a big ceramic pot with a fern in it. I'll leave the flash drive there. I'll be all the way across the hotel.”

“Double-cross me, and you die,” Payne said.

“I'll assume we have a deal.” Sparrow hung up.

Payne opened a compartment next to his seat and pulled out a nickel-plated .45 automatic. If Sparrow planned some kind of trap, he'd be ready. Dante Payne knew how to handle himself.

*   *   *

Amy was so nervous, her hands shook.

The only remedy was the eyeliner pencil. Her hands
had
to stop shaking or she'd put her eye out. David had warned her repeatedly not to use the thing in the car. She could almost hear his voice.

Hit a bump and
 …

She heard the door to the room open and turned expectantly. “David!”

He was back!
Finally!
She'd been so worried that her stomach hurt.

She ran into the next room to fling her arms around her husband and—

Amy's eyes went wide, and she opened her mouth to scream.

A strong hand clapped over her mouth to prevent it. Another hand shoved an automatic pistol in her face.

 

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

Payne entered the hotel and walked up the powerless escalator to the mezzanine as Sparrow had instructed. Paramedics were just taking a man on a gurney toward the elevators.

Payne had to move fast. The police would arrive any minute, might already be downstairs.

He spotted the large ceramic pot Sparrow had described and fast walked to it. As promised, there was a small paper bag nestled in the fern. He glanced about to make sure no one was looking and then snatched it quickly and retreated back toward the escalator.

Payne did his best to look inconspicuous as he walked back down the escalator and out to the parking garage.

On his way he opened the bag and took out what was inside.

He stopped walking.

Payne blinked at the item to make sure he was looking at what he thought he was looking at. A coffee mug that said
NEW YORK KNICKS.

“Son of a bitch!”

He hurled the mug against the wall of the parking garage where it shattered.

What was the point of that? If Sparrow had meant to taunt him, it only meant the man's eventual death would be doubly painful.

Payne walked back to his limousine, spitting curses. He opened the back door to climb in and—

Lightning white pain exploded between his eyes.

Hands grabbed Payne by the jacket and yanked him into the back of the limousine. He reached for the .45 in his belt and the same hands took it away from him.