The feed went dark be­fore the man got too close.

  “Turn it back on,” Havel said.

  “It is on.”

  “What?”

  Im­rich said noth­ing. A few mo­ments later, the hall­way re­appeared, only without the man and the cart.

  “The cam­era was de­lib­er­ately turned off,” Im­rich said. “There’s an­other cam­era that got him turn­ing into a ser­vice hall­way near the back of the build­ing, but then it went out, too, un­til he was gone.”

  “All right, I agree that’s strange, but are you try­ing to tell me Sand­strom was in that box?”

  “There is no other way he could have left. Lorenzo has scanned the foot­age from all the po­ten­tial exit routes right up un­til a few minutes ago. Sand­strom doesn’t show up in any of them.”

  “But there are three of them,” Havel ar­gued. “They couldn’t have all fit in there.”

  “The man with the cart made three trips.”

  “Shit.” Havel paused. “If that is how they got out, did they go vol­un­tar­ily? Or were they kid­napped, too?”

  “That, I don’t know.”

  “What about out­side cam­eras? Did they get into a vehicle? Did they walk away?”

  Im­rich touched the screen again. “The out­side cam­era at the ser­vice en­trance also went dark, but only once, after the cart fin­ished its third trip down. Lorenzo used that time frame, and found foot­age from a se­cur­ity cam­era on a build­ing across from where the al­ley be­hind the hotel lets out.”

  The new clip showed a van ex­it­ing the al­ley and turn­ing onto the road.

  “It’s a Mer­cedes-Benz Sprinter cargo van, either dark gray or dark blue, most likely,” Im­rich said.

  Hovel groaned. “So, we need to drive around un­til we find a dark gray or dark blue Sprinter? That sounds like fun.”

  “I am just telling you. It is bet­ter to know than not, yes?”

  “Yeah, yeah.” Havel pulled out his phone. “Drake’s not go­ing to like this.”

  *

  Nate blinked.

  His head had been ringing since the second time he’d been hit in the face, but that was noth­ing new. He’d had con­cus­sions in the past, and he’d likely have more in the fu­ture. What con­cerned him more was Jar’s con­di­tion.

  They had agreed she should act like she was still un­con­scious when the men re­turned, and she’d done an ex­cel­lent job of that, even when the head as­shole threatened to crush her un­der his foot. What Nate wasn’t sure of was whether she was still act­ing or had ac­tu­ally passed out again.

  He couldn’t let the guy harm her again, and had already de­cided if the man tried, Nate would give him a real-sound­ing story that would hope­fully buy Or­lando enough time to get them out.

  At the mo­ment, the as­shole was pa­cing at the other end of the room, talk­ing on his phone in what Nate thought was Italian. Nate didn’t try to un­der­stand what was be­ing said, as it took his full at­ten­tion not to drift off into a fog. But he heard a fa­mil­iar name and his ears perked up.

  Sand­strom.

  The con­ver­sa­tion did not seem to be mak­ing the as­shole happy.

  Good.

  When the man hung up, he stared into the dis­tance for half a minute, his face hard, be­fore he turned to­ward Nate.

  Nate braced him­self.

  *

  Drake didn’t know what to think. Sand­strom was miss­ing. But was he re­spons­ible for Mr. St. Amand’s kid­nap­ping, or had he been taken, too? If the lat­ter, then who in God’s name was be­hind this?

  He took a breath and looked over at his pris­oner. The man’s face was a mess of sweat and blood and bruises, and yet the guy stared back at him with re­solve, like he would never break.

  God­dam­mit.

  Drake’s job had changed from pro­tect­ing Mr. St. Amand to bring­ing him back alive. The only way to ac­com­plish that was to go through the bas­tard waver­ing on his knees in the cen­ter of the room.

  A knock on the door.

  Georgi, fi­nally.

  Per­haps an elec­tric jolt would loosen the pris­oner’s lips. And if that didn’t work, Drake could try the device on the wo­man.

  He sneered at the pris­oner. “I think you will talk now.”

  He walked over and yanked the door open, but it wasn’t Georgi. It was An­drey and Vasil, two of the four men who had come to beef up their forces.

  “Mr. Drake, I think the build­ing may have been com­prom­ised,” An­drey said.

  “Com­prom­ised. What are you talk­ing about?”

  “Someone slashed the SUV’s tires.”

  Drake blinked in sur­prise. “Did you see who did it?”

  “No, sir. Happened be­fore we ar­rived. But Penko and Darian are out­side look­ing right now.”

  Drake glanced down the hall­way to­ward the build­ing’s en­trance, won­der­ing if it had been a ran­dom act of van­dal­ism, or rem­nants of Bi­an­chi’s or­gan­iz­a­tion want­ing to re­tali­ate for their boss’s death.

  “Search the build­ing,” Drake said. “And if you see Georgi, tell him to get his ass back here.”

  After Drake closed the door, he glanced at the pris­oner, pulled out his phone, and called Havel.

  “I need you two to get here as quick as you can.”

  *

  Quinn pressed him­self against the wall at the bot­tom of the stair­well, the open­ing to the ground-floor hall­way only a hand’s width away.

  Though he didn’t hear any­thing, he sensed someone was there. He peered into the cor­ridor by way of his cell phone. Sure enough, near the mid­way point, a man leaned against the outer wall. No gun vis­ible, but Quinn wasn’t go­ing to count on that.

  Quinn picked up a couple of small pebbles that had been swept against the wall. His plan was to gently toss one against the wall op­pos­ite the stair­well en­trance. If the man came down here, Quinn could re­move him as a con­cern.

  Three sharp knocks echoed down the hall.

  “Who is it?” the man in the hall­way barked.

  Quinn stuck his cam­era out again as a muffled voice answered from out­side. Names, it soun­ded like.

  The man in­side opened the main door and let two men in. Both had guns in their hands.

  There was a short con­ver­sa­tion between the three of them, then the first guy poin­ted down the hall in the op­pos­ite dir­ec­tion of where Quinn was. The man pulled out his own pis­tol, while the other two hur­ried down to one of the doors and knocked.

  When the door opened, the per­son in­side leaned out just enough for Quinn to see his pro­file.

  It was St. Amand’s driver. The same son of a bitch who’d been tied up in the back of the SUV when the crash oc­curred.

  The con­ver­sa­tion at the door las­ted a few more seconds, be­fore the pair of new men headed back down the hall to­ward the en­trance, mov­ing fast. When they reached the guy at the door, one of the two slowed enough to say some­thing to him while the other con­tin­ued on.

  Head­ing straight to­ward the stair­well en­trance.

  Quinn re­treated up the stairs, and slipped in­side an empty room close to the swanky of­fice. He closed the door but kept the knob turned so the latch didn’t en­gage.

  He heard the man enter the hall­way and jog to­ward the of­fice, alone.

  As soon as he passed Quinn’s po­s­i­tion, Quinn slipped out of the room and moved in be­hind him.

  The man entered the of­fice, and stopped dead upon see­ing his two un­con­scious col­leagues on the floor. Un­like the last guy Quinn had put down, this one turned around.

  “Hi, there,” Quinn said, smil­ing.

  He twis­ted the man’s gun out of his hand and poin­ted both guns at the man’s chest.

  “Speak Eng­lish?” Quinn asked.

  A nod.

  “Good. You see that seat over there?” Quinn in­dic­ated the chair be­hind the desk.

  An­other nod.

  “Sit in it. But no sud­den move­ments. Un­der­stand?”

  The man turned and walked to­ward the desk. He stared down at his friends as he passed them.

  “You don’t co­oper­ate, you can join them,” Quinn said.

  The man roun­ded the desk and sat.

  Quinn stepped be­hind him and stuck his sound sup­pressor against the back of the guy’s head. “You’re go­ing to want to struggle. Don’t.”

  As Quinn ap­plied a choke hold, the man stiffened and star­ted to raise his hands in de­fense, but he fought the urge un­til the last second. By that time, it was too late. Soon his body sagged for­ward as he slipped un­der.

  Quinn used ex­ten­sion cords to tie the guy’s arms and legs to the chair and headed back to the ground floor.

  Us­ing his phone again, he checked the lower hall. The ori­ginal guy was still there, but not the one who’d entered the build­ing with the man Quinn had just taken care of. That was a prob­lem. He didn’t need the miss­ing man show­ing up when he was in the middle of dis­abling the guy’s col­league. But Quinn couldn’t wait for him to re­appear, either.

  The guy in the hall was fa­cing the main en­trance, his body tense, his back to Quinn.

  Quinn set the ex­tra gun he’d just ob­tained on the floor, and pulled out the Taser. Its set­tings told him it was fully charged. Taser in one hand and his gun in the other, he eased into the hall­way.

  He didn’t know the specs of the Taser, but figured if he was no more than ten meters away from his tar­get, it should work fine. Which meant he had about twenty meters to tra­verse un­noticed be­fore he could use it.

  He crept along the back wall, his eyes glued to the man by the door. So far, there hadn’t been even a twitch.

  Fif­teen meters to go, and still no re­ac­tion.

  Ten, and the same.

  If Quinn could go an­other five, even if the guy did fi­nally real­ize he had com­pany, Quinn could rush for­ward and hit the guy with the fly­ing elec­tri­fied wires be­fore the man could do any­thing about it.

  But Quinn had gone only two more meters when the front door began to swing open.

  The guy stepped back­ward in sur­prise, his weapon rising. The shift in po­s­i­tion also moved Quinn into the man’s peri­pheral vis­ion.

  He jerked his head to­ward Quinn as Quinn rushed for­ward, both Taser and gun point­ing at the man. When the guy reached back for the door, Quinn hit the Taser’s trig­ger.

  The man’s eyes widened at the tiny spikes soar­ing his way. He tried to dive out of the way, but one wire hit him in the cen­ter of his chest and the other speared his rib cage.

  Body dan­cing to the elec­tric shock, he fell to the floor.

  Who­ever was on the other side of the door was now able to push it open again.

  Quinn trained his gun on the en­trance and kept com­ing.

  Or­lando dove through the open­ing and rolled on the floor, be­fore pop­ping to her feet and sweep­ing through the cor­ridor with her gun.

  When she saw Quinn, she whispered, “Hey, babe.” She glanced down at the still shak­ing man. “Where did you get the Taser?”

  “Are you alone?”

  Daeng stepped in­side and nod­ded his chin. “Quinn.”

  “Tell me you found St. Amand already,” Quinn said.

  “Yeah,” Or­lando. “Cute use of your phone.”

  “You did read my note, too, didn’t you?”

  “Yep.”

  “Then…what the hell are you do­ing here? You’re sup­posed to be headed to the ren­dez­vous.”

  “Steve’s hand­ling the ren­dez­vous. Thought you might need our help.” She pulled out a syr­inge and stuck it into the man on the floor. When she pulled it out again, she said, “How many are left?”

  “The driver’s in a room down there. And there’s at least one other some­where in the build­ing.”

  “Only one?” she said, eye­brow raised. “I thought there would be more.”

  “There were. I’ve been busy.”

  “Yeah, um, so have we. Took care of the two that were out­side.”

  “Well, there are three up­stairs that aren’t go­ing to be giv­ing us any prob­lems. Not that we’re keep­ing—”

  A door near the stair­well opened. Quinn turned and saw it was the miss­ing guy. The man whipped his gun up, but be­fore he could get a shot off, Or­lando and Daeng pulled their trig­gers.

  Thup. Thup.

  The man dropped dead where he stood.

  “Looks like we’re even,” Or­lando said.

  “How do you fig­ure even?” Quinn asked. He mo­tioned at the guy he tasered. “I have four.”

  “He’s more a shared take­down, isn’t he? I’m sure we dis­trac­ted him for you. So, which room was that driver in?”

  *

  Drake paced near the door. A night that had star­ted out so great with the en­riched Sand­strom deal had gone to shit. There were go­ing to be some very un­com­fort­able con­ver­sa­tions after everything was set right again. Mr. St. Amand would likely de­mand a com­plete over­haul of the or­gan­iz­a­tion. Drake was pretty sure his po­s­i­tion would be safe, but who knew?

  The only sure bet was that his boss was go­ing to be furi­ous.

  A dull thud from the hall­way. Someone knock­ing on the door?

  He checked the time. Havel had said it would take him and Im­rich at least twenty minutes to get to the ware­house, so it couldn’t be them yet. It was prob­ably the two men search­ing out­side.

  Hop­ing they’d found the trouble­makers, Drake strode to the door, but as he grabbed the handle, he heard voices speak­ing not in Bul­garian but Eng­lish. And one of the voices soun­ded fe­male. There were no fe­males in Mr. St. Amand’s se­cur­ity team.

  He quietly turned the handle and opened the door a crack.

  Four people were at the en­trance. The Caucasian guy who’d been with Drake’s two pris­on­ers in the SUV, the Asian guy who’d been out­side the of­fice build­ing the night be­fore, and an­other Asian wo­man. The fourth per­son was Nikola, ly­ing on the floor, twitch­ing.

  All of a sud­den, the Asian guy and the wo­man shot at some­thing be­hind the Caucasian guy, the sound squelched by sup­press­ors. Al­most as loud was the thud of some­thing fall­ing to the ground out of Drake’s view.

  They had taken out an­other one of Drake’s men. How many of his team had they dealt with? Georgi and Neno should have re­turned a while ago. Had they been elim­in­ated? And what about the two men An­drey had left out­side?

  What Drake knew was that his already small se­cur­ity team was down at least one, and none of those still in ac­tion were with him.

  In the hall, the trio had turned and was now walk­ing to­ward the room where Drake was. Two of them, he could handle. He was less con­fid­ent about his odds with three, es­pe­cially since they’d shown they were tal­en­ted enough to get this far.

  He spun around and sprin­ted to the door that opened into the main ware­house space. If he had more time, he would have shot the pris­on­ers in the head, but his ass was the only thing he cared about at the mo­ment. Any gun­fire would bring the oth­ers run­ning.

  He pulled the door open, closed it quietly be­hind him, and ran to­ward the other side of the vast room. He hadn’t been in this part of the build­ing yet, but there had to be an­other exit some­where.

  While the way out re­mained elu­sive, he did find a stair­way to a base­ment filled with old gen­er­at­ors and other ma­chinery. He dis­covered a covered spot on top of one of the ma­chines, from which he could watch the en­trance. If they came down, he would be able to pick them off be­fore they could even be­gin look­ing around.

  He aimed his gun and settled in.

  *

  Quinn stood to one side of the door, while Or­lando and Daeng stood on the other. Quinn pushed the door in with his gun, and they each scanned the part of the room they could see.

  The only people in the room were Nate and Jar. They were in the cen­ter, Nate on his knees and Jar ly­ing on the floor.

  Quinn rushed in first, the other two right be­hind.

  “He left maybe thirty seconds ago,” Nate said, his voice weak. He nod­ded to­ward the rear corner. “Through the door back there. Hurry!”

  Quinn signaled Or­lando to check their friends and ran to the rear door.

  He jerked the door open and ducked to the side. When no bul­lets flew, he rushed through the open­ing in a crouch, and stopped be­hind one of the pil­lars hold­ing up the roof.

  The room re­mained still.

  The space was huge and dim, lit only by the light seep­ing in through the sky­lights high above, but that was enough for him to see there was no sign of the driver any­where.

  He re­joined Or­lando, Nate, and Jar.

  “He’s gone for the mo­ment,” he said. “The sooner we can get out of here, the bet­ter.”

  Or­lando nod­ded. “Daeng’s get­ting the car.”

  “There are at least three oth­ers,” Nate said.

  “Seven, ac­tu­ally,” Or­lando said. “And were, not are.”

  “Oh…okay. Good…good.”

  Quinn crouched next to his part­ner. Nate’s face was bloody and swollen. “How are you feel­ing?”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  Or­lando was help­ing Jar sit up.

  “Ex­cel­lent,” Quinn said. “You’re awake.”

  “I would prefer to be asleep,” Jar said.

  Nate grinned. “Did you just crack a joke?”

  “No. I am speak­ing true.”

  “Do you think you can walk?” Or­lando asked.

  “I…do not know.”

  Quinn and Or­lando helped Jar to her feet. When they let go, she wobbled enough that Quinn put his arm back around her. “Just lean on me. Nate, you need help?”

 

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