“It’s either him or us.” Kergan’s eyes and gun didn’t waver from Steel. “Torr thought he was being clever, insisting that the discussion with Francis Sotelo be held in the Grand Wailea Molokini Garden, open to spectators and the press. His goal was to make Sotelo an easier target, but instead he set himself up perfectly for us. Sotelo agreed to the public talk because of the press Torr promised for the event. Everyone will assume the target is Francis Sotelo, and Torr’s death will be viewed as an accident—he just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. I’m waiting for the call that it’s finished.”
Steel stiffened.
Kergan smiled. “Afterward Hulm plans to confiscate all of Torr’s holdings as a matter of national security. They’ll get the recordings Torr used to blackmail everyone and we’ll finally all be free of any leverage he had on us.”
Steel clenched his jaw. “Who set me up on the Serpent Op?”
Kergan lifted his chin. “Hulm leaked information to Alvarez, including your name. He also fed the DEA the lie that Alvarez was going to kidnap the friar. They passed it along to Danker so he would tell you, motivating you to go. Sorenson almost had a heart attack when you came back on the Black Hawk.”
“You’re nothing more than a traitor and a killer,” said Steel.
Kergan leaned against the wall. “I’d kill you just for the danger you put Carol in.”
Steel’s head snapped back and he looked carefully at Kergan. His chest went numb. “You’re her secret friend.”
“My new wife will be Carol Steel. You put her through endless misery this last year.” He shrugged. “I was there to provide the comfort she needed, which you couldn’t seem to give her.”
“Is that what friends do?” Steel understood why they weren’t dead already. Kergan had felt the need to tell him about Carol. His eyes clouded over. He felt adrenaline and momentum build in his head and shoulders. Vaguely he heard Kergan give a warning. He didn’t care.
He hung his head and stared at his shoes, visualizing what he wanted to do next, knowing he had little chance of success. His shoulders slumped and he slowly bent over, lowering his head into his hands and inching his feet back beneath his knees. His whole body said, I’m broken, Kergan, put me out of my misery.
“Really, Jack, the signs were there over the last year. But you felt so sorry for yourself over Rachel’s death that you didn’t give Carol an ounce of attention. She was dying in your marriage. I helped bring her back to life. She’s a beautiful woman and we’ve made some wonderful plans for the next years. To be fair, she didn’t end up with me to spite you. It just happened. But I don’t suppose that...”
Steel felt the weight on the bed change—Christie.
He glimpsed Kergan swinging his gun at her. Without hesitating he rolled to the floor toward Kergan’s legs. Five feet separated them.
Kergan swung the gun back and fired, missing.
Steel came out of the roll on his knees and clawed for Kergan’s extended gun arm, striking at Kergan’s neck with his right hand.
Kergan blocked his strike and kicked him in the side from the chair. The gun fired again. Steel was aware of blood on his left arm—he fell to the floor, clutching Kergan’s wrist with one hand, his other finding the OTF knife and clicking out the blade.
Christie reached for her Glock. Kergan shifted forward and snapped a toe kick into her chin. She cried out and fell back.
Kergan stood and kicked Steel in the ribs, trying to jerk the gun free. Steel stabbed at his thigh, missing but scoring the muscle. Kergan gasped and kicked his arm—Steel lost his grip on the knife, which flew across the room.
Christie jumped to her feet and punched Kergan in the head twice. He elbowed her, slamming her into the wall.
Letting go of Kergan’s arm, Steel swept a leg sideways into his knee.
Kergan stumbled toward the bed as Steel scrambled over the floor.
Kergan turned with the gun.
Christie pushed his arm up and kneed him in the thigh. Kergan swore and swung his elbow, hitting her face and sending her to the floor.
Steel was on his feet, rage filling his limbs. He palmed Kergan in the sternum, which dulled his eyes, and then speared a stiff hand into the front of his neck, barreled a fist to his heart, and lastly palmed his nose.
Kergan collapsed to the floor, dead.
Steel stood over him, breathing hard, his hands clenched. The sense of betrayal still numbed him. He glanced at Christie.
She wiped a smear of blood from her lips and used the bed to pull herself upright.
There was a flesh wound on his triceps. The burning sensation on his arm was as intense as the betrayal he felt.
Christie ripped part of the bed sheet.
Yanking off his shirt with one hand, he watched as she silently tied a tight bandage around his arm. His eyes met hers, but he didn’t know what to say.
He pulled on a clean shirt, a windbreaker over that, and then loaded a fresh magazine into the Glock which he shoved into his belt. He cleaned and sheathed the OTF knife.
Christie put the Hawaiian’s Glock in her purse, and toed Kergan’s Browning beneath the bed. She left the stunbrella on the floor.
Steel headed for the door.
Christie followed.
CHAPTER 85
Steel entered the Grand Wailea still reeling from Kergan’s admissions, a tarnished image of Carol just beneath that. He pushed it all aside, frantic to find Francis.
To one side in the main lobby he saw Francis and Torr near a wall, chatting behind a line of photographers and news reporters. He stared at the man responsible for so much violence, but he couldn’t waste time on the fury that clenched his jaw. It made him wonder how civil Francis was feeling, talking to the man who had sent killers after him.
The lobby was a security nightmare, but Steel didn’t believe a shooter would risk capture here. Scores of people stood behind the news media, and Torr’s security detail maintained a perimeter around both men. Two uniformed police officers stood apart from the photoshoot, eyeing the crowd.
He approached the hotel concierge and quickly found out that the lobby photoshoot and media Q&A would last another thirty minutes. Then Torr and Francis would head outside to the Molokini Garden for the main event. His forehead creased as he quickly scanned the crowd. He was glad Christie was beside him, also checking the spectators.
He considered the sniper. To make Torr’s death look accidental, and have a reasonable chance of escape, the killer would need Torr and Francis standing next to each other.
The outdoor stage in the garden would present all kinds of problems for line-of-sight, given the trees and other obstructions on the perimeter. It would also make the shooter visible and escape difficult. A shot from a bobbing boat on the ocean would be too risky for the accuracy needed for the desired outcome. He discounted both scenarios, deciding the best position was to kill Torr while he was walking to the event with Francis.
A hotel room would be safest and require a certain angle.
When he considered the Grand Wailea’s layout, he decided the killer would have to be in the southern Molokini wing. Most likely in one of the rooms overlooking the ocean so they would have a clear view of the path leading to the garden. They would have to be on one of the upper floors.
He glanced at Francis again. The friar would never agree to leave. Steel didn’t want him to. He believed in the friar’s ability to change the world and knew silencing Francis’ message had been the goal of the Komodo Op and Torr from the beginning.
He whispered to Christie. “I’m going to check the rooms of the upper floors at the end of the Molokini wing. I think they’ll try to shoot Torr and Francis on the way to the garden. If I’m wrong, keep him off the stage. Tell them we have proof of a hired killer, a bomb, whatever it takes. While I’m checking out the rooms, shadow Francis and scan the crowd f
or anyone that looks suspicious.”
The irony wasn’t lost on him that by protecting Francis, he would also be saving Torr.
Christie didn’t say a word and barely nodded.
Hurrying away, he pushed aside any emotional response to her pain. He couldn’t afford to be distracted now.
***
Christie hoped Steel’s assumption was right. She tried not to consider what danger that might put him in. Blood still trickled in her mouth from a cut in her inner cheek, caused by Kergan’s elbow. But that was the least of her wounds.
There was a heaviness in her chest. It was hard to be around Steel anymore. She wanted this to be over, and to be on the next flight home. She needed to be around family. She hadn’t felt this hurt since she was dumped by a boyfriend in high school.
Clutching her purse with both hands, she looked for anyone that might pose a threat. It was an impossible task. She glanced at Torr. Five-foot-seven, one-hundred-sixty pounds, early fifties, and hard eyes that matched his emotionless face. Despicable.
She scanned the rest of the lobby.
Two individuals appeared just beyond the security perimeter. Even though they wore Hawaiian shirts and sunglasses, she recognized them immediately.
General Vegas was bull-framed, six-feet, two-twenty pounds, mid-fifties, an ample friendly face and chin, and short black hair. General Rivera was leaner, six-two, two-fifty pounds, about fifty, a pockmarked, brutal-looking face, and dark hair with a few gray strands. His right arm was in a sling.
It gave her some comfort knowing the two generals were watching over the friar too.
***
Steel took the elevator up to the fifth floor and ran down the hallway, smiling at the few people he passed so he wouldn’t draw attention. He checked his watch. He had time.
The end of the wing ended in three or four rooms, depending on the floor. He walked to the middle of the three rooms on this floor and knocked on the door. An older man answered.
Steel looked over the man’s shoulder and saw several people inside chatting and laughing. “Hotel security. Sorry. Wrong room.”
Hurrying to the next door, he banged on it. No answer. He banged again. No answer. He tried the knob, then kicked the door in. He walked in on a couple in their thirties on a couch holding each other, wearing lingerie and underwear. They gaped at him.
“Sorry. Hotel security. Wrong room.” He ran out and knocked on the last door. No answer. He knocked again, harder.
“Who is it?” A young woman’s voice.
“Hotel security. We’re checking rooms for safety.”
The door opened. A teenage girl in a tee and shorts looked up at him. Biting her lip. She looked nervous.
He looked past her. “Everything all right, miss?”
She blushed. “Yeah, no one else is here. My parents are down by the pool. I didn’t want to go.”
“I have to check your room, miss.” He pushed past her.
A shirtless teenage boy came out of a bedroom and gawked at him.
Steel walked past the blushing youth and looked out the balcony window. Three hundred feet away, several thousand people were either sitting in chairs or milling about in the Molokini Garden. The path leading to it from the hotel was mostly empty.
He spotted security people spaced along it and assumed they were Torr’s. One police officer stood at the end of the path where it reached the garden. Glad to see the security, he didn’t like the angle to the path from this height. The shooter had to be higher.
He ran from the room and raced up the stairs to the eighth floor.
***
While Christie eyed the small crowd, Torr spent a few minutes talking about the need for corporations to reform their environmental practices and help the poor. Applause interrupted him several times.
Christie didn’t believe anything Torr said. The CEO was cleverly preempting any attack Francis might bring in his speech against corporations.
Torr finished.
One reporter immediately raised a hand, asking, “Do you plan on making restitution to Mexico for MultiSec’s pollution record there?”
“We will do the right thing.” Torr smiled, patting Francis on the back and stepping back.
Francis smiled as the small crowd quieted. “Corporations are the new feudal lords, who answer to no one since they control all the politicians. Thus Mexico must take over the corporations that have hurt our land and caused massive health problems. Our government should seize corporate assets and hold them hostage until all reparations are made for the environmental cleanup, and health costs are paid to our poor. Then and only then will justice be served.”
The audience applauded and cheered even louder than they had for Torr—who amazingly kept smiling. There were a few more questions. While Francis answered them, Christie scanned the crowd again.
In a few minutes Torr’s security team enclosed the two men and they walked out of the lobby. They were heading for the garden sooner than Steel had anticipated. Christie didn’t have a way to slow them down or tell Steel.
Remaining behind the small entourage following Torr and Francis, she ended up a few people away from Rivera and Vegas. Rivera eyed her briefly, and she avoiding looking at him again.
***
On the eighth floor Steel pounded on the first door to the left. Nothing. He pounded again.
A big man with a beer belly answered, unshaven and bald, in his forties.
Steel looked past the man and saw a woman on a couch. “Sorry. Hotel security. Wrong room.”
At the adjacent door he knocked—no answer. After a second try he drew his gun and kicked the door open. A middle-aged couple were sitting on a sofa facing the outer balcony, their backs to him and their heads leaning against each other.
He was about to apologize when he noted the couple hadn’t responded to him. Slowly he walked forward until he could see them better. Both of them had upper chest bullet wounds. The gunshots looked recent. Eyes closed.
Walking across the room toward the empty balcony, he aimed his gun at the bedroom to his left—empty. The room was a suite and a closed door to the right led to another room. He put his hand on the knob and quietly tried to turn it. Locked.
He debated kicking it in, but if the shooter was here he would be targeting this door after hearing Steel kick in the hallway door. Thus he continued to the balcony.
Christie had followed the others on the path but decided she didn’t like her position. If someone came at Francis from the sides or front, she would have no chance to protect him. And if Steel didn’t appear, it would be up to her to keep Francis off the stage.
She decided before Torr and Francis reached the garden she would scream, Gun! and point at the beach. It would be enough to prompt Torr’s security detail to pull the two men back inside the hotel.
Veering off the path at a thirty-degree angle, she walked fast, striding through the palm trees while scanning the area. When abreast of Francis, she changed course again, paralleling the security detail. One of Torr’s men eyed her briefly, his moving gaze showing he had decided she wasn’t a threat.
She glanced back, and saw Vegas watching her. Rivera was eyeing the other side of the path.
Someone in the crowd behind Torr and Francis yelled for a photo. Torr stopped on the path, gripping Francis’ arm to get him to stop too. They both turned and smiled.
***
When Steel reached the sliding doors, he slowly slid one of them open. Leaning forward a few inches, he eyed the next balcony to the right. Empty.
He stepped out, his gun aimed at the adjacent balcony—its door was open. When he reached the outer railing, he could see the end of a rifle silencer just inside the far balcony door. In that same instant he gave a shout and fired three times at the silencer.
A muffled shot came from the rifle. Then another.
***
Christie gaped as Francis seemed to be punched in the chest, collapsing beside William Torr, who seemed to react with less horror than one might expect. The next shot ripped into Torr’s head.
The security detail froze, shouting to each other while eyeing the woods. Some pointed their guns up at the hotel’s upper floors, others scrambled to reach Torr. Screams and shouts erupted from the crowd on the path, most of whom fled back toward the hotel. The cop drew his gun but didn’t seem to know where to point it.
Christie’s limbs were stiff as she ran toward Francis. She was kneeling beside him in moments.
Torr was beyond help, but his security detail still hovered around him, guns drawn. Christie didn’t look twice.
Francis lay on his back, blood spattered all over his face and body, a bullet hole above his heart. The sight tightened her throat and she had to steel herself to all the blood. Frantically she tried to rip his habit free to see the wound and to convince herself he was really dead. She had heard of incredible rescues and maybe it could happen to Francis.
Her resolve crumbled as she pulled on the robe, unable to tear it. Frustration made her cry out.
A hand on her shoulder gently pushed her to the side. Vegas straddled over Francis, his wide face carrying a deep frown. The Mexican grabbed the center of Francis’ habit with two big hands and tore it apart like paper.
Christie’s eyes filled with tears when she saw the bullet had penetrated Francis’ Kevlar vest. Vegas pulled the vest off, revealing a bullet wound in Francis’ upper shoulder. Christie gathered the fabric of Francis’ habit and pushed it against the wound, applying firm pressure.
Vegas put two fingers on Francis’ neck, knelt, and began CPR.
Christie watched the friar’s face for any sign of life. Please, please, don’t let this man die.
CHAPTER 86
Steel’s throat choked as he looked down. People were running everywhere, shouting. No one had control over the situation. Chaos. He ignored all of it except what he saw on the path.
Steel Force Page 27
