I’m giving you twenty-four hours to make your decision. Any time after that and you’re fair game. Oh, and please don’t do anything foolish like telling someone about this. If you do, I’ll know-and neither of us wants that.
Leana crumpled the note and dropped it in the box.
Her breathing was uneven.
Perspiration shimmered on her forehead.
Eric was behind this. She was sure of it.
She looked at the phone. She should call Mario and tell him everything. But she couldn’t. If she did, there was no doubt that somehow this man would find out.
She felt suddenly and entirely alone. There was fear, but it was a different kind of fear from the fear she felt when Eric beat her. She knew then that he wouldn’t kill her. She knew now that he wanted her dead.
She looked at her watch and saw that it was getting late. She wondered where Michael was. She wondered if he had already come by and found her gone.
Her head was spinning.
I’m giving you twenty-four hours to make your decision. Any time after that and you’re fair game.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
From the Mercedes’ cool interior, the three men watched Michael Archer walk down the busy sidewalk, watched him shift a bag of groceries from one arm to the other, and watched him stop to say hello to an elderly woman pushing a rusty shopping cart.
Only after he entered the brick tenement on Avenue B did they make their move.
One by one, they stepped out of the car. Doors opened, clicked shut. Two men were tall and muscular, their dark hair slicked back into shiny ponytails. The other man was slightly older, wiser-looking, with short graying hair and pale skin-the glass of his silver spectacles flashed white in the hazy, early-morning sun.
His name was Ethan Cain, he was an international assassin and he had been hired yesterday morning by Stephano Santiago. While he hadn’t met Santiago in person, the $125,000 Santiago deposited into Cain’s Swiss bank account was perhaps the only introduction he would ever need.
His instructions were simple-remind Michael Archer that in one week a certain gambling debt was due. Use whatever force is necessary.
Cain had his own ideas about that.
Although he was American, he had lived the better part of his life in Paris and spoke in French to the two men beside him. “Archer’s apartment is on the sixth floor. Try not to kill him.”
They crossed the street and entered the building. Inside it was dark and musty. The air smelled of alcohol and cigarette smoke. Cain glanced down both ends of a long corridor, saw peeling wallpaper, a cat urinating in a shadowy corner, a woman stepping half-naked into her apartment. He also saw two stairwells and a service elevator. He gave his men their instructions.
When they separated, it was Cain who took the elevator. As he rose in the rattling iron cage to Michael Archer’s apartment, he reached inside his black leather jacket and felt the gun he concealed there earlier. Its steely coolness sent a rush of anticipation up his spine and he wondered if Archer would give him an excuse to use it.
He hoped so. It had been a week since he’d taken a life.
They met on the sixth floor. In one of the apartments, someone was playing a stereo so loudly that the walls and floor literally vibrated with the sounds of heavy metal music. This pleased Cain. It was a sign to let him know that Archer was in his apartment. Earlier, he had given the man playing the music five hundred dollars to be a lookout.
They started down the hall. Cain’s senses were acute. He was aware of sights and sounds and smells he normally would have ignored. Later, as always, he’d be able to describe-in detail-exactly how the job went down.
They stopped at the door at the end of the hall. Cain withdrew his gun, took a step back. There was a silence while he and his men stood looking at one another. Then Cain nodded at the taller of the two men and winced as the door was kicked open.
They rushed inside, ready for anything.
But the room was empty.
Incredulous, Cain stood in the middle of the small living space. As the driving beat of the hard rock music enveloped him, he saw on a side table the sack of groceries Archer had with him on the street and knew that he’d been here.
He looked around the room. How did Archer leave when all three exits were covered? Was he still in here, hiding?
Cain threw open a closet door, shoved aside a rack of clothes. Nothing. His gaze swept the room. Boxes filled with Archer’s belongings cluttered a floor that was scarred with a million heel marks. Sunlight from an open window played across a bed that had been slept in. A pair of torn, faded curtains moved in the breeze.
And then Cain knew. Knew.
He went to the window and looked out. Archer was hurrying down the fire escape, rapidly approaching street-level, his footsteps deadened by the music thundering from the hallway.
Somehow, he had seen them. Cain raised his gun, had an impulse to shoot, but stilled it. There were too many people on the street. He would have to take Archer another way.
He fled the apartment with his men.
The streets were thronged with people. Michael pushed his way through them, shot through traffic, got nudged in the hip by a moving car and kept running. Not once did he look behind him until he reached the corner of East Houston. And there they were, closing in, hands in outsized pockets, unseen weapons gripped-just as he had feared.
He ran faster.
Since his dog's death, he had taken precautions. He knew his father was correct. No matter what Santiago promised, the man couldn’t be trusted. And so, whether leaving his apartment-or returning to it-Michael always found an excuse to stop and glance around.
Today, the excuse was saying hello to the elderly woman with the rusty shopping cart. If he hadn’t stopped to say hello to her, he never would have seen the three men watching him from the Mercedes. And if he hadn’t rushed up the steps to his apartment and looked out his only window, he wouldn’t have seen those men leaving the Mercedes to cross the street.
He turned up First Avenue, looked over his shoulder. The men were still there, closer than before, threading their way through the crowds on the sidewalk. Michael knew that as long as they kept him in sight, they could force him to keep running blindly, not knowing which street or alley he took might lead to a dead end where he could no longer run.
He felt a sudden, overwhelming sense of rage. They had killed his dog. Did they think they could kill him, too? Right here in the open?
And then he thought of the woman who was shot dead outside his apartment. Of course they could kill him here. In these crowds, they could fire three or four muted gunshots at close range and escape in the resulting chaos.
He was moving faster, his mind racing. Why were they here? He still had a week to come up with the money. He didn’t think they wanted to kill him, but he was certain they wanted to hurt him.
He was running so quickly now, the people on the street gave him looks ranging from annoyance to indifference to surprise and even a sense of fear. Lower First Avenue was a mecca of stores and shops. If he could somehow slip unnoticed into one of the shops, he could wait a few minutes and then leave for a place where he knew he would be reasonably safe-Leana Redman’s apartment.
But he cast it idea aside. The moment they couldn’t see him was the moment they'd start searching each shop for him.
The men were fifty feet behind him. Desperation rose in him. Michael’s legs were beginning to cramp. He bumped into a woman stepping out of a Laundromat and sent her clean clothes flying-a rainbow of color was tossed into the air. He stumbled, righted himself and began wondering if this was worth it. Why run? he thought. Sooner or later, they’ll find me.
But he wouldn’t give up.
An intersection was approaching. The light was red and cars were racing by. He couldn’t cross. He looked left, then right…and was surprised to see a van rounding the corner and screeching to a stop in front of him.
Car horns blared and there was the su
dden stench of burnt rubber in the air. Then the van’s passenger door shot open. Michael recognized the driver instantly.
“Get in!” Vincent Spocatti shouted.
Michael did as he was told and the van shot forward
He tried to catch his breath. The muscles in his legs and lower back ached. He looked at Spocatti, saw him glancing in the rearview mirror, saw the determined set of his jaw and knew it wasn’t over.
“They’re following us, aren’t they?”
Spocatti didn’t answer. He jerked the van to the left.
Michael looked out the rear window. A cab was following them at a dangerously close distance. He turned back to Spocatti. “Can you lose them?”
“The driver probably has a gun to his head. Shut up and let me concentrate.”
“Just one question.”
Spocatti gritted his teeth.
“You were following me. You must have been. Why?”
“Your father told me to.”
“Why?”
“That’s two questions,” Spocatti said. “If you ask one more, I’m throwing your ass out of here.”
They hurtled across 21st Street. Traffic was dangerously light.
Michael looked out the rear window, saw the cab trying to pull alongside them and was about to speak when Spocatti spun the wheel to the right. There was a sudden scraping of metal against metal, the blaring of a car horn and the cab was behind them again, front end dented.
Tires screaming, they turned onto Second Avenue. Although traffic was heavier here, the cab was able to pull alongside them. Michael looked down at the cab. At the same moment he saw a glint of steel from the cab’s rear side window, Spocatti darted right, busted a red light and swung onto 19th Street, leaving a traffic cop blowing her whistle.
The cab followed.
“We’re not going to lose them,” Spocatti said. “The driver is too skilled. To stay alive, he’ll do anything those men tell him to do. I won’t be able to lose them unless you listen very closely to me and do exactly as I say.”
Michael was surprised by how calm Spocatti sounded-how measured and precise his words were. “What do you want me to do?”
Vincent told him what he wanted him to do.
Michael told him he’d be shot.
“No, you won’t. If those men wanted you dead, they would have killed you earlier. Now, move.”
Michael moved to the back of the van, pushing his way through a sea of large cardboard boxes. He looked out the front window. They were rapidly approaching Third Avenue. Traffic was backed up 19th Street and the light at the end was red. If it didn’t turn green soon, there would be no escape-no matter how well Spocatti drove, no matter how well Michael did as he was told.
Michael braced himself by gripping a rusty steel rod bolted to the metal wall behind him. He waited, adrenaline pumping. Never in his life had he been filled with so much hatred or fear-hate for his father, hate for Santiago, hate for these men chasing them, fear for his life.
He remembered his dog’s brutal death and the fear turned to rage.
The light at the end of the street turned green, traffic lurched forward and Spocatti said, “Do it now, Michael.”
Michael tightened his grip on the steel rod, threw open the door with his free hand and was struck by the sudden suction of wind. He glimpsed the startled expressions on the men in the cab, saw them reach for their guns, and then he began kicking out the boxes that surrounded him, one after the other, in a steady stream of cardboard.
The driver was overwhelmed.
He swerved left, then right, attempting to dodge the boxes, but he wasn’t that skilled. The boxes struck the hood of the car, rolled over the windshield, obscuring the driver’s vision. Michael turned to kick out more boxes-but as he swung around, the steel rod he was holding onto suddenly gave way and he toppled out of the van, his head and shoulder striking the pavement as he rolled.
The cab screeched to a stop behind him. As he lay there, stunned, his body screaming with pain, he watched in disbelief as Spocatti shot around the corner to Third Avenue, leaving him alone. He turned his head toward the people on the sidewalk. They were either standing back in shock or hurrying past him, heads lowered. No one would help him. He had to get out of there.
He tried to struggle to his feet, but he was too weak. He heard the distant shrill of police sirens, the sudden opening of car doors, the controlled voice of a man saying, “Put him in the back.”
At the same moment Michael recognized the man’s accent as French, strong hands lifted him from the pavement and shoved him into the back of the cab. Michael knew it was over when his eyes met Ethan Cain’s.
They drove back to Michael’s apartment.
The city sped by, flashing vignettes were briefly framed by the window, but Michael didn’t notice. He was sitting between two men in the back of the cab who looked like twins with their slick jet ponytails and oversized bodies. The other man, the older and seemingly wiser of the three, sat in front, smiling over his shoulder at Michael, pressing a gun against the cabbie’s side.
Michael was paralyzed by fear. There was a roaring in his ears that had nothing to do with the sound of the cab’s engines. If they’re not going to kill me, then they’re going to hurt me. Badly.
He closed his eyes. His head and shoulder ached from the fall. There seemed to be no strength left in his body. He wondered how much more of this he could take. What was his limit? Whatever it was, Michael knew he was approaching it.
The cab driver, an Iranian, was whispering something in a language Michael didn’t recognize or understand. He listened. The man was repeating the same phrase over and over. It was a form of chant. And then Michael knew. The man had been confronted with death several times today and he was praying. Michael wondered what God could save them from this.
A window was open and he could hear the fading shrill of the police sirens. The cabbie was losing them. Michael wondered where Spocatti went. They slowed to a stop outside his apartment building. Cain said something in French to his men and looked at Michael. “Understand this,” he said. “We will kill you if you try to escape again. Do you understand me? I’ll put a bullet through your head myself.”
“I doubt that,” Michael said. “I have a week to come up with the money. If Santiago wanted me dead, you would have killed me when I fell out of the-”
His words were cut short by a crushing blow to the stomach. Michael doubled over in pain and two fists slammed hard against the small of his back.
For a moment, he couldn’t move or breathe-then Cain grabbed a handful of his hair and jerked him into an upright position.
“Listen to me,” he said, his accent stronger than before. “It would be very easy for me to tell Santiago that you pulled a gun on me and I had to shoot you in self-defense. Don’t for one minute think I won’t do it.”
Michael spat in his face.
Cain pulled back a hand and was about to strike when the cabbie’s voice suddenly rose and his praying became hysterical. Cain looked at the man, grimaced and reached into his jacket pocket. He removed a silencer, attached it to his gun and glanced out the windows. No one on the street was looking in their direction.
Like a flash, he covered the driver’s mouth with one hand, jammed the gun into the man’s stomach with the other and fired four shots in rapid succession. The cabbie’s eyes grew huge with sorrow and disbelief, a wet, clotted gasp escaped his lips, and he slumped forward, dead.
Cain turned to Michael.
“Here’s what’s going to happen,” he said. “We’re going to cross this street and enter your apartment and you’re going to act like we’re friends. Because if you don’t, if you make even one false move, I’m blowing your fucking head off. Got it?”
Michael was pale with fear. He nodded.
Satisfied, Cain turned to the man seated at Michael’s right. “You’re coming with me,” he said. “And if you even sense he’s about to try something, I want you to shoot him. Understand?”
The man smiled. He understood.
“And you,” Cain said to the other man. “I want you to get rid of the driver and the cab. Dump them both someplace close and hurry back.” He opened the door and stepped into the morning sun. “I might need you to dispose of another body.”
They entered Michael’s apartment.
“Sit down,” Cain said. “We’ll talk in a minute.”
While Cain went to the window to see if the cab had left, Michael glanced around the small room, looked at his unmade bed and went to it. His legs were trembling as he sat-both from exhaustion and a sudden surge of hope.
Beneath the mattress would be the loaded gun he purchased a week ago for protection. He could almost feel its steely hardness pressing against his thigh. Earlier, there was no time to grab the gun before he fled his apartment. Now, if he could somehow slide a hand under the mattress without being seen, he could kill these men and leave before the other returned.
He looked over at the man blocking the doorway, saw the hard, probing eyes taking in every inch of him and turned away, afraid that his secret would be revealed on his face. There was no question this man would kill him if he went for the gun. If I don’t get him first.
He glanced across the room at Cain, who was leaning out the open window, his jacket slightly parted. Between the shimmering folds of black leather, Michael could see the man’s shoulder holster and gun. There’s no way I’ll be able to shoot them both, he thought. No matter how quick I am, it won’t happen.
Still, he knew if the opportunity presented itself, he would take the chance.
“You know,” Cain said as he turned away from the window and leaned against the sill, “I’m a big fan of yours. I’ve seen your films, read your books. You’re quite big in Europe.”
Michael had to turn slightly to look at him. He used the motion as an opportunity to lift himself and position his hand closer to the gun.
“Yesterday, when I got the call from Santiago, I have to tell you I was disappointed. Not because I was being given the opportunity to kill you-that has been surprisingly challenging-but because someone I respected so much had allowed themselves to get caught up in something so stupid. With all of your novels and films, with all of your financial success-how could you possibly have run out of money? Unless you were so careless as to have spent it all-which the fan in me seriously wants to doubt-then where did it all go?”
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