As I walked up the steps the door suddenly flew open. Smith stood there with a Beretta 9mm pointing at my face. “So, you came to me,” he said. “Makes things a lot easier.” I stood unyielding and said nothing. “No last words? How’d you find me?”
“Wasn’t hard. Your skills have dulled since you left the field. We’ve been on to you for over two weeks. You left a trail a kid could follow.”
“Move. Down the steps and toward the end of the alley.” I turned around and slowly walked down the steps and turned right. The end of the alley. “So, you think you know all about me, huh?”
“We know about Charlotte Downeger and your plans to do the same with Cindy Saturday,” I said. I sensed him stop in his tracks. I continued walking. “We know about Stolski, Parker, and Darchevsky. Two are dead, one’s in Gitmo.”
“Keep moving,” he said. “Go through the gate on the right.”
I pushed the gate open, noting a slight movement behind it. I continued walking. “We know about your Cayman account, too.”
That was a distraction. “It was you that froze my account?”
“Well, Chyrel, actually.”
“I should have known,” he said as he followed me through the gate. “That’s far enough. Turn around. I want to see your eyes when I kill you.”
I turned slowly. “Sure, I want to watch you die anyway.”
When I was facing him, he had a puzzled look on his face. He had the gun and was beyond my reach. In a flash, a leg shot up, kicking the gun from his hand. Then another foot flew to the back of his head, connecting squarely with the fragile vertebra there. He went instantly down to his knees and fell forward onto his chest, his arms unable to break his fall. In an instant his attacker was on his back, pulling his head up by the hair.
I knelt down in front of him and said, “Jared Williams’s dishonorable was overturned and he reenlisted. Then you killed him with that bomb. But, before he died he at least had a chance to know love. Do you remember Charity Styles?”
In the next instant, Charity grabbed him under the chin and yanked his head sideways, pushing his head downward with her other hand. The sudden wrenching motion severing his spinal cord. His lifeless eyes looked up at her.
“Let’s go home, kid,” I said and picked up his Beretta.
The End
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Fallen Pride (Jesse McDermitt Series) Page 29
