Then arms came out from the wall and closed around me.
I found myself in an iron grip, unable to move my arms, unable to pull free, capable of moving my weapon hand upward but not of controlling it effectively. My lungs weren’t expanding that well in the already-stale air either.
Then a shrill whistle sounded in my ear. A gotcha announcement.
A second after I was trapped, I knew it had to be Kenny, but the rush of fear didn’t depart with the realization. I struggled at first then relaxed as a snicker and laugh hissed my way.
“You knew there had to be a Minotaur in a maze, didn’t you?” Arch was outside but nearby.
I writhed a bit more, twisted, and then Kenny began to laugh and released me. I staggered away, beginning to laugh myself now as well, and suddenly sunlight flooded around me.
Arch had pulled back a flap of tenting and camouflage, and he stood in the opening with hands on hips.
I slipped past and breathed in fresh air.
“Kenny ever get shot in these games?”
“No one’s come close. He’s pretty quiet and agile when he wants to be.”
Kenny’s head emerged from the tenting and he smiled. “Boom, boom.”
I flexed my arms a bit, celebrating freedom of movement again with the rush of fresh air.
“Why don’t we go back in and let me practice sneaking up on him?” I suggested. “That might be a better task for me.”
Arch’s brow wrinkled a moment as he contemplated that, wondering, no doubt, how that would be useful to me and drawing some reasonable conclusions. After a consultation with his brother via eyebrow gestures, he nodded.
“We can give that a try,” he said. “Good luck.”
He pulled back the flap and made a gesture for me to step back inside, and we spent the rest of the afternoon with me stalking Kenny sans live rounds in the PSM. He periodically made me jump out of my skin with unexpected bursts from his whistle. I think the note affected the central nervous system.
Despite his size, when he wanted to, he exhibited, as I’d observed, considerable stealth.
He outsmarted me a couple of times the next day, noticing me before I could get close, but I maneuvered into situations a couple more times where I scored imaginary hits with a loud “bang bang.”
The return of old reflexes was gradual, but it happened, though luck still played a big roll.
I reacted to each success with elation only to feel it slowly deflate as I remembered what I was really teaching myself to do.
Wandering through the businessman’s maze had been survival training. I was modifying it into training for silent aggression. Despite the adrenalin and excitement, only the image of Finn of the Drooping Eyelid kept me going.
Eventually, Arch entered the maze with me and took me through a few techniques deployed in the Middle East for entering and clearing buildings. I needed to rely on more than luck, and that seemed a little closer to what I’d be taking on in pursuing Alexeeva.
I was sure Arch was beginning to suspect what my task might really entail when I asked if we could go through a few more maneuvers with Kenny heading through the maze and me working on quiet pursuit. We ditched live ammo, and we did pursuit, then a few scenarios where I hid and waited.
Kenny’s senses were so acute, he drew down on me with an extended index finger several times. I got used to his squeaky “Boom booms.”
“Let me show you a few things,” Arch said after Kenny had tagged me another time.
We found a nook in the maze at the edge of a passage.
“If you stand really quietly here, and place your weight so that you can swing out a bit in a fluid move, you can draw down with a little bit of time and surprise on your side. Strike before he senses you.”
He gave me a demo, back to a nook with the passage on his right. He shifted weight onto his right foot and stood with his feet apart.
“Come on up, Kenny, pretend you don’t see us.”
Kenny proceeded our way, moving almost silently, light on his feet in spite of his size.
Arch waited until he was a few paces from his position then swung his left leg out in a quick arc, following through with the rest of his body.
He was almost instantly in a shooting stance in his brother’s path. He leveled his imaginary weapon and dropped his thumbs in hammer fashion.
“Bang, bang, bang.”
Kenny clutched his chest, let out a theatrical grunt and staggered backwards.
“With the right rounds in the PSM, he’s taken a pretty good hit,” Arch said. “You got a grudge against him, you just evened the score.”
It would be a little different in a corridor or on a street, but after I’d practiced it a few times I felt a little more confident.
I still didn’t feel like a soldier. Not in spirit. I was something different than a defender, but on the technical side, I felt like I’d reawakened a few rusty bits of reflex and layered on a little more technique.
“What say, I take you out for a drink,” I said to Arch.
“Where are we going?”
“A place I need to have a look around anyway.”
Chapter 15
Arch cleaned up pretty well once I told him where we were going. He already had things he could testify about. What were a few more?
I found Crystal again, forgave her the cleaning out of my wallet as she babbled to itemize and justify the expenses, and she brought along Amara, a Creole girl with blue eyes, streaks of blonde and a beige dress speckled with shiny shards that sent out flashes of light. With Crystal in a tight, short and also shiny blue-black dress, no one would be paying attention to two guys in suits at The Runnell. Especially not with Arch’s clean-shaven face and return to a near military haircut. Once he had turned his car over to an attendant, we didn’t face much of a holdup at the door either, though the club was hopping.
We were shown a path beside the throbbing dance floor where mad patterns of red, green, violet, and fuchsia alternated, and spotlights with similar gels shined down. A tall bistro table with bar stools awaited us near one of two bars positioned just opposite each other.
The ladies tugged hemlines into strategic positions once seated, and we ordered a bottle that would raise the Holst’s eyebrows on the expense account but wouldn’t come with sparklers. I wanted to fit in, but there was no need to be dazzling.
Alexeeva and his friends were nowhere in sight. Looked just like a typical Tuesday crowd.
“Are we going to dance?” Amara shouted as she ran a hand along Arch’s forearm. She probably thought I was a businessman entertaining a client. She wanted to do her part to make him happy.
“Maybe in a while,” he said.
We were more interested in scanning the landscape. The dance floor displayed a scene from a dystopian future where the hordes looked like green laser lights controlled their thrashing movement. While the room opened to the rafters over the dance floor, stairs on either side led to a second-floor balcony that bordered the back and side walls. Tables lined it, packed with business casual types. Getting anywhere would be a challenge.
“Looks like some meeting rooms on the second floor,” Arch noted with a tilt of his head. “Probably not offices.”
I hadn’t given him a specific purpose for my reconnaissance. Less for him to testify about besides the weapon, worst case scenario. All I’d asked was for him to accompany me to a club, but he wasn’t stupid.
Near the front of the dance floor above a stage where a dee jay worked tonight. More doors led somewhere, probably to offices and the green rooms.
Second floor was no good. Bang bang in one of those rooms then it would have to be out along the balcony, weaving around tables and drunk patrons just to get to the stairs and attempt a descent behind someone in no hurry.
First floor might be the best option.
More doors opened off the back wall. Restrooms were along one narrow corridor there.
There should be a back way out.
I
n a room there—bang, bang during off hours and then to the alley? If I involved Arch further, it might be good to have him waiting with the door open, ready to deliver silenced rounds at anyone like body guards who tried to exit. Seemed viable given the desire for me to kiss Alexeeva on the cheek and not place a bomb in his car or use a sniper approach.
I’d need a better look at the physical layout and later the blueprints if I could get them, check escape routes vs. the garage. He was here more often of late, which I had to consider. He’d given up his leather jackets and gold chains for Tom Ford and the club suited the self-image he been trending toward. A look at the office space now while things were busy offered an opportunity for at least the physical layout.
“You guys stay here if you want,” I said to Arch. “Dance if you want to.”
That prompted Amara to clap and burst into a chorus of the old song. I gave Arch a wink in response to his grim expression and took Crystal’s wrist.
Her tongue made a quick circle of her lips, and she followed me. My Russian diplomat’s weapon that I’d palmed and played a moving game with while they had swept me with a wand at the security gate, felt snug holstered at the small of my back, though I was conscious of making sure it didn’t slip down a pant leg.
After weaving a little way into the thralldom of the laser light, Crystal raised her arms over her head and began a little gyration coupled with a slow hip rotation.
I moved my feet a little, lifted my arms, tried not to look like my dad, though I felt like I was him, doing a stiff and awkward samba in his full-dress blues. What would he think of this mission I was on?
He’d grown almost violently angry one night when I was a kid and jumped a curb, driving too fast in my Chevy. I’d popped a hubcap and bent the wheel a fraction of an inch, and he’d turned into Mr. Hyde, railing about the importance of following laws, including traffic laws passed to keep idiot kids alive. Sorry, Dad. Shit happens. Sometimes you have to waste a bad guy when the law fails. If you really need the money.
I thought I heard him roll over in his neatly tended grave out in Metairie, but I put my internal philosophical debate on hold when I spotted Alexeeva and his entourage moving along the dance floor’s edge.
Shifting position slightly and maintaining movement, I traced the group. Taras and Nestor flanked Alexeeva. Some other thick neck walked at his back. No telling what artillery he was packing under his blazer.
“Everything all right?” Crystal asked, taking my wrist and leaning in for access to an ear.
“Fine.”
“What are we up to?”
“Just looking around.”
“You want to find a bathroom stall? I could relieve some of that tension.”
“Dancing’s fine.”
She took that as a cue and ramped up her movements, adding gyrations and twists that would have made some pole dancers look geriatric. I tore my gaze from the rise of her hemline and clapped my hands a few times as I watched a skinny kid in a hoodie moving toward the entourage.
With the head bowed and hands in pockets, I wondered if someone already had plans for the big man, but when the figure reached him, the feet arched to tip toes, and the hooded head leaned toward his face. Something was said into Nestor’s ear and that prompted nods and hand gestures as he took the small figure’s arm.
I’d decided it must be a female from the movements, though in the baggy clothes, the moves lacked the seductive quality of Crystal’s. The entourage kept moving past the bar and through that door that seemed to open into a hallway.
Maybe it would be a good time to get a feel for the offices and that portion of the club.
“OK, you talked me into it,” I said, taking Crystal’s wrist. “Let’s find a corner.”
I led her along the path Alexeeva and his friends had followed, weaving around dancers. If anyone from the entourage turned our way, I could make things look exactly like Crystal thought they were, a guy with a willing girl looking for some privacy.
We made it to the same door they’d passed through without opposition and pushed through. The corridor was a lot less glitzy than the dance floor, drab brown walls lit with cone-shaped gold fixtures that looked like they’d stayed around only after a bribe to the electrical inspector.
Crystal brushed against me once the door closed out the noise and the crowd. Kisses landed on my neck. I turned and leaned into her, grabbing a taste of her mouth as I pressed her back against the wall and feeling the grind of her pelvis.
“Mmm, you’re hungry,” she said, sliding a hand in front of me, feeling for my crotch.
I caught her wrist.
“Save it ’til….”
She parted her lips and came after more kisses, as if she were trying to devour my mouth, really playing out the GFE. I kissed back and adjusted our position a fraction. That let me look over her shoulder even as I fought the burn in my groin, stoked by the press of her breasts.
The corridor stretched only a few feet. At the end of it, an oak door stood open about eight inches. Inside, a wooden desk and a couple of chairs filled most of the space. Alexeeva sat on the edge of the desk. The wispy figure leaned against the wall just inside the door.
“So how much were you seeing?” Alexeeva asked.
Something was mumbled.
The wisp seemed to be some kind of go-between. It was hard to tell which enterprise had shorted or offended the big man, but he wasn’t particularly happy.
“You want me to get pictures?” the wisp asked. It was definitely a girl.
“You’ve done fine. We’ll get on with it. You just go on home, wait for next assignment.”
He turned his attention to someone I couldn’t see in the office, somewhere beside the girl.
“Taras.”
As Alexeeva started speaking, apparently instructions in Russian, the girl turned, slipping quickly through the doorway and stepping our way in a hurry, anxious to be back at the task of fulfilling her boss’s commands.
I let Crystal continue her kisses and the grinding of her hips. This kind of thing had to happen all the time at the club. In fact, the girl slipped her hands in her pockets and started to move past us, averting her face. She couldn’t pretend not to notice, but she could pass on gawking.
That would have been the end of it. She’d have slipped back into the dance area and out the front door, and I’d have feigned the discovery that Crystal and I were in the wrong hallway for a bathroom break, allowing me to guide her back to our table. I would have returned to Arch with knowledge of the office location and its dangers as a meeting spot since the quarters and the corridor were cramped.
But just as the face turned away, I noticed something familiar about the features only partially shrouded by the hoodie. She passed under one of the cones, catching enough of the glow.
I’d worked with enough missing persons cases and runaways to lock in on traits that didn’t change easily like eye color and the shape of a nose, the cast of a jawline.
I couldn’t be sure about the eye color, and I was catching just hints of blond hair, but even with a few more years on her, I could align the face with the photo I’d seen before. The photo I’d studied.
The girl in the hoodie was Dahlia Holst.
Chapter 16
I needed confirmation. Quick confirmation. I eased Crystal back just a couple of inches.
“Dahlia,” I said, trying to make it just loud enough to be heard over the dance floor’s throb that drifted our way.
She froze. The hooded head turned then, and I saw the frightened expression. That was confirmation enough. I grabbed her wrist as she tried to bolt. Then I pushed the door to the dance floor open, disentangling from Crystal as Dahlia tried to drag me along.
I wished for more hands. I wanted to grab my cell and the Russian handgun and hold on to the girl at the same time.
“The fuck’s going on?” Crystal demanded.
I found her shoulder and pulled her in close so she could hear me over the music. “Get
your friend and get out of here. Send Arch to the exit.”
“What about our money?”
Dahlia was like a boat on a line struggling to break free in a storm. I locked my grip on her wrist and fished a fold of bills I had for tips from my pants pocket.
“Take this. Down payment. More later. Use the confusion. Get somewhere safe. We have to move, and you’re not going to want the guys getting a good look at you.”
“Which guys?”
The door pushed open behind her, giving enough of an answer to send her scampering. I shot my hand down to my spine as if it rested on a handgun, giving them a view that suggested what I might pack without showing it.
Dahlia shouted: “Let me go, asshole.”
“Settle down. You’re coming with me.”
“They’ll gut us both.”
“Not if they don’t catch us. Move.”
We started around the dance floor, through throngs of tipsy and inebriated clubbers who swayed with the music, groped and chatted. I had the problem I’d envisioned if I’d been fleeing after a hit, and it was as bad as I’d expected and more.
At least Alexeeva’s goons faced the same challenges. This was the good business. They didn’t want to show their gats or raise much of a stir either. As I glanced to my right, at least Crystal seemed to be faring better, cutting a beeline across the dance floor. When Dahlia and I hit a yuppie roadblock, I pulled her in to me and pressed my ear against the hoodie.
“I’m working for your father. Let me get you out of here.”
She looked up at me with a face that contorted in terror.
“Please, he’ll gut him too. You’ve got to let me go back.”
I wished she’d stop giving me that mental image. It made eating rocks sound appealing by comparison.
“Sorry,” I said.
My heart was in my throat, but I was seeing a paycheck without having to pull a trigger, at least not as an assassin. I’d never been sure I could do it anyway.
The new possibility felt good even if the muscle heading for me didn’t. I pushed through a couple of guys in suits who were trying to chat up a pair of girls dressed like Crystal, mouthing an “excuse me.” Fully conscious of how much I looked like a predator, I moved on, threading, dodging, refusing to let go of Dahlia.
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