by Harper Lin
The waiter handed me $300. I blinked. That could buy a lot of doro wat.
My phone buzzed. A text from Grimal. I waited for the waiter to leave and read it.
A man matching your description of the Exterminator is about to come through the front door.
Wonderful. This day just got worse.
Nine
A moment later my would-be assassin entered the casino. Like the last time, his roving eye took in everything in a few seconds. I forced myself not to look at him, instead pretending to read the racing journal. I even had my eyes follow the lines of type although my mind didn’t register the words. Someone with the Exterminator’s level of training would notice a little detail like someone staring at a paper but not reading it.
Thus I didn’t see how long he looked at me. That he looked at me for at least a moment I had no doubt. That man missed nothing, and his gaze rested on every single person in that room in the time it took him to cross it and get to the back door.
As he punched in the key code, I saw my chance.
A ridiculously dangerous chance, but one I couldn’t miss.
To cover my movements as I stood up, I made a show of pulling out my cell phone and dialing a number.
What they didn’t know was that it was the number of the police chief of Cheerville. I needed him to hear this.
He picked up on the first ring. “Grimal here.”
“Be quiet and listen,” I murmured, tucking the phone in my breast pocket and hoping he’d be able to hear everything.
It only took ten steps to get behind the Exterminator just as he was opening the door.
He noticed me after five steps and automatically began to close the door with himself still on my side.
He stopped doing that when he spotted the 9mm in my hand, shielded from view from the rest of the room by my large purse.
Men always wonder why women carry large purses. More than one has told me, “It looks like you have half your possessions in there.”
A gun takes up space, fellows, and a lady needs her makeup and various other things too. Plus, a large purse can be used as a club, a distraction flung in an opponent’s face, and it can hide the fact that you’re carrying a gun.
I made sure the Exterminator saw, though.
He reacted as I suspected he would. He stopped closing the door, obeying the implicit instructions given by the dark circle of the gun barrel moving towards him. He glanced to the left and right, hoping someone else saw this. When he realized he was alone in this situation, he looked at my face …
… and looked right through my disguise.
Nothing like pointing a gun at someone to give your game away.
His eyes narrowed. It wasn’t hatred or malice or even a threat, it was a hard focus, a ruthless determination that assured me that if I didn’t play this exactly right, I’d be a dead woman very, very soon.
All this happened in the last five steps that brought me close enough to him that he had no chance of dodging or getting away, but just out of reach of any punch or kick he might try. I was not at all confident that I could fire before he could disarm me.
“Go through that door,” I said in a low voice.
He turned, and with no sudden moves that might make a gun-wielding grandma jumpy, opened the door the rest of the way and stepped through it.
I followed him.
I didn’t have much time. One of the thugs in the front room was sure to have seen me go in with him and they’d be coming. Plus, there were the thugs in the back room.
The thugs in the back room were three in number. One sat in front of a row of camera monitors and was just in the act of standing up when he saw my gun, hesitated for a second, and sat back down with his hands in the air.
The other two were Pierre and a man I didn’t recognize, flanking a chair on which Octavian sat. He looked more confused than nervous.
He didn’t have a mark on him. Lucky for the bad guys.
“Celeste!” Pierre shouted. “I mean, Ms. Tammany. What are you doing?”
“Shut up,” I said in a harsh whisper.
I closed the door behind me and motioned with my gun for the Exterminator to take a couple of more steps away from me and the others to move away from Octavian. They behaved like little lambs, or wolves in sheep’s clothing.
Once they were a safe distance away from me and my boyfriend, I said in a loud, clear voice, “Grimal, can you hear me?”
“Yes.” His voice sounded muffled and small inside my pocket. I preferred him that way.
“I’m in the back room of the casino and I have Octavian. I also have three hostages. I’m going to—”
I cut off as I heard the electronic lock beep behind me. Someone had just punched in the code.
The door started to open and I yanked it shut.
The man on the other side hadn’t expected resistance and let the doorknob slip through his fingers. Next time he’d have a better grip on it and there was no way I would win a tug of war with a man half my age. Twenty years ago, yes, but not now.
I had all of three seconds to get out of here.
“We’re coming out the back,” I said, half to Grimal and half to Octavian.
“And there are cops surrounding this place so don’t try anything,” I went on.
That was for the mobsters’ benefit.
I grabbed Octavian by the lapel and tugged on him. He stood and followed me. A quick glance told me there were no other threats here. The back room had little but for a desk, a safe, and a rack of shelves filled with snacks and liquor bottles. The back door stood only a few yards away. My four prisoners had just happened to position themselves between me and it.
“One side!” I barked.
Just then several things happened at once.
First, the door to the casino opened as I thought it would.
Second, a crash and a shout in the main room told me the mobsters had more trouble than little old me.
Third, the Exterminator dove for the ground and rolled.
Fourth, a bag of potato chips hit me in the face.
I never got to see who threw the potato chips. Whoever did it really should have thrown a bottle, but no doubt he threw the first thing he could grab from that supply shelf. It was more to distract me than to hurt me.
It worked.
During the second I was blinded I fired at my feet, hoping to hit the Exterminator.
The bag of potato chips fell away and was replaced in my vision by something far worse—the Exterminator rising up, hands reaching for me.
Like I suspected, the Exterminator had dodged my blind shot.
Then Octavian did something that warmed my heart. He punched the Exterminator right in the side of the head.
It didn’t do a thing, of course. I’m not sure the Exterminator even realized he’d been punched, but Octavian had shown what a sweetheart he was in any case.
Then I had other things to worry about. I felt a vice go around my gun hand and an irresistible force move my aim away from my opponent. I let off another round in any case, just to give Grimal extra warning that things had gone south. One shot might not be enough for that fellow. He could be a bit slow on the uptake.
I hissed in pain and let my gun drop to the floor. It was a choice between that and having my wrist broken. I take my daily calcium supplement, but I couldn’t rely on that to save me from a man of his strength.
Octavian punched him again, just as a brave and protective boyfriend should. This time the Exterminator did notice, and gave him a slap with his free hand that sent poor Octavian tumbling.
The muzzle of a gun pressed against the back of my head. It has a very distinct feeling, most unpleasant. You can’t mistake it for any other object being pressed against your skull. I’ve felt it before and I had hoped I would never feel it again. It was one thing I was looking forward to in my retirement.
“Don’t move,” said the owner of the gun, no doubt the gentleman who had just come through the door. I hea
rd a shout and a crash in the main casino room before he slammed the door shut.
“Be careful with that gun, young man,” I said in a voice loud enough for Grimal to hear. “There are policemen outside who won’t be very happy if you shoot a senior citizen.”
“Well then I guess we’ll just have to use you as a hostage, won’t we?” the Exterminator said. He gave me a quick pat down, found my phone, turned it off, and tossed it to the side. He also found the pepper spray in my purse and pocketed it.
I looked him in the eye. It wasn’t an easy thing to do.
“You know how hostage situations always end,” I told him, rubbing my wrist. “There is no bag of money and no free ride to the airport at the end of the rainbow. You’re cooped up in here—” a gunshot outside interrupted me “—and you’re not getting out. They won’t let you get away, not for the sake of little old me.”
The Exterminator gave me a disturbing little smile. It felt more unsettling than when he had been lunging for me.
“A normal civilian, no, but a CIA agent?” he said.
My heart did a little flutter.
“How could you know that unless you … oh. Oh, dear.”
He gave a smug nod.
“CIA?” Octavian called from the floor. “What’s going on here?”
I looked down at Octavian sprawled at our feet and felt more than a little surprise. Poor fellow. The shock of having learned that I was up against a rogue CIA agent had made me forget he was down there.
“If this doesn’t work out, Octavian, I want you to know that I’m quite fond of you. In the meantime, I think it would be best if you kept quiet. You’re in over your head.”
He struggled to his feet as the Exterminator shoved past us and opened the door to the casino a crack.
“Hey, cop! We have two prisoners back here, the old CIA lady and her boyfriend.”
“You hurt her and you’ll be in a world of trouble,” Grimal’s voice growled from the main room. “We got the rest of your gang in custody. Give yourself up and no one gets hurt.”
I rolled my eyes just like my grandson did. I knew Grimal would jump the gun, hungry for glory.
“That’s not how it’s going to play,” the Exterminator replied. “Me and the boys back here are walking out with these two old people and you’re going to let us.”
“What about the guys out front?” Pierre asked him. “Get the cops to let them go.”
The Exterminator’s reply told Pierre just where the “guys out front” could go. It was most colorful.
“Don’t swear in front of a lady, young man,” Octavian said with a frown as he picked himself up from the floor.
I put a hand on his arm. “Now’s not the time for chivalry.”
The Exterminator fired a shot out the door. From the angle I could tell he didn’t intend to hit anyone, just get attention. The gamblers all gasped and screamed anyway. People with no training scare easily.
So did Police Chief Grimal.
“There are innocent people here!” he shouted, his voice coming out an octave too high.
“And none of them will get hurt if you do as you’re told,” the Exterminator said. “Call off the guys at the back. We’re going to drive out of here. I’m sure you’ve called the police helicopter over in Farmington. That’s the closest one. It can’t get here for at least ten minutes. We’ll be well away by then but if we see it, we shoot the prisoners. If we see you following us, we shoot the prisoners. If you don’t call off the cops at the back right this instant, we shoot the prisoners. It’s your move, flatfoot.”
Grimal didn’t answer.
Ten
I’ve never liked the sound of Grimal’s voice, which sounds bossy and weak at the same time, but the long silence that came after the Exterminator’s demands made me yearn to hear it again.
At last he spoke.
“How do I know you’ll release them?” Grimal asked.
I rolled my eyes again. What a dumb question.
“Who said anything about releasing them?” the Exterminator asked. “I’ll kill them if you don’t do as I say. I’ll release them later if you and they behave, and if I feel like it.”
“If you hurt her, you’ll fry,” Grimal said in what was supposed to be his tough guy voice.
“If I get caught I’ll fry anyway.”
“For illegal gambling and kidnapping? No you won’t.”
I felt like strangling that man. Just how slow on the uptake could he be?
The Exterminator laughed.
“No, for all the other stuff I’ve done. You got five seconds to call off the cops. Put it through the radio loud enough that I can hear you.”
Grimal swore under his breath, and then said in a loud voice, “All units move back. I repeat, all units move back. We have a hostage situation. They’re moving out the back door and getting into a vehicle. Do not intercept or follow. I repeat, do not intercept or follow.”
I hoped the local cops would listen to him. He was probably the most senior officer on the scene, but he wasn’t actually their police chief. Plus, I suspected that the police in Apple Bluff were just as inexperienced as the police in Cheerville. Most likely, this was the most serious crime any of them had ever faced. I prayed none of them would do something stupid.
I glanced at Octavian to see how he was holding up. To his credit, he looked remarkably well. He was pale and sweating of course, and his eyes were as wide as saucers, but he didn’t look like he had boarded the Heart Attack Express.
That was a relief. If he keeled over because of the stress, I would never forgive myself.
At a curt command from the Exterminator, Pierre checked the camera monitors, then went to the back door and peeked out.
“Looks like the coast is clear,” he said.
“All right,” the Exterminator said to him. “You and Jack take the old man and go out first. Al, Constantine, and I will come next with the prize catch.”
Pierre glanced at me. I wasn’t sure how to read his expression. He’d masked his features, but his eyes showed a mixture doubt and … something else.
He only looked at me a moment. The guy named Jack drew a gun, took Octavian by the arm, and went to join Pierre.
I held my breath as they went out to the back lot, half sure that some jumpy small town cop would fire at them.
No one did. A moment later the Exterminator tugged me by the arm, his pistol ready to air out my brain. He led me out to the back lot, where a little to the right of the door the thug named Jack was pushing Octavian into the back door of a black Humvee with tinted windows. Pierre gave a nervous look around and jumped in the driver’s seat.
No cops were in sight. I strained my ears for the sound of the police helicopter but didn’t hear it.
They put me in the back seat next to Octavian. The Exterminator and two of the others sat in the middle seat, watching us. Pierre started the engine and drove at a moderate speed around the building to the front.
He was a professional one; all of them were. The impulse for a normal person would have been to slam on the gas and peel out of the parking lot. That might have made the cops jumpy, though, so Pierre played it cool. None of the others panicked either. They were tense, ready, but none of them looked afraid.
As we got to the front parking lot I could see the mess Grimal had made of this. As I suspected from the sounds in the front room, he had blustered in. Now the gamblers and the mobsters were all lined up in front of Ye Olde Cheese Shoppe, their hands on their heads. Grimal obviously couldn’t tell a career criminal from a bored suburban gambler. I guess he planned to press charges against the customers to set an example. In reality, the only example he had set was how to turn a hostage situation into a double hostage situation. It would have been more appropriate if he had lined everyone up in front of Elegance Florists and Funeral Displays. We might be needing their services before the day was out.
The prisoners looked odd having no policeman to guard them. As instructed, the officers ha
d pulled back to the far end of the parking lot. I saw three patrol cars, a total of six uniformed cops and Grimal, all with their service pistols trained on the Humvee.
Pierre slowed the vehicle.
“Shall we pick up the guys?” he asked.
“We don’t have room for them all in the Hummer,” the Exterminator said.
I could see Pierre’s face in the rearview mirror. He did not look happy.
Nevertheless, he sped up and got onto street.
“Now what?” he asked.
“Plan C,” was all the Exterminator said.
I allowed myself a slight smile of satisfaction. Apparently we had thrown a big enough spanner in their works that Plan A and Plan B were no good anymore.
“What’s going on?” Octavian asked me. “You’re CIA?”
“Quiet,” one of the thugs barked.
Yes, Octavian, quiet. Not only did I have to figure a way out of this mess, I had to figure out how the Exterminator knew my CIA connections.
So who was this Exterminator fellow? Ex-CIA, apparently, and one who somehow still had access to the database. That wasn’t an easy thing to do. The CIA database is the Holy Grail of computer hackers worldwide. Anyone who can break in can sell that information to governments with very, very deep pockets.
He didn’t strike me as a hacker, though, and he certainly wasn’t still on the payroll. So he must have a partner inside the organization who had warned him about me.
Wait, not necessarily. Despite his speed and strength, he was not a young man. He was in his late thirties at least, perhaps mid-forties if he looked younger than his age. That meant that if he had joined right out of college like so many of our recruits, he had overlapped with my time of service for ten or fifteen years.
Did he know me?
I wracked my memory, trying to place him, but came up with a blank. I had never worked with the Exterminator before, and as far as I could recall I had never met him.
Of course, I would have been more visible to him more than he to me, because I had been a senior operative while he would have been a junior recruit. Perhaps I had been pointed out to him, or he had attended one of my lectures. James and I had given a few over the years on special operations and Middle Eastern politics. Although they had been for CIA employees only, some of the crowds had been pretty large. He could have easily been there, and he seemed like the kind of guy who would never forget a face.