I didn’t bother to duck—I just ran. My breathing ragged, my legs heavy, I pushed. I couldn’t slow down. One step slower, maybe two, and Irv would have a clear shot.
A shot sang next to my ear, hitting the wall.
He was closing.
“Hurry,” I hissed, knowing they were going as fast as they could.
Frank hit the door first. Miss P stumbled through after him. Bending, I grabbed her under the arms and steadied her back on her feet. Bracing for the shot I knew would come, I dodged quickly to my right, putting as much of the wall between me and Ol’ Irv as I could.
Next time I’d kill him when I had the chance…if I had the chance.
Some people shouldn’t be allowed to live—a pretty radical thought for a staunch believer in the justice system. Ol’ Irv had changed my mind.
Racing down the stairs, we’d put a floor and a half between us when I heard Irv bang through the door above us. Not much breathing room.
My throat burned as the breath tore through it, feeding lungs already starved.
Five floors.
Shit.
Bullets pinged off metal as Irv fired down the stairwell as he pounded after us. Mad and frustrated, and a bit scared, I figured. Long odds on hitting us with a random ricochet.
Only desperate men took the long odds.
As we hit the landing at the bottom, the shooting stopped. Clicks but no bullets.
Wasting ammo on emotion.
Despite sweating and breathing so hard our gasps could probably be heard in Hong Kong, Miss P and I strode sedately through the door as Frank held it open for us.
A tour group had arrived and the lobby was packed. Miss P and I filtered into the crowd as we made our way to the front door. Frank followed close behind.
A few of the tourists shot us mildly interested looks as they chattered among themselves.
Ming waited just outside the front door. She didn’t have her machine gun, but the pistol in her hand was the next best thing. She took us in with one look. “Why didn’t you call me? I could’ve helped.”
“We were a bit busy.” I grabbed her arm and pulled her along with us. “It’s not safe out here.”
“FBI over there.” She lifted her chin indicating a spot across the street. “You want them to find Gittings?”
“Yes.”
She spoke into her phone and men materialized out of the shadows, advancing on the hotel.
They wouldn’t find him, but I didn’t tell them that. I grabbed Miss P by the elbow. “Find anything?” I asked as I pulled her along, urging her to hurry.
“Enough to fire Whitmore but not enough to kill him.”
“Glad to hear it. The list of folks I’d like to eradicate is pretty long, and that doesn’t make me comfortable. I’m a Pollyanna—self-delusion is my happy place.”
When I turned to look for Frank, he was gone.
Not that I was surprised. I hoped he wasn’t doing anything foolish, then I half-hoped he was. Not really a good time, though, with the FBI scurrying like ants through the hotel. I tried not to worry about him—he’d have to do what he needed to do, then find a way to make his peace with it. “I didn’t imagine him, did I?” I asked Miss P.
“Not unless we both had the same bad food for lunch.”
Feeling like a fox with a pack of hounds on my scent, I didn’t relax until we were both in the elevator at Tigris. Ming leaned in and punched the button for the owner’s suite, flashing a card to activate it.
“You’re not coming up?”
Her eyes looked deadly. “No, we need to be watchful.”
I glanced at my watch. Eight p.m. “Time flies when you’re having fun.” I smiled at her quizzical expression as the doors slid closed.
At the last minute, I stuck my hand between them. “The man came to see you?” I asked Ming.
“Yes. Everything is in place. Do not worry.”
She didn’t understand—worry was my job. And Ming was the key, the only wild card I couldn’t protect against. Would she come through?
One hundred million U.S. rested on her decision.
As the doors closed, I said to Miss P, “This game has the highest stakes I’ve ever wagered.” I didn’t expect sympathy from her and I didn’t get it.
“You gave Frank the knife,” Miss P said, as we both watched the numbers pass all too slowly, and I had a Yogi Berra moment..
I wanted a rocket ship to Mars, and I got the slow train. Terrific. I tapped my foot as my life passed while we ascended at a glacial pace. Somehow I resisted punching the button in frustration. I didn’t hear any condemnation in her voice, but I read it into the question. “He would’ve found it anyway.”
“But you put it in his hands, knowing he had murder on his mind.”
I thought about that for a moment, how I felt about it. Yeah, I’d pretty much signed Irv Gittings’ death warrant. First when I delivered the coup de grâce to Mr. Cho. Irv had said he was shooting at me, but Irv was never known for telling the truth. The truth was his guy shot Minnie. I chose to interpret that to suit my purposes—Irv would’ve done the same. That fact alone should’ve had me filled with self-loathing, but it didn’t. When I’d caught Irv the first time, I’d played by the rules. He’d used them against me, which I figured gave me a free pass this time.
Why was it always easier to justify bad behavior than good?
Knowing Ol’ Irv and his Houdini skills as I did, I didn’t rely solely on Mr. Cho to do my dirty work. No, I doubled up with Frank for added security.
“Justice.”
“No doubt,” Miss P agreed.
I heard what she left unsaid. “Maybe you’re correct and I don’t have the right. Maybe I’m just tired of letting bad people get away with bad things. Time to stand up. If I go to Hell, so be it.”
“All our friends will be there.” Miss P hooked her arm through mine. “Let’s go slay that last dragon, then let’s go home.”
Friends—the folks who will help you bury the bodies.
“First, I have something to do. Then want to meet me for dinner? The main restaurant in half an hour?”
I left her at the penthouse floor, staring at me bug-eyed as the elevator door closed.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
RYAN WHITMORE paced in front of the reception desk.
“Take a walk with me?” I said without preamble, more of a demand than a pleasantry.
He jumped at my voice. “Lucky? What are you doing here?”
“Surprised to see me?” I grabbed his arm. “Let’s go for that walk, okay?”
He fell into step although he didn’t look happy about it. “What’s this about?”
I moved him across the lobby toward the front door. “We can do this inside, here in front of everyone. Or you can go quietly.”
He jerked his arm loose from my grip with a last-ditch effort at righteous indignation. “What are you talking about?”
“Okay, your choice.” I leveled a smile. “You’re fired.”
“What?” He gave me a snort and smirk—hard to do together, but he pulled it off. “You can’t fire me.”
“You think I’m afraid of our important friends? Guess again.” I glanced through the glass doors in time to see Lieutenant Uendo ease his car to the curb. “Your ride is here.”
“It’ll never stick.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. You provided a service for Mr. Cho and his friends. You were the hired help, nothing more. And, as such, you are expendable. They’ll find someone else.”
The truth of my words hit home. I could see it in his eyes. And I was ready when he turned to run. My elbow caught him in the nose. He sagged to the floor, his hands cupped to catch the blood that gushed down his face. “You don’t know anything,” he growled, but he couldn’t pull off the menace part.
“I know everything.”
Uendo joined me, and we both stared down at Whitmore. Thankfully the lobby was fairly empty so we didn’t have much of an audience. “You do make your
presence known around here,” Uendo said with what I thought might pass for a smile. “Good thing for Mr. Whitmore here I was next door. Given more time, I’m sure you would do more damage.”
He was closer to right than I’d realized. Still itching to shed more of Whitmore’s blood, it was clear my self-control had got up and went. “This is my hotel, and I take care of my own.” Bowing to him, I continued, “With the help of the local constabulary.”
He looked at me with new appreciation, then he reached down and grabbed Whitmore by the elbow, tugging him to his feet. “You’ll get us an amount that he stole?”
“May take a few days.”
“Not to worry. We have a nice cell for him, so take your time.”
I watched him lead Whitmore through the doors, then stuff him in the back of his car. Whitmore hung his head as the door closed. He didn’t glare at me; he didn’t dare.
Cindy Liu rushed to my side as Uendo pulled away from the curb, then disappeared from sight. “Was that Ryan?”
Before answering, I turned and looked at her.
She seemed to wilt under my stare. “You don’t understand.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. I understand all too well. We’ve all loved the wrong man.”
“I didn’t know, not at first.”
“I believe you. But it’s what you didn’t do when you found out that worries me.”
She bowed her head and wouldn’t look at me. “I know I have done wrong, but I am the one who called Minnie. We needed help. She sent it.”
“She did?”
Cindy looked up, holding my gaze. “She sent you.”
As I waited for Miss P in the restaurant, I contemplated what to do with Cindy Liu. What would I have done in her shoes? Women needed to learn their power—she was no exception. And she needed to develop a keener eye for good men, but she hadn’t let Whitmore compromise her position. Actually, she’d reached out for help she could trust, even knowing Whitmore would get caught in the crossfire.
All qualities I could live with.
Miss P pulled out a chair and plopped into it as she graced me with an odd smile. “Normally, I can think of no better dining companion, but tonight, the two of us, this whole thing has the feel of a last supper.”
I offered her a menu. “Well, then, I’d order the most expensive thing on the menu. The Big Boss owes us that much.”
And so we did: Kobe steak for me, Abalone for her. No matter how much I tried to expand my palate, sea snails just didn’t qualify as food. We washed it down with a lovely Laurent-Perrier rosé Champagne.
We took our time and I tried not to think of Miss P’s characterization of our fine repast. She regaled me with stories of her honeymoon, leaving out the good parts.
When she’d wound down and our plates had been cleared but dessert had yet to arrive, I asked her, “What would you do about Cindy Liu?” And I told her what Cindy had told me.
“If it were my choice, I’d give her Ryan Whitmore’s job.”
I raised my glass. “Exactly my thinking.”
Waddling like the pigs we were, Miss P and I wandered back to the owner’s suite. “Here we are,” I said as I strode into my suite, using the front door this time. “In case anyone was wondering.”
I expected Romeo to answer, but it was Jeremy who replied. “Sinjin and Romeo are going through things now. The cameras go down and we trigger the looped feed in ten minutes.”
He sat where I’d left Romeo a short time ago, keyboard in his lap, hunched in front of the screens. One screen looked like before with lines of code marching down it. The other held the camera feeds from the exhibition room divided into ten quadrants, each showing a single feed.
I grabbed a chair and nestled in close. “You guys tested the earpiece?”
“Romeo can hear us.” He showed me a small device that had been sitting on the table between us. “We can talk to him using this. He can’t reply, but we should be able to see him soon.”
“Sinjin won’t be able to see the earpiece.”
“It fits in the ear canal like a tiny hearing aid. State-of-the-art.”
Miss P pulled a chair in next to mine. She set a glass of red wine in front of me and another in front of Jeremy. “To settle nerves.”
Grateful, I took a couple of sips, but no more.
The feeds Sinjin wanted looped stayed on screen a few seconds, then rotated so we had several angles of each watch in its case.
“We’ll see the real feed, but Security will see the loop?” I knew the answer, but I needed to hear it from Jeremy.
“Yeah. If your buddy Chip has tapped into the right wires at the right places.”
I tried not to think about that. “Some of the young women helping us will be wandering near the exhibit, others on the lobby floor near the escalators up to the exhibition level. They will alert us if the feeds are looped properly and Security is heading that way.”
“With this much at stake, Sinjin and Romeo will have seconds to run.”
“Sinjin and I worked that through. There’s really only one protected escape route. They’ll have to go out that way regardless.” I didn’t tell Jeremy I had one hundred million U.S. riding on it. Romeo knew that, and he knew what to do.
The three of us fell silent as we focused on the screens. Dark, the lighting on the watches casting an eerie glow, the room looked empty. I scanned across the feeds. “Which one will be looped?”
“This one, the main feed from the exhibition.” Jeremy pointed to the top left quadrant.
Turning the small transmitter over in my hand, I asked Jeremy, “If I punch this, Romeo can hear me?” My thumb hovered above a small button.
“Yeah. Don’t shout. Whispering would be best. They’ll be close together and in a very quiet place.”
He didn’t need to clarify. “Got it.” I pressed the button. Lowering my voice, I brought Romeo up to speed. “We can’t see you yet.” I glanced at the timer on the screen. “Thirty more seconds. Ming said the package is in place. If, for some reason, you take a different route out of the building, we’ll see that and make sure you are intercepted.”
Jeremy shot me a sideways glance. “What are you up to?”
“Covering my ass. But there are so many moving parts, so many unknowns, that it’s anybody’s guess whether this will work.”
“Tell me. I can help.”
I pointed at the screen as the timer click to five. “We’re almost on.”
Without blinking, I stared at the monitor, relaxing, waiting. The clock hit zero. An almost imperceptible flicker, then the image continued as before. “Did you see it?”
“Yeah, it switched.” Jeremy nodded, his nose inches from the screen.
I pointed to a feed at the bottom—a hallway, one I knew. I’d used it to get out of the hotel when I went to meet Sinjin for the first time. “That one did, too.”
Jeremy flicked a hard glance my way, the golden flecks in his eyes turning to ice. “You sure?”
“Yep. I was watching for it. I didn’t know which one, but I figured he had a plan he wasn’t telling us about.”
“The bastard.”
“Well, at least we know how he plans on leaving the hotel.” I laid a hand on his arm. “Don’t worry. I’ve got this.” Kim’s voice echoed in my empty head. No one is who they seem.
My phone vibrated in my lap, making me jump only slightly. I’d put it on silent—my nerves were completely shot, and I didn’t need the cattle prod of its siren call to flat-line my heart rate.
“Mother. And right on time, too.”
“You haven’t called your father. It’s important.”
“Not now, Mother.”
Thankfully, she didn’t argue. “Here’s Chip.”
Before I answered I texted Jerry back at the Babylon. Everything good?
His answer was almost immediate. We’re seeing what he’s seeing. Money starting to come in. Five installments so far, each ten million. Running a back trace now.
“Chi
p? What do you see?”
He told me exactly what Jerry had said. So far so good. “Are you tracing the funds back to their origin?”
“Hold.” In the background, he asked Mona for some paper and a pen.
The simplest things are often overlooked. I tried for patience while I waited for Mother to deliver and I worried about what I had overlooked. Soon I heard scrambling and Chip came back on the line. “I got five of them. More are coming in. You ready?”
I put him on speaker and pulled up the message function on my iPhone. Before I responded, I found Stokes’s number and started a new message to him. “Fire away.” I typed in names and addresses, double-checking them, then hit send. “And you’ve taken down the alarms, right? And nobody is the wiser?”
“Child’s play.”
“Stokes is ready, right?” I asked Jeremy.
He answered with a nod, his eyes never leaving the screen. We both were riveted, and I sensed Miss P’s attention next to me—hard to miss, she’d practically crawled into my lap to get a better view.
“Chip?”
“Yo.”
“Take the fifty mil and route it through Irv Gittings’ account then wire it where I told you. You got it?”
“On it.”
“Make sure no one can touch a cent of that money or I’ll cut it out of your hide a dollar at a time.”
“You might be surprised, but it’s fun to use my skills for the forces of good.”
“I’ll make a white hat out of you yet.” I didn’t remind him he was helping me steal more money than either of us would see in a lifetime from some very bad men. His complicity was hidden; mine, not so much, leaving me to suffer a severely damaged chance at longevity. I could live with that. “Call me back when all the money is there.” My phone fell silent. I texted Jerry. Still good?
You’ll be the first to know if something goes sideways.
My heart pounded as I watched Sinjin and Romeo as they slithered through the exhibition hall, stopping at the display of the Patek Phillipe. Of course, they’d pick the most expensive to pinch first.
Lucky the Hard Way Page 28