6:20 P.M.
“Put down your guns and open this gate,” Parker hears Miranda repeat. “Right now. Or your brother dies.” Her face is pale and calm, almost mask-like, but her voice is raw with emotion.
For emphasis, she prods the guy in the ball cap, hard enough that he stumbles forward. He’s tall and rangy, with pale eyes. Just like Mole and Wolf.
“Are you okay, Nicholas?” Mole asks.
“Just do what she says, please.” His voice cracks. “She means it.”
A movement in the corner of Parker’s eye makes him turn. Ron has managed to get to his feet. Now he stumbles away, tears and snot streaming down his yellow-coated face as he coughs and gags, bent almost double. One hand on the wall to guide him, he rounds the corner into the day spa.
Parker follows. He doesn’t trust Ron, but his only weapon is out of ammo.
All around them is chaos. The air is filled with the soapy smell from the fire extinguisher, as well as smoke from the AT&T store, where the sprinklers have still not kicked on. From Van Duyn comes the pounding of falling water.
But there’s no longer a need for a distraction, not now that Lips has exploded, Parker has taken care of Ron, and Miranda is ordering around the other killers at gunpoint.
Still carrying the fire extinguisher, Parker enters the day spa. Ahead of him, Ron staggers past the receptionist’s desk to the first of a half-dozen black hair-washing sinks. He grabs the edge of the sink with his meaty fists, doubles over, and starts throwing up. Even his vomit is pale yellow. What kind of chemicals are in a fire extinguisher, anyway? Could they kill someone? Still gagging, Ron turns on the faucet and sticks his face under the stream of water.
Past him, Parker’s eyes are drawn to a set of tools laid out on a white towel. They remind him of surgical tools in one of those TV medical dramas, but because they are next to a display of colorful nail polishes, he thinks they’re probably actually for manicures. He squints. One of the tools appears to be a small purple cordless drill. He moves closer. It is a drill, complete with a bit that comes to a tiny, spade-like tip.
He looks out into the main hall. Heels is on her knees. She’s freed her hands and is still using the butt end of the knife to hammer at the glass door. Even though she’s hitting it so hard that she’s risking stabbing herself in the chest with every backswing, it’s refusing to crack.
Parker snatches up the manicure drill and runs to the spa’s entrance. He realizes he has no idea what Heels’s name is. “Hey! Hey!” he yells until she looks up. “Try this!” Leaning down, he slides it across the floor to her. After she stops it with an outreached hand, her face lights up.
When Parker turns back, the water is still running in the hair-washing sink, but Ron is gone.
No! He spins in a circle, his breathing speeding up. Where did he go?
There! Out in the main hall, he spies Ron’s black utility belt and blue polyester shirt, now splotched with water and yellow chemicals. Even though the guard no longer has a rifle, frightened hostages are scattering in front of him. Parker runs after him.
At the far end of the hall, Wolf and his brother have their hands in the air while Mole unlocks the security gate, all under the watchful eyes of Miranda and the busboy, who has somehow acquired a pistol.
Parker is about twenty feet away when Ron grabs someone from behind. It’s Amina, that girl from Culpeppers. His right arm is tight around her neck. When he raises his other hand, something catches the light. It’s a metal nail file. Because he’s behind them, Parker can’t see exactly what he does next, but it looks like he’s pressed it against Amina’s throat. At least that’s where Parker hopes it is. Against her throat, not in it. And he also hopes that Ron is thinking about the future. About how a live Amina could be used as a bargaining chip.
With shaking hands, Gauges raises the assault rifle and points it in the general direction of its original owner.
But any bullet that hits Ron will probably go through Amina first. And that’s if Gauges has good aim. If he doesn’t, he could take out any of the dozen people near Amina and Ron. Including Parker.
“No!” Parker yells. “Don’t shoot! It’s not safe.”
From behind him comes a shattering sound that’s almost musical. What the—? He turns. The glass door has finally broken. Heels snatches her hand out of the way, but it’s safety glass, a rain of blunt-edged fragments. It crinkles and pops as the glass gives way higher and higher up. Pulling her sweater sleeve over her hand, Heels starts knocking out the remaining glass from the bottom square of the door.
Ron has also been distracted. Parker seizes his chance. He runs toward the bigger man. Holding the end of the empty metal fire extinguisher in both hands, he swings it like a club at Ron’s head, on the opposite side of where Amina is. She’s short enough that she is tucked in the other man’s armpit.
Ron raises his left forearm, blocking the blow. It lands with a meaty smack. The nail file flies out of Ron’s hand—but the fire extinguisher also slips from Parker’s grasp. It lands on the floor about ten feet behind the security guard.
Ron swings a left roundhouse at his head. Parker ducks. The blow glances off the top of his head, but is still hard enough that it tugs his hair.
Amina reaches back to claw at Ron’s face. Her fingernails leave red furrows, and he lets out a yell. She squirms out of his grasp and runs away, leaving Ron and Parker facing off against each other.
The security guard stands angled, his hands loose fists held close to his face as he bobs and weaves. It’s clear that he has been in fights before. Ron is taller, so he has more reach. And Parker might be a champion wrestler, but that’s on a mat with rules and a referee and someone in his weight class. With the fire extinguisher now out of reach, he’s lost the only advantage he had.
In a split second, Parker runs through his options. A double-leg takedown? But then what happens once they are on the floor? Or should he change levels, get up under the security guard, lift him, and then try to slam him into the floor, knocking him out? But Ron probably has fifty pounds on him.
Then it comes to Parker. A choke from behind. Like all wrestlers, Parker’s played around with mixed-martial-arts moves. Only now it’s deadly serious and he can’t afford to get it wrong. If it works, he’ll choke Ron into unconsciousness. If it doesn’t, he’ll end up on the floor with the bigger man on top of him.
But it’s the best chance he has.
Faking a right hook, Parker slips to his left, cutting an angle. Then he drags Ron’s right arm across, moving until he’s facing the other man’s back. Parker jumps on Ron’s shoulders like a monkey. His right arm snakes around the bigger man’s neck as he winds his legs around his thighs.
Wearing Parker like a backpack, Ron staggers forward, bent in half. His hands pull at Parker’s forearm, which is now wrapped around his throat. With his left forearm, Parker pushes the back of Ron’s head forward and down, reinforcing the move with his chest. He doesn’t know what he’ll do if he gets thrown. He feels exhausted, his perch tenuous. He doesn’t have any more energy to give, but he knows he can’t stop. He wiggles his right arm to fit it more snugly across the carotids on the sides of the throat. His arms are crossed, with Ron’s neck in the middle. With a grunt, Parker ratchets his elbows closer and closer together.
Finally Ron makes a rattling sound and falls to his knees. Parker doesn’t let up the pressure. And then Ron falls facedown on the linoleum and doesn’t even try to catch himself. Only then does Parker loosen his grip and unhook his legs.
Tugging his arm free, Parker gets to his feet. He kicks Ron in the side, but Ron doesn’t move. He finally allows his focus to expand. That’s when he sees Amina holding the fire extinguisher over one shoulder, ready to step in if Parker’s plan failed.
“Thank you,” he says. His heart is beating so hard, he can feel it in his ears and fingertips. He has to brace his hands on his knees, and suddenly he’s worried that he might go tumbling to the floor next to Ron.
“Are you okay?” he asks.
Amina’s eyes are huge. She manages a nod.
“Are you?”