Miguel grabbed the Russian’s arms, and I picked up his feet. We dragged his dead weight to the back of the SUV in the subterranean parking garage in Barcelona. Watson and the other Russian were sleeping off the effects of the Sabel Darts while crammed in the back of what would be a micro-SUV in America. Emily kept watch from the driver’s seat.
A limo squealed up from the depths below us, rounding the corner in too big a hurry. Our truck partially blocked the ramp. The limo slammed on the brakes and stopped.
Miguel dropped his end, and I dropped mine. We kicked the Russian under the rear bumper, drew our weapons, and took a glance around the side.
The back door of the limo opened, and a stream of Spanish curse words flew out in a man’s voice. A woman in a tight red cocktail dress, matching stiletto heels and clutch backed out of it, screaming a few choice words of her own in Spanish and slammed the door. The limo backed up, cutting a steep angle to get around our car, and body-slammed the woman. She landed on her butt. The stretch burned rubber up the ramp and out of sight.
I holstered my gun and pushed around Miguel.
The lady in red was sprawled like an upside-down turtle in a dress too tight to get her feet under her. She took my outstretched hand, and I pulled her up. She dusted off her designer rear end and rubbed at a spot of grease on her knee.
An angel face looked up at me: a button nose and rosy cheeks framed with auburn hair lit by pale blue eyes. A quick, engaging smile swept across her face. For a split-second, my heart stopped beating. She said, “Thank you.”
Perfect, unaccented English was not what I expected.
Her smile vanished. She brushed a stray hair from her face and turned toward the exit without a second glance.
I said, “Uh, could I … you wanna … do you need a lift?”
“Fuck you.” Also in perfect English. Without so much as a glance over her shoulder, she disappeared into the stairwell.
The driver’s window buzzed down. Emily stuck her head out. “You need a lift? Are you kidding me? That’s your best line? She’s so far above you, you can’t see the soles of her shoes.”
The window buzzed back up.
Miguel shrugged and tugged the Russian’s arms. I ran around, grabbed the feet. We tossed him on top of the other two. Miguel pulled the hatch down.
“What are you guys doing?” Again, perfect English.
I spun to face the beauty in red and noticed her lipstick also matched her ensemble. “Aaahhh. Well, um, drunk … friends.”
“And you were going to offer me a ride in that? With them?”
Tongue tied, I pointed at the back of the car, realized we couldn’t squeeze a kindergartner in there, then twisted to the front door, where Miguel was reaching for the handle, then flopped my arms by my side. “Can I call you a cab?”
“Yeah.” She opened her purse and took out a packet of gum. “They don’t have Uber in this New-York-Wannabe town.”
I looked back at Miguel. He rolled his eyes and got in the truck.
To call a cab in a foreign country, you need a clue where to start, not to mention a rudimentary grasp of the local language. Since I didn’t have either of those, I called the Sabel Security help desk. A cab was ordered in three seconds.
“I didn’t mean to be so rude earlier.” She pointed to where the limo decked her. “Not a good week. I’m volunteering at a fundraiser tomorrow in Monaco. I have to get there … somehow.”
She shrugged.
“No offense taken.” I grinned. “Cab should be outside in five.”
She smiled as if she were mildly impressed and unwrapped her gum. She held it in her fingers and placed it on her tongue and slid it back into her mouth where her lips closed around it and sucked it the rest of the way in with a definitive thup.
My heart rate rose, and my lungs expelled all their air.
“What’s your name?” she asked softly.
“Jacob.” I prayed I wasn’t drooling. “And yours?”
“Sylvia.” All three syllables rolled from her lips like liquid, long e’s ending with a drawn-out ah. SEAL-vee-yahh.
She chewed her gum with deliberate slowness. Grace and sensuality in food consumption is such a rarity that its discovery can bring the meaning of life into focus on a whole new plane of existence.
Sylvia gave me a tease of her electrifying smile and finger-waved. “See ya.”
She turned back up the stairwell and flexed every fiber of muscle in her amazing legs while disappearing up and away.
Emily blasted the horn. “We’re committing a crime here, Romeo—GET IN THE CAR.”
I squeezed in the backseat sideways since the two in front had raked their seats all the way back. Miguel because he was six-four, two-twenty, and Emily because she thought she was Lewis Hamilton in a Formula One car. She stomped on the gas, expecting the mini-SUV to burn rubber. The car’s acceleration, uphill and fully loaded, lacked enthusiasm. The little engine revved up as best it could with six people. Eventually, we made it up the ramp, found our way to the W Barcelona, and snuck our drugged friends through the service elevator to our suite.
Watson and the Russians would sleep for several hours. We propped them in chairs, duct-taped and cuffed them, and went to sit on the balcony. We sipped wine and watched the evening shadows stretch across the Balearic Sea.
Emily talked about her favorite subject: Emily. She’d left Bianca hanging. Miguel and I shook our heads in dismay. I always wonder how people as smart as Emily could make such dumb decisions about love.
I’ve never done that.
I got up while they talked and leaned my forearms on the railing. The view was spectacular. Far below, beachgoers called it a day, packed their bags, and came inside. Sailboats bobbed on low waves and seagulls swooped in for seafood. Inside, I had two Russians and a traitor waiting to be interrogated. Life was good.
Mercury floated down from above. Things were tough at the Dii Consentes review, homie. I had your life spared, but then you went and saved Sylvia. You guys were supposed to get nervous and shoot her by accident. So, it’s on you. You messed up, and it’s over. It’s been nice, bro. But. Now they’re down to arguing over whether you should die at sea, on land, or from the air. I guess technically that would be by land as well, seeing as how you don’t die while you’re falling. He did a double-take when he looked in the suite. What’s with the bondage thing? Are you going kinky? Cause we might reconsider your death scenario.
I said, What? That’s it? You guys are going to off me? I just fell in love. Again.
Mercury patted my shoulder. Don’t worry, dawg, I’ll make it slow and painful.
But I wanted to get married, have a family, watch the kids grow up and go to jail.
That’s what they all say. Hey, brutha, relax. I’m the one who guides you across the river into the afterlife. He looked over the railing. Say, that’s a long way down. And you’d land on the rocks. This might be just what Juno ordered.
I said, Wait! I’ll build a shrine. I’ll show it to the Caesar-Sabels.
Too late for that. The wings on his helmet started flapping. He once told me that was how his intra-deity messages arrived. Hang on a second. I gotta take this.
Mercury rose thirty feet.
As I watched him, I leaned back against the balcony railing.
I heard a ka-thunk. Something halfway between metal and concrete. Or both.
In the next instant, the railing gave way.
The metal and glass partition on which my butt rested broke loose from one side and swung out over open space as if on a hinge. My weight had been counting on it and no longer had any support. I went backward over the chasm of nothingness below. All the wine in my glass flew out—but I maintained a firm, three-finger grip on the stemware because, in case of survival, a refill would be warranted. I flailed for purchase with my left hand. I flailed for purchase with my right pinkie. Nothing there. I continued to fall backward.
From deep in my brain, the ancient ape who once swung through trees took control. If my earliest ancestors could grip branches with their feet, so could I. My life depended on it. My toes curled to grip through the soles of my boots in a last-ditch effort to stay on the twentieth floor.
Apparently, a lot of water has passed under the bridge since we swung on trees. A lot of handy instincts were abandoned along the evolutionary river. My toes gripped nothing but sock.
I was falling to my death.
I hoped the gods were happy. One day they save you from an onslaught of a thousand Mujahedeen. The next day they save you from an angry husband with a loaded .44. And for what? So they can have a belly laugh watching you thrash two hundred feet.
Bastards.
Out of the clear blue sky above, Miguel’s big paw grabbed my wrist. He yanked me back to the land of the living. Emily screamed. Miguel and I ended up toe-to-toe, staring at each other for an awkward second.
“Refill?” Miguel asked.
“Sure.” I swung my glass into position.
He was nice enough to pretend my hand wasn’t shaking and went to grab the wine bottle.
Mercury stood in the empty space Miguel left behind. Navajos can fuck up a wet dream, you know that? Estsanatlehi can kiss my ass.
I said, Who?
Estsanatlehi. Changing Woman. She walks to the east and meets her younger self and changes into a young person. Your main man Miguel there is in tight with her. She calls him Monster Slayer. The two of them can take a flying—
“Hey, they’re waking up.” Miguel stood in the sliding glass door. “Ready?”
Watson was still out cold. He was smaller than the other two; the sedative would last longer. The bigger Russian was coming around first. I had Miguel carry the others into separate bedrooms off the living room. While he moved the bodies, I observed how large the suite was. Everything in leather and glass and silver. Nice. Extremely nice. I wondered how he was planning to explain it on his expense report.
I splashed cold water on my prisoner. “Why did Viktor steal my dog?”
His eyes focused on me. I repeated my question. He squinted. I repeated it a third time.
When he finally heard me, his face blanched. He knew who I was: the man who had crept into the Russian Embassy’s private living quarters and shot his boss’s boss in the leg. In an organization the size of the SVR, a story like Viktor’s could not stay secret long. Which worked well for me. My prisoner tried to look unfazed, but the beads of sweat on his brow gave him away.
“I was going to ask you a series of questions.” I checked my pistol’s magazine and gave him a smile. “I expect you’ll refuse to answer—because you’re a professional. So, I’ll skip the formalities and go straight to the part where I blow a hole in your leg just like Viktor’s. I mean, why not? You’ve earned it. Probably.”
I pressed the pistol to his shin and watched his eyes blow up like balloons.
“Wait.” The sweat on his brow formed rivulets that dripped down his temple. “I answer what I know.”
I lifted the muzzle and nonchalantly waved the gun around, always keeping the inside of the barrel in his direct line of sight. “How do you know Watson?”
“Who?”
“I knew it would be a waste of time.” I pressed the muzzle back to his shin.
“Zhdat’! Wait.” He took a deep breath. “I need … how do you say, escape sheep?”
I rolled his phrase around in my head for a minute. “Scapegoat? You need someone to blame as the source? Yeah, I got you covered there, buddy.”
Most professional killers punch a clock for the secret police in some country or another. They’re not living the Mafia dream or a consumed by religious fervor. All they want is plausible deniability and a reasonable expectation of going home at quitting time. My guarantee of giving him a fall guy was almost what he needed to hear. But he still gave me a skeptical glance.
I pulled out the oldest insurance package available to men of our kind. “I give you my word, soldier-to-soldier, no one will ever learn my source.”
He nodded. “He work for the Chuck Roche.”
A genuine smile grew on me. The Russians purposely mispronounced the weasel’s name the same way we did: roach. None of that fancy row-SHAY nonsense. They might not be such bad guys after all. Then I remembered who stole my dog. I kept the Glock in place and gave him another serial-killer smile. “Duh.”
“He … he is important man.”
I looked at his leg, then at him. “Watson comes to Barcelona?”
The guy nodded furiously. “Last summer. He come with Roche first time. He comes now, weekends, big meetings.”
I gave him my soldier stare. He gave me the same right back.
Voices were coming from the other room. Miguel’s hostage wasn’t as chatty as mine. But then, the big guy didn’t have my street cred working for him.
“What does Watson do?” I asked.
“He work on project with big general. Maybe kompromat on Alan Sabel.” He referred to the Russian’s love of getting or creating compromising pictures or documents on their targets for continuing extortion.
That didn’t make sense. They wouldn’t waste time looking for kompromat on Pia and Alan Sabel, who led exemplary lives. Given what we knew of Watson’s mission, there was no way in hell that scumbag would get dirt on the Sabels.
Yet Roche had planted him in our midst, and Viktor Popov had gone to extraordinary lengths to retrieve Pozdeeva’s drive. Roche and Watson held secret meetings with Russians in Barcelona. Watson carried the message about #HuntersFail back to Roche. They were smart enough to make it easily deniable. But why take the risk?
With the election a handful of weeks away, we needed concrete proof soon. I’d already mailed in my ballot. Most Sabel employees had. The voters deserved to know about these connections. But where could we find verifiable evidence?
“Who’s the big general?” I asked.
The Russian shrugged. “Important man, very secret. Above my payment class.”
I squinted. “Pay grade?”
“Da.” He shrugged. “Only thing I know sure: from Kaliningrad.”
Mercury tapped me on the shoulder. Dude, can I have a word with you?
I said, I’m in the middle of something.
Mercury said, I might have found a reprieve for you. Getcha second chance, ya feel me?
You worried I might start working with the Navajo gods?
Ah homie, don’t be throwing them in my face. You don’t want to hang with them. Ask Miguel. Scary as hell. Dancing around the bonfire, big ol’ masks, and all that. He shivered. Minerva and Ceres were interested in your shrine offer.
“You are drinking?” My Russian’s face scrunched up as if he’d seen something he shouldn’t have.
I looked at him and tilted my head while I wondered if I’d been using my outside voice again. There was no reason not to be honest with him. I tapped the pistol to my forehead. “My bad. When I talk to the gods, I forget no one else can see them.”
A look crossed his face as if his borscht had gone bad.
Someone knocked at the door. The knock repeated, and a man announced himself as the hotel manager coming to check on the balcony. Apparently, my high-wire act was visible from the street.
I pulled my other gun and fired a Sabel Dart in the Russian’s leg. I heard the same pop coming from Miguel’s room. I stripped the remaining duct tape off the guy and let the manager in.
“You are all right, señor?” the manager asked. “No one is hurt?”
“Nah, fine.” I kept him in the vestibule. “Your railing wasn’t built very well.”
“I have workmen on their way up to secure it. I would offer you another room, but you are in the Extreme Wow Suite now. Anything else would be a downgrade. Would you like to look at options?”
Once again, my mind wandered to how and why Miguel picked this room and how much it cost. But his expense report wasn’t my problem. Besides, it came with a free bottle of wine.
“May I come in?” he asked. “To inspect the damage?”
Without a good excuse handy, I waved him in through the rooms, hoping to lead him out to the wrap-around balcony before he noticed the Russian. It didn’t work. He froze.
“Is your friend OK?”
“He’s not a friend, and he’s not well. We were going to party with these guys, but they got into drugs. We need to dispose of them. Drop them off at some addict-infested dump. Can you recommend a really bad neighborhood?”
“We will take care of them for you, señor. Right away.” He pulled a walkie-talkie from his jacket and barked instructions in Spanish.
His willingness to dispose of overdosed guests without asking questions brought my attention back to the cost of the room. Dumping bodies didn’t come cheap in any hotel. And this guy didn’t bat an eye.
“How many?” he asked.
“Three.”