TAMPA INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT, FLORIDA
THEY LANDED LATE at night. David was sleeping when Carlos’s man poked him with the barrel of a MAC-10. The plane was taxiing inside a hangar. He hadn’t even felt the jet touch down.
He rubbed grit from his eyes as he stepped out of the Gulfstream. It took David a moment to realize there was a party of men waiting for them in the hangar.
Max was there. So were Sebastian and Peter. And a bunch of guys with guns. And one man standing in front of all of them.
David recognized him from the videotape. Aznar.
Simon was nowhere to be seen.
David looked wildly at Carlos, who emerged from the jet sideways, angling his bulk through the airplane’s door.
He saw the guns and Aznar.
“You,” he said.
Aznar smiled broadly. “Me,” he agreed.
Carlos shoved David aside, moved with surprising speed down the stairs and across the floor. He stopped in front of Aznar and they glared at each other.
Carlos pulled out his .44. He pointed it at Aznar.
The guards on all sides tensed up, weapons ready.
Then Aznar threw up his hands and bellowed, “Let’s get ready to rumble!”
They both burst out laughing and embraced.
Oh shit, David thought.
They were giggly as schoolgirls when they turned to face him.
“My apologies, Dr. Robinton,” Aznar said. “My name is Juan Aznar. It is a pleasure to finally make your acquaintance.”
David said nothing. That sent Carlos into more fits of laughter.
“I think he’s actually surprised.”
“It’s hard to remember being that young,” Aznar said.
David pointed to the briefcase, still handcuffed to his wrist. “I thought you wanted this.”
“We do,” Aznar said. He turned to Carlos. “May I?”
Carlos handed over the gun. “Of course.”
Aznar snapped his fingers, and his men moved in response. Shako was unceremoniously dumped onto the concrete floor out of the cargo hold. Even though she was shivering violently and barely able to stand, she still lunged for the closest thug.
He stepped back, sliding in his elegant shoes, and hit her with the butt of his weapon.
Then they dragged her over to Aznar and made her kneel. He pointed Carlos’s borrowed pistol at the base of Shako’s neck.
“The briefcase, please,” Aznar said.
David hesitated.
Aznar rolled his eyes and pulled the hammer back on the pistol. “Do I really have to count to three?”
David shook his head. He took the key from his pocket and undid the handcuffs.
“David, don’t,” Shako called from the floor.
“Quiet,” Aznar hissed. “I’ve heard more than enough from you for ten lifetimes.”
David handed the briefcase over to one of the guards.
“Excellent,” Aznar said. He took the case from the guard, then nodded. Shako was picked up by three other men and carried to one of two identical white vans. Aznar waved the gun vaguely in David’s direction.
“You too, please. Into the next van.”
“You’ve got what you wanted,” David said. “You can let us go.”
That got him nothing but more laughter. “So young,” Carlos said.
The cuff that had held the briefcase was locked to David’s other wrist and he was escorted past them on his way to the van. He gave Carlos a hard look. “So, this is what your word is worth.”
Carlos laughed, his flab moving under his skin like seismic waves. “Oh. You child. Did you think I’d betray someone I’d known for centuries in favor of a boy I’ve known for a few weeks?”
“You seemed pretty happy with the deal when you thought it meant you’d be the only one left with the formula,” David shot back.
Carlos opened his mouth to say something, but Aznar spoke up first, his face thoughtful. “You know something?” he asked. “That’s an excellent point. You didn’t contact anyone when this boy and Shako first showed up on your doorstep.”
The amusement left Carlos’s face instantly. “Juan,” he said. “Surely you know that I would never—”
“Why not?”
“I told you about them as soon as your message arrived.”
“But not a moment before. Did you think you could outlive us? You wanted all of the boy’s formula for yourself?”
Carlos began to look a bit nervous. “No, of course not. I was simply waiting to see how best to manage the situation. They were in my home, Juan. I had no alternatives.”
Aznar looked impatient at that. “You’re a drug lord, Carlos. You have a thousand men with guns. How did they survive until we sent our message? Did they plant a bomb somewhere in all those folds of fat?”
Now Carlos looked angry. “Have a care, Aznar. They’re here now. I brought them to you. No one else. To you. That should tell you all you need to know about my loyalties.”
“Yes,” Aznar said. “It does.”
Then he put his gun just under Carlos’s right ear and pulled the trigger.
The 240-grain slug punched through Carlos’s skull and blew a fist-size hole out the other side of his head. David saw the drug lord’s eyes literally pop from the sudden pressure of a bullet moving at fifteen hundred feet per second through his brain.
Carlos’s body fell like a slow-motion landslide to the ground, first at his knees, then at his massive waist, and finally his torso and his ruined head. It seemed to take hours.
Carlos’s bodyguards were caught completely flat-footed. One of them belatedly put a hand into his waistband for his own weapon.
Aznar turned the .44 almost casually toward him. “The moment to be a hero has passed,” he said.
The man slowly moved his hand away from his body.
“Good,” Aznar said. Then he aimed the .44 down at Carlos’s head and emptied the rest of the chambers. What was left looked more like a stain than anything human.
“That ought to do it,” Aznar said. He turned to the guards again. “You can work for us now, if you like. Or die. I don’t really care much one way or another.”
Carlos’s former employees were not complete idiots; they chose to live.
David stood there, his ears still ringing, looking at the remains of Carlos’s head. Aznar dropped the empty pistol and gestured grandly toward the van.
“That was one of my oldest friends, David. And I don’t even know you. Keep that in mind.”
David walked over to the van.
The doors were opened for him. In the brief moment that light penetrated the dark interior, he saw another body, also handcuffed, sitting awkwardly against the wheel well.
Simon.
Simon blinked in the sudden glare, and his eyes fixed on David.
“I believe you two have a lot to discuss,” Aznar said.
David was shoved inside. He saw Carlos’s men struggling to get the massive body of their former boss into the plane’s cargo hold.
The doors slammed again, and everything went black.