She pointed to a bright-azure structure built atop a crumbling gray slab. The tiny house had a rusting tin roof and three poured cement steps leading up to a scratched wooden door. Bright-green curtains fluttered in its two open windows and a clothesline with an array of apparel flapping in the gentle breeze was strung from the side of the structure to a nearby light pole. A multi-hued rooster strutted his stuff in the front yard, shaking his tail feathers at the drab-colored hen who ignored him as she pecked in the dirt. Typical.
All in all, to call the place decidedly low-tech would be an understatement. Which was why it was weird to glance over the roofline and see the incredibly high-tech, almost futuristic-looking Petronas Towers looming in the near distance.
“But seeing as how there aren’t any house numbers anywhere and half the street signs are missing,” she continued, rubbing an impatient finger down the bridge of her nose, “I wouldn’t be at all surprised if we find ourselves zero for three.”
Her frustration was palpable, and Dan couldn’t blame her. They’d driven around in circles through this neighborhood only to knock on two wrong doors. And since no one spoke English, he’d had to call back to HQ to elicit Vanessa’s help in translating their questions to the locals so that they could try to figure out where the hell they were and where the hell they should be.
It had eaten up a lot of time. And every minute that ticked by was one more minute the hotel’s security director could use to make his escape. Even so, it was good to see Penni focused on something other than simply trying her damndest to keep from falling apart. Because, quite honestly, watching her struggle to do that had been…well…awful. And then when she had finally broken, when she pulled him into the bathroom and went up on tiptoe to claim his mouth, when she asked him to make love to her despite the fact he didn’t have a condom, when she—
“Hey.” Penni grabbed his elbow, pulling him from his thoughts. “Isn’t that the guy we’re looking for?”
He followed the line of her extended finger to see a man with a plastic grocery bag in each hand meandering down the road toward them. The guy’s eyes were focused on his footing on the uneven pavement, and Dan agreed. He looked remarkably similar the employee photo the hotel manager had showed them earlier.
“Could be,” he murmured, putting his hand behind his waist to grab the butt of his Ruger P90. It sat nestled at the small of his back, so familiar he sometimes forgot it was there and fell asleep wearing it. “This guy coming has the same face-shape. The same tall, skinny build. Same black hair and skin tone. Then again, that describes the majority of the population.”
As the man ambled closer, a little spurt of adrenaline zipped through Dan’s veins, heightening his senses, coaxing to life the hard-hitting Navy SEAL who still lived inside him even though he’d spent a year doing his best to drown the fucker. Suddenly the sound of the hen’s gentle clucks were amplified, and the humid air pressing against the exposed skin along his arms and face was like a wet, silken sheet.
Jesus, he’d missed this feeling when he’d been nose-first in a bottle. This feeling of awareness. Of anticipation. Of…readiness.
“That’s him for sure,” Penni whispered at the exact same moment he came to a similar conclusion.
“Rajen Musa!” he called the man’s name.
Startled, Rajen skidded to a stop in the middle of the rutted street. And then—holy fuck!—he dropped his bags, turned on his heels, and straight-up bolted.
“Christ!” Penni hissed as that spurt of adrenaline turned into a full-on fireman’s hose.
His weapon was out in an instant, aimed, and ready to fire. “Stop!” he yelled as he beat feet after the scumbag with Penni hot on his heels. The soles of her flat dress shoes slapped against the pavement with a rhythmic thwack, thwack. “Stop! Or I’ll shoot you dead!”
Not really. He needed to ask the asswipe some questions first. But a round to the knee wasn’t out of the question. His finger tightened on his trigger as he poured more effort into eating up the distance Rajen was trying to put between them. Too bad for Rajen that once he’d gotten through the hell of detox, he’d stuck himself on a treadmill, working his way up from a slow, one-mile jog to a fast, five-mile sprint. There were still some things he was struggling to get back after his year of drunken self-destruction, but speed and agility weren’t on the list.
“I’ll do it!” he warned again, pulling away from Penni and halving the distance to his target. “And I know you understand me, motherfucker! Your boss told me you speak English!” But it was obvious the bastard wasn’t going to heed his threat, and up ahead the city grew dense, a rabbit’s warren of alleyways and cramped buildings vying for space. Taking aim, his legs still pumping and closing the gap, he pulled the trigger. Bam! The Ruger belched out a .45 caliber bullet at over a thousand feet per second. And down went the security director.