The Prince of Risk A Novel(130)

Grillo unlocked his legs and hurled himself at the pistol.

He saw a shadow from the corner of his eye. A form descended on him. A knee dug into his back. Hands gripped his neck, arching his spine as if it were a bow. Grillo searched for something to latch on to to gain leverage. His hand found the solid ashtray. Not leverage, but maybe just as effective. He lashed out behind him, throwing blows over his shoulder. Again and again the ashtray struck the intruder’s head, but there was no lessening of pressure. A verterbra snapped. A current sizzled along his spine and into his neck. Grillo lost sensation in his fingertips. The hands tightened around his neck, fingers crushing his throat. Grillo found Jeb Washburn’s dead eyes staring at him. They offered neither hope nor encouragement, only resignation. Grillo struck out again. The grip weakened. Again. And then he was free, rolling to his side.

He looked up to find the Asian aiming the pistol at him.

A gunshot cracked the air.

Grillo felt nothing.

The Asian lowered his gun. Blood trickled from a perfect hole in his forehead. He pitched forward onto the floor.

Grillo turned. A gangly redheaded man stood in the doorway, a wisp of smoke rising from his pistol. An athletic, dark-haired woman stood behind him. Her eye was swollen and she looked like hell.

Alex Forza tapped Barry Mintz on the shoulder. “Nice shot, Deadeye.”





84




It was his last run.

Sandy “Skinner” Beaufoy hurried up Tenth Avenue, carrying a tray of coffee and doughnuts. It was nine, and the storms that had pounded the city all night had stopped. Here in Chelsea, the sidewalks teemed with pedestrians. The sight was a relief. The more people out and about, the better. Police were trained never to shoot into a crowd. He suffered from no such reluctance.

Beaufoy turned into one of the commuter lots near the Holland Tunnel. The excursion onto the city streets wasn’t just for refreshments but to monitor for heightened police activity. He sought out police at several street corners and lingered nearby long enough to pick up an indication that they were on alert. He noted nothing out of the ordinary.

Beaufoy hurried up the ramp to the second level. He was forty going on sixty, with a decent patch in the South African Army behind him, followed by less decent patches chasing a paycheck in hellholes across Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. There was always work to be had if you were handy with a gun, knew how to take orders, and kept your cool under fire. But Beaufoy had escaped too many times. Even a cat only has nine lives, and he reckoned he’d used up a fair number more than that. He’d taken a bullet in the lung in Liberia and escaped an IED by a whisker in Baghdad, though he still suffered migraines from the explosion. The capper was the six-month stint in Black Beach prison, a cold, damp pit that had robbed him of his teeth and left him shivering even when it was 90 degrees outside. There were no two ways about it. He was played out.

The two hundred grand he’d been paid up front was tucked away in a numbered account in Vanuatu, which was the last truly safe banking haven, even if he couldn’t spell it correctly, or for that matter find it on a map. It was an island somewhere in the South Pacific, and that was good enough for him. After this, he planned on going somewhere warmer, where he could bake in the sun until his skin was tanned as black as that of the Kaffirs in the Transvaal and the last bit of cold was burned out of his bones.



As for his nickname, it wasn’t what people thought. He wasn’t some savage who enjoyed skinning his enemies alive. It came from his first posting in the army, as a mule skinner with the 10th Mountain Cavalry. No one knew animals like he did. So it would have to be an island with plenty of grass for his horses to eat, and of course with no extradition treaties to the U.S. or Britain or wherever the hell he might end up behind bars. He’d made himself one promise going in: no more prison.

Beaufoy spotted the van at the rear of the lot. He climbed in and distributed the coffee and doughnuts to his team. Because of the rushed departure, there hadn’t been time for a last hot meal. The six men and two women seated behind him were dressed in civilian clothes. Loose, slightly oversized shirts covered their Kevlar vests and communications equipment. Athletic bags at their feet concealed their automatic weapons. They looked like a young, healthy, clean-cut bunch.

Beaufoy placed a call on one of the operational phones. “Checking for any last-minute details,” he said.

“There have been no compromises,” replied Septimus Reventlow. “Everything is a go.”

Beaufoy hung up and checked his watch again.

“If anyone needs a little pick-me-up, now’s the time.” Beaufoy popped a go pill. At his age, he needed everything he could get to maintain his edge. He looked from person to person, receiving a committed nod from each.