Second Shot

“For God’s sake, Simone,” I snapped, back over my shoulder, “don’t let her see this!”

“See what?” I heard Simone take a step out onto the landing. Her voice was low with shock. “Charlie, what the hell d’you think you’re you doing?”

“What you pay me for,” I said. “Now get Ella back into your room and lock the door.”

For once, she didn’t argue. I heard the door close behind her and realized sweat was dribbling past my left eyebrow I leaned close to where I judged the man’s masked ear to be, and whispered, “You’ll never know how lucky you just were, sunshine.”

He made a strangled grunt that sounded a lot like, “Fuck you!”

With a sigh, I let go of my choke hold and kneed him roughly between his shoulder blades, punting him down onto his face. He landed hard, the air gusting out of his lungs so that it was easy enough to haul both his wrists as far up his back as the tendons would allow

At that moment, the bedroom door at the far end of the landing was yanked open and Greg Lucas came stumbling out, dressed in pajama trousers and a toweling robe. Rosalind was right behind him and before I could stop her she’d reached out to flick on the landing lights.

I flinched under the harsh bulb, momentarily blinded. The man tried to use the distraction to break my restraint, but I had leverage on my side and I used it, piling on top of him so my weight helped hold him down.

“There’s another guy,” I threw at Lucas. “He headed downstairs, and he’s got a gun.”

If I was expecting the ex-SAS man to give chase, however, I was disappointed. When my eyesight recovered enough for me to glance up at the pair of them, they hadn’t moved, both staring wide-eyed at the man I had pinned on the ground in front of them.

“Lucas!” I snapped, and he finally seemed to register the urgency in my voice. He looked up, a little dazed, and shook his head as if to clear his ears but made no moves to check out the lower floor.

“Get me something I can tie him with,” I said to Rosalind.

“Like what?”

I jerked my head towards Lucas’s robe. “His belt will do.”

They unthreaded the thin cord belt from its hoops and handed it over without a word. I tied the man’s hands together behind his back as tightly as I could manage, not caring about whether he still had circulation or not. The belt was on the thick side to be totally secure, but at least it was long enough for me to tie his ankles as well, cinching them up and back towards his wrists so his spine was bowed awkwardly. I hoped it hurt.

When it was done I patted him down quickly, just in case he was hiding another weapon. Nothing. I reached over and picked up the gun he’d dropped when I’d first grabbed him.

The gun was a Beretta M9, a 9mm standard-issue U.S. Army pistol, but with an extended barrel to take a quick-detach Advanced Armament suppressor. I thumbed the release just behind the trigger and dropped the fifteen-round magazine out, just to check, but it seemed our boy had come prepared. I shoved the full mag home again with the flat of my hand.

Before I got to my feet, I reached down for the man I’d caught, yanking the mask roughly off and tossing it aside. I rolled him over slightly- as much as I was able to with his hands and feet bound together- so his face was in the light. It gave me my first proper look at him.

And as soon as I did so, I realized I’d seen him before. It was the man from the Aquarium. The one who’d lured Simone out of the sea lion display and charmed her enough for her to call him and set up the scene of their next encounter on Boston Common. Or what would have been, if I hadn’t got in the way of it. How the hell had he followed our trail up here- unless Simone had called him? I let go of him and swore under my breath. Rosalind glanced at me sharply.

“You know him?”

“Unfortunately,” I said, my voice grim.

I watched the guy’s face while I spoke. He was utterly calm, almost relaxed. If anything, there was the hint of a smile pulling up the corner of his mouth, as though he found something about this whole situation faintly amusing. As if he knew something I most definitely didn’t. It made my spine itch.

“Who is he?” Lucas said, anger beginning to override his inertia. “What the hell was he trying to do?”

I bit back the snappy retort I’d been about to make and eyed them both.

“I need to check downstairs,” I said. “Can you watch him?”

Lucas nodded, his lips thinning, and picked up a lamp from the side table near the cupboard where I’d hidden. As a lamp it was ugly, with a heavy twisted brass stem, but as a temporary cudgel it had a beauty all of its own. He whipped the plug out of the wall socket, coiled the wire like a lasso, and nodded to me.

“Oh, I’ll watch him.”

“I’ll stay with Simone,” Rosalind said, her face very white. She edged past me and the man on the floor, seemingly unable to take her eyes off the Beretta.