The Living End (Daniel Faust #3)(87)

I held very still and kept my hands in full view. Jennifer paused, looking to see why I’d stopped walking, and froze right along with me.

The tower’s tinted glass doors took a slow spin. A burly man in fatigues, an assault rifle slung over one shoulder, emerged alone from the building. He stopped about five feet away and gave me the stink eye. I recognized him. He’d been one of the mercs guarding the New Life building. One of the ones who’d walked out alive.

He stood in stony silence, staring me down. I tried to keep my heart from pounding. Either my first gambit was about to pay off, or I’d guessed wrong and gotten me and Jennifer killed.

“Sir,” he spat, treating the word like venom on his tongue. He snapped a salute.

? ? ?

“Did I mishear you at the diner?” I had asked Roth earlier that day. I paced the hotel room carpet, drinking a bottled water courtesy of the minibar, and listened to him whine over the phone.

“I might have exaggerated—” he started to say. I didn’t let him finish.

“You said, and I quote, ‘Angus Caine is my man. I write the paychecks, I give the orders.’ That sound familiar to you?”

“I also said I wouldn’t send them against Lauren. They’ll be slaughtered!”

“Take the rocks out of your ears. I’m not asking you to.”

“You might as well be!” Roth said. “If Lauren gets wind of this, it’ll mean the same—”

“I talked to Calypso this morning,” I said.

That was a lie, but it shut Roth up.

“He thought I should remind you,” I said, “just how close you are to breaching the terms of your contract. Do you want to do that? Should I hang up and call him, right now, and tell him, ‘Hey, Senator Roth says to f*ck off’?”

“No! Don’t do that. I’m cooperating!”

I sat down on the edge of the bed and rolled my neck, working out some tension.

“I realize you’re a politician, so this is a new concept for you. ‘Cooperating’ means actually doing what you’re supposed to, not just saying you will and then weaseling out.”

“I will try to contact Caine,” he said, “but I can’t guarantee—”

“That’s it, hanging up. See ya in hell, Alton.”

“Wait! Wait, wait, wait! I’ll do it. I’ll call Caine right now and give the order.” He fell silent for a moment, and I listened to his ragged breath. “You son of a bitch. If those soldiers die because of this, it’s on your head.”

My teeth clenched. I thought back to the New Life building, where Angus Caine and his men had stood guard while innocent captives were being tortured to death in the laboratory.

“They aren’t soldiers,” I seethed, my voice rising. “They’re thugs with guns. And I’m not a television camera, so save your crocodile tears and your sanctimony, shut the f*ck up, and do as you’re told!”

? ? ?

From the naked hate in the mercenary’s eyes, I knew Roth had done his part. The merc waved his hand, and the laser light on my chest faded away.

“Orders came down from Major Caine this morning,” he said. “We’ve spent most of the day quietly moving our troops off-site, a few at a time. There’s just a skeleton crew left, working in areas that show up on Ms. Carmichael’s security cameras. She doesn’t suspect a thing.”

“And if she sets off an alarm?” I said.

“That’s the cue for the final evacuation. Xerxes is officially off-mission. She’s on her own. I’ve been instructed to escort you directly to the penthouse elevator. No further.”

He turned on his heel and marched toward the tower. Jennifer and I followed.

The Enclave’s lobby was beautiful, silent and cold, like a museum with all of the art taken away. The hotel itself was never real, but they’d had to build the ground floor to pass casual scrutiny for investors and the media. A span of black-and-white checkered tiles stretched out under a dangling crystal chandelier, all the way to a long cedar check-in desk where new computers sat sheathed in shrouds of protective plastic.

“Where are Nedry and Clark?” I asked the merc.

“Dr. Nedry’s upstairs with Ms. Carmichael. The other is down in the cellblock. They’ve been kept out of the loop.”

“Nedry’s the one with the thing for mirrors,” I told Jennifer. “If he gets loose, keep away from reflective surfaces.”

She pulled back her jacket and showed me her chromed .357. “How ’bout this one?”

The elevator doors were brushed steel coated in scarlet lacquer, like the skin of a candied apple. Our reflections were black, smoky blurs in the metal.

“You’re gonna die up there,” the merc told me.

“Thanks for the heads-up.”

“I wish I could be there to see it,” he said. “You killed a buddy of mine, back at the shelter.”

“Yeah? What about the other three guys I killed? You didn’t like them as much?”

That shut him up, at least.

The elevator door whispered open. Jennifer and I stepped into the cage, bathed in cherry light. The merc leaned in, swiped his keycard, and hit the button for the penthouse floor.

“Bon voyage, *,” he said with a wave as the door closed tight.