Ambush (Michael Bennett #11)(7)

At a faint creak in the hallway, I whirled to face the door, ears straining. There was only silence. I forced aside my horror and considered my next move. Was dumping Angelo a warning? Or an attempt to flush me from the meager safety of my room?

As if on cue, the ghostly figure of Private First Class Hart, the first Marine I’d processed in Mortuary Affairs when I was in Iraq, appeared in the room, materializing from wherever the dead hang out when they’re not following me.

Not a dead man, my counselor would say. Not a ghost.

A manifestation of my fear.

Reflexively, my hand reached for Clyde’s comforting presence, but my fingers closed on emptiness. Clyde was safe in Denver, probably enjoying filet mignon with Cohen.

PFC Hart tilted his head toward the window, then the door.

Right. Get the hell out of here, while you can still do so on your own terms.

I loaded a cartridge into the stun gun. The logo on the barrel said TASER, and although I figured the gun was a knockoff, it appeared to be in good working order. I’d only been able to get four cartridges from the dealer. I needed to make them count.

I slid the gun into the pocket of my cargo pants, slung my duffel over my shoulder, and made sure my travel pouch was secure inside my shirt. I wished desperately for Clyde, who would be able to warn me what, if anything, waited on the other side of the door.

I wasted a moment considering the fire escape before deciding a ladder hanging off the side of a building was unacceptable exposure. I had no idea where Rooftop Thomas had gone.

Then I eyeballed the phone on the nightstand. I could call the police. I’d be gone long before they arrived, but their presence might serve as a diversion for whoever was after me.

On the other hand, if things went south, I didn’t want to be involved in any way with the Mexican federales.

I gripped my duffel. This was one of those moments I’d experienced often in war. That cliff-edge second a pilot must feel just before takeoff when something doesn’t feel quite right, and you have to commit or pull back.

Whatever. Not making a decision was worse than making the wrong decision.

I peered through the peephole. Darkness. Someone had unscrewed the bulbs. They’d been burning at forty-watt glory when I arrived. I drew in a breath. No stench of Marlboros seeped through the door, so it wasn’t Rooftop Thomas. Probably someone bigger. Heavier. With good lungs.

I listened for the sound of a man—it would be a man—in the hallway outside, but heard only the people down below, spilling into the alley, chattering with alarm. I dropped my bag, pulled the gun, and pressed my back against the wall to the right of the door before reaching over to ease off the chain—the only well-constructed item in this hotel—and turn the knob. I cracked the door ajar an inch and waited.

The door burst open as whoever was waiting on the other side barreled their way in. A man, tall and wide, coming in too hard and too fast; he’d been expecting me to be in his path and must have planned to use his momentum to knock me flat.

His bad.

I hit him with twenty thousand volts, holding the gun in place for the minimum five seconds required to truly incapacitate him. I followed him down as his back arced, muscles spasming, and a long, low moan escaped him. I kicked the door closed, rehung the chain, then a part of me that I resented made me bend and take his pulse. Stun guns weren’t meant to kill, but if you had a weak heart, getting smacked with voltage was a very bad thing.

He was still breathing. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that.

I dropped another cartridge into the gun and studied him—white, midthirties, built like a beast—then searched his pockets while he twitched and drooled. Empty. A guy with a lot of confidence in his hands and a lack of appreciation for women.

I yanked the cord free from the blinds and trussed him, then glanced toward the spider perched in the middle of its web.

“He’s all yours,” I said.

I grabbed my duffel, eased over the twitching man, then pulled the chain and stepped aside. I counted to sixty before I cracked open the door and peered up and down the hallway. No one except PFC Hart, who stood motionless in the hallway, a man of haunting luminescence. He nodded his approval and went ahead of me down the stairs.

At the bottom, I turned right to avoid the lobby and race-walked down a corridor toward the emergency door I’d scoped out earlier, guessing that the sign warning of an alarm was only there for show. Sure enough, the door yielded with nothing more ominous than a creak of hinges.

It opened onto a narrow lane that dead-ended thirty feet to my right. On my left, it formed a T intersection with the alley where the bastards had dumped Angelo.

I retreated back into the hallway and yanked out my cell phone.

“Were you telling the truth?” I asked when Jesús López picked up. “Are you really at a bar two blocks from my hotel?”

Jesús laughed. “Aún más cerca. Solo una cuadra.” In English he said, “I am one block away. Pretty se?orita like you buys a gun, I figure she might need me. A man has his dreams.”

“I do need you. But it’s dangerous.”

“Ah, se?orita, you make me blush. Whips and chains?”

“Bullets and blades. You up for it?”

“Am I not a Marine?”

I told him what I needed. He assured me it was no problem. “Cinco minutos.”

I counted to sixty again, then went through the door and turned left. At the intersection, I pressed flat against the hotel wall. I drew a breath and peered around the corner.