“Those two were talk­ing about the deal,” Quinn said. “But the guy who is sup­posed to be St. Amand wasn’t even in­volved.”

  “That first part when they were talk­ing,” Jar said, “what the man with the scarf said, made me think he was only act­ing. But Eng­lish is not my first lan­guage so maybe I am wrong?”

  “I don’t think you are. Nate, how about you?”

  Nate stared at the road, lost in thought.

  “Nate?” Quinn said.

  Nate turned to Jar. “Can you bring up pic­tures from when the guy in the scarf ar­rived at the res­taur­ant?”

  She searched through her phone and brought up one of the pho­tos. Nate en­larged it.

  “I’ll be damned,” he whispered.

  “What?”

  “When I saw the guy with the high cheekbones earlier, he seemed fa­mil­iar. I thought maybe he was in Mar­rakesh or maybe I’d seen him on an­other job.” Nate chuffed and poin­ted at the screen. “He was in Mar­rakesh, all right. That’s St. Amand.”

  “You’re sure?” Quinn asked. It was a reas­on­able as­sump­tion given what they’d heard, but there had been no proof to that ef­fect on the au­dio.

  “He’s wear­ing pros­thet­ics on his face that cover up his scar, and that wig he’s wear­ing doesn’t help, but it’s him. If I had just run into him on the street and I wasn’t look­ing for him, I would have never made the con­nec­tion. It’s a good dis­guise, but that is him.”

  Quinn had to give St. Amand points for be­ing clever. Us­ing a de­coy to act as him, and then play­ing the part of an un­der­ling him­self? It was a pretty in­geni­ous way to ob­serve an ad­versary—busi­ness or oth­er­wise.

  “They’re mov­ing,” Jar said.

  On the screen, the driver, the faux St. Amand, and the real one were mov­ing down the hall­way to­ward the stairs. Quinn moun­ted Daeng’s scooter and put the key in the ig­ni­tion.

  Over at the other bike, Nate said, “I’ll drive.”

  He made a move to get on but Jar blocked the way. “You will not.”

  “I have more ex­per­i­ence in these kinds of situ­ations.”

  “Really? Have you been driv­ing one of these on the streets of Bangkok since you were ten?” She stared at him, dar­ing him to top her.

  “Fair point.” He mo­tioned for her to take the front spot.

  Quinn and Jar drove the scoot­ers to an in­ter­sec­tion a block and a half north of the res­taur­ant and pulled to the side, id­ling. Jar put her phone into the mount on the tiny dash and stud­ied the screen.

  “They are get­ting into the SUV,” she said. “It is the same one they ar­rived in.”

  “The one with the bug,” Nate said.

  “Cor­rect. There is a fourth per­son with them. One of the guards, I be­lieve.”

  Nate looked over at Quinn “Front and back ro­ta­tion?”

  Quinn con­sidered the sug­ges­tion. “We’ll let them get go­ing first, then we’ll do it. Which po­s­i­tion do you want to start with?”

  “We’ll take front.”

  “The SUV is leav­ing,” Jar said.

  Their eyes were all on the in­ter­sec­tion when the black SUV drove by. When the tracker showed the vehicle was two blocks away, they took off.

  Jar and Nate sped ahead, their job to cas­u­ally work their way in front of the SUV. Quinn, trav­el­ing at a slightly more leis­urely pace, would ap­proach the vehicle from be­hind and main­tain at least three car lengths between them.

  The un­of­fi­cial con­voy wound through smal­ler streets be­fore turn­ing north to­ward the heart of the city. Thirty minutes later, the SUV entered an­other quiet neigh­bor­hood.

  “They ap­pear to be go­ing to the build­ing where they picked up the im­postor,” Jar said over the comm.

  “How sure are you?” Quinn asked.

  “If they turn right at the next corner, they will be only fifty meters from it.”

  “Keep go­ing straight, then. Don’t turn after them.”

  The SUV did in­deed turn right.

  When Quinn reached the in­ter­sec­tion, he rolled the scooter to the curb and watched the SUV do the same, in front of a build­ing to­ward the middle of the block. The driver and the man in the scarf ex­ited the vehicle and walked to­ward the en­trance, leav­ing be­hind the man with the high cheekbones and the other guard.

  If Nate was right, and High Cheekbones was St. Amand, Quinn was star­ing at a nearly per­fect situ­ation to grab the as­shole.

  “Nate, where are you?” he asked.

  “We’re wait­ing down the street.”

  “Get back here. Fast.”

  “Some­thing wrong?”

  “Just the op­pos­ite.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Orlando had tapped into the hotel se­cur­ity sys­tem and been keep­ing tabs on the fourth-floor cor­ridor since right after she and Howard took pos­ses­sion of their room. The only traffic had been a young couple from down the hall leav­ing for a night out, and Daeng’s ar­rival. Sand­strom and the two men with him never left their rooms.

  The gear bag Daeng had re­trieved con­tained, among other things, zip ties, a goose­neck cam­era, listen­ing devices, and the syr­inges of Beta-Som­nol. Daeng had taken two of the listen­ing bugs and at­tached one each to the doors of Sand­strom’s and his as­so­ci­ates’ rooms.

  Sur­pris­ingly, the room the two men were shar­ing went quiet first. For a good twenty minutes bey­ond that, a TV could be heard play­ing in Sand­strom’s room. There was the oc­ca­sional sound of move­ment, and once the flush of a toi­let.

  Fi­nally Sand­strom, too, seemed to have gone to bed.

  Or­lando de­cided to give it an ex­tra ten minutes. Dur­ing that time, she cre­ated video loops from the foot­age of the two se­cur­ity cam­eras in the hall­way, and in­ser­ted them into the sys­tem so that any­one watch­ing would think the hall­way re­mained empty.

  When the al­lot­ted time had ex­pired, she, Daeng, and Howard went down to the as­so­ci­ates’ room. After re­mov­ing the bugs, Or­lando used an elec­tronic lock­pick to dis­en­gage the lock. While she was do­ing that, Daeng and Howard hois­ted high above their heads the blanket they’d taken from their room, and cre­ated an al­cove of semi­d­ark­ness around the door­way.

  Or­lando turned the handle and pushed the door in­ward. The only sound from in­side was snor­ing from one of the men. How the other guy slept through it, Or­lando had no idea, but he couldn’t have been awake or he would have re­acted to the open­ing door.

  She slipped in­side. Daeng and Howard fol­lowed, and, in an un­re­hearsed dance, man­euvered the blanket in­side and shut the door, while keep­ing much of the hall light from flood­ing in.

  The snorer sputtered when Daeng pushed the needle into his arm, his eyes flut­ter­ing open. Be­fore he could yell out a warn­ing, Howard slapped a fol­ded towel over his mouth, and held it there for the few seconds it took for the drug to send the man back to dream­land.

  The secret as to how the other guy could sleep through his buddy’s snores was earplugs. This was also the reason he didn’t hear Or­lando and her friends gather around his bed. He, too, only woke up when he was pricked with the needle. But un­like his room­mate, he put up a de­cent struggle, and it took both Daeng and Howard to re­strain and muzzle him so that Or­lando could fin­ish ad­min­is­ter­ing the drug.

  They left the men in the beds and re­turned to the cor­ridor, where they re­peated their pre­vi­ous pro­ced­ure on Sand­strom’s door. Un­like the oth­ers, Sand­strom seemed to sense their pres­ence as they neared his bed.

  Push­ing up on an el­bow, he said, “Is someone—”

  When his gaze landed on Or­lando, he threw his cov­ers back and tried to get out of bed. Daeng and Howard grabbed him from the other side be­fore he could do more than roll on his hip. Sand­strom was strong for someone his age, but not enough to fight them off, and they were able to pull him back down without too much ef­fort.

  Since there was no need for secrecy any­more, Or­lando turned on the read­ing lamp. “Hold him still.”

  Sand­strom’s eyes widened at the syr­inge. “What is that?”

  “It doesn’t mat­ter. You won’t re­mem­ber.”

  As she moved the needle closer, he began thrash­ing. “No! You can’t do this! My men are right next—”

  Howard shoved a pil­low over Sand­strom’s mouth.

  “We’ve already paid your men a visit,” Or­lando said.

  Con­fu­sion in the man’s eyes, then an­ger again.

  “Re­lax. This isn’t go­ing to kill you.”

  He shouted some­thing like bull­shit into the pil­low.

  “Mr. Sand­strom, there are way too many people who want to talk with you first. But look on the bright side—you get to sleep the en­tire flight home.”

  She plunged the needle into his arm.

  Daeng and Howard held on to him un­til he stopped mov­ing.

  The easy part was done. Now they had to get the three un­con­scious men out of the St. Re­gis without any­one know­ing.

  *

  Ap­pear­ances were everything in main­tain­ing the ruse that Clau­dio Laz­zari was the real St. Amand. Though it was un­likely any­one had Laz­zari’s apart­ment build­ing un­der sur­veil­lance, one could never be too sure.

  That was the reason Drake al­ways es­cor­ted Laz­zari up to his flat. Chris­tophe St. Amand, the scarf-wear­ing gun-deal­ing en­igma, would travel nowhere without a body­guard, after all.

  The real St. Amand waited in the SUV, check­ing email on his phone. A few minor or­ders from ex­ist­ing cus­tom­ers, a re­port from one of his re­search­ers on a po­ten­tial new cli­ent, and the daily mes­sage from his lead ac­count­ant, list­ing pay­ments re­ceived and world­wide bank bal­ances. In other words, noth­ing press­ing.

  He looked out the win­dow at the stone build­ings front­ing the street. It didn’t mat­ter what time of day it was, Rome was al­ways beau­ti­ful. The old mixed with the even older, set across rolling hills that had seen more sig­ni­fic­ant his­tory than most places ever would. He couldn’t ima­gine liv­ing any­where else. He’d been born in Brus­sels, at­ten­ded board­ing school in Eng­land, and spent large chunks of time in Paris and Prague, but none were bet­ter than Rome.

  Drake ex­ited Laz­zari’s build­ing. As he crossed the side­walk and star­ted to circle around the front of the car, St. Amand caught a flash of light in the side mir­ror. He glanced over his shoulder. A scooter was mo­tor­ing down the road.

  Those damn things were one of the few draw­backs of the city. They were both ubi­quit­ous and an­noy­ing. If there was ever a move­ment to ban them, he’d do all he could to sup­port it.

  He turned back around and settled into his seat, look­ing for­ward to get­ting home.

  *

  Mov­ing low and quiet, Quinn crept to­ward the SUV. Fif­teen meters from the vehicle, he found a place to hide that still af­forded him a good view of the build­ing. He re­moved his gun, checked the sound sup­pressor, and stared at the en­trance, wait­ing. The tim­ing had to be just right for his plan to suc­ceed. If they were off by even a few seconds they would miss the op­por­tun­ity, and very likely tip off St. Amand that someone was after him.

  The mo­ment he saw the driver walk­ing across the build­ing’s lobby, he whispered into his mic, “Kill the cam­eras.”

  A beat, then Jar said, “Cam­eras down.”

  The area in front of the build­ing was now a dead zone.

  The door opened and the driver walked out. When the man reached the side­walk, Quinn said, “Now.”

  From back around the corner, he heard the rumble of Jar’s scooter and tensed, ready for his own cue.

  *

  Nate sat as far back on the tan­dem seat as pos­sible, a light hand rest­ing on Jar’s back to help main­tain his bal­ance as she swung onto the street where the SUV was.

  Ahead, the driver was start­ing to go around the front end of St. Amand’s vehicle. By Nate’s es­tim­a­tion, he and Jar would ar­rive too early. He was about to say as much to her when she eased up on the ac­cel­er­ator.

  The big guy glanced at them as he came around the driver’s side of the vehicle, but since Jar was keep­ing the scooter near the cen­ter of the road, the man paid them little at­ten­tion.

  As soon as he looked away, Jar veered to­ward the SUV. Nate jammed his left foot on the ex­posed sec­tion of the seat in front of him, waited un­til he was al­most abreast of the man, and launched him­self off the mo­tor­bike.

  The driver whirled around, but by then it was too late. Nate smashed into him and knocked him down.

  Though the driver was big, smack­ing his head into the cobble­stones pre­ven­ted him from fight­ing back ef­fect­ively. He slapped haphaz­ardly at Nate, threw a couple of punches that missed en­tirely, and tried at least three times to shove Nate off.

  As this was go­ing on, Nate heard a lot of noise be­hind him—run­ning and sup­pressed gun­shots and doors open­ing. Then Quinn’s voice over the ra­dio. “Jar. Com­ing your way!”

  Nate was too oc­cu­pied to worry about what Quinn was talk­ing about. The driver seemed to re­mem­ber he had a weapon and star­ted to slip a hand un­der his jacket. When Nate saw the metal grip, he jammed his pros­thetic leg hard into the driver’s groin, earn­ing a screech of pain.

  As the driver writhed, Nate grabbed the gun and pressed the muzzle un­der the man’s chin.

  “Per favore,” the man eked out between groans. “Per favore!”

  Nate eased back on his pros­thetic a bit, and said in Italian, “If you re­lax, I’ll take it all the way off.”

  The man made a vali­ant ef­fort but was un­able or un­will­ing to fully com­ply, so Nate left the leg where it was.

  He toggled his mic. “Driver down.” When no one re­spon­ded, he said, “Quinn?”

  Noth­ing for a couple of seconds, then Quinn said, “Copy. Driver down.” It was clear from the sound of his voice that he was run­ning.

  “Everything all right?”

  “Not ex­actly.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Down the block…to the north.”

  “I’ll be right there.”

  “We’ve got this. Just bring the SUV.”

  “Copy.” Nate said to the driver, “Sorry about this.”

  He swung the pis­tol’s grip into the side of the guy’s head.

  *

  The mo­ment Nate jumped off the scooter, Quinn sprin­ted to the SUV, reach­ing the open driver’s door as Nate and the big man hit the ground.

  He leaned into the vehicle, gun first.

  “Every­one stay nice and calm and no one gets hurt.”

  St. Amand, still in his dis­guise, sat un­mov­ing in the front pas­sen­ger seat. His body­guard, how­ever, rock­eted against the back of the driver’s seat and reached around the side, try­ing to grab Quinn’s pis­tol.

  Quinn leaned just out of reach and pulled the trig­ger twice, send­ing the bul­lets through the seat and into the body­guard’s chest. The man fell back and tilted against the door, dead.

  Quinn turned back to St. Amand, but the arms dealer was halfway out the door. Quinn could have eas­ily put him down right then and there, but that would have put a crimp in the whole bring-St. Amand-in-alive thing.

  Curs­ing un­der his breath, Quinn ex­trac­ted him­self from the SUV. St. Amand was al­most to the door of the apart­ment build­ing, which was the last place Quinn wanted him to go. He fired an­other shot, the bul­let fly­ing just past St. Amand’s right shoulder, into the stone façade. It achieved the de­sired ef­fect, as St. Amand took a hard turn to the left and raced down the side­walk.

  Quinn ac­tiv­ated his ra­dio. “Jar. Com­ing your way!”

  *

  When Man­fred made his play to get the gun from the man who’d leaned into the SUV, St. Amand pulled the handle and shoved the door open. He hur­ried out of the vehicle to­ward the build­ing, know­ing he had a much bet­ter chance of sur­vival if he could get in­side. As he ran, he felt along the hem of his jacket, search­ing for the emer­gency beacon sewn into the lin­ing. When pressed hard enough to break the outer shell, a sig­nal would be sent to every­one in his se­cur­ity team, trans­mit­ting his loc­a­tion every ten seconds.

  Be­fore he could find the beacon, a bul­let flew past his ear and pierced the build­ing near the door. He jerked side­ways, the hem drop­ping from his hand, and headed down the street, hop­ing he could find some­place to gain ad­vant­age over his pur­suer.

  He glanced over his shoulder. The gun­man was about seven meters back. The fact he was that close and hadn’t shot St. Amand meant the man wanted to take St. Amand alive. Which meant St. Amand had a much bet­ter chance of get­ting away.

  He swung around the build­ing at the corner.

  Sit­ting across the side­walk, two meters in front of him, was a scooter. There was no way to stop in time, so he tried to go around it but he was mov­ing too fast.

  He somer­saul­ted over the bike and whacked his back hard against the side­walk, knock­ing the air out of his lungs. For sev­eral seconds, he felt like he’d for­got­ten how to breathe. Then his breaths re­turned in long and deep and pain­ful pants.

  When he fi­nally be­came aware of his sur­round­ings, he real­ized a small Asian wo­man was stand­ing over him, point­ing a gun at his heavy chest. Next to her was the in­truder from the SUV.

  “Nice job,” the man said.

  “Thank you,” the wo­man replied.

  The man flashed a smile at St. Amand. He poin­ted at his own fore­head, above his right eye­brow. “You’re bleed­ing a little, Mr. St. Amand.”

 

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