The door was violently pulled open, almost catapulting Brad into the hall; then he suddenly reversed direction, stumbling backward against the conference table as if he'd been shoved.
And then Luc realized with a shock that he indeed had been shoved—by the odd-looking stranger who leaped into the conference room with a drawn pistol.
"Everybody hold still!" he shouted.
He was addressing all of them, but he kept his pistol—Luc noticed with alarm that it was fitted with a silencer—trained on Dragovic. Something familiar about him… the warm-up, the hat, the sunglasses. And then Luc recognized him: this man had shared the elevator with Dragovic and him a short while ago.
"Thank God!" Brad cried. "I don't know who you are, but you arrived just in time!" He pointed to Dragovic. "This man—"
"Shut up!" the stranger yelled, pushing Brad toward the end of the table. "Over there with your buddies." Then he turned to Dragovic. "You carrying?"
Dragovic stared at him. "Do you know who I am?"
"Yeah, now answer the question: what are you carrying?"
Dragovic sneered. "I have no need to carry."
"So you say. Take off your jacket and prove it."
"Go to hell!"
Without warning, the stranger's pistol coughed once and Dragovic fell back into a chair, his breath hissing between his teeth as he clutched his thigh. Luc saw that a splintered hole had appeared in the mahogany door of the cabinet behind him.
"Take off your jacket," the stranger said, "or the next one will go for the bone instead of creasing you."
Leveling a murderous glare at the stranger, Dragovic removed his suit coat, balled it in his bloody hands, and hurled it across the room at him.
"You are a dead man."
"You already tried that once today," the stranger said, catching the coat with his free hand. "Now it's my turn."
Luc watched Dragovic's expression change from anger, to bafflement, then to… was that fear? Luc turned his attention to the stranger who was emptying the jacket pockets. He wished he could see the eyes behind those dark glasses. He seemed to be brimming with rage, more than Dragovic, if that were possible. What was it between these two? Luc glanced at Brad and Kent who looked as baffled and frightened as he.
A cold band tightened around his chest. Have we traded one madman for another—this one armed?
19
Jack had loved shooting Dragovic—took just about all he had to keep from pulling the trigger again—but relished the mix of terror and bafflement scooting across his face right now almost as much.
"You?" Dragovic said; then his eyes narrowed. "Yes, it is you! That mustache is fake. I have seen you!"
Jack found only a cell phone in Dragovic's suit coat. He dropped the phone on the table and tossed the coat back.
"No, you haven't."
"Yes. You were at my front gate!"
Damn security cameras, Jack thought.
"I knew it!" Dragovic shouted, purpling with rage as he pointed to Monnet. "You work for him, don't you! He hired you to humiliate me!"
Where'd he get that idea? Jack wondered, but decided not to straighten him out. This might work right into his plans.
"Just sit there and be quiet while I talk to these bozos," he said, dismissing Dragovic—which had to hurt him worse than another bullet. He turned to Monnet. "Where's Nadia Radzminsky?"
Monnet seemed jolted by the question. But maybe frightened too. Hiding something? Jack couldn't tell for sure.
"Nadia?" Monnet gave this nifty little Gallic shrug. "Why… home, I suppose."
"She's not. She's missing." He turned to the other two. "How about you guys? Any idea where I can find Nadia Radzminsky?"
"How should we know?" said the heavier, sweaty one.
"Radzminsky?" said the nervous ferret type. His eyes darted Monnet's way. "Luc, isn't that the new researcher we hired?"
"How do you know Nadia?" Monnet said.
Jack ignored him, concentrating on the other two. "How about Gleason—Douglas Gleason? He's another of your people who's MIA. Know anything about him?"
Bull's-eye, Jack thought when he saw the ferret's shocked expression. Here was a guy he'd like to play poker with.
Keeping a peripheral watch on Dragovic, Jack pointed his pistol at the ferret's head.
"Nice haircut, but I think the part would look better on the other side, don't you?"
The ferret clapped his hands against his scalp and ducked, crying, "Tell him, Luc! Tell him about Prather!"
Monnet closed his eyes and Jack stared at him, stunned. The only sound in the room was ripping cloth. Jack glanced at Dragovic and saw him tearing the silk lining from his suit coat and tying it around his wounded thigh.
'Tell him!" the ferret screamed.
"Shut up, Brad!" Monnet said through his teeth.
"Ozymandias Prather?" Jack said, and watched the three partners' faces go slack with shock.
"You know him?" Monnet said.
"I'm asking the questions."
"No-no," Monnet said, an excited look replacing the shock. "This is important! If you know him, then you must have seen the creature he calls the Sharkman."
"Yeah. Saw it a few hours ago." Where was this going?
"Then please tell this man," Monnet said, pointing to Dragovic. "Tell him how the creature looks, how it's at death's door."
"You kidding? It looks great—ready to bust out of its cage."
Monnet looked ill as Dragovic pounded his fists on the table and shouted something about liars and traitors, but Jack wasn't following because a sickening scenario was playing out in his mind.
He stepped closer to Monnet and pointed the pistol at his face.
"You!"
The doctor cringed. "What?"
"What did Oz and his boys do to Gleason?"
"Nothing."
Jack jammed the muzzle of the silencer against Monnet's temple, hard enough to make him wince. "You've got three seconds… two seconds…"
"He made him disappear!"
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"I don't know!" Monnet cried. "He just said he'd found an 'absolutely foolproof means of disposal' and we'd never have to worry about him again. That's all I know; I swear!"
You bastard! Jack thought, aching to pull the trigger. You rotten lousy bastard. He'd bet all he owned that Oz's foolproof dispose-all had yellow eyes and a scarred lower lip.
"And Nadia? What about her?"
Monnet closed his eyes.
"Only one second left on your clock," Jack said, then held his breath, pretty damn sure he wasn't going to like this answer.
Monnet nodded. "The same." His voice seemed caught between a whisper and a sob.
"Aw, jeez."
It now seemed a possibility that the suddenly healthy rakosh hadn't lunched on Bondy as Jack had first thought. Oz must have fed it Gleason… and Nadia was probably next on the menu.
He backed away, trying not to give in to the increasingly insistent urge to redecorate the room with this son of a bitch's brains. That was too good for him. Too good for all of them.
"All right," he said. "I want all pockets emptied onto the table. Everyone. Now. Do it!"
The three executives got to it with gusto. Jack could see relief on their faces: Emptying pockets meant robbery. They understood that, and it sure as hell beat getting shot.
Dragovic didn't move. He simply sat there pressing a hand to his thigh and glaring at Monnet. Jack remembered his shouts about liars and traitors a moment ago. Looked like this little business arrangement was falling apart. He let Dragovic be—he already had what he wanted from him.
"Hurry!" Jack shouted, and meant it. Gleason was probably gone, but maybe he still had time to save Nadia. "I want all pockets turned inside out."
He didn't care about the wallets that landed on the table. The cell phones were what he wanted. Three more of them joined Dragovic's.