Hancock poured himself another shot. “I’ve got something special in mind for Guerrero — something fun.” He downed the shot. “Why bring me the intel on this Delta pussy if you’re not gonna let me hit him?”
“To show you things are getting dangerous for us down here.”
Hancock looked at him. “You expect me to run?”
“No, Rhett. I don’t expect you to do anything. That’s why the Ruvalcabas are gonna make Crosswhite disappear for us.”
12
Another man, well dressed in a black suit, came into Gil’s hotel room carrying a black leather valise. He was blond with a merciless gaze and fewer tattoos than the other men. He dropped the valise onto the bed and sat down across from Gil with a mirthless smile.
“You are in some big trouble,” he said in accented English.
Gil nodded, resigned to his fate.
“You killed many of my men in Istanbul,” the Russian went on. “You stole my whores and took them back to Moscow. You made me look like a fool in front of very important people.”
Gil stared back at him.
“You don’t recognize me, do you?”
Gil shook his head.
The Russian held up his middle finger. “You made this gesture to me at the airport in Istanbul. Do you remember me now?”
Gil did not remember the man’s face, but he remembered giving a pair of Russians the finger at the airport the night that he and a Russian Spetsnaz operative had freed more than a dozen kidnapped Russian women who’d been forced into prostitution. He shrugged, and then he nodded.
“Good,” the Russian said. “Because I want you to remember that it was you who made this personal — not me.”
Oddly enough, Gil saw his point.
The Russian opened the valise and took out a pair of common pliers. “I will use these to crush your testicles.” He set them aside and took out a pair of jagged pinking shears. “These I will use to remove your scrotum — which I will feed to you after I break out your teeth. Your penis I will tear off by hand.”
Gil felt himself beginning to sweat. At least the Afghanis just chopped off your head and left it at that. But like the man said, Gil had made it personal.
Note to self, he thought, snorting in spite of his growing fear.
“Something is funny?” the Russian asked, vaguely amused.
Gil shrugged.
The Russian told a particularly heavily tattooed man in their own language to take the tape from Gil’s mouth.
The man arched a dark eyebrow. “What if he screams?”
“Then I will crush his windpipe. Do as I say.”
The tattooed man stepped over and ripped the tape from Gil’s face.
Gil pursed his burning lips and sat looking at the men.
“You’re not going to scream?” the Russian asked.
Gil was resolute. “Trust me. I’d scream like a little girl if I thought it would do me any good.”
The Russian nodded. “What was funny?”
“I just made a mental note not to let shit get personal in the future.” He smirked. “It still sounds kinda funny.”
The Russian grinned. “It won’t sound funny for very long.”
“Maybe we should get started then,” Gil said grimly, sweat running down from his armpits. “I got someplace I gotta be.”
The Russian gestured, and the heavily tattooed man pressed the tape back over Gil’s mouth. A second later, there came a knock at the door. Gil jerked around in the chair, but one of the Russians was fast to put a knife to his throat.
Everyone sat still.
A few moments later, there was another knock.
Someone stole a peek through the peephole, and then came back and whispered to the Russian that it was the Swiss banker’s woman.
The Russian looked shocked. “What the hell is she doing here?”
The other man shrugged.
Gil knew it had to be Lena.
“What do we do?” the heavily tattooed man asked.
“Shit,” the Russian muttered, wiping his mouth. “Let her in.”
The other man opened the door, and Lena came into the room. Her eyes grew wide when she saw Gil taped to the chair, naked and bleeding from a gash over his eye.
She wheeled on the Russian, hissing in English: “What the fuck are you doing?”
“This man is CIA,” the Russian said. “He—”
“Of course he’s CIA, you stupid fool! Where do you think Sabastian gets his intelligence? From barbarians like you? Let him loose from that chair — now!”
The Russian gestured lamely at Gil. “He—”
“He what?” she demanded, putting her hands on her hips.
The Russian was about to tell her that Gil had stolen thirteen of his sex slaves six months earlier, but he suddenly realized that Sabastian Blickensderfer — a billionaire weapons dealer — couldn’t care less about such things. “I didn’t know he was here with Blickensderfer.”
“You’d better get your men out of here.” She moved toward Gil’s chair. “I have to get this man cleaned up before Sabastian finds out what you’ve done to him. He’s supposed to be under Sabastian’s protection! How do you think this makes my man look in front of the CIA?”
Browbeaten, the Russian gestured for his men to leave the room. “We had no idea.”
“Fine. Just go.” She began stripping the tape from one of Gil’s wrists. “Get out!”
The Russians left, taking the black valise with them, and she quickly freed Gil’s wrists and ankles.
He peeled the tape from his mouth and got to his feet. “What are you doing?”
“Saving your life, obviously.” She grabbed his pants from the floor. “Hurry and get dressed. The second Sabastian finds out about this, they’ll be back.”
He began to get dressed. “They work for Sabastian?”
“They’re regular customers.” She handed him his shirt. “They buy guns. I didn’t know they were here until I saw them down in the lobby, but I knew they weren’t here to see Sabastian, so that left only you—because they sure as hell don’t ski.”
He put on his shoes, grabbed the Springfield from the dresser, and slipped it beneath his jacket.
“So you’re CIA,” she said, looking at him, a half smile on her face.
“Kinda.” He moved toward the door. “How soon before they talk to Sabastian?”
“About this? Hopefully never. But I guess that depends on what you did to make them mad.”
Gil recalled that, in addition to flipping the Russian the bird at the airport, he had also mouthed the words Fuck you, making it even more personal. “I’m guessing it probably won’t be too long.”
13
Without telling anyone other than Paolina where he was going, Crosswhite hopped an early Volaris airline flight to the city of Guadalajara, northwest of Mexico City, to meet with a CIA/ATRU agent he trusted. Agent Mariana Mederos had agreed to meet him in the American retirement community of Ajijic near Lake Chapala, where Crosswhite wouldn’t look out of place. Chapala was the largest freshwater lake in the country; dozens of launches were tied up along a concrete pier that tourists could hire to take them for rides along the shoreline.
Crosswhite had worked with Mariana in both Mexico and Cuba the previous spring, eliminating two key traitors to the US government who had attempted to assassinate both CIA Director Robert Pope and Crosswhite’s best friend, Gil Shannon.
They met in a restaurant overlooking the lake. “Thanks for coming down,” he said.