The high vantage had allowed him to watch Morena hop off the bus and scurry out of view toward the lobby. He’d noted Slatcher unpack himself from the illegally parked Scion, the SUV gliding by to pick up Morena’s tail. Then he’d walked to the door of Room 8124, unlocked it, and backed midway to the balcony. Given Slatcher’s size, Evan had debated bringing the Benelli combat shotgun, but this plan called for greater precision. Jack’s voice came to him: Shot placement trumps all calibers.
Drawing his Wilson 1911, Evan assumed a modified isosceles stance, aiming the tip of the suppressor at the door. Slatcher had been hoping that Morena would lead him to Evan.
He was about to get his wish.
Evan waited, reading vibrations through the floor. In his stomach the healing wound glowed, an excited heat spreading out beneath his rib cage.
The lever handle clicked down, and it all went live.
Morena flew through the door, immediately diving into a somersault, moving along the path Evan had cleared through the furniture. As she whipped past his calf, the bulky freelancer filled the doorframe and Evan shot him twice in the chest and put a third bullet through his nose. He dumped right there, clearing the view to Slatcher.
Behind him Evan heard Morena scrambling over the balcony, seizing the rope, starting her one-story descent to the footbridge.
Unlike the freelancer, Slatcher had barreled into view with his pistol not just raised but ready to fire, so Evan’s first round went to the gun hand. Slatcher’s pistol pinwheeled to the side, and then the big man kneed his collapsing operator forward, forcing Evan to skip back to avoid being toppled by him.
The scar tissue tugged in his gut as he raised the gun, a slight hitch that cost him. Slatcher’s eyes were locked on the barrel of Evan’s Wilson, assessing the precise line of fire, and he lifted his massive arms as he charged, catching the bullets as Evan fired.
The first round deflected wetly off the meat of Slatcher’s forearm, raised to cover the bridge of his nose, the second stigmataed his right hand, buying him a millisecond to whip his forehead out of the path.
He did not slow.
His bullet-torn forearm hammered Evan’s wrist like a steel pipe, the shotokan blow knocking Evan over. He rolled with the blow, grabbing a whirligig view of his Wilson 1911 skittering off the edge of the balcony and, far below, Morena’s form darting across the footbridge to safety. Even as he spun back up onto his feet, he recalculated. He’d trained once with a shotokan master who’d toughened his hands, feet, and shins into iron, pounding nails into the floor with his fists. The master had spoken of executing one-punch kills, and Evan knew from Slatcher’s opening salvo that he was capable of the same. The last thing he could afford was to be in this tight with a man this big.
They circled each other in the arena of the suite, both striking open-hand guards, palms turned in, fingertips floating above the upper temples. Given the size disparity, Evan had to disrupt Slatcher’s nervous system, going for the centers — eyes, nose, ears, throat. But the biggest organ was the skin. He needed Slatcher to feel pain now, not tomorrow.
He attacked with pencak silat, an open-hand Indonesian fighting style, feinting left, then thunderclapping Slatcher’s right side with a palm-heel ear smash. The big man’s eyes showed mostly white until the pupils rolled back into view, a robot reanimating. Evan waited for Slatcher to lash out defensively, then sidestepped, parrying with a dagger thumb to the eustachian tube at the hinge of the jaw. He felt his thumb sink pleasingly into the soft skin at the target, but he’d slipped too far inside Slatcher’s reach in order to get off the shot and knew instantly it would cost him.
Slatcher’s hands blurred, the wrecked one throwing flecks of blood upon impact. Evan did his best to cage his head, drawing the bars of his forearms together, but he was getting rained on. Despite the battering, he fought to stay inside the range of the devastating hook.
There was no break to capitalize on; Evan would have to create one. He rotated his elbow as he whipped the blade of his forearm upward like a greaser slicking back the side of his hair. The tip of his ulna, positioned like a cutting diamond, split Slatcher’s chin to the bone. Blood ribboning from the wound, Slatcher tilted back and sucked in a breath.
They were fighting in different languages, an around-the-world street brawl, Filipino deflections countering Japanese double-hand parries. They careened back through Indonesia, open-hand slaps and bone-grinding arm-break holds, Evan’s front kick finally shoving them back to standoff distance.
Crimson snakes curled around Slatcher’s arms, the bullet gashes glittering. Evan felt his right cheek swelling and prayed it wouldn’t obstruct the eye. The luxurious carpet, spotted and trampled, might have been pulled off an auto mechanic’s floor. Someone darted by the open door, shrieked, and kept on. With one foot Slatcher flipped the dead field agent’s corpse to the side, clearing space. His rocklike shoulders bulged beneath his shirt. Despite the gunshot wounds, he barely looked winded. If Evan didn’t get out soon, Slatcher was going to take him to pieces.
He charged Evan now with a shotokan lunge punch. Evan intercepted it with a muay thai teep, the ball of his lead foot clawing forward to thrust into the tendons of the lower abdomen. Given Slatcher’s substantial gut, this had little effect, but it did shift Slatcher’s weight forward, putting his head within reach.
Evan threw an arm clench over the big man’s head, his hands locked in a lace hold across the back of the impossibly broad neck, his forearms squeezing to crimp the carotids. Yanking Slatcher’s face downward, Evan threw tangs, knee strikes hammering through Slatcher’s raised, tattered forearms into his cheeks, his nose. At the same time, he torqued Slatcher from side to side, trying to keep him off balance by rocking him onto one leg, then the other.
No such luck. Slatcher was too strong — he simply picked Evan up and bulled him through the dressing mirror. Evan’s stomach screamed, the wound reopening, scar tissue tearing. The glass shattered around him, shards cascading over his shoulders.
Evan hit the carpet, and Slatcher reared back, allowing a tiny window of freedom. Evan bolted, leaping across a toppled armchair and out onto the balcony. Slatcher struck him from behind, power-driving Evan into the balusters, but Evan let his body flip over the handrail, grabbing for the rappelling rope. He caught it, lost his grip, caught it again, slid a few palm-burning yards before his hands released of their own volition. The last six feet were a free fall, the footbridge flying up to bludgeon his tailbone and shoulder blades. Before the pain could announce itself, Slatcher blotted out the sun, dangling from the rope and then letting go, size-seventeen boots growing larger by the instant.
Evan rolled up over his shoulders, shot a quick look around for his fallen Wilson — no such luck — and lurched off for the parking structure and his truck. Slatcher’s landing shook the footbridge. Within seconds the thundering steps behind Evan had quickened to a drumroll.
Despite the dagger of pain in his gut and the full-body ache from the drop, Evan stayed in a sprint, trying to dig in his pocket for the key to the truck vault. He skidded sideways onto the roof of the parking structure, nearly losing his footing as he made the turn for his truck.
Morena was long gone; Evan had told her to keep running, that he’d make sure no one came after her. That was a long-term promise. Way across the roof, an elevator opened, the family of four inside jolting cattle-prod upright at the scene before them. The father leaned forward, jabbing at a button, and the elevator swallowed them back up.