“Gotcha.” Tommy confirmed.
Sean darted down the hallway, sloshing his way through the wet mess. When he reached the elevator doors, he mashed the button hard, but got no signal that it was heading their way. Then he remembered; the elevators probably shut down automatically when there was an alarm. A door closed thirty feet away, and Sean spun around with the barrel of his Sig aimed into the empty space. It was the door into the stairwell. No one was there, which likely meant one of the other guests was trying to get out of the building.
Yarbrough and Tommy reached the elevator a second later. “What are you waiting for?” Tommy asked incredulously. As soon as he’d spoken, he had the same epiphany Sean had experienced a moment before. “Oh, right. Stairs.”
Sean darted over to the stairwell door where the passageway came to a head and split off in two directions. He checked down both ways, again making sure there were no threats. Satisfied, he took a big step to the door and barged it open. His weapon aimed up the stairs first, then down. “Clear,” he shouted back at the other two.
He held the door open while Tommy and Yarbrough slogged their way quickly to the stairwell. “Go ahead,” Sean said. Once the other two were headed down the stairs, he let the door ease shut.
Sean was glad they didn’t have far to go, only four floors to reach the bottom. Tommy and their wounded companion were already on the landing of the second floor when Sean arrived on the platform just above them. The third floor door suddenly swung open, and a Glock barrel stuck through the opening. Sean ducked to the side just in the nick of time as the weapon fired a round into the stairwell. Instinctively, Sean took a quick side step, grabbed the man’s arm, and pulled him into the stairwell.
The attacker’s body flung against the railing, jarring him momentarily, just long enough for Sean to wrest the gun from his hand. The respite didn’t last but for a second. The man’s knee swung around and planted firmly into Sean’s abdomen.
Sean gasped at the sudden jolt, dropping his own weapon between the rails. The gun clattered down the steps below, evening the playing field for both combatants. Sean didn’t have time to hurt; he jerked backward, narrowly dodging a roundhouse kick from the stranger. He instantly squared up, ready for another attack, and got his first look at the face of the man who was trying to kill him. The assassin’s graying hair was trimmed close to his skull, masking the fact that he’d gone bald several years before. His angular nose and narrow face made him appear like a bird of prey. His black turtleneck seemed a little clichéd for mercenary work, but Sean didn’t think the man cared what he thought of his ensemble.
“You don’t have to do this,” Sean said in an almost sympathetic tone. “You can walk back through that door and go on about your business.”
The man’s mouth contorted in a sickly grin. “You don’t have to be afraid of dying, American. I’ll make it quick for you.” His accent was distinctly western European. Sean was fairly certain from Czech Republic.
“I wasn’t begging,” Sean corrected. “I was offering you a chance to live.”
The mercenary snorted and lurched forward. His fists swung hard at Sean’s face, first left then right. Sean easily dodged the first and blocked the subsequent attacks. The assassin swung his knee up in an attempt to catch Sean in the midsection again, but this time the target stepped to the side and grabbed the man by the calf. In a swift move, Sean used the man’s weight against him and lifted hard with the leg before the attacker could get loose. The maneuver sent the man flipping backward over the railing. Sean watched as the body plummeted down the chute between the stairs, hitting his head violently against one of the lower railings before coming to a sudden stop at the bottom.
Tommy and Agent Yarbrough’s heads poked out from one of the lower platforms and stared down at the motionless body. A little pool of blood was already starting to form around the head of the prostrate form. Tommy looked back up at Sean. “Where’d he come from?”
“Third floor. Better be careful leaving the building.” Sean answered as he bounded down the steps, two at a time. “I told him he could leave if he wanted to.”
“Did he know you meant alive?”
“Guess not,” Sean said. “Let’s get the agent here to some help. I just hope our ride is still waiting outside.”
Sean opened the exit door and entered the first floor hallway. It was chaotic, filled with guests who were hurriedly heading toward the main lobby and the front exit. The walls and carpet were soaked from the sprinklers, drenching every person in the building. Sean turned to the right and began heading in the direction of the rear of the hotel.
“The exit is this way,” Tommy tried to correct him.
“Yeah, but our ride is out back.”
Chapter 14
The daylight still burned Dimitris’s eyes as he strolled down the pathway toward the cliffs at the edge of his property. A gentle breeze brushed through his hair, unable to move it due to the amount of product he used on a daily basis. Two of his guards followed several paces behind. When Gikas walked, he preferred to walk alone. Having people around him crowded his personal space. Times like today called for a little extra space.
Niko Teridis had sealed his fate. Gikas had given the fat man every opportunity to join the new regime that would soon take over all of Greece. Such a union would have made Teridis a great deal of money, and the risk was so low. Treason? It was a small price to pay to return the country to its former greatness. When the government fell apart, who would enforce the law anyway? There would be no one to accuse them of treason, and no one to prosecute. Gikas had weighed the risks long ago, and found them minimal at worst.
Teridis didn’t see it that way. That, or perhaps he wanted to be the one pulling the strings. Gikas had known him for several years. Teridis had always been stubborn, and constantly vying for a bigger piece of the pie. He was no leader, though. Rumors were that he’d lost a fortune from the bad business decisions he’d made in the past. His only redemption was that he’d made a few brilliant ones that covered up the mistakes. Men like that were already running Greece. If Niko Teridis was in charge, it would happen all over again, probably worse. There would be a massive coup and civil war within the first three years.
Men like Teridis could not lead.
Dimitris Gikas was certain he was the only man fit to re-establish Greece as a world power. The rest of the men at the table were sheep, willing to follow a strong, confident shepherd. Gikas was that shepherd. Sometimes, however, a shepherd had to defend the flock against danger, even if the threat was coming from within.
He made a sharp right on the stone path. The walkway led away from the mansion, easing its way down the gentle slope toward the sea. He made another turn as he reached a row of bushes and shrubs that lined the outer edge of his property. Gikas stared down at the foamy waves crashing into the rocks below. Those great stones had saved his family’s land many centuries before. Enemy ships tried to bring their invasion force around the cliffs to enter Greece from the east. High winds and ripping tides pulled the wooden ships to their destruction, splintering the invaders’ boats into pieces and drowning their men in the churning waters.
Up ahead, a small circle of stone benches and wooden chairs surrounded a fire pit made from the grayish stones of the cliffs below. Four of his men stood around one central figure who was on his knees with head bowed low. The blubbery man’s breaths were coming in great heaves, a fact that told Gikas his men had done a good job. The four guards took a simultaneous step back as their employer approached. Gikas had loosened the black tie he’d worn to the meeting and rolled up the white sleeves of his shirt as if he were about to do some manual labor. He had no intention of doing any work himself. Those days were gone. Now he had hired killers to do his dirty deeds.