The Payback Assignment (40 page)

           
Oh lord, thought Felicity.
 
Perhaps this really is a typical American businessman.

           
She pulled a tiny nose clip and mouth filter from her belt.
 
It held a four-inch cylinder of compressed air.
 
She was certain it would be more than enough for her plans.
 
The miniature aerosol can she sprayed into the room contained a mild sedative mist that would merely cause those in the bed to sleep more deeply.
 
Next she plugged her familiar earplug into place and began scanning the room with her metal detector.

           
While she probed the room, her mind was probing the situation.
 
Morgan had stated it quite simply.
 
Their problems would not be ended unless Seagrave was, as he put it, “signed off.”
 
An interesting euphemism, that.
 
After she had the brooch, she would ride the elevator back to the conference room.
 
Morgan would ride upstairs in the little elevator and quietly slit the man’s throat.
 
Self-defense, and he started it, and all that.
 
It all seemed pretty simple at the time, but she had not considered the wife.
 
Besides, what gave them the right to calmly commit cold-blooded murder?

           
After all the trouble she had gone through, Felicity found the safe behind a cheap velvet painting of a matador.
 
The moral situation continued to plague her as, moving automatic precision, she placed the stethoscope in position for opening the combination lock.
 
Could she and Morgan pass the death sentence on this man?
 
After all, he was not really evil, just greedy.
 
If that became a capital offense, she would be next on the gallows herself.
 
On the other hand, he had tried to kill her.
 
Or, more accurately, to have her killed by others.
 
And he was responsible for the death of some of Morgan’s friends.
 
But even if he did deserve to die, what about the woman, who would wake up beside a blood splattered corpse?
 

           
Her introspection was short circuited as she swung the steel door open.
 
Feeling a wave of deja vu, Felicity reached into the cylindrical, felt lined hole and withdrew her diamond-studded prize.
 
She stared into the heartless, flawless stone, silently scolding it.
 
How much trouble you have caused, she thought.
 
How much pain.
 
And how many deaths have you caused since your ancient creation?
 
How much blood have men spilled in pursuit of a green piece of stone carrying a chunk of polished carbon with little white marbles around it?

           
Felicity sighed and shook her head, honest enough to admit to herself that none of that really mattered to her.
 
At last her quest was ended and the reward was indescribably sweet.
 
It had been so easy in the end.
 
With Morgan for backup, anything was within reach.
 
Again she considered the idea of them continuing as a team in the future.
 
She wasn’t sure how that could work, but it certainly felt comfortable thinking it.

           
One small snag was nagging at the back of her mind.
 
She pulled the solution from a squeeze pocket at the side of her black denims.
 
She removed the safety sleeve from another thin hypodermic needle and very gently slid its tip into Marlene Seagrave’s exposed hip.
 
The mist she had previously sprayed merely deepened the sleep of those who inhaled it.
 
This injection would knock the woman out.
 
She would sleep through anything now, even a gunshot in the same room.

           
Not that she would need to.
 
Morgan planned to do his work with a knife, up close and personal as he put it.
 
The mental image still rattled her.
 
She wished that Morgan had brought some sort of poison with him instead.
 
That would finish Adrian Seagrave off more neatly.
 
As it was, she figured she would at least convince Morgan to put the man’s mortal remains elsewhere after the deed was done.
 
No woman deserves to wake up beside a bloody corpse.

           
Leaning back against the bar in the darkness, Morgan watched the small elevator for movement.
 
He sipped some of Seagrave’s Napoleon Brandy with a smile.
 
When Felicity landed he would ride up and quietly push seven inches of steel into Adrian Seagrave’s throat.
 
For Crazy Mike.
 
For Smitty.
 
For Josh.
 
In fact, one inch of blade for each of the men he lost when Seagrave ordered them abandoned in the jungle.
 
It would not be fun, and he would relive it a few times in his sleep, but in his mind it was a matter of expedience.
 
Then he and his new partner would be out of the building before anyone knew they had been there.

           
His new partner.
 
He liked the sound of that.
 
Maybe if he had a real partner he could finally settle somewhere, before his luck ran out.
 
He did have that dream of going legit, setting up a personal protection business, providing a level of safety for executives who needed it against killers and terrorists.
 
He was ready to become a defender instead of an attacker.

           
He swirled the brandy in its snifter, enjoying its sweet, biting aroma while he considered how smoothly he and Felicity worked together.
 
They had known each other for only days, yet they breezed through this mission with hardly a word exchanged.
 
Even when he did question her, her confidence convinced him that she had things under control.
 

He had never thought he could work with a woman.
 
Of course, this situation was a bit different from anything he had ever considered because with this woman there could be no sex angle.
 
He would never risk feeling both sides of love making again.
 
So from that aspect, it was the same as working with a man.
 
In all other ways, it was quite different.
 
For example, he had never worked with a man who was such a talented creative thinker.
 
While he worked in straight lines, she functioned well with no pattern whatever.
 

           
When the elevator door slid open, he marched over to Felicity, holding a glass out to her.
 
She gratefully accepted it, taking a healthy pull.
 
She bowed him toward the elevator but held his arm.
 
Morgan turned toward her, and she pulled him toward her, craning her neck to whisper in his ear.
 
Obviously she wanted to tell him something about the situation upstairs.

           
A piercing white light stabbed into their eyes.
 
Morgan reflexes spun his head toward the door and sent his right hand flashing under his windbreaker.
 
He froze as his eyes locked onto the newcomer through the blue dots dancing before them.
 
Paul was just inside the door, his left hand on the light switch, his right hand halfway to the holster on his belt at his left side.

-32-

           
Morgan eyes met Paul’s, and both men froze.
 
Then, to Felicity’s surprise, both men slowly lowered their hands.
 

           
“I should have known it would be you,” Morgan said.

           
“No one else thought anybody could get in here,” Paul replied.
 
“Me?
 
I like to check everywhere.”

           
Felicity did not really understand what was happening, but the moment felt too delicate to disturb without dire consequences.
 
There was a long moment of silence.
 
She was the only thing moving in the stillness.
 
She stepped lightly toward the bar on Paul’s right, feeling ignored.
 
They were busted.
 
Why wasn’t this fellow sending up an alarm?
 
And since he was being so quiet, why didn’t Morgan shoot him or something?
 

           
“You can still walk away from this,” Morgan said grimly.
 
His mouth turned down at the futility of the situation.

           
“You know better than that,” Paul said, his face equally stern.
 
“I work for Seagrave.
 
And I don’t welch on a contract.”

           
“You’re good,” Morgan said, pain showing on his face.
 
“Very good.
 
But you can’t win.”

           
“That may be, but I can’t just let you...”

           
It happened with such unexpected quickness that Felicity had to replay the action in her mind to sort out what she had seen.
 
Paul pronounced the word “let” with no emphasis, but as he said it his hand had snapped toward his holster.
 
Morgan had dived left, landing hard on the conference table.
 
His automatic appeared as if by sleight of hand in his right fist.
 
The two gun blasts would have sounded simultaneous to a casual observer, but she could tell that Morgan fired earlier, by perhaps a tenth of a second.
 
A bullet tinkled through the drape-covered window behind him.
 
Paul’s pistol dropped from nerveless fingers as he spun away to his left.
 

           
Before Paul even hit the carpeted floor, Morgan was moving toward him.
 
Felicity bolted for the door.
 
The caper was blown for good and all now.
 
Those shots would surely bring curious guards, like sharks to a coral cut.
 
She poked her head out the door, glancing quickly down the hall.

           
“Oh shite!”
 
She grimaced as she saw a pistol round the hall corner, dragging a muscular man behind it.

           
Paul, clutching his left biceps, was staring up at Morgan.
 
Bright red liquid seeped between his fingers.
 

           
“Thanks,” Paul hissed through clenched teeth.

           
“For what?” Morgan asked, pulling a handkerchief from an inside jacket pocket.

           
Paul glanced at his arm.
 
“It’s not spurting out of my heart.”

           
“My aim was off.”

           
“Bullshit.”
 
Paul managed a pained smile.

           
“Move!”
 
Felicity shouted, shoving Morgan’s shoulder.
 
“There’s a bleeding army coming up the hall.”
 
With that, she took two long steps and dived gracefully into open air, arcing down behind the bar.
 
On the floor, Felicity watched around the edge of the bar as Morgan scrambled to the back of the room.
 
She heard the door slam open, and held her breath as two bullets scarred the conference table’s maple top.
 
She saw Morgan slam his body to the left and down into the elevator just before she ducked behind the bar.

           
The mass of gunfire made her cover her ears with her hands.
 
Her head was ringing and somehow it made her mouth dry.
 
Was this what it was like in combat, she wondered.
 
It was all handgun fire but it was so dense that it sounded like machine guns to her.
 
She was safe for the moment but she worried for Morgan, the intended target of all that shooting.
 
That elevator looked uncomfortably small and soon the guards would work up the courage to move in for the kill.