Greehorn groaned, and his eyes fluttered open. He turned and stared at Fisher through half-lidded eyes. “Huh?”

Greenhorn’s breath was a fowl mixture of peanut butter, gin, and halitosis.

“We have a phone call for you, Mr. Greenhorn. Come with me, please.”

Fisher helped him sit up, then stand up, then walked him out of the master bedroom, expertly frisking him as they walked.

“Who . . . who’re you again?” Greenhorn muttered.

“Abdul, Mr. Greenhorn, from security, remember?”

“Oh, yeah, okay.”

Fisher walked him to the opposite end of the penthouse to a seating alcove near the aquarium, then sat Greenhorn facing the aquarium, himself on the chair opposite. The backlight would cast him in shadow. Greenhorn slumped back into the couch and started snoring again.

Sam waited five minutes for the drug to dissipate, then pulled his chair forward until he was knee-to-knee with Greenhorn. He reached out and pressed his knuckle into the base of Greenhorn’s septum. The pain snapped Greenhorn awake.

“Hey . . . hey, what the, what the—”

Fisher gripped him by the chin, thumb pressed into the hollow of his throat. “Don’t make a sound.” He jammed this thumb a little deeper; Greenhorn gagged. “Do you understand?”

Greenhorn nodded.

“I’m going to take my hand away and we’re going to have a chat. If you give me the answers I want, you’ll live to see another day. If you raise your voice or move a muscle, I shoot you dead where you sit. Understand?”

“Yeah, yeah. Can I ask you a question?”

Fisher nodded.

“Did Big Joey send you? ’Cuz if he did, I’ve got the money, I just haven’t had a chance to—”

“Big Joey did not send me.”

“Then who?”

“Santa Claus. You’ve been a bad boy, Marcus. You’ve been playing in cyberspace again.”

Now Greenhorn understood; his eyes bulged. “Oh, Jesus . . .”

“Another good guess, but wrong again. Question one: Who’s paying for your vacation here?”

“I don’t know, I just got an e-mail.”

“From?”

“I don’t know.”

“That’s your second ‘I don’t know.’ Three strikes and you’re dead. I’m going to start a story, Marcus, and you’re going to finish it. Here goes: Once upon a time you were hired to code a virus for someone. Now your turn.”

“Uh . . . uh . . . I was hired by e-mail, I swear. They’d already set up a Swiss account for me. I got a hundred thousand to start and another hundred when I delivered. You’ve got to believe me, I never dealt with anyone face-to-face.”

Fisher did believe him. “When was this?”

“Two months ago.”

“When were you instructed to come here?”

“A week, maybe ten days ago.”

About the time theTrego would have been heading to the U.S. But why, Fisher wondered, if Greenhorn’s employers were so worried about him being a loose end, didn’t they just kill him?

“No one’s contacted you since?”

“No. When I was told to come here, they said to just wait until I hear from them.”

“You’re sure the same person that hired you arranged this?”

“Yes.”

“Clever guy like you would keep details, wouldn’t he? E-mails, bank information . . . A little insurance.”

“Uh . . . come on, man, they’ll kill me.”

Sam drew his pistol and pointed it at Greenhorn’s forehead. “They’ll be late.”

“Jesus, okay, okay. Yeah, I kept some stuff.” Greenhorn reached into the pocket of his robe and handed over a thumb-sized USB flash drive. “It’s all there.”

Fisher plugged the drive into the OPSAT’s USB port, waited for the OPSAT to download the contents, then stuffed it into his arm pouch.

From the corner of his eye, Fisher saw something move. Gun still trained on Greenhorn, he slowly turned his head. Greenhorn’s girlfriend, now clad in panties and nothing else, padded across the room, rubbing her eyes. She saw Greenhorn and stopped. Fisher, still in shadow, lowered the pistol, leaned deeper into the couch.

“Hey, Marcus,” she said, voice raspy. “Whatchya doing just sitting here in the dark?”

“Uh . . . you know, just looking at the fish. Couldn’t sleep.”

She took a step toward him. “Want some company?”

“No, babe, that’s fine. Go on back to bed.”

“Okay . . .”

She turned back toward the master bedroom, then stopped. She turned back. She looked at Fisher, then blinked a few times and cocked her head.

Ah, damnit,he thought. He had no desire to kill some woman Greenhorn had dragged into his mess of a life. He thumbed the pistol’s selector to DART.

Greenhorn said, “Sweetie, just go back to bed, I’ll be there in a minute.”

She continued to stare at Fisher, blinking, trying to decipher what her still-fuzzy brain was registering. Fisher was about to dart her when she opened her mouth and started screaming.

22

WHATcame out of her mouth wasn’t as much a scream as it was a shriek so piercing that Fisher was momentarily taken aback. In that split second, the woman turned and ran, nimble as a jackrabbit, around the fish tank and toward the door. “Help, help!”

Fisher stood up, grabbed Greenhorn, spun him, and got his neck in an elbow lock. He pressed the pistol’s barrel to the soft spot just below Greenhorn’s ear and then began stepping to his left, toward the windows and the nearest balcony door.

The door to the suite burst open and four figures in black coveralls rushed inside. Their entrance left Fisher with no doubt he was dealing with professionals. They moved as one in a crescent formation, each man scanning his own sector of the room. One of them shouted something and they all turned toward Fisher, their weapons raised and steady as they stalked forward.

Fisher’s idea of taking Greenhorn with him had just evaporated, as had his original exfiltration plan. “Don’t make a move unless I do,” he whispered to Greenhorn.

“Okay, whatever you—”

Fisher heard a single, muted pop. Greenhorn’s head snapped back. He went limp in Fisher’s arms. That was no mistake, he realized instantly. These men were too disciplined to risk such a shot, and too good to miss what they were aiming at. They were following orders. If captured, Greenhorn was not to leave the hotel alive.

Fisher switched his grip on Greenhorn’s body, grabbing him by the collar, then took aim on the nearest Al-Mughaaweer and fired. Even as the man fell, Fisher adjusted aim, fired again, and dropped a second man. The other two scattered toward the nearest cover and opened fire.

Greenhorn’s body began jerking as it took the bullet strikes. Fisher felt something pluck at his left arm, then his right side. He felt no pain, and assumed/hoped the RhinoPlate was doing its job. Behind him he heard the glass cracking. With Greenhorn as a shield, he kept firing, backing toward the door until he felt his heel bump against it.

He holstered the pistol, plucked a flash-bang grenade off his harness, pulled the pin, and tossed it. Per Fisher’s preference, the grenade ran on a quick two-second fuse. He closed his eyes. Through his lids he sensed a flash of white light and felt the concussion ripple through Greenhorn’s body.

Fisher drew the pistol again and started firing, hoping to keep the gunmen’s heads down. He reached back, turned the doorknob, opened the door. He dropped Greenhorn’s body, turned, sprinted across the balcony, and dove over the railing.

HISdecision against penetrating the hotel via parachute was proven right the instant he cleared the rail. He was grabbed by the cyclonic winds whipping around the building and sent tumbling. A thousand feet tall and sitting offshore, the hotel faced both inland and seaward weather systems, which included wind shears that would terrify any pilot, let alone a lone man with a parafoil strapped to his back.