side of you and in front! Hands on your head, and kneel! Now! Now, goddamnit!”
Come on hard. Nasty. Get control right away. Put them on the defensive. Take charge.
That’s the way it’s supposed to work if you’re lucky.
Bolt’s voice echoed throughout the huge concrete garage, bouncing off damp gray walk stained with dirt, oil, and past rainfalls, off steel pillars patched with orange rust and peeling gray paint.
To Bolt’s left, a quick motion. Left, and slightly in front of him. He flinched, holding his breath, feeling his heart stop as though embedded in ice. Bullets burned when they dug into you, and they hurt like hell for a long time after the shooting. A man died too quickly in this business.
Yeah, I’m uptight right now. I tell you truly.
Vanders. Jesus, it was Vanders. Behind a green panel truck, both hands cupped around a .38 Smith & Wesson and resting on top of the motor. Bolt sighed, feeling the sweat crawl down his face and neck. Close.
Vanders yelled, “You heard the man. Everybody put them hands on your skulls in a hurry!” His voice was high with tension, and he kept blinking as though he had dust in his eyes. He didn’t. Nerves and fear, but no dust.
Rage and fear fought a quick, hot battle in Alain Lonzu’s mind. Damnit! His face turned hard, and he began breathing loudly, chest rising and falling. So close, so close. He was within seconds of escaping, of getting out of this stupid, crazy country.
If he didn’t have to argue with these fucking idiots about Claude, he would have been gone. But no, these assholes, French and Corsican sailors from the ship La Rochelle, are like barnyard animals. No brains.
Where’s Claude, Where’s Claude? Like a damn broken record. Alain was getting hoarse telling them that Claude wasn’t coming, and anyway, it was none of their business where he was.
Alain knew why the sailors were scared: Remy Patek would kill them if they came back to France without Claude. Well, too bad. Right now these sailor bastards had better be afraid of Alain Lonzu, because Alain Lonzu had a brother, too.
Just you bastards wait until I get back to France, he thought. You fucking sailors will be lying on the bottom of the sea, mouths open, sucking raw fish. You pricks got trouble coming. My brother will see to that.
If I get back.
Because, right now, it was only more rotten, shitty luck. Grabbed by the American police again, second time in three days. Jesus, how unlucky can one man be?
And that voice, thought Alain, that voice coming at me from the shadows. Yes, I know him. The man with the scar, the man who looks like he kills you and eats your flesh raw. Yes, I know him.
I wear your Marc, scar man. Give me the chance and I vow you will wear mine. By my mother’s blood, I swear to get you.
Vanders, impatient now, his breathing loud and harsh, shouted again. “Move it, you cocksuckers! We ain’t got all morning. We wanna see them hands go up and press down on top of your curly heads. Pronto!”
Jesus, what a score, he thought. The Count’s baby brother. We squeeze his ass, and we can maybe come up with enough to make us look good for the next year.
Vanders was excited. Nervous. And pleased. You don’t grab a big one like Alain Lonzu every day. Vanders, thirty-one, slim, rarely wearing anything but brown sport jackets, blue shirts, and red ties, bit his lip and let the thought flash across his mind that maybe he could work with John Bolt on the report on this bust.
That’s one way of making sure your name’s included. Shit, why not? How the hell do you get promoted unless the big guys in D.C. know who you are, right?
John Bolt was hardly breathing. He was waiting. Seconds ago, just seconds ago, he had yelled to the four men to freeze and kneel. Now he was waiting. And sweating. And grinding his teeth together to keep his stomach down.
His stomach was being a bastard about the whole thing. It kept turning colder while throwing a bitter taste up into his