Meltzer patted his coat pocket. The miniature GPS unit was about the size of a mobile phone. As long as Cloud was somewhere in the immediate hemisphere, they could find him.
He was tempted to dig it out, but he already knew what it would tell him—Cloud was in the air, heading God alone knew where. And all thanks to one asshole in black fatigues.
There was no telling who their visitor had been, or who he was working for, but the helicopter’s destination put up a few red flags. Were the Feds renting out that airfield to some other concern? The guy, whoever he’d been, was nasty enough to work for any number of groups. They’d caught him on several security cameras, but Meltzer hadn’t watched the footage yet. From what he’d been told, their visitor went through the unlucky bastards on duty like a buzz saw on two legs.
Meltzer wanted a cigarette. He’d given them up when he’d started working for Cloud, and the cravings hadn’t gotten any easier. He was looking forward to that first cigarette almost as much as the expression on Cloud’s face when he turned him over to whoever paid up first.
There was a raft of eager bidders. When word filtered up through the back channels that Cloud was about to experience an extraordinary rendition, thanks to that deal with the Nigerians, Meltzer had decided to seize the moment. He’d contacted a dozen of Cloud’s regular clients, all of whom were anonymous—their identities hidden behind encrypted lines and voice scramblers—and made his pitch, which had essentially boiled down to “Give me money, and I give you Cloud. Don’t give me money, and I let the Americans have him.” They had quickly made a counteroffer: “Give us Cloud, and we’ll pay you. Don’t, and we kill you.”
In retrospect, it hadn’t been his smartest play.
Glass crunched behind him and he turned. A group of men who’d been the elite of Cloud’s security forces, up until about three hours ago, had come into the apartment. All were armed. “Is the little shit dead?” one of the men, a scar-faced ex-marine named Horowitz, asked. He sounded hopeful. “Did they get him?”
Horowitz was a meathead and a troublemaker with attitude issues that probably should have been dealt with when he’d been a kid. He was a constant pain in Meltzer’s posterior and had been since he’d been hired.
“No such luck.” Sippo grunted. An older, gray-headed thug, Sippo had a Ph.D. The book smarts hadn’t stopped him from stuffing enough cocaine up his nose to kill an elephant and they sure hadn’t helped when he’d turned to armed robbery to finance said cocaine habit. Now he was a rent-a-thug with a bald spot and a face like a strip of jerky.
“No,” Meltzer said. “They got him on a plane. He’s gone.”
“How?” Horowitz demanded. “You sent a truckload of our guys over there!”
“Oh, they got a flat tire,” Meltzer said. He rolled his eyes. “How do you think? Somebody shot them. All of them. The same somebody who busted in here and did this.” He waved a hand at the room around him.
“Who is he?”
“I don’t know, he didn’t exactly introduce himself,” Meltzer said. “He’s a damn sight more effective than us, I’ll say that for him.” He surrendered to a moment of grudging admiration for the kidnapper. Whoever he was, the man had accomplished a lot in a short amount of time. It wouldn’t stop him from shooting the guy, if he ever got the chance, but Meltzer could give credit where it was due.
“Oh, damn it,” Horowitz said. He threw up his hands in exasperation. “What do we do now? Huh?” Horowitz had never been the patient sort.
Meltzer turned the bullet-riddled couch back over and flopped down onto it. “Give me a minute. I need to think.”
“Man, we don’t have time to think,” Horowitz said. “We need to go. The jihadists ain’t going to be happy with us. Or any of the others, for that matter. And who do you think they’re going to take that unhappiness out on, huh?” He gestured sharply. “Us, that’s who.” He looked around and heads nodded sagely in agreement, Sippo included. “We’ve got to do something. Maybe we can bargain with them. Buy our way out of the situation.”
Meltzer shivered slightly, as if the temperature in the room had dropped. He looked around, seeing hard faces and pitiless eyes. If it came down to it, Horowitz, Sippo and the others would turn him over to Cloud’s angry clients if they thought it would buy them a few more days. He couldn’t blame them, but all the same, he wasn’t looking forward to it.
He let his hand drift to the weapon holstered under his arm. It was his burden; a Mauser C-96. The pistol had been a gift from Cloud, though he shied away from the thought of that. Cloud had wanted his head of security to carry something fancy, as if he were a villain from a spy film and Meltzer was his quirky henchman.
That was their relationship in a nutshell. Meltzer had read his share of four-color funnies as a kid and he’d seen enough movies to know what happened to henchmen. Well, it wasn’t going to happen to him.
“I said I needed to think,” he repeated softly. His fingers brushed against the Mauser’s grips. He didn’t want to kill them—any of them—but he would if he had to. For now, he needed them. They were his muscle, and good muscle was hard to find in the current economic climate. Russian oligarchs and Saudi royalty paid more, and the private security companies offered better benefits. All Cloud offered was access to hardware and a blind eye in regard to repeat indiscretions.
“And I said—” Horowitz began, obviously looking to start something.
Meltzer was almost tempted to let him land the first punch. Instead he jerked to his feet and aimed his pistol at the other man’s crotch. He caught hold of Horowitz’s collar.
“I don’t care what you said,” Meltzer replied calmly. “Cloud didn’t hire you for your skills as a raconteur. He hired you because you’re a murderous thug.” He let his eyes roam across the faces of the others. “That’s why he hired you all. But don’t forget that I’m the biggest, most murderous thug here, right? And I need to think.” He dug the barrel of his pistol into Horowitz’s crotch. “You feel me, chum?” he asked, letting his gaze settle on Horowitz. When the man nodded, he stepped back and holstered his pistol. “Good, glad we got that cleared up.”
Horowitz backed away. “We still don’t know what we’re doing. The locals are going to be all over this place before we know it,” he said sourly.
“And we won’t be here when that happens.” Meltzer had made plans for just such an eventuality. There’d been no predicting when Cloud would wear out his welcome in Hong Kong, so he’d thought it best to be prepared. He let out a slow breath.
“Right, here’s what we do. Horowitz, Vasily, check out that airfield. Whoever was set up there has probably bugged out, but they might have left something behind. I’m betting that plane was heading to Tokyo, but I doubt that’s the final destination. Cloud hasn’t pissed off the Yakuza, to my knowledge.”
He clapped his hands together. “The rest of you know the drill. Start burning files—hell, burn the sheets. Burn everything. This place is going to be as busy as Grand Central Station at rush hour when people figure out what’s happened, and we don’t want anybody getting their hands on anything. We’re already in enough trouble. I’ll take care of Cloud’s office.” He paused. “Oh, and somebody get the tiger out of the kitchen, huh? We’ll drop it off at an animal sanctuary or the bus station or something. And get my phone while you’re in there. I have a few calls to make.”