went to meet or exactly where he is.” Laura struggled to maintain her professionalism. “He’s near Fort Langley. He texted me rough coordinates. He’s between 232nd and 264th streets and somewhere north of the Number One, but south of River Road.”
“That covers a lot of area. Where are you?”
“Still in the city … at the Emerald Hotel. Jack left with Dempsey almost two hours ago. Some other bad guys were here too, but they, uh, left a couple of minutes ago. I’m not even sure if they’re out of the hotel parking lot yet. I was expecting Jack to call again any minute.”
“That may not be happening,” Rose said more to herself than Laura.
“Don’t say that! I … I need to concentrate.” Laura desperately tried to come up with an idea. “What else do the French have for us to go on? Is there some way you could find out who Dempsey was taking Jack to meet? Anything at all that would help?”
“No. The French telecom’s centre was receiving the information through a call from their operative a few minutes ago. Then their dispatch —”
“Was receiving?” Laura asked. “What do you mean?”
“As the operative was talking, dispatch heard what sounded like a gunshot at close range. No word from their man since then.”
“Oh, my God.” Laura looked at her phone like it wasn’t real, then put it back to her ear. She felt like she wanted to vomit and tears clouded her vision.
“They’ve got a cover team checking now to … hang on. Gotta put you on hold. Incoming call.”
Laura swallowed a couple of times to clear the bile in her throat and sat in stunned silence until Rose came back on line. “It’s confirmed,” she said. “The French officer was shot in the head by an unidentified person. They have a rough description of the man who did it, but so far there’ve been no arrests.”
Laura fought back the tears, not knowing what to say.
“Can your source help us?” Rose asked.
“No.”
“Then get clear and call me.”
“I’ll call in a couple of minutes,” Laura said. As soon as she hung up, she dialled Jack and as the phone rang, she looked at Brandy. “Get a move on! We’re outta here!”
“I’m ready. Where we going?” Brandy asked. “What’s going on?”
Laura’s call went to voice message. She thought of Klaus as her mind filled with rage. “What’s going on is I’m going to the nearest emergency room.”
“I don’t need to,” Brandy said. “They worked me over pretty good, but I want to go home and —”
“It’s not for you.” Laura’s tone was harsh. “I’ll drop you off a block or two away as soon as it’s safe. You can call a cab.”
“Oh, you’re going to follow Klaus away from the hospital,” Brandy said.
I don’t have time to follow him, Laura thought, tucking the shotgun under her jacket. Immediate persuasion would be needed. When I find him, he’ll phone and beg for Jack’s life as if it was his own … if I’m not too late.
Chapter Eleven
When Anton shot Clive, Jack dropped the bag of cocaine and ducked behind the table saw.
Anton stepped over Clive’s body as he approached and waved his .32 Beretta back and forth, pointing it at each side of the saw. “Come out, come out, wherever you are!” He exchanged a grin with Bojan.
“Want to play games?” Jack said. “Well, guess what, asshole, my gun is bigger than yours.”
Neither Anton nor Bojan were smiling when they glimpsed a 9mm pistol pointing at them from above the table saw and Jack’s face peeking out from behind. “Drop it!” Jack barked, “or I will sure as hell drop the both of you!”
Anton must have known he was an easy target and lowered his gun.
“I said drop it! If I intended to kill you, you’d both be dead already.”
Anton dropped the gun.
“The both of you, no talking, put your hands over your head and turn around and take three steps,” Jack demanded.
Anton and Bojan nervously complied. Jack came out, scooped up the Beretta, and stuck it in his waistband before making them lean against the wall to be searched. He took a phone from Bojan’s pocket and two phones from Anton. He then had them both lie face down on the floor. He was going to use their belts to tie them up, but spotted a roll of duct tape and a box cutter lying on a pile of bubble wrap.
He ordered Anton to tape Bojan’s hands behind his back and bind his ankles. When he was finished, Jack had Anton bind his own ankles and then lie face down on the floor again while he tied his hands behind his back.
After checking to ensure that Bojan was secure, he yelled, “Where’s the rest of the stash hidden?”
“You got what we had left,” Anton said.
“That’s a lie.” Jack ground the side of Anton’s face into the cement floor with the sole of his shoe. “The brick I have was busted off a kilo. Where’s the rest?”
“That was all of it,” Anton protested. “I swear on my mother’s grave.”
“Okay, I tried to be nice,” Jack said. “Looks like we have to do it the hard way.”
Anton and Bojan glanced at each other in panic while Jack wrapped duct tape over their mouths. He then dragged Anton by the ankles into the room at the back of the shop.
Once Jack had Anton out of Bojan’s view, he started the band saw and let it run for a moment, then shut it off. “Fuck it, too messy.”
Anton’s body twitched when Jack fired a shot into a pile of wood near his head before walking back to talk to Bojan. As he did, he felt his phone vibrate. He had received two calls earlier, starting when he ducked behind the table saw. He decided to ignore this call, as well, so as not to lose the momentum of fear he’d induced in the two men. Instead, he ripped the tape off Bojan’s mouth. “I know the stash is here someplace. I’ll find it one way or another, so why not make it easy on yourself and tell me where it is?”
“There is no stash,” Bojan insisted. “Besides, you’re going to kill me, anyway, so even if there was a stash, why should I tell you where it is?”
Jack’s phone vibrated again and he saw it was Laura’s number. He hesitated, then shoved the phone back in his pocket and put his gun to Bojan’s temple.
Bojan shut his eyes tight and a few seconds ticked by, then Jack muttered, “Too easy for you. Messy or not, let’s see how the band saw works. If you don’t talk in the next ten seconds, I will use it.”
He grabbed the tape around Bojan’s ankles and slowly dragged him toward the back room while counting down from ten. By the time he reached four, they
