she snapped.
Al-Shalaan was paying for a dominatrix, and he was going to get his money’s worth. As high as a kite, Bellucci stalked forward like a cat closing in on its prey. She slinked as she moved, almost crossing the line between sensuous and slatternly, but the razor-sharp edge of predatory energy remained.
“Shut your mouth,” she repeated. Her voice had lowered from a bark to a hissing whisper. “You’re late. You kept me waiting.” She drew even with the table in the entranceway. “I’m not used to being kept waiting.”
Al-Shalaan quickly set his attaché case on the table. Made from the finest Italian leather, it featured clasps in 24-carat gold. Not plating, but solid gold fixtures, right down to the tumblers on the combination locks. The Arabic power broker kept his voice contrite and his eyes down as he answered his mistress.
“I a-apologize, please, one thousand a-apologies,” he stuttered.
His English came with an Oxford accent. She was near enough now for him to smell her perfume, a timeless classic. In her heels she was taller than him. Her heavily lidded eyes glittered like diamonds. With her left hand she reached out and pressed a fingertip to his lips, causing him to fall instantly silent. The nail was long and sharp and red as blood in a Baghdad gutter.
“No more talking,” she warned.
She leaned in close so that her full lips were near his ear. Her breath was hot against the flesh of his face and he smelled the gin. He felt his crotch go tight and he shut his eyes, body trembling. Bellucci reached over with her hand and wrapped her long fingers around the leather haft of the riding crop.
“Strip!” she ordered.
She brought the riding crop down against the polished wood of the table with a sharp crack and al-Shalaan hastened to obey.
T HE ELEVATOR DOOR OPENED with a tasteful, muted ding and the four teammates of Phoenix Force looked down the hotel hallway. Encizo sagged, hanging off the shoulders of Hawkins and Manning, the bottle still clenched in his fist. The four bodyguards in front of al-Shalaan’s door turned their heads in unison. The choreography of the movement was particularly impressive given that none of them seemed to have necks.
From the back of the elevator James, in his overwatch position, whispered under his breath, “I should have used more drug.” He stood behind a hotel wheelchair they had acquisitioned from a bellhop in trade for a generous tip.
“There’re four of them,” Hawkins gritted as Encizo pretended to stumble. “This wasn’t supposed to be a fair fight. This isn’t the goddamn Ultimate Fighting Championship, it’s supposed to be an ambush.”
“Grin and bear it,” Manning said.
“Hey!” Encizo lifted his head and shouted at the bodyguards in carefully memorized French. He made his voice slurred and the liquor in his bottle splashed as he gestured. “What the hell are you fat pigs looking at?”
The crew moved down the hall. James, who had learned French while serving as a Navy SEAL, spoke up quickly. “Don’t mind my friend, he’s had too much to drink. You know?” He shoved the wheelchair away and off to one side, as if the group of drunks had stolen it then tired of playing with the item.
The four juggernauts did not reply. One of them placed his hand under his jacket in an automatic gesture. James, charged with overwatch, tensed. “Parlez-vous français?” he called out.
“Voulez-vous coucher avec moi, ce soir?” Encizo said suddenly in his affected stupor.
“Oh, Jesus,” James moaned under his breath as he heard Encizo ask the bodyguards if they wanted to sleep with him tonight.
One of the bodyguards, a dark giant with a potato nose and a cell link in his right ear, snorted in laughter. He reached out a hand as large as a dinner plate and put a restraining hand on the guard who’d put his hand under his jacket. The big man muttered something, and the other three bodyguards laughed.
Manning could see the tension leak out of them, but the group remained vigilant as the four Stony Man commandos approached al-Shalaan’s suite door. In fact, he could see that they almost looked eager. Pummeling some of what they thought were drunk French tourists was an activity they seemed not averse to. This fit into the team’s plans perfectly. A brawl was fine. As long as the bodyguards didn’t feel the need to draw their handguns from the start, the odds would shift quickly into the team’s favor.
Phoenix Force moved down the hall, Encizo ranting in a slurred voice while Manning and Hawkins pretended to stagger under his weight. James began to drift out toward the edge of the group. Encizo started making gagging noises as if he were about to vomit.
The paneling on the walls of the long hotel hallway was of heavy wood, the pictures original eighteenth-century European cityscapes: Paris in autumn, London in the rain, Venice in the spring, Berlin at night. The carpet was thick, a burgundy laced with golden threaded patterns that matched the subdued wallpaper above the black walnut wainscoting. The resort was a beautiful, five-star hotel. In a detached way Gary Manning began to feel sorry for the grand old structure.
Phoenix Force had a tendency to wreak havoc.
As they approached the knot of the powerfully built, James rattled off a room number, addressing the bodyguards. “Where is it?” he demanded.
The dark giant, seemingly the senior guard, shook his head. “You’re not even on the right floor,” he snapped.
Encizo made a horrible retching sound and let a long line of saliva dribble out of his mouth and onto the carpet at the bodyguard’s feet. “He’s going to throw up!” James suddenly cried. Instinctively the four bodyguards stepped back, crowding them against the door.
Phoenix Force uncoiled. Gone was the comfortable banter. Gone was the easygoing camaraderie and tough-guy ball busting. No one was smiling. No one was laughing. The machine that was Phoenix Force had been initiated.
Manning stood closest to the guards, and he ducked out of Encizo’s arm, twisting at the waist. His right fist snapped out like a whip popping in a knife hand blow that struck the guard in the Adam’s apple while his left hand reached for the auto-injector positioned behind his back.
The bodyguard staggered, his hands flying up to protect his face in a boxer’s cover-up motion. Pulling the auto-injector free, Manning used his momentum to dip his massive shoulder and drive hard into the man’s body like linemen stopping a defensive back cold on the scrimmage line. The giant gasped as air was driven from his lungs and Manning’s shoulder hammered into his solar plexus. The man stumbled backward.
Instantly, Manning was on him, placing his leading forearm across the man’s neck and pinning him against the hotel wall. The man’s eyes grew wide with surprise, then quickly narrowed in effort as the bodyguard leader began to fight back. However, the pain from Manning’s initial neck blow had frightened and slowed the bodyguard’s reflexes so that his hook into the burly Phoenix Force warrior’s ribs was glancing and ineffective.
Manning brought up the auto-injector and shoved it roughly into the giant’s thick neck. The gun cycled and the sedative slammed into the man’s system. Manning wasn’t sure he’d hit the artery he was aiming for, but the muscles of the neck were extremely vascular. The bodyguard’s heart was now pumping wildly.
The man looked stunned, then panicked as he felt the air-jet of liquid medicine invade his
