Orlando reached down and slammed her fist into the man’s face. Once, twice. By the third punch, he had gone slack.
Finally able to move again, Quinn ripped the gun from the man’s fingers, turning the barrel on its previous owner, then pushed himself up off the floor, watching for any sign of movement. Orlando held a couple of fingers against the man’s neck.
“Son of a bitch,” she said. “He’s still alive.”
Quinn knelt down and made a quick visual survey of the man.
He tapped Orlando on the shoulder. As she looked up, he put a finger to his mouth, then pointed to the man’s collar. On the knot of the man’s dark blue tie was a small disk. It was black and blended in with the fabric.
A transmitter.
Quinn then motioned to a bulge under the collar just below the man’s left ear. He carefully moved it so he could slip a couple fingers underneath. When he pulled them back out, he was holding a skin-tone earpiece attached to a wire leading beneath the man’s shirt.
He looked at Orlando. Her eyes were hard, all business.
Quinn pointed toward the rear of the restaurant. She nodded, then immediately got up and headed in the same direction Nate had gone moments before.
Quinn searched the man’s body, but the guy had nothing on him. No ID. No cash. No keys. His pockets were empty, not even a scrap of paper.
He scooted across the floor and retrieved his SIG. Carefully he rose into a crouch, then began running toward the kitchen, his back bent low.
Before he had even gone five feet, the glass covering the front door shattered. As he ducked back to the floor, he heard something crash into the wall not far from the booth he had shared with the others. Bullets.
Apparently, the unconscious man had friends, and they seemed to be armed and pissed.
Quinn turned his head, listening. There were footsteps running toward the restaurant. Two, maybe three people.
He pushed himself back to his feet and began sprinting. The kitchen door was still twenty feet away. He wasn’t going to make it in time.
He rolled forward, then shoved the door closed with his feet. He took two quick breaths, then jumped back on his feet and glanced around.
The kitchen was about half the size of the dining area. Along one wall were two ovens, a large blackened grill, and several burners. On the wall opposite was a prep table, much of it covered by boxes and bags of ingredients. It wasn’t the cleanest kitchen Quinn had ever seen, not even close.
Orlando and Nate were at the far end of the room, near the back door. The waitress and an older man—Quinn guessed perhaps the cook—were huddled on the floor under the prep table.
Quinn moved over to them.
“Do you have a pantry or a restroom or something?” he asked. “Someplace you can hide in?”
“What’s going on?” the man asked.
Quinn looked at the waitress, repeating his question without saying a word.
“Yes,” she said. She pointed toward a door just beyond the grill.
“Get in there now. After it gets quiet, wait at least thirty minutes, then come out.”
They didn’t move.
“Now,” Quinn ordered.
The woman nodded and pulled the man up with her. Within moments, they had disappeared into a small storage closest.
Quinn joined the others at the back door. “Everyone okay?” he asked.
Nods all around.
Quinn handed the weapon he’d acquired from the man out front to Orlando. Now they were all armed.
“No suppressor on that,” he told her. “So be judicious.” He looked at the back door. “This and the front are the only exits?”
“One-story building, shops on each side,” Orlando said. “So just the two as far as I’ve seen.”
Suddenly they heard someone running through the dining room.
“Keep an eye on this,” Quinn said to Nate, pointing at the back door.
He didn’t have to tell Orlando anything. She followed him without hesitation.
“How many do you think?” she whispered as they neared the front of the kitchen.
“Counting your friend on the floor out there, three or four total,” he said. More than that would have drawn too much attention.