He told himself it was nothing. He told himself that Weiss had called the answering machine from the room that morning and then checked out, moved on. But even as he told himself that, Bishop tossed his gym bag onto the bed to free his hands. He pulled the zipper of his jacket down. He slipped his right hand into the gap. He touched the grip of his K9 as he walked slowly across the room to the curtained windows, looking to his left and right.
He parted the curtains with his left hand. The windows faced west. The rays of the sinking sun shot straight through them. Even behind his shades, Bishop squinted at the brightness of the light.
He squinted through the glare and saw a large swimming pool just below him. The sun was reflected on it. It was blinding, a layer of sparkling white atop a depth of blue. Colored bathing suits and pale flesh drifted peacefully in and out of the dazzle, in and out of sight, on the water. Other bodies lay stretched, luxurious, on white lounge chairs around the pool's perimeter. Bishop could hear children laughing, even up here, even through the glass.
He caught a movement reflected on the pane, and the truth came over him like nausea. He had been too eager. The hotel was too big. The trail was too easy. It was all too fucking easy.
Damn it, he thought.
He knew he was dead.
He did what he could at the end. With a single motion, he drew the K9 and swung around, yanking the curtains open to let in the blinding sun as he dodged to one side.
The egg-shaped man was standing right behind him. The Saracen was already in his hand. Before Bishop could pull the K9's trigger, the Saracen spit fire.
Bishop felt the bullet rip through him. It was a cold, dull business. The egg-shaped man fired again. Bishop's legs went weak. He stumbled back against the windows. His knees buckled. He tried to get his fingers to tighten on the K9, but they wouldn't. He tried to hold on to the curtains. He couldn't. He couldn't even get his mouth to close.
He dropped slowly, sliding down the wall of glass to the floor, leaving a trail of blood on the sun-bright pane.
29.
The man who called himself John Foy moved in to finish Bishop off. It gave him a sense of professional satisfaction. It was a job well done.
Bishop had been good. He was good when the shooting started anyway. Before that he was just a little hot- headed, a little careless, that's all. That's why it had been so easy to draw him in. The man who called himself John Foy had a small network of watchers and informants who fed him information in a number of elaborate ways. A coded message on an Internet news website had alerted him Sunday afternoon that one of these people had something for him. He made contact with the informant on a stolen cell phone and learned that Bishop had roughed up one of Adalian's thugs. In revenge, the thug had spread the word that Bishop was coming after the specialist. It was a good break. It gave him a chance to pay Weiss back for chasing him around outside the Super 8.
It also gave him a chance to try out the fat suit. It worked well. He'd augmented it with some foam, covered it with the Hawaiian shirt, made himself look like a real lard-ass to blend in with the tourists. And the way the Saracen sat invisible in the vest's pouch-that was perfect. No one could have seen it or felt it there.
In fact, the whole thing had given him fresh confidence after a period of self-doubt. The mistakes he'd been making recently had made him feel that maybe his luck was deserting him. This, though-this had gone off exactly as planned. He left a trail and Bishop followed it, simple, efficient. True, Bishop was no Weiss. He wasn't smart like Weiss, and he didn't have that way Weiss had of guessing what you'd do. But he was a real professional all the same, a specialist, just like Foy. And he never saw it coming. He never suspected a thing.
Still, he was good at the end. When the shooting started, he was very good. He must've seen Foy coming at the very last second. He had no time at all to react, but he made a close duel of it all the same. When he pulled the curtain open like that, the sun had pierced through the window directly into the specialist's eyes. It had blinded him just as Bishop leapt out of the way. The slugs from the Belgian 5.7 ripped Bishop's left side open at the midsection, but the man who called himself John Foy had been aiming for a center shot, his chest, his heart. The detective should've been dead by the time he hit the floor.
Instead, he sat slumped against the wall. His head hung limp on his chest. His eyes were open, staring at the carpet. His left hand lay motionless in his lap. His right hand lay open on the carpet, palm upward. His finger was still tangled in the trigger of his gun-a Kahr 9mm, a K9, the specialist noted. Not a bad little weapon for this sort of thing. He probably had another in his boot-or maybe a knife. But it didn't matter now. He was almost gone.
There was nothing left but to finish it, and he had to do it fast. The blasts from the Saracen had been loud in the small room. Usually people ignored these things, but there was always a chance some shit-for-brains Good Samaritan would decide to investigate or call the police.
For safety's sake, he tried to kick the K9 out of Bishop's hand, but it snagged on the detective's trigger finger. He covered Bishop with the Saracen, knelt down, worked the gun free, and tossed it behind him onto the bed. Aside from the rapid, shallow falling and rising of his chest, Bishop never moved. He was dying all right but not fast enough.
So, kneeling there, the man who called himself John Foy placed the barrel of the Saracen in the center of Bishop's forehead. Then he squeezed the trigger.
30.
Bishop moved. It took all the strength he had left. From the moment he'd fallen, he'd been marshaling the violence in him. Now he willed it to explode in this single motion.
As the specialist put the gun to his forehead and pulled the trigger, Bishop's left arm-the arm lying slack on his lap-drove up and forward. His forearm hit the killer's gun hand, knocking it aside. The gun went off. The report was deafening. The bullet whistled over Bishop's skull. It cut through the curtain behind him and shattered the window. Bishop's arm, meanwhile, kept driving forward. His hand, the fingers stiffened, jammed into the killer's eye.
It wasn't a good hit. Bishop didn't have a good hit left in him. But it nailed the eyeball straight on. The Shadowman cried out. Instinctively, he grabbed his eye with both hands, dropping the Saracen. The gun fell to the carpet with a dull thud.
But the killer recovered immediately. Holding his eye with his left hand, he groped for the fallen weapon with his right.
Bishop struggled to rise.
There wasn't much time. Another second, the Shadow-man would have the gun in his grasp. Bishop managed to get one foot flat on the floor. He managed to get one hand flat on the floor. He clutched at the cloth of the curtain with the other hand. He pushed himself up and pulled himself up. The cold, dull sensation of being shot was morphing quickly now into a pulsing, spreading red zone of pain. He couldn't be sure, but he had the sense that the scream he was hearing was coming from him. He struggled up an inch, another inch.
And the Shadowman grabbed the Saracen. Holding his hurt eye shut with his left hand, he focused the other eye on the gun. He fumbled with it for a moment. Then he had it, gripped it. He swung it toward Bishop.
Bishop screamed again. He propelled himself upward with his legs. He threw his upper body back against the curtains. He felt the curtains catch him and give way. He felt his guts become a single drilled nerve. He saw the killer bring the Saracen around. He saw the endlessly deep black bore of the gun. The curtain behind him gave way, gave way.
Then the Shadowman fired and Bishop fell.
He threw himself out the shattered window. He felt himself tumbling through the open air. He felt pain and heat and swirling confusion.
He caught a glimpse of the swimming pool beneath him. The glare of the sun on the surface flashed up at him. It obliterated everything. Somewhere women were screaming. Inside him the pain was screaming, one great
