two — for a price. But I can’t get you close to the VIPs, not without advance planning. I reckon nobody can. Not now…”
“I can.”
Carlos and Roland turned to face Stella Hawk. Head cocked, hands on her hips, she nodded. “Yeah, you heard right. I can get one or two of you in, anyway. I’m a performer at
Pizarro Rojas, who’d only been listening up to now, stepped forward. “How much is the ser vices of this… this
The insult rolled off her back. “Five hundred thousand dollars,” Stella replied, extending her hand, palm up. “Payable right now.”
Pizarro glanced at his brother. “Pay her.”
Bix studied the man. For a guy who’d been forced to cough up an extra half million dollars, Pizarro Rojas seemed pretty calm. His brother Balboa didn’t look nearly so happy. Sour faced, he rummaged through the scuffed and dirty canvas bag that he’d carried across the border, came up with a stack of thousand-dollar bills.
“You better deliver what we’ve paid for, or you will not leave the hotel alive,” he grunted as he handed her the money.
Stella flashed him a smile. “Don’t worry, Pedro. Satisfaction’s guaranteed.” She climbed into her car, stashed the money in a secret compartment behind the dash.
Finally, Pizarro Rojas moved toward Hugo Bix, until the two men stood toe to toe. Rojas, a head shorter than the American, looked up to meet his eye.
“In a few minutes we will drive away from here in these trucks,” Rojas said. “But I will always remember the ser vice you and your men provided for me, for my family. In times of trouble, when the other gangs turned on us, you remained loyal.” Pizarro touched his head. “A Rojas never forgets his friends, as you shall soon discover.”
Turning his back on Bix, he headed back to the trucks. On the way, he took Stella’s arm, pushed her toward the first vehicle. Despite the rough handling, Stella smirked. Heels clicking, she obediently followed her new, high- paying boss.
By the time Bix reached his cluttered desk upstairs, the trucks were rolling out of the garage. Carlos Boca stood at the door, directing the deployment. He spaced each departure a few minutes apart — a wise move, Bix realized. It would look odd if six identical Sunflower Gardens Florist trucks rolled out of a garage nowhere near the location of the real shop on the other side of town.
Watching the last of the trucks roll on to their target, Bix lifted his phone, pressed a button.
Downstairs, Roman Vine answered the phone on the wall. “Yeah, boss.”
“Time to call the Wildman. Tell them it’s a go.”
Bix slumped down in the battered office chair and propped his feet on the desk. While the Rojas boys were having their fun, Hugo Bix had been planning a private party of his own. He’d just passed the order along to the out-of-towner gunmen Roman Vine hired from the El Paso mob. While the authorities’ attention was diverted to the big blowout at the Babylon, Bix was going to light his own kind of fire at the Cha-Cha Lounge, and Jaycee Jager and his crew were going to burn.
9. THE FOLLOWING TAKES PLACE BETWEEN THE HOURS OF 8 P.M. AND 9 P.M. PACIFIC DAYLIGHT TIME
Jong Lee answered the door to his own suite. Lev Cohen blinked in surprise, expecting the woman Yizi to greet him. The Asian man was dressed casually and appeared relaxed, so Palmer’s Chief of Staff recovered quickly. Lev greeted the man, but did not extend his hand. Nor did Jong Lee offer his.
Pale under his red-brown beard, Lev shifted uncomfortably. Adjusting, then re-adjusting his tie. He didn’t like this part of the job, but he was well aware that this
At least, after years of struggling, he’d latched on to a star that was going to take him all the way to the top. He’d help David Palmer get elected President of the United States, then Lev Cohen would be a name. After a successful stint in the White House, he’d launch his own consulting firm, maybe do a little lobbying on the side, or even a job with big media.
Lev had made the decision long ago to play along, do what was necessary to succeed — even if it meant playing the bag man and handling dirty money. Best to just get it over with as quickly as possible. Unlike the previous chief of staff, Cohen had survived two campaigns with Senator Palmer not only because he was very good at his job, but also because he understood something his predecessor did not — it was Sherry Palmer who called the shots with David Palmer’s political career, not the Senator.
Oh, sure, when Senator Palmer spoke, Lev nodded politely, always took the man’s suggestions under serious consideration. But he always did what Sherry wanted, when she wanted it done. That’s what made Lev a survivor.
“If you will please be seated, Mr. Cohen.”
“I really don’t have time…”
Jong Lee took his arm, guided Lev to the suite’s living room. Though fresh desert air filled the suite, the curtains were drawn on the balcony. The spacious room was lit by a single lamp. A leather case sat, lid open, in the middle of the glass coffee table. Its interior was filled with neat stacks of thousand dollar bills. Cohen slumped down in a straight backed chair. Behind him the curtains stirred with the breeze.
“It is all there, Mr. Cohen,” Jong Lee said, sitting in an armchair on the opposite side of the coffee table. “I insist you count it.”
“That’s really not necessary, Mr. Lee—”
“Indulge me,” Lee said, crossing his legs.
Lev shrugged. “All right, if you insist.”
He reached for a stack of bills, but his hand never touched the paper. Instead, a sudden burst of wind tickled his neck — then his mind exploded with black jets of agony as sharp blades plunged into his throat. As a red haze clouded his vision, Lev tried to cry out but no sound could possibly emerge from the ravaged larynx. He tried to raise his hands to clutch at his neck, but the tendons in his shoulders had been pierced or severed, his arms paralyzed. Finally, he tried to stand, but his assassin pressed the three-pronged blades farther downward, until they sunk deeper into his abdomen, to pierce arteries, scrape bones. Finally his lungs were punctured and collapsed like deflated balloons. Mouth open, eyes wide but unseeing, Lev Cohen’s world ended.
When she was sure Palmer’s man was dead, Yizi yanked the twin sai out of his shoulders, stared at the blood staining the long silver prongs. Standing behind the corpse, the woman’s eyes narrowed and she trembled like a cold kitten.
Yizi blinked, snapping out of her short trance. Slowly she lifted her chin. She wiped the bloody sai on the dead man’s clothing, slipped them into her belt. Unlike traditional sai, which are not sharpened, the prongs of uneven length, Yizi’s weapons had three twelve-inch prongs, each as sharp and the point of a diamond.
“You are calm now?” he asked in Chinese, using the metaphor.
“Yes. Thank you for the opportunity to indulge myself.”
Jong nodded once. “From now on you must kill with detached precision, quickly and without hesitation. Then move on to the next target. There will be nothing elegant about this operation. This is not wushu, it is slaughter.”
“I understand.”
Jack’s phone buzzed. “Jaycee.”
“It’s Morris. Heard from our girl in Los Angeles, Little Jamey…”
Jack raised an eyebrow. “And?”
“Our friend Tony, out at Area 51, he uncovered the traitor. A fellow named Dr. Steven Sable.”
