waiting for him, breathing heavily. He joined him, catching his breath, nodding a question.
“Figured you could use some help,” Rydell said, lifting his jacket to expose the handgun he had tucked under his belt.
Matt tugged his shirttail up to give Rydell a glance of his own arsenal and gave him a slight grin. He held the phone up to his ear.
“Anything?” he asked.
Dalton’s voice came back. “No movement, but the lot on the south side of the building is crawling with people. They’ve got to have their car on the other—hang on.” He stumbled. “Okay, we’ve got one, two, three—four guys, coming out of the east face of the building and heading for what looks like—it’s a van, by the trees in the northeast corner of the lot.”
Matt snapped the phone shut and stuffed it in his back pocket. “You know how to use it?” he asked, pointing at Rydell’s silver handgun.
Rydell nodded easily. “I’ll manage.”
Matt flicked him an okay nod and took off for the trees.
They hurdled the low fence bordering the parking lot and cut across the scrub and the thicket of trees that led to the building. A neon sign informed Matt that it was a Holiday Inn. He led Rydell to the right, past the pool area and its terrace cafe. It was teeming with people, hotel guests who were now discussing the sign’s appearance animatedly. They kept going, rounding the hotel and reaching its front parking lot.
Matt hugged the side of the building and looked out. The lot was wide and had poor lighting, and its far reaches were bathed in near-darkness. There was a row of cars, then a lane, then two rows of cars, another lane, and one last row of cars. He could make out the roof of the van all the way down, on the far right. It was parked facing the hotel, with its loading bay backing up against another thicket of trees that separated the hotel from the next property. He looked a question at Rydell. Rydell nodded his confirmation that it was the right van. Matt saw movement around it, figures silhouetted in the night. Saw one of them lifting a big tube and handing it to someone out of sight. He looked to Rydell again for confirmation. Rydell nodded. They were Maddox’s men. Loading up.
Matt felt a tightening in his gut. Danny could be right there. Less than fifty yards away.
He pulled out his guns and handed one to Rydell.
“This one will be quieter than that cannon you’ve got there. Go wide that way,” he whispered, gesturing for Rydell to move in from the left. “I’ll cut across from the right. And stay low.”
Rydell confirmed with a slight nod and slipped away in a low crouch.
Matt crept closer to the van. He hugged the cars, slithering through the narrow gaps between them, his eyes locked on the target. It was a Chevy work van. The big, long-wheelbase model. White and anonymous. He heard one of its doors clang shut and saw one of the men stepping toward the back of the van. The others were out of sight behind it. Matt moved in closer, sucked in a deep breath, and rose just enough to clear the roof of the car in front of him, gripping his handgun in a two-handed stance, ready to pump a couple of silenced bullets into Maddox’s men—but there was no one there. They were gone. His nerves bristled as he swept his gun left and right, his eyes and ears at Defcon five—then he heard a rustle off to the right, in the trees beyond the van, and saw a shooter emerge, pulling Rydell along with him, a silenced handgun pressed against the billionnaire’s temple.
Matt flinched, unsure about what to do—just as something hard nudged him in the back.
“Drop it,” the voice said. “Nice and slow.”
Matt’s heart cratered. They’d been expected. For a split second, the notion of making a move sparked in his mind, but the guy behind him cut it short with a sudden, hard punch to Matt’s ear that sent him down to his knees. He dropped his gun, and his vision went blurry. He stayed down for a moment, waiting for it to settle, and through his bleary veil, he glimpsed the vague outline of someone climbing out of the back of the van. It was Maddox, and —he wasn’t alone. He was dragging someone out of the van with him, yanking him by the neck, a handgun pressed against it.
Matt squinted, straining to cut through the fog in his head, but even before it lifted, the recognition was instant.
It was Danny.
He was there. He was actually there.
And very much alive.
Matt’s insides cartwheeled. He pushed himself to his feet, and the adrenaline boost coursing through him brought Danny’s face racing into focus. He gave Matt a pained smile. Matt nodded back and couldn’t suppress a broad smile, even though things weren’t looking too promising for them.
Maddox acknowledged Matt’s presence with a shrug, but his eyes registered genuine surprise when he saw Rydell.
“Well, what do you know,” he quipped, clearly pleased with the unexpected presence of the tycoon. “And people say there is no Santa.”
GRACIE FLARED. “What are they doing?”
The image on the laptop’s screen showed the two figures they knew to be Rydell and Matt putting their guns down and stepping back from the van in defeat. Seconds later, two other figures appeared from the van, tightly bunched, one behind the other.
“Is that a gun?” she asked, fear catching in her throat.
“Hang on,” Dalton said. He fingered the joysticks expertly and brought the Draganflyer down slightly closer for a better look.
The top view of Maddox’s extended arm grew bigger on the screen. And there was no mistaking the gun that was staring Matt and Rydell in the face.
DANNY GRUNTED against Maddox’s tight hold. “I’m sorry, bro,” he told Matt. “I couldn’t warn you.”
“Don’t worry about it.” He saw that Danny’s hands were tied together with plastic flex cuffs.
Danny glared at Rydell. “What’s he doing here?” he asked Matt.
“His penance,” Matt replied flatly.
Danny shook his head sardonically. His stare burned into Rydell. “Too little, too late, don’t you think? Or do you also have the power to raise the dead?”
Rydell kept quiet.
Maddox swung his right arm straight out, flicking his handgun in a horizontal arc from Matt to Rydell and back.
“Sorry to have to cut this happy reunion short, boys,” he said tersely, “but we’ve got to get going. So how about you say good-bye to your pain-in-the-ass brother one last time, Danny-boy.” He settled his gun sight on Matt and gave him a curious, almost respectful nod. “It’s been good knowing you, kid. You did really well.”
“Not well enough,” Matt retorted gruffly.
“No, believe me, you did real well,” he insisted.
Maddox raised the gun a couple of inches for a head shot, no emotion whatsoever registering on his face. Matt’s heart stopped at the thought of a bullet shredding into him—then Maddox whipped back as something slammed into him from out of nowhere, something big and black that rocketed out of the night sky with a stealthy whoosh and batted his arm off savagely to one side. His gun went flying off as Maddox howled, the chopper’s carbon fiber blades slicing through skin and muscle, and he fell to the ground in a burst of dark blood.
Matt was already moving as the Draganflyer crashed heavily into the van’s open door—he rammed his elbow back into the shooter behind him, yelling, “Go,” to Rydell as he spun around and pushed the man’s gun hand away while battering him with a cross that ripped his jaw out of its sockets and sent him tumbling to the ground. Matt went down with him, fighting for the gun, but the man’s hand was like a vise around his automatic and he wouldn’t let go—they wrestled for it like starved, rabid dogs fighting over a bone, until the gun spat out a shot that caught the shooter in the gut and he flinched back in agony.
Rydell wasn’t as quick or as effective—he was grappling with his shooter, his hands clasped around the man’s
