Now he was getting angry. “So you let them kill him?”
“We didn’t let anything happen. It just did. Our surveillance on Simon is loose. We can’t spook him. He has no idea we’re watching. I want to keep it that way.”
“But you knew Scott was in danger?”
“With his background we figured he could take care of himself.”
“You figured wrong.”
Schwartz caught the message, but seemed undeterred. “You know the rules of this game.”
Yes, he did. But that didn’t mean he either liked or approved of them. One day, maybe, he’d get out, and then he could play by his own rules.
“My brother-in-law took a lot of chances. But he never played for keeps. His marks were the nonviolent type.
“But he took something Simon wants back.”
“Unfortunately, we don’t know what that is.”
“And you want me to find out?”
“We were hoping you might help.”
He was still pissed about the cavalier attitude toward Scott’s death. He may not have liked Scott Brown, but the man was Ginger’s husband and she was family, and that counted for something.
And another reality hit home.
Seemed not only Scott had stumbled into a mess. So had he.
“I’m leaving,” he said.
“Not until I say you can.”
“I don’t work for you.”
“But if you’re not going to cooperate, you’re going to leave this island. I can’t risk any more interference.”
He’d already assessed the situation and concluded that the two young men who’d brought him were all the army Schwartz had, at least here. Only a handful of others wandered through the ruins, none raising any alarm. He assumed Schwartz was armed, so the first play was obvious.
He shook his head and grinned. “You don’t give up, do you?”
Schwartz pointed both palms skyward, shrugged, and said, “It’s my nature.”
“Look,” he said, casually stepping closer, as if he wanted to say something in private, “I’ll leave—”
His right arm swung out and clamped Schwartz’s neck in a vise as he brought the man toward him. The move caught his opponent off guard, and he was able to reach beneath the hanging shirttail and find the gun he knew was there. With weapon in hand he kneed Schwartz in the groin, doubling the man over.
An elbow to the nape of the neck sent the Israeli to the ground.
He whirled and caught the other two problems reaching for their own weapons. He fired at both, sending them scattering for cover among the crumbling stones.
He darted right, seeking refuge behind a standing column. Making his escape would require a sprint of fifty yards, back down the grassy path to the parking lot. Schwartz was still on the ground, barely moving, the other two agents somewhere to his left. The next patch of safety lay twenty feet away. He leaped, hit the ground, and rolled toward it.
Bullets came his way, but missed.
He sprang to his feet behind a clump of stone infested with lichens and caught sight of Twittily Dee and Dittily Doo trying to make their way to Schwartz. He used that moment of distraction to race ahead and hop a waist-high stone wall that separated the grassy path from the rocks beyond.
Crouching low, he kept heading forward until he turned a bend and was out of the line of fire. He leaped back over the wall, onto the grass, and raced to the parking lot.
Now what?
The car he’d come in waited to his right.
No way were the keys in it, but he checked to be sure.
Three more cars were there and he checked those too.
No keys, either.
He’d have to keep moving.
The growl of an engine could be heard from the steep switchback road that led back to the highway.
A vehicle appeared around the last bend.
One he recognized.
Dubois.
The engine rattled and strained, but sounded to him like a fine orchestra. His ally wheeled to a stop. He
