Johann Weiss wasn’t going to gun him down in the middle of the day in public. Peyton needed to do what Shay would do. Confront the man with style.
He glanced around to confirm the people inside the restaurant and some on the street had a good line of sight. Witnesses meant protection.
Peyton told himself that a few times before exiting the car and marching over toward Johann with all the swagger he could muster, digging his shaking hands into the pockets of his electric green pants.
The muscular, heavyset German tomb raider stepped out of his vehicle and walked around to the passenger’s side. He leaned against the car, his thick arms crossed over his chest.
“Why you following me, man?” Peyton said.
“Who said I’m following you?” Johann pressed his lips together in a thin smile.
Time for a little bluster.
“I know you’re following me and I should call the cops. Let them run your name and see if there are a bunch of warrants out on you.”
Johann leaned forward and lowered his voice. “I think you’ll find that any crimes I’ve ever committed are unknown to the authorities.”
“Whatever. You don’t know who you’re fucking with.” Peyton squared his shoulders, but the other man loomed over him and could probably bench press him with a single arm. He wasn’t sure how much the attempt at intimidation registered.
Johann gave him a feral smile. “You’re right about one thing, hosenscheisser. I don’t know who you are and I don’t care. I only care about one thing. The Goddess of Truth is mine.”
Johann looked Peyton up and down and snorted. “Who are you? Some college boy who decided he’d make quick money pretending to be a tomb raider? I’ll give you credit for being able to follow the Japanese bitch’s trail.”
Peyton frowned, but he could work with Johann’s mistakes. If Johann thought Peyton was another inexperienced rival, that worked out far better than if he found out Peyton was a friend of the target. Peyton’s fake information was proving to be convincing enough.
“You know what the problem is with a lot of people?” Peyton asked.
“What?”
“They forget that you don’t need big muscles to do magic.” Peyton’s best impression of a dark Shay grin followed.
Johann’s face twitched. “Don’t threaten me, hosenscheisser.”
“You going to kill me in the middle of a McDonald’s parking lot?”
Johann’s right hand lifted the inside of his jacket.
Oh shit. He is going to kill me in the middle of a McDonald’s parking lot. I did not see that coming.
Peyton saw his one chance and leaped forward, shoving his bony knee into the man’s crotch. Johann let out a loud groan and crumpled to the ground.
Oh shit. Oh shit. Oh shit.
Peyton yanked the back off his watch and pulled out a small silver disc. He threw it at the Audi. It exploded in sparks on contact. It was enough to fry at least some of the electronics in the vehicle and slow down the tomb raider.
He ran for the Elantra, throwing open the door and started the car before the door was even shut.
Johann pushed himself off the ground but didn’t go for a gun or charge at Peyton.
“Nice lucky hit, but you’ll be dead by tomorrow, hosenscheisser.” He stood in the middle of the parking lot, yelling.
Peyton peeled away from the McDonald’s toward the highway.
He’d done it. He’d confirmed he could mislead someone like Johann Weiss. And now he also had a man who wanted him dead. Well, another anyway.
Is this how Shay feels after every job?
Peyton drove for 20 minutes. He’d checked the mirrors several times, but there was no sign of the tomb raider or his Audi. The EMP disc must have worked.
“Need to get out of this state, ASAP.”
Peyton yanked out his phone and booked a seat on a flight under yet another false name he maintained with just enough of a trail to comfort the TSA. The flight wasn’t supersonic, but it left in less than an hour, and he was only twenty minutes away from the airport. Soon, he’d be back on his way to L.A., and the only thing Johann would be was frustrated with the lack of any Native American artifacts underneath the local Walmart.
Yeah. I’m better at this than I thought.
Peyton rubbed his hands together as he waited for the gate attendant to announce boarding. He’d not bothered to check in the Elantra. He was burning the fake identity anyway, and they would eventually find it in the airport parking lot.
Need to get the hell out of here.
Johann likely returned to the Walmart to try and intercept his original target. There was no reason for him to put in a lot of effort hunting Peyton down. At least, Peyton hadn’t spotted the man anywhere, and it wasn’t like Captain Super-German would have been hard to spot.
A black-haired woman swayed toward where Peyton was seated. Her eyes were bloodshot and half closed.
The woman stumbled at the last moment, falling forward. Peyton reached out to hold her off of him as something sliced his hand and he winced.
“I’m so sorry.” The woman’s speech was slurred. She pushed away from Peyton, looking past him. “Oh, I’m not even at the right gate.” She giggled. “Sorry again.” The woman spun on her heel and walked away, swaying the whole time.
One of her long, blue nails was covered in blood. Peyton glanced down at his hand. She must have cut him when she fell.
Well, if the worse that I got was a little nail cut from all of this, I’m doing pretty well. Wonder how Shay’s doing?
Chapter Fifteen
The Burlak was a total loss from what Shay could get out of the mechanic’s broken English. Her Russian was all but non-existent, and the conversation wasn’t all that enlightening until the man showed her the shredded lines below the vehicle and the damage under the hood.
To the mechanic’s credit, he didn’t seem to question why there were so many obvious claw marks on and inside her vehicle.
There were no
