Born to Run

“Hey, old lady. Come jerk me off.”

“Leave her alone,” said Jack.

“Come on,” said Mika. “All I need is thirty seconds. I just got out of prison three days ago.”

“I said leave her alone,” said Jack.

A sinister smile creased his lips. “I got a better idea.”

Mika went to the closet and pulled a gun from the coat pocket. It was much smaller than the 9-millimeter pistol on the nightstand. A.22-caliber, Jack guessed. Then Mika found another piece of equipment-a suppressor. He fastened it to the barrel of the.22, unzipped his fly, and stuffed the whole thing down his pants. It was nearly a foot long, still short of pizza boy. He walked toward Jack with the business end of the equipment sticking out of his trousers.

“Here, big mouth. Suck on this.”

“Get away, you pig.”

Mika kicked him in the stomach so hard that it knocked Jack over. It was a well-placed boot in the solar plexus that left Jack gasping for breath. Then Mika went to Sofia.

“Here you go,” he said, as he brought the weapon to her lips. “A little Russian roulette, Mika style.”

“Don’t!” said Jack.

She jerked her head back so quickly that it bumped against the wall behind her.

“Come on,” said Mika. “Last time I did this, a little whore in Moscow sucked her brains right out the back of her head.”

“Sofia, don’t,” said Jack.

“You listen to him,” said Mika, “and I’ll put a bullet right in your face.”

A tear ran down her cheek.

“Open your mouth!” said Mika.

Jack was about to lash out, but he stopped himself. Across the room, through a crack between the closed drapery panels, Jack saw movement on the patio. Someone was standing right outside the room, behind the locked French doors.

“Do it,” said Mika.

Jack drew his knees to his chest and coiled up like a catapult, then shouted at the top of his lungs as he sprang into action. His right shoulder hit Mika squarely in the belly, and Jack kept pushing against him with every bit of strength and momentum he could muster. A glass panel shattered in the French door on the other side of the room, but the noise couldn’t drown out the discharge of Mika’s gun and the unmistakable sound of his suppressor doing its work.

Sofia collapsed as Jack and Mika tumbled to the floor.

The French doors burst open. Demetri raced into the room and squeezed off a quick shot that sounded like a bazooka. Mika went still, a dead heap, the left side of his head a bloody mess. Jack pushed himself away from the body, and Demetri charged across the room.

“Sofia!”

Chapter 38

“Stay away!” said Sofia.

She had withdrawn to the corner, well away from the bullet that had whizzed past her ear and lodged in the wall behind her. Demetri started toward her.

“Sofia, please.”

“Stop!” she said, her tone bordering on hysterical.

“Put the gun away,” said Jack.

Demetri seemed to have forgotten that he was holding a weapon. He shoved it into his coat pocket and approached slowly. Sofia cowered, clearly overwhelmed. Demetri tried to switch on the lamp, but it didn’t work. The muted porn on the flat screen was still the only light in the room. Demetri knelt beside Sofia and untied the frayed lamp cord that bound her wrists.

“We have to go,” he told her gently.

She sniffled, on the verge of tears. Demetri embraced her, but she did not hug back.

“Sofia, listen to me,” he said in the same soft but urgent voice. “We need to get out of here. They found us. Madera’s men know we’re in Miami.”

“Agent Madera?” said Jack. “That’s the new head of my father’s Secret Service detail.”

“Gee, what a coincidence.”

Jack sank even lower. His father’s role in all of this was getting cloudier at every turn.

“Sofia, we don’t have much time,” said Demetri. “Come with me.”

She shook her head, and for a moment in the dimly lit room, Jack felt as if he were watching a twenty-year- old Sicilian beauty struggling in the middle of the night as she came to terms with her fears about a new life in Cyprus and her new husband’s line of work.

“I can’t do this,” said Sofia.

“You must,” said Demetri.

“Where’s the Russian guy?” said Jack.

“Dead,” said Demetri. “They killed him.”

“Who are they?” said Jack.

“The same people who are going to kill us if we don’t get out of here right now. Sofia, I’m begging you. Don’t stay here to die.”

Jack heard panicked voices and footsteps in the hallway outside their door. Guests were running from their rooms.

“They’re evacuating the hotel,” said Jack. “Obviously they heard your gun go off.”

“We’re running out of time,” said Demetri.

“You go,” said Sofia.

“I don’t make the same mistake twice. Tonight you come with me.”

“That time has passed,” she said, “a long, long time ago.”

“Don’t let yourself believe that. We’re older, but it’s still me, and it’s still you. That will never change.”

His words seemed to play on her very conflicted feelings, but before Sofia could speak, police sirens sounded on the next block. Demetri pulled his pistol and checked his ammunition clip.

“Don’t be a fool,” said Jack.

Demetri held Sofia’s hand tightly and looked her straight in the eye. “You know what will happen if you go with the police, don’t you?”

She didn’t answer.

Jack said, “It’s the only choice.”

Demetri ignored him, continuing in his soft, persuasive voice. “Sofia, that’s not what you want.”

The approaching sirens grew louder. Sofia shot a nervous glance at Jack, and he shook his head, as if to tell her Don’t even think about it. Then her gaze swept back to Demetri, her voice filled with more resignation than resolve.

“I’ll go,” she said.

Demetri threw his arms around her and helped her up. Then, like a guy turning the doorknob in a gas station bathroom, he reluctantly reached inside Mika’s pants and grabbed the gun. He pitched the silencer aside and tucked the little.22-caliber pistol into his pocket.

Suddenly, sirens were blaring right outside the hotel.

“It may be too late,” said Sofia.

Demetri aimed his pistol at Jack’s face. “You’re coming, too.”

“Leave him,” said Sofia.

“He’s our ticket out.”