booze.
Seeing her, Mercer felt a hot stab of anger surge through his body. Maria was partially responsible for Lauren’s death and had callously told Liu about her husband’s discovery, knowing that Gary and everyone else living with him on the banks of the River of Ruin would be murdered. That a quirk of geology had killed them first didn’t absolve her in his mind.
She continued her tirade, not bothering to identify who had disturbed her. Mercer stood rooted, his lips compressed in a white line and his eyes narrowed to angry slits. He let her go on for a few more seconds then slapped her across the face. The blow was just enough to stun her into silence.
“Mercer!” she cried when she finally recognized him.
Rene and he pushed her into the dingy apartment and closed the door.
“What are you doing here?” Maria clutched at her robe.
Two empty wine bottles sat on a coffee table next to a dinner plate overflowing with cigarette butts. Wads of tissue like the bodies of dead birds littered the floor next to the sofa. Maria had been crying the night before as she tried to drink away some pain. Mercer felt no sympathy. Gauzy curtains diffused the light streaming through the window and cigarette smoke still swirled in the stuffy room.
Lapsing into a wary silence, Maria watched as Mercer made a slow circuit of the living room, peering at the cheap curios she displayed. There were open spaces on the walls where photographs, probably of her and Gary, had until recently hung.
Mercer’s body vibrated with the effort it took to put up a calm front. “He was right, you know,” he said when he could finally look her in the eye. “Gary, I mean. There was a clue in that book I brought from Paris. The Twice- Stolen Treasure is at the lake very close to where he was working.”
Maria blanched. She staggered back and dropped onto the sofa. Keeping her face to Mercer, her hands searched out, then lit, a cigarette. “I always knew he would find it.” She couldn’t muster enough conviction to cover the lie.
“Don’t bother, Maria. We know everything. About you and the Chinese. How you gave up your husband for whatever Liu promised you. I assume it was money, but I don’t really care. I also know you called Liu yesterday when you found out I was still in Panama and had gone out on Lake Gatun.”
To her credit, Maria didn’t continue the charade. Instead her voice turned furious. “And that son of a bitch tossed me aside last night like I was a whore.”
Rene stepped closer to her. “You are a whore, Madam Barber.”
She threw him a halfhearted curse in Spanish.
“Get dressed,” Mercer ordered. “You’re coming with us.”
“Like hell I am.”
Mercer’s urgency to get away from the apartment suddenly grew. Liu Yousheng wouldn’t be satisfied with just breaking up with Maria. She had information he needed protected and only her death would ensure silence. He was somewhat surprised that she was still alive now. “I can’t promise to keep you out of jail, but I can save your life. Liu is going to have you killed the same as he’s killed a lot of other people involved in his plot.”
“I don’t care.” Plucking a fresh tissue from a box she dabbed her eyes and blew her nose.
Mercer yanked her off the couch and shoved her toward the back bedroom, pushing her through the door into the dim room. The bed was unmade and mounds of clothes threatened to topple from chairs and dressers. A mirror, razor blade, and a rolled dollar bill sat on the nightstand. Mercer’s expression twisted with disgust. “I’m giving you one minute to get some clothes on or so help me God I’ll drag you out of this building naked.”
“That’s all men want from me anyway,” she sobbed.
“Keep your self-pity and get dressed!”
With eyes a mix of contempt and fear, Maria shucked off the robe. If she was looking for Mercer to react to her nudity, she didn’t get it. She snorted and threw on panties, jeans, and a T-shirt that strained against her chest. He handed her a pair of sneakers. Back in the living room, they found Rene on his cell phone.
“We have trouble,” the agent said to Mercer.
“What’s up?”
“Foch said a car just pulled up outside. There are three Chinese men in it. They’re talking right now as if finalizing a plan. Also an army patrol is just down the block. Ten men at least.”
“Shit!” Mercer and Rene drew their weapons. He gave Maria a look as if to say
Her bravado evaporated. “No, the elevator and stairs are the only way up.”
“What do you think, Rene?”
“Three men? One will come up the stairs, two in the elevator. One of them will remain in it so he can hold the car while the second comes to the apartment to kill her.” He put the phone back to his ear. “Foch, wait until they enter the building then send in one of the men. As soon as two of the Chinese get in the elevator tell him to take out the man coming up the stairs. That’s how we’ll be coming down.” He turned his attention back to Mercer. “We’ll be gone before the Chinese in the elevator know we have Maria or that army patrol hears anything.”
Rene opened the apartment door and checked the hallway, which was clear. With Maria between the two men, they moved toward the enclosed stairway. Like the rest of the building it was cement and they clearly heard a door opening four floors below. That would be the first of the Chinese. A moment later the door swung open a second time and someone whistling the opening bars of
Mercer glanced at Maria, trying to judge how she was handling the situation. He had just an instant to recognize the defiance before she screamed. “Help! Help me, please.”
With a startled grunt, the Chinese soldier climbing the stairs began racing upward. Bruneseau unceremoniously punched Maria in the stomach to choke off her shouts. Mercer readied himself in case the Legionnaire couldn’t stop the assassin in time.
Before the soldier came into view, everyone in the echoing stairwell heard the racking slide of his weapon being cocked. Mercer used his knee to buckle Rene and Maria just as an eruption of automatic fire burst up from below, sparking off the cement in a maddened swarm of ricochets and cement shrapnel. The soldier then turned because the next fusillade sounded like it was fired down the stairs.
Amid the deafening roar, Mercer heard Lauren’s cell phone ringing in his pocket.
He also heard a keening wail of a mortally wounded man down below. The French soldier had been hit.
“
Mercer chanced opening the stairwell door and spied a Chinese assassin armed with a silenced automatic running down the hall. His partner, who’d been waiting in the open elevator car, raced after him, pulling one of the compact type 87s from under a coat.
Lieutenant Foch must have heard the gunfire outside, but Mercer didn’t know how close the Panamanian patrol was to the building. He didn’t know if Foch and his partner could storm the place. He had no choice but to go on the assumption that he and Rene were on their own.
He fired through the partially opened door, startled that the snap shot actually hit the lead gunman. He fell awkwardly, clearing a lane of fire for the other assassin. Mercer slammed the door as bullets from the assault rifle pounded the metal. Another burst exploded from below.
The phone chimed again. Bruneseau laid down suppressing fire and peered around the corner of the scissor stairs. The Chinese commando had ducked out of view. The gunfire against the closed door abated, probably because the gunman was checking his wounded comrade.
Maria had regained her breath, but wisely realized her only chance of surviving the next few seconds lay with Mercer and the heavyset Frenchman. Bruneseau fired down the stairwell again and slithered forward. The gunman had retreated at least one flight, maybe hoping to lure them down or to wait for his partners to break through the steel door. The air swam with acrid clouds from the spent ordnance.
Then came a sound more incongruous than the ringing cell phone. A single shot from a silenced pistol. And then a wet voice. “
The Legionnaire gunned down in the first seconds of the exchange had survived and had either climbed up behind the Chinese assassin or had lain in wait for him to come down. Mercer grabbed on the door handle to keep it closed while Rene led Maria down the stairs. He gave them a few-seconds lead then took off after them, leaping from landing to landing as he spiraled toward the first floor. Fear and adrenaline buzzed in his veins like champagne.
