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Shane pulled the gun back and tapped the barrel against the back of her skull.
The girl rubbed her head. “What the fuck?”
“This is business and you are not part of it. Stay there.” Shane backed away, keeping the barrel aimed at her, and when she didn’t move, he glanced at the man who was still gasping for air. Not a problem.
Then Shane reached inside his jacket and pulled out an airline ticket. He tossed the plane ticket on the desk in front of the woman. “You’ve got a problem, here’s the solution. A voucher you can use at the airport tonight. Enough for a one-way ticket anywhere in the world.”
The redhead stared at him.
“You don’t ever want to come back to Savannah again,” he told her. “This man hangs with bad men, and they’re going to remember you were here and come looking for you.”
The girl was nodding, reaching for the ticket at the same time she tried to put her jacket on.
“You can go, but if you say anything to anyone on the way out, you will die.”
The girl was still nodding like a bimbo bobblehead doll, one arm in her jacket, the other with the ticket in hand. Shane kept one eye on her struggles as he focused his attention back on the man. When she was ready and holding the ticket in one hand and her purse in the other, Shane pulled out his satellite phone and hit the speed-dial for Carpenter. “You got one civilian coming out. Redhead. Let her go.”
There was a telling moment of silence. “A witness.”
“A civilian coming out,” Shane repeated.
“Roger,” Carpenter said.
Shane nodded to the redhead, and she scuttled to the door and was gone.
Shane turned his attention back to the man. “Same deal for you, my friend.” He slapped another ticket voucher on the desk.
“Who—?” The man coughed and tried again as he managed to sit up straighten “Who—are—you?”
“Doesn’t matter who I am,” Shane said. “I’m gonna ask you some questions. Answer honestly, you take this ticket and go. Lie and die.”
The man’s face was shiny with pain and exertion. “What— do— you—want?”
“You were hired by the mob to kill someone the U.S. government would prefer stay alive.”
“You got the wrong?—”
Shane hit him, an open-handed slap that was more insult than injury. “You’re wasting my time, Casey Dean,” he said, and the man flinched when he heard the name. “The people I work for do not make mistakes. Unlike you.”
“Really—”
Shane reached out and jabbed his thumb into Dean’s shoulder, hitting a nerve junction, and the guy jumped as if struck by an electric shock. “Now here’s the deal. You tell me what I want to know and forget about the hit, fly away, and never come back, and it’s the same to me as if you were dead.”
Dean rubbed his shoulder. “That’s it?”
“That’s it.” Shane slid the ticket voucher across the desk.
“You’re really gonna let me go if I tell you what you want and forget about the contract?”
“No. I’m gonna let you go if you forget about the hit and give me the names and contact information of whoever hired you and the name of the target.”
Dean shook his head. “I can’t give the contractor up. He’ll kill me.”
Shane brought the gun level with the point right between the man’s eyes. “Which is worse? The possibility he might kill you in the future or the certainty I will kill you in the next ten seconds?”
“Shit.” Dean slumped, looking suddenly very old. “Listen, I’m just a business manager. I’m?—”
Shane pressed the muzzle of the gun hard against the man’s skin just above his nose.
