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Marri doubled over, his breath coming out in a loud rush. Once again, all eyes were on them.
“Chef? Are you all right?” Rapp said, feigning concern. He slid an arm beneath Marri’s and pulled him upright. The man was trying to speak but, as planned, the pain and surprise prevented it.
“It’s the heat,” Warch said to the staff as Rapp led the man to a walk-in refrigerator. “He’ll be fine. Just keep doing what you’re doing. We have to stay on schedule.”
It was one of the drawbacks to treating your staff like slaves, Rapp reflected. None had the courage to question or take charge. In the absence of Marri screaming orders, they’d listen to anyone with a plan and an authoritative manner.
Warch rushed ahead and opened the thick metal door, following Rapp and Marri inside before pulling it closed.
“Are you . . .” the chef managed to get out. “Are you insane? Do you know who I am? President Chutani—”
Rapp gave the man an open-handed slap to the face that was hard enough to knock him to the floor.
“Mitch . . .” Warch cautioned.
“If you can’t handle this, Jack, get out.”
“I’d just like to avoid getting shot or thrown in jail.”
Marri raised his arms defensively and Rapp knocked them out of the way before grabbing the front of his coat. “We know all about your plans with Taj.”
“What? You’re crazy!” Marri looked up at Warch. “Get him off me. I don’t know what he’s talking about. I don’t even know Ahmed Taj! I work for the president.”
“Really? Because I hear that you grew up in the same town. That you both attended a madrassa financed by Taj’s father. Not too many people know that, though, do they? Because the place burned to the ground and the administrators are all dead.”
“It isn’t true! Who told you this?”
“Kabir Gadai.”
The fear in his eyes grew but he repeated his protest, this time even more emphatically.
Men like him were all the same. They became accustomed to their position of unshakable authority and it made them prone to panic when it slipped away.
“Where’s the poison?”
“Poison? I—”
Rapp clamped a hand around the man’s throat, silencing him while he searched through the pockets of his chef’s jacket. It was possible the vial could be hidden in the kitchen but it seemed unlikely. Too easy for someone to stumble upon it.
There was a hesitant knock on the refrigerator door and Warch opened it a crack.
Rapp heard a quiet voice and he tightened his grip on Marri’s throat.
“Is the chef all right?”
“He’s fine,” Warch said in a reassuring tone. “The heat of the kitchen got to him but he’s feeling better. He’ll be back out in a moment.”
By the time he pushed the refrigerator door closed again, Rapp was finished with his search. He’d come up empty.
“Please tell me your informant didn’t lie to you,” Warch said.
&
nbsp; “Shut up, Jack.”
“Come on, Mitch. This guy’s famous all over the world and Chutani thinks the sun shines out of his ass. You’ll walk away but I’m screwed. I’m paying for grandkids in private school and I’ve got a daughter getting married next month.”
Rapp was convinced that Gadai had been telling the truth and that the hyperventilating man on the floor was the one lying. But with no way to prove it and time running out, he was left with only one option. To walk into the dining room and put a bullet in Taj’s head with half the world watching.
