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And over theirs too, Diego thought as the darkest panic roared through his heart when he saw the terror in Mercy’s eyes, could imagine the terror in little Cari’s eyes when she awoke to the grimness of a world where unicorns did not exist, magic did not work, a smile could not save you.
35
Rhett smiled under the black silk mask, his mind spinning through the new possibilities opened up by this romantic little dinner-date he’d stumbled upon. The woman looked scared out of her mind, her panicked eyes darting towards the sofa across the neat little back room. Was there someone else here?
A quick survey of the items in the room told Rhett that this woman had a child. Crayons and coloring books on the shelf—unicorns, from what Rhett could make out. A girl. She had a daughter. This got better and better. Things really were turning in Rhett’s direction.
He turned his gaze towards the woman. “Empty your pockets. Phone, keys, money, tampons, whatever. On the table where I can see everything.” Rhett pushed the gun barrel down hard onto Diego’s skull, just above his ponytail. “You too, Diego. Extra-slow for you, buddy. I’ve read your file. I know what you can do.”
“I am not this man Diego. You are making a mistake, Senor. Please, we are just—”
“Oh, come on, don’t waste your breath, and don’t waste my time,” Rhett said sharply. “Do what I say and everything is going to be just fine. Like I said, Diego, if I wanted you dead, you’d already be dead. If I wanted to bring you in, there’d be FBI and DHS and SWAT crawling all over this place already. You know that.”
Diego’s body stiffened, then relaxed almost imperceptibly. The woman shot a curious glance at Diego, then slowly pushed her chair back from the table and emptied her pockets carefully and methodically. Her initial panic seemed to have passed, and Rhett watched her closely as she turned up a phone, a set of keys, and a red wallet with a zip closure.
Diego moved slower, like perhaps he was considering sticking with his story. He emptied his pockets reluctantly, placing a burner-phone, a keyring, a gravity-knife that would flip open with a snap of the wrist, and a Beretta 9mm handgun. The woman’s breath caught sharply, that look of surprise flashing in her eyes again, like she didn’t know this guy’s real name, sure as hell didn’t know he’d come to this little party with a loaded gun.
Well, at least notthatkind of loaded gun, Rhett thought with a smirk. He’d heard the two of them talking softly as he crept up on Diego. For a former Mexican Special Forces guy and veteran guerilla warrior, the guy had seemed pretty distracted by whatever this brown-eyed woman had been telling him in those hushed tones which oozed with an intensity, an intimacy, a connection that Rhett would happily exploit.
Rhett glanced at the woman. “What’s your name?”
“Mercy.”
“All right, Mercy. Those security cameras out in the store—are they hooked up to that computer I see on that desk?”
Mercy nodded.
Rhett gestured with his head. “Turn off the cameras, then go to your daughter on the sofa. Both of you stay quiet and everything will be all right. You try anything stupid I’ll shoot the kid first.Lo entiendes?”
Mercy flashed a sharp look, then quickly blinked and averted her gaze, nodding in submission, then hurrying over to the computer. Rhett kept the gun close to Diego’s head, trigger half-pressed so that the tiniest squeeze would splatter Diego’s brains all over that steel-topped folding table.
Rhett watched as the camera feeds popped up on the computer screen, then grunted as Mercy turned them all off. There were no cameras in the back room.
Rhett waited for Mercy to walk past them to the sofa. She sat down slowly, her back to the men. The kid was evidently still in dreamland, which was good.
“Good.” Rhett tapped the gun against Diego’s skull. “Push your weapon across the table. Slowly, please.”
Diego obeyed. Rhett glanced around the room once more to make sure there were no cameras he’d missed. He pulled the silk mask off his face. Then, still keeping his gun aimed squarely at Diego’s head, Rhett stepped to his left, dragged the steel table away from Diego so the man was in full view, couldn’t try to reach a hidden weapon beneath his trouser leg or tucked into his boot. Rhett doubted he was carrying anything else, but at the same time he wasn’t going to get close enough to a Special-Forces-trained Zeta killer to do a pat-down.
Rhett pulled up a chair, placed it six feet away from Diego, directly across from the silent stone-faced Zeta. Rhett sat, crossed one leg over the other knee, pointed the gun at Diego’s center mass, looked him directly in the eyes. “Do you know who I am?”
Diego shook his head, said nothing.
Rhett sighed, glanced over towards the sofa, where they could see the back of Mercy’s head. “Guess.”
Diego’s eyes didn’t follow Rhett’s gaze towards Mercy. They stayed locked on Rhett’s face. “CIA.”
Rhett nodded. “Which practically makes us partners. The Zetas and the Agency go way back, don’t we?”
Diego’s eyes stayed cold and expressionless. He shrugged. “What do you want?”
Rhett grinned. “Good. So you’re smart enough not to insult me by playing the you-have-the-wrong-man game.” He lost the grin, shot a meaningful glance at Mercy again, then locked his own cold eyes onto Diego’s. “Look, I know about Northrup Capital, about the money being funneled from American taxpayers to the Zeta-Nation, about how Senator Robinson wants to close those loopholes in the law, turn off your spigot of dirty money.” Rhett’s face settled to an easy smile. “But you’re not going to be able to get to the Senator. You fucked up by allowing one of Benson’s off-the-books guys to see you on theRivington. Benson guessed it was you, and he convinced the Senator to beef up security, turn his townhome into a fortress. But you already know that.” Rhett paused a beat. “But what you don’t know is that last month I personally convinced the Senator to apply for early Secret Service protection on the basis of his advance poll numbers for the presidential primaries. Secret Service protection is going to come through in a couple of weeks, and then Robinson and his family will be as protected as the President himself. You won’t get to him—not without getting yourself killed, anyway. And I presume you aren’t the suicidal type of psycho—not yet, at least. How am I doing so far?”
Diego said nothing, but Rhett was astute enough to see the subtle change in his dead eyes.
The man was listening, thinking, calculating.
“What do you want?” Diego said for the second time.
