Instantly, he dropped the chair to the floor and eyed the door, expecting Ja.n.u.s to come rushing in. He counted off seconds, stopping when he reached the four-minute mark without the door opening.

He finally allowed himself to glance at the floor. Because his chest was strapped to the chair, he couldn't lean far enough forward to see the front legs. Also, if he'd heard right, the pop had come from the right side, so even if the bolt had come loose and fallen to the floor, it would have been difficult to detect with his faux foot.

Keeping an eye on the door, he rocks slowly back. While the left front leg of the chair still caught on its bolt, the right side was definitely free.

The door started to open. He quickly put the legs back down, and hoped to G.o.d the bolt was hidden by the chair or his own legs.

Ja.n.u.s entered. Instead of a bucket, he had a Taser.

"We go for a walk," the man said. "You will be good boy, yes?"

Nate stuck to the same script he'd been reading from since his captivity began and kept his mouth shut.

As Ja.n.u.s approached him, he touched a b.u.t.ton on the side of the Taser. An electronic hiss emanated from the device.

"See this? You don't want me touch you with this. Not feel nice. I guarantee. So you be good boy."

Nate kept his face blank as Ja.n.u.s circled around behind the chair.

Don't look down. Don't see the bolt.

Ja.n.u.s undid the straps across Nate's thighs, released the one around his chest, and backed away.

"Unbuckle your ankles," he said.

A smart move, taking away the possibility he might get kicked or punched in the process. But it also gave Nate the opportunity to find the bolt. As he leaned down, he searched the floor, but couldn't see it.

"Faster," Ja.n.u.s ordered.

Nate undid one ankle, then the other as he continued to hunt for the piece of hardware.

There it is.

It was directly behind his right heel. As he started to reach for it, Ja.n.u.s pushed him on the back, sending him sprawling from his chair.

"On your feet."

Silently cursing himself, Nate slowly rose. As he did, he kept his head down like he was tired, and glanced back at the chair. The bolt was still there.

"Let's go," Ja.n.u.s said, underlining his order with a test zap of the Taser.

Nate took a single step forward, then halted.

"Keep moving," Ja.n.u.s told him.

Nate turned toward the other man. "I don't feel very-"

Before he could finish, he saw the Taser shoot toward him. Nate acted like he was going to throw up and dropped to the floor, Ja.n.u.s's weapon slicing harmlessly through the s.p.a.ce where he'd just been. He shot his arms forward, grabbed the bolt, and brought it down to his chest as the Taser touched his back.

For the next several seconds, he jerked and jolted on the ground, the electric pain seemingly touching every nerve ending as he lost control of his body. When the hissing stopped, he continued to spasm for several seconds, playing out the last of the Taser's effects.

Nearly a minute pa.s.sed before Ja.n.u.s said, "I tell you to be good boy. Now, get up."

Nate felt a pain on his chest. Not electrical from the Taser, more like a bruise. The bolt, he realized. He'd been thrashing against it. He put his hand over it and curled it into a loose fist as he shakily pushed himself back to his feet.

"No more stupid move, okay? Now go."

Nate walked out of the room into a narrow pa.s.sageway. As Ja.n.u.s closed the door, Nate slipped his potential weapon into his pocket.

CHAPTER 13.

"THE CLEANER HAS arrived?" Romero asked.

"Yes," Harris replied. "He proved a bit of a challenge, but nothing that couldn't be handled."

"I don't care about any difficulties. He's here. That's all I need to know."

"Yes, sir."

Truth was, Quinn's capture had been more than just a challenge. If Harris hadn't forced that idiot Moreno to continue the search and set up roadblocks after the cleaner got away in Monterrey, Quinn would have been in the wind, and they may have been staring at that one small error Harris had warned about at the start.

He had expected the taking of the cleaner to be difficult, just not that difficult. After all, Quinn's abduction had been the hardest to set up. As a cleaner, the man was in charge of his own work, and not a part of the official ops team, which meant he called his own shots and hired his own people.

To achieve their goal, Harris needed to get someone close to Quinn to feed information to the group of police officers Moreno had put together. The problem wasn't who that person would be. That was easy. Harris simply trolled the lower levels of the freelance world and plucked someone more interested in money than loyalty. Burke had served his role well.

Getting Quinn to hire Burke, though, was another issue. Harris's research had shown that the cleaner had a small group of operatives he'd consistently worked with over the last few years. Jamming their schedules had been a necessary first step before even offering the job to Quinn.

The hardest person to deal with in Quinn's select little group turned out to be a man named Daeng from Thailand. According to several sources, Quinn had been using him a lot as of late. When Harris tried to find a way to contact Daeng and put him on the same kind of hold as the others, the people he talked to said the man only worked for Quinn, no one else.

Harris decided it was time to get a little actual dirt on his hands, and followed a lead back to the man's home country, where he was able to finally figure out a way to get Daeng out of the picture. It had been a while since he'd killed anyone, but he hadn't forgotten how. More importantly, the ploy had worked.

Daeng was moved out of the way, Burke was hired, and now Quinn was here.

"The shooter?" Romero asked.

The shooter was the only one on the list left to pick up. "In progress, sir."

"So he'll be here...?"

"Tomorrow."

In contrast to Quinn, taking the shooter had been the easiest to set up, so Harris had saved him for last.

"You will inform me when he arrives," Romero said dismissively.

Harris tilted his head in acknowledgment, but it was a wasted gesture. Romero was no longer paying him any attention.

CHAPTER 14.

SAN PAOLO, BRAZIL.

MAURICE CURSON COULD not believe his luck. For four years, he'd been persona non grata in the secret world. The only suitable employment he could find for someone with his particular skill set was as a bodyguard for rich losers.

But the a.s.shole clients weren't the worst part. It was the other bodyguards who really annoyed him. While there were a few ex-military types who Curson could respect, he was convinced the majority had all come straight from gyms where they'd spent their time lifting weights, taking steroids, and mostly likely watching that stupid Kevin Costner-Whitney Houston movie over and over. Smoke blowers who acted like they'd come straight out of the Secret Service and knew best what to do in any situation. Only none of them had been in the Secret Service.

In Curson's old career, he'd done jobs in over thirty different countries, had killed, been shot at, and successfully protected people a h.e.l.l of a lot more important than the latest winner of American Dumba.s.s. These other guys? They wore it as a badge of honor any time they knocked a member of the paparazzi to the ground.

Amateurs. A whole mess of idiotic amateurs.

That's why when he'd been offered the gig-an actual, honest-to-G.o.d black ops situation-he had jumped at the chance. To h.e.l.l with the fact it meant backing out of a previous commitment. And it didn't even matter that it wasn't a trigger-man position. He didn't care. He was back in, and, hopefully, if he played his cards right, he'd never have to go back to that other c.r.a.p work again.

The op was pretty straightforward. A s.n.a.t.c.h and grab. The target: a Brazilian economist who was stirring up trouble and needed to be convinced to adjust his thinking. While Curson would have preferred to be on the s.n.a.t.c.h team, he was content to be in charge of getting the package from the op site to the safe house-in effect, a glorified driver.

Two days of planning, a dry run, and he and the other team members were ready. h.e.l.l, he'd been ready for years. It was all he could do to keep the smile off his face as he sat in the appropriated ambulance, waiting for the target to be brought to him.

Four years in the cold-exiled for a mistake that could have happened to anyone-were finally behind him.

Goodbye, Mr. Stoned Movie Star. I'm really back in the game now.

"Sixty seconds." The voice came over the comm in his ear.

This was it. The grab had been made and they were on their way.

Maurice climbed out of the ambulance and walked around to the back. He checked the street, confirmed it was as deserted as it had been before, and opened the rear doors.

"Thirty seconds."

He climbed inside, ready to accept the package.

The three-member s.n.a.t.c.h team appeared at the back right on time, the target propped up under one of the men's arms like a pa.s.sed-out drunk. Working quickly, they transferred the Brazilian onto the gurney inside, and Curson buckled him down.

"Set?" the team leader asked.

"All set," Curson told him.

"He's all yours."

The men disappeared down the street.

As Curson checked the buckles one last time, he realized his cargo didn't appear to be breathing.

Oh, c.r.a.p.

He checked the target's pulse, or tried to, because there was none.

Oh, G.o.d, no.

The s.n.a.t.c.h team had delivered him a stiff.

He immediately began CPR.

"Come on, come on," he implored the lifeless body.

No response.

He glanced at his watch. If he didn't leave now, he'd be behind schedule.

Dammit!

He tried another go at CPR, but there was no bringing the man back.

Dammit, dammit, dammit!

He knew this would somehow become his fault. His grand reentry into the realm of secrets and spies thwarted before it could even get going.

He took a deep breath. Be a pro. Finish the job.

He climbed out of the back, circled around the vehicle, and got in behind the wheel. Sticking to his preplanned, less-trafficked route, he reached the turnoff for the safe house just inside the time range he'd been given.

During the whole drive, he'd been thinking about the dead man in back. He'd explain everything to his client. Tell him the target had arrived DOA, and that he'd even tried multiple times to resuscitate him. They'd have to believe him. They'd just have to.

He turned down the driveway, rehearsing in his head what he was going to say. But as he approached the isolated house, thoughts of his explanation vanished. Parked directly in his path were two sedans, their occupants standing outside, guns drawn and pointed at him.

He looked in his mirror, intending to back out of there as fast as possible, but a third car was pulling across the driveway, blocking his exit.

Oh.

c.r.a.p.