Mercer caught another banister with his right hand, clutching at it desperately while trying to maintain a grip on the Beretta. He slithered over the railing as the assassin untangled himself from a stunned Harry, ignoring the blood pooling under them both. The gunman recovered just a fraction of a second before Mercer did, raising his weapon in a steady, side-arm stance. Mercer took another snap shot, the concussive explosions coming as one thunderous sound.
A molten stream of acid ran across Mercer’s shoulder as a bullet gouged a shallow trench through his flesh. The force of the shot slammed him back into the railings, splintering three of them and threatening to send him down to the hard marble below. Through the pain, Mercer saw that his shot had caught the other man in the middle of his chest, the 115 grain bullet driving him off his feet as if he’d been yanked by a marionette’s strings.
The body landed in the bar, sprawled on the floor in the unnatural pose of death. Aggie’s shrill scream pierced the air like a siren, rising and falling in terror. Mercer ignored her; her wailing was fear, not pain. Harry lay motionless on the floor, his face deathly pale and waxen. Mercer crawled to his old friend, the drops of blood oozing from his shoulder soaking into the beige carpet. Mercer feared he’d hit Harry in the wrong leg.
“You son of a bitch.” Harry turned, holding the shattered remnant of his prosthetic limb in his hands, the flesh-colored plastic shredded where the bullet had passed through. “Do you have any idea how much these fucking things cost?”
Relief made Mercer sag to the floor, his face pressed into the deep pile of the carpet, the adrenaline rush dissipating like an alcohol buzz. “Bill me,” he panted.
“Mercer!” Aggie screeched, the fear in her voice jolting him like an electric shock.
The gunman was struggling to his feet, his pistol trained on Aggie where she crouched near the edge of the bar. A burgundy stain ran down from his thigh where Mercer’s first shot must have caught him after passing through Harry’s artificial leg. He was heaving great drafts of air, struggling to regain the breath that had been knocked from him when the second shot had been stopped by his Kevlar vest. Mercer let out a roar as he charged into the bar, his gray eyes fixed with rage.
The assassin turned toward the sound, his aim swinging from Aggie to Mercer in a quick arc. Mercer ignored the pistol wheeling toward him. He crashed into the gunman after six powerful strides, his damaged shoulder pounding into the other man’s chest, throwing them both against the back wall and rattling glasses behind the bar. Mercer used his slight advantage to torque his pistol into the assassin’s belly just under the protective vest that had just saved the man’s life. He pushed with all of his strength, feeling the hard muscle resist for an instant. Mercer screwed the gun in deeper, almost tearing through skin, before angling the barrel up and firing four rounds into the chest cavity, tearing internal organs into wet chunks that exploded through the gunman’s back and sprayed the wainscoting beyond.
Mercer staggered back, letting the corpse fall to the floor, his hand covered with the assailant’s blood. He turned. Aggie had regained her feet, though somewhat shakily. She clutched the edge of the bar, her knuckles white with the tenacious grip. She stared at the body with a mixture of fear and revulsion even as she came across the room to collapse into Mercer’s arms.
He gasped as her hand slid across his shoulder, forcing fresh blood to well to the surface. As he sank to the floor, Aggie went down with him, her arms still around his neck, her eyes still fastened on the body only a few feet away.
“That’s, that’s…” she stammered but could not continue.
“What is it?” Mercer panted, his heart racing three times normal speed, his hands only now beginning to tremble from the fear he’d been able to ignore.
She tore her eyes from the body and noticed Mercer’s wound. “He shot you.”
“I’m all right. The bullet only grazed me.” Even as he spoke, he gingerly pulled her arm off his damaged shoulder.
“Jesus Christ,” Harry admonished at the entrance of the bar. “I’ve had my leg shot off and you end up with a woman in your arms.”
Aggie gasped when she saw the source of the voice. Harry leaned against the doorjamb between the bar and the library, his body supported by only one leg. The tube of his other pants leg dangled emptily. He held the dismembered limb like a rifle at high port. Mercer couldn’t help but laugh at the demented image.
“You look like an extra from a bad horror film, Night of the Legless Drunks.”
“And fuck you too.” Harry snorted. “What the hell just happened and who the hell is that?” He pointed the leg at Aggie like an accusing finger.
“What happened was the second attempt on my life in the past twenty-four hours and this is Max Johnston’s daughter, Aggie. Aggie, this pathetic excuse is Harry White, my oldest chronological friend and the man we both owe our lives to. Harry, if you hadn’t barged in, those guys would have caught us with our pants down.” Mercer realized his gaffe and quickly added, “Figuratively speaking, of course.”
Aggie waved timidly, smiling a small greeting. Harry caught the direction of her gaze and lowered his artificial leg. “Don’t worry about this. I lost it so long ago I forget what it felt like to have two.”
He hopped across the room, steadying each leap against a piece of furniture until he could plant himself at the bar, leaning his dismembered leg against the footrail like an umbrella. “Are you going to get me a drink while I call the police or do I have to do everything myself?”
His unflappability roused Mercer from the floor. That was the one thing Mercer could depend on Harry for, his ability to break down any situation and place it in a context that couldn’t possibly disturb the pace of his life.
“Good idea.” Mercer grabbed a handful of bar towels and laid them over the body before pouring a Jack Daniel’s and ginger ale for Harry and a heavy slug of brandy for himself. It was a better anesthetic for his shoulder than the pills he would get at the hospital. “Aggie, another stinger? I think you could use it.”
Aggie shot a glance at the body before responding, “No, I have to get out of here, now.” The urgency in her voice jarred Mercer.
“It’s all right,” Harry growled. “He won’t hurt you anymore.”
“That’s not it.” Aggie leaped to her feet and started to the door.
Mercer followed her, catching up at the top of the spiral stairs. “Are you okay?”
It was natural for her to want to put as much distance as possible between herself and the scene of such violence and horror, but Mercer was sure there was something more behind her reaction. He’d been in enough bloody confrontations to know how people react, especially first-time witnesses to a fatal shooting, so he knew that she was fleeing for some other reason, something unrelated to what had just transpired. He put his arms around her.
“What is it?” Concern softened Mercer’s voice to an intimate whisper.
“I can’t be here,” she replied, shaking out of his embrace. “I can’t be found here when the police come.”
She raced from the house, the door slamming with a finality that hurt Mercer more than his shoulder.
Anchorage, Alaska
Kerikov slammed the phone so hard against its cradle that the slim executive handset snapped in two, the halves joined by only a few tendons of wire. His rage not yet vented, he plucked the entire unit from the end table and threw it at the far wall of his hotel suite. The phone disintegrated against the hard oak paneling. In a gesture bordering on manic, he raced across the room and crushed the remains under his heel, grinding them into the carpet until he felt shards jabbing into his foot through the sole of his shoe. His breathing and heart rate had accelerated, and sweat beaded his broad forehead.