Storm walked lightly across the deep pile carpeting to the bedroom door. Outside, he could hear a soccer game — sorry, fútbol game — playing softly on the television. It was a rerun of Panama’s international friendly against Costa Rica, and it sounded like the ticos were not playing well, to the great relief of Panamanians throughout the isthmus.
For all Storm knew, only one of the guards was watching the television. Or neither one of them were. Making it foolish to open the door. He wished one of the toys Jones had given him made it possible to see through walls. Opening the door without knowing the location of his opposition was foolhardy.
Sure, he could swing open the door and shoot at anything that moved. But problem one, the entire building, including the armed guards far below, would be aware that all was not well in the penthouse. And problem two, he didn’t feel like killing two men whose only sin was doing their job and protecting their boss.
This, admittedly, was more of an ethical problem. Perhaps even a stylistic problem. But still, a man had to have a code of operations, and Storm took his seriously.
Storm thought it through for a moment and decided on his plan. He replayed in his mind the sound of Rivera’s voice on the wiretap recordings. Spanish was one of the eight languages Storm spoke. And owing to the influx of Spanish-speaking immigrants currently redefining American demographics, he had more of an opportunity to use it than he did, say, his Romanian.
He positioned himself on the right side of the door, the side away from the hinges. Trying to summon the feeling of gravel in his vocal cords, he called out, “Hector…Hector come in here, please,” in his best imitation of the raspy voice he’d heard on the wiretaps.
Storm stood with his back against the wall. He transferred his gun from his right hand to his left. He heard footsteps coming his way. They were soft on the carpet, but the man who made them was heavy. Storm listened intently as they got closer.
Timing was essential. And Storm’s was perfect. The moment the man’s foot crossed the threshold, Storm swung his right elbow with all his force, bringing to bear not only his own momentum, moving backward, but also that of the bodyguard, who was walking forward. The man was shorter than Storm thought he would be. But Storm was able to adjust his aim at the last second such that the hardest part of his elbow still connected with the softest part of the man’s nose.
Storm heard the crunch of cartilage. The man dropped heavily. Storm quickly hopped on him, smothering his face with the chloroform-dampened handkerchief. He dragged the man’s body into the darkness of the bedroom.
One down.
Now, of course, Storm had another dilemma. He did not know where the other guard was. He eased out into the sitting area, Dirty Harry leading the way.
It was empty, save for its furnishings — two easy chairs; a love seat; and a low-slung, five-foot-long, brown coffee table that somehow reminded Storm of a dachshund. The flat-screen television was bolted to the wall.
Storm kept in his mind a loose floor plan of the apartment, one based on Villante’s description. Beyond the sitting room, there was a great room that opened into a kitchen, a formal dining room next to the kitchen, a foyer leading to two spare bedrooms, a media room, a small library…and the other bodyguard, Cesar, who could be anywhere.
Then Storm heard a toilet flush. It came from just off the foyer.
Storm crossed the sitting room and passed quickly into the great room, knowing Cesar would have to pass through to get back to the television and the fútbol game. Improvising now, Storm crouched behind an easy chair, ducking so his six-foot-two body was hidden by its suede-covered shape.
If Cesar the bodyguard had any inkling as to Storm’s presence, it would have been a terrible move, going prone in a way that made him vulnerable to attack; and if the penthouse had hardwood floors, Storm wouldn’t have been able to attempt the move that came next.
But all was in Storm’s favor. Cesar walked through the great room with the easy stride of a man comfortable in familiar surroundings. And he didn’t hear anything as Storm burst from his hiding spot and jumped on the bodyguard while simultaneously toeing the backs of his knees.
It was a tackle that would have made a Washington Redskins linebacker proud. Storm finished the move straddled on top of the man. Cesar let out a grunt, but his vision was soon filled by the muzzle of Storm’s Dirty Harry gun.
“I would be very, very quiet if I were you,” Storm said, in Spanish. “I wouldn’t even say a word right now.”
The guard lay on the ground, face down, either resigned to his defeat or uncertain of any other options he had. Storm again reached for his chloroform handkerchief.
But the moment his hand touched the cloth, he knew it wasn’t going to work. The fabric was already dry. Once again, he cursed sleeping in Mr. Menousek’s chemistry class. He should have remembered: chloroform was chemically similar to alcohol and shared its volatility, which meant it evaporated quickly.
“And now we have a situation,” Storm said in hushed Spanish. “I don’t want to kill you. Really, I don’t. But I also can’t have you bothering me. Your boss has done some bad things, and I need to be able to question him about them without your getting in my way and without your alerting all the neighbors. I can’t think of how we’re going to accomplish that unless I shoot you. But I’m guessing you don’t want to be shot, do you?”
Storm had the gun barrel against Cesar’s head, which shook slightly. Storm realized that due to his previous instruction — the part about staying quiet — the man was saying nothing.
So Storm said, “You can give me some input if you want to. I’m really at something of an impasse here.”
Cesar cleared his throat and said softly, “You could tie me up. Bind me. Gag me.”
“Yes!” Storm said. “Yes, that’s an excellent idea. And it’s one I might have come up with myself. Except I didn’t bring any materials to do that and I’ve never been to this apartment before, so I don’t even know if there’s any rope or—”
“There’s some duct tape in the utility room.”
“There’s a utility room? Vil…uh, I wasn’t aware of that.”
“Yes, yes,” Cesar said, his voice growing excited. “You could keep your gun on me, make me keep my hands in the air. And I could walk to the utility room, get the duct tape. You could make me bind Hector first, then bind myself. This would be the intelligent thing for you to do, as otherwise I might be able to take advantage of a momentary lapse in your attention and disarm you.”
Storm was nodding before he even realized he agreed with the man. “You make an excellent point. Okay. Let’s do that.”
Storm let Cesar up.
“Thank you,” he said, putting his hands up.
“You are most welcome,” Storm said, relieved that civility was not dead, after all.
TRUE TO HIS WORD, Cesar the bodyguard produced a roll of duct tape, which he used to secure Hector to one of the chairs in the living room. He then went to work on himself. Storm assisted him in the final stages until he was satisfied the man wasn’t going anywhere.
As a final act of mercy, Storm turned Cesar toward the fútbol game. The man was bound and gagged, so he signaled his appreciation by blinking his eyes several times.
Storm shifted his attention to Eusebio Rivera, who had returned to sleeping on his back and to the window-shaking snores that emanated as a result. Having been busy with the bodyguards, Storm had yet to work out a precise plan of how he was going to force information out of Rivera when he woke up.
Then Storm’s attention shifted to the twenty-foot-long fish tank that occupied one wall of the bedroom. Next to the tank was a small end table that held two fishnets — one small, the other larger — and a variety of fish food in canisters that ranged in size from a saltshaker to a tennis ball can.