Oath of Office

Ryan’s hand grafted upward, trapping the other man’s gun arm while he followed up the hammer fist with three rapid-fire knees. Flat Nose swung wildly with his left hand, catching Jack hard in the ear with a brutal slap. Reeling, Jack staggered just enough to allow the other man to free the pistol and bring it around. It was a small black thing with a stubby, piggish suppressor. A professional thug, Flat Nose didn’t have much in the way of technique, but he was extremely accomplished at gross motor skills. He didn’t worry about precision accuracy or who he happened to shoot, simply pulling the trigger as the gun arced toward Jack. Two rounds zinged down the hall toward the elevator. Jack got his hands up in time to parry the gun, deflecting a third shot upward so it slammed into a lighting sconce on the wall. Hot gases from the muzzle blast were close enough to sear a line in Jack’s cheek, narrowly missing his eye.

Braced by the wall, Flat Nose used it for leverage, pushing off to gain more space to employ the pistol. Jack ignored the left fist that now pummeled his kidney, and attacked the gun with both hands, arcing his knee out and then in, using a hooking motion to stun the nerves along Flat Nose’s outer thigh. Ryan’s foot slipped on the slick tile floor. This nearly caused him to go down and forced him to put all his weight on Flat Nose’s gun hand. The added pressure and resulting dead-leg from the knee caused the other fighter’s focus to shift just enough for Jack to yank the pistol sideways, attempting to wrest it from Flat Nose’s grasp. The Frenchman cursed, gripping the gun tighter, his finger convulsing on the trigger at the same moment the muzzle crossed his own forehead. The bullet took him just over the bridge of his nose.

Flat Nose fell away, sliding down the wall, leaving Jack holding the pistol. He spun to see Midas standing over the unconscious form of the other Frenchman. A laptop lay beside him on the floor.

Midas put a hand to his swollen nose, dabbing away a bit of blood.

“Throw a head-butt, earn yourself a throat punch,” he muttered. “Good trade.” His eyes fell to the dead man behind Jack. “You gotta go for the throat, Ryan. I’m not sure playing wild weasel with a handgun can be considered a tactic.”

Between the slap to one ear and the muzzle blast to the other, Jack only heard about half of what Midas was saying above the high-pitched squeal, but he got the gist of it.

He moved his aching jaw, unable to remember getting clocked in the face, but absolutely sure it had happened. “We need to get these bodies out of sight.”

“Copy that,” Midas said. “Eight minutes.”

Jack looked at him. “What do you mean eight minutes?”

Midas tapped his own ear. “Your comms are out.” He took the next twenty seconds to fill Ding and Caruso in on their present situation.

Ryan used the tip of his index finger to discover his earbud was missing, dislodged during the fight. He made a quick scan of the floor and found the flesh-colored piece of plastic along the baseboard just a few inches from Flat Nose’s elbow.

“…up in two,” he heard Ding say as he replaced the tiny device. “They won’t be far behind us. Get in touch with Gavin and see if he can image the laptop. Be best if we get it back in the room without da Rocha knowing it’s gone.”

Ryan helped Midas drag both Frenchmen to the stairwell before anyone happened out of a guest room or off the elevator, then trotted down the hall toward da Rocha’s room. There was a tray with a half-eaten room-service order on the floor three doors down the hall. Ryan pulled it over the bloodstains and broken glass from his fight, hoping da Rocha wouldn’t notice, and then called Gavin while Midas worked the lock on the room.

“Hey,” Biery whispered. Jack could hear another voice in the background.

“Are you in the office?”

“Intelligent Data and Security conference in Omaha,” Biery said. “I’ve never seen so many blond people in my life—”

Ryan gave him a thirty-second sitrep.

“You want me to image the computer remotely in six minutes?”

“Can you?”

“No,” Biery scoffed. “But you can drop in the malware from the thumb drive I issued everyone last month. You have it, right?”

Jack took out his keys and popped the endcap off a stubby single-cell flashlight attached to the ring, revealing the thumb drive concealed inside.

Ding got off the elevator, walking quickly to da Rocha’s suite.

“Caruso’s in the lobby,” he said. “He’ll give us a heads-up.”

Midas looked up from the suite door and smiled. “Got it.”

Ding remained in the hallway, walking slowly toward the elevator to keep watch while Jack and Midas slipped into da Rocha’s room.

Biery continued to give instructions. Ryan lowered the volume but put him on speaker so he could use both hands. “We’re gonna need his password.”

“That might be an issue,” Jack said.

“Maybe a birthday,” Biery offered. “An old pet, a girlfriend? Maybe he has it written somewhere near the computer.”