Chapter 60

CHAPTER 60

W HILE HE WENT TO HIS meeting with the girl on the train, Devine had Emerson Campbell stay with Odom. He explained to her who Campbell was, and to his credit, the older man immediately seemed at ease with the girl and she with him. When Odom had gone out of the room for a minute, Devine had asked him why he was so relaxed.

Campbell had smiled knowingly and said, “I married right after West Point and had my first of four daughters a year later, Devine. I also have eight grandchildren, six of them girls and four of them between the ages of eight and thirteen. And hell, I thought combat was tough.”

Devine went to the hotel garage to get his car.

“Where’s Betsy?” said a voice.

Dennis Hastings was staring at him from next to a parked car.

Devine looked at the man. “Are you authorized to know?”

“Cut the shit. The boss wants to know.”

“And the boss always gets what he wants, like you told me before?”

“Like he got the feds to back off. Pretty impressive, wouldn’t you say?”

“I guess it’s all in how you look at it.”

“So tell me. Now! Or it will get rough. For you .”

Devine really didn’t have time to argue, so he decided to swallow his anger and said, “She’s being guarded by a combat veteran who could kill every single guy you have around this place without breaking a sweat.”

Hastings drew close. “You better hope that’s right, Devine. Anything happens to her—”

“Yeah, I get it a hundred times worse. I heard that song before, and your boss delivers it way better. Now get out of my face.”

“You think you can talk to me that way, pissant?”

“I think I just did.”

“You had the girl with you before, so I couldn’t show you how I really feel about you. But the girl’s not with you.”

“Lucky me.”

“I don’t think so, dipshit.”

Devine wheeled and ripped the metal baton out of the hand of the man who had done his best to sneak up on him. He slammed the baton into the man’s gut, and when he pitched forward from the blow, Devine put his size twelve shoe up the man’s nostrils. He flipped over on his back and landed hard on the pavement. Snot blew out of the man’s nose and that was always a sign that your opponent was out of the fight, because the brain had pinballed inside the skull. Devine did not wait for the man to contemplate trying to be a hero and getting back up. He jacked him with two knuckled rights to the jaw. More snot, blood, loosened teeth, and then a deep sleep.

The second man leapt on Devine’s back right at the moment Devine dipped his torso forward. He’d heard him coming because the idiot was breathing like a bull about to charge. The man flew ass over shoulders into a parked SUV, setting off the alarm. Devine walked over and slammed the man’s head into the car door, and then did it a second time, because it was always good to trust but verify. He let go and the gent slid to the pavement with blood coming out of his nostrils and mouth.

When Devine turned, Hastings had his gun out and was pointing it shakily at Devine. So shakily that Devine doubted the man had ever shot someone, and was desperately working up the nerve to pull the trigger.

Devine rescued Hastings from this dilemma by knocking the gun out of his grip with a strike of the baton. As Hastings scrambled to pick up his weapon, Devine grabbed him by the collar, lifted him off the ground, and threw him headfirst onto the hood of the same SUV, its alarm still screaming. He next reached under Hastings’s armpit and flipped the man onto his back. The battered and terrified Hastings lay splayed out, his limbs trembling as if electricity was coursing through him.

He stared up at Devine, who had pulled his gun and was pointing it in Hastings’s face. “Sorry to mess up your suit. I know how you like twinning with the boss.”

“Please, don’t,” moaned Hastings. “Please.”

Devine put the muzzle against Hastings’s left temple after racking the slide. “Tell your boss to back off. Tell him.”

“Please don’t hurt me.”

“I’ve got a lot of shit to do and this is not helping, okay? Tell him.”

“I will, I swear to God.”

“Yeah, I think you will, pissant .”

Devine slugged the man, bouncing his head off the hood. Hastings lay there out cold like a side of beef about to be sliced and diced by the butcher.

Devine holstered his weapon. When he turned around, he saw a terrified elderly couple watching him.

They backed away in fear.

Thinking quickly Devine said, “They, uh, they took my parking space.”

He threw the baton in his car, climbed in, and honked at the three unconscious men as he drove off to meet a cold-blooded killer in a bookstore.