Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2

And nothing happened, not even a theatrical click.

Although the look on Parviz’s face, the way his eyes widened, how the color bled from his face was quite theatrical. If this had been a Looney Tunes cartoon, he could’ve subbed in for Wile E. Coyote, suspended in midair for a half-second before realizing he’s run off a cliff.

In that same span of time, John reversed the boy’s rifle he still clutched and drove forward. The butt caught Parviz hard, just above his navel. Grunting, the driver staggered back, lost his grip on the Glock then went down in a heap.

Brushing past the boy, he retrieved first the big man’s rifle then stepped around Parviz and kicked the younger guy’s rifle to one side. As he did so, he caught a blur of movement from the tail of an eye. He turned, expecting to see Davila...but it was the boy, Matvey, scurrying for that Glock .

Oh no, you don’t. Pivoting, he took a giant step and brought his boot down. Not too hard, not at full force. No need to break the kid’s fingers. He also didn’t know who the kid might be trying to help. So, he stomped only hard enough for the boy to flinch back with a little yelp.

“Sorry, Matvey.” He didn’t know the Russian for sorry and hoped his tone conveyed his meaning. “Don’t want to hurt you. In fact,” he said, scooping up Parviz’s Glock, “I didn’t want to hurt anyone.” This, he realized, was a day late and a dollar short, considering that the big guy wasn’t moving, probably because he was bleeding into his brain from being cold-cocked by a rock whistling maybe close to ninety miles an hour. Though, maybe, only eighty; fastballs are the bane of every sidearm pitcher. Either way, the big guy was as good as dead.

The younger man…he might make it. Just depended on whether he only had a broken nose. But even a bad break could be a problem: crushed sinuses, bone shards in the brain.

Backing up two steps, the better to keep all four in view, he pocketed the second Glock. Now that the excitement was over, he could feel the adrenaline rush tailing off. His mouth tasted as if he’d sucked on an aluminum can. More importantly, he was starting to feel the cold. He and Davila would have to?—

“How you…” Parviz gagged, spat, sucked in a lungful. “How you…tell?”

“Know what a pencil is good for, Parviz? To see if someone’s taken out the firing pin. It’s simple. Jack out the magazine, slip the pencil down the barrel and then squeeze the trigger. If the pencil jumps out, everything’s good. But if it doesn’t…” He shrugged.

“Why…why you…” Parviz sucked more air. “Why you think...”

“That my Glock had been tampered with? No lube. Too clean. If that Glock was as new as Ustinov said, then there ought to be a little lube still there from the factory. But mine was more than pristine. After I figured out about the firing pin, I marked your case and switched them.”

“But...but you let me have rifle...” Then Parviz’s face sagged. “It no work.”

“Nope. Once I figured out the Glock, I took out the AK’s bolt head...”

“ Ai! ” the boy, Matvey, shrilled. He pointed to a spot behind John. “ Hey! Ai, ai!” He rattled off more, none of which John understood.

At the same moment, Parviz...began to laugh. More of a wheeze, but there was no mistaking the glee.

That was when John finally realized that there was one party from which he’d had yet to hear a peep.

“Davila, you okay?” Without taking his eyes from the still-cackling Parviz, he backed up two steps and then two more. Heard the pop and squeal of small stones under his right boot. “Davila, talk to me,” he said, backing up another step and then another. The one shot the kid squeezed off...did he not knock the barrel away in time and before the blast? “Come on, man, talk to?—”

The last hung in his throat as he felt something soft and yielding pressed against his left heel.

Something that did not move.

“Heh-heh-heh!” Parviz, yipping like a hyena, his laughter the rasp of sandpaper over stone. He coughed, spat, laughed again. “ Heh-heh-heh , you kill your friend! You kill Mr. King! You get him killed, you dumb American, now you fu?—”

John shot him.