Michael Prescott - Next Victim

"No reason to think she isn’t, either," Tennant said. "Maybe she just didn’t want to fire off a gun in the rest room and alert the rest of us. Anyway, if her contact is with her, he’ll be armed for sure."

"This turns into a shooting match, it’ll get ugly." Dante, stating the obvious.

Tennant didn’t hesitate. "If she or her partner draws a weapon, return fire-and go for a kill shot."

"Then we lose the chance to interrogate." Wilkins the boy lawyer.

"There are worse things to lose." Tennant hesitated, then added, "Don’t wait to see a gun. If she even opens her suitcase, light her up."

Jarvis glanced at him and nodded. They both knew what was in the suitcase, even if Wilkins and Dante did not.

Her contact still hadn’t arrived, and Amanda Pierce was getting scared.

True, she’d been waiting only about an hour. But she shouldn’t have had to wait at all. She was the one who’d been delayed. Her contact should have been the one waiting for her.

Unless he’d left already. In which case, she was seriously fucked.

She looked around at the hotel lobby, the high chandeliers, the arched windows framing tropical plants. Nice place to hang out, but not for her, not now.

She pressed one leg against the suitcase that rested by her own stool, holding it protectively. She had to stay upbeat. The feds hadn’t been lying in ambush for her at the hotel, so evidently they didn’t know where the rendezvous was scheduled to take place. Even if her contact never showed, she might still have a chance to arrange another meeting-if she could elude capture long enough.

In the meantime there was another problem, ridiculously trivial, yet one that threatened everything.

She had no money.

Nearly all of her cash had been used on taxi fare and as payment for the overpriced ginger ale she had ordered at the bar. She could not check in, because doing so would require using her credit card. The card was part of an identity kit she had put together over the past two months, under the name of Lucy Mallone. She had used the card to check into the motel last night-but with her cover blown, she couldn’t rely on the card any longer. If she used it again, her whereabouts would be instantly traced.

Nor could she use her legitimate credit cards or her ATM card. Same problem. Charging a purchase to a card registered to Amanda Pierce would be like firing a signal flare to guide the feds straight to her.

Her wallet contained less than one hundred dollars in hard currency. Anyway, she couldn’t pay cash for a rental car, and that was what she needed-transportation.

Amanda, God damn it, you are up a frigging creek…

Wait.

A man had entered the lobby, tall, casually attired. His age was difficult to judge. Forty or a little older.

As he approached the bar, she studied him. He wore a sport jacket-useful for concealing a weapon-but no necktie, which could be used by an opponent to gain a stranglehold in a fight. His eyes were masked by dark glasses, another good sign.

Her contact might have made an appearance, after all.

There was no way to know, not yet. She had never seen him. He might be anyone, of any description.

The man reached the bar area and stopped, looking slowly around. She gave him a momentary glance before averting her eyes. If he was her contact, even this brief signal should be enough.

Movement. On the periphery of her vision he rounded the bar and slipped onto the stool beside her.

He must be the one.

The bartender appeared. The man ordered a gin and tonic. When the bartender turned away, Pierce tensed, knowing that now was the moment for him to initiate the conversation.

"Beautiful hotel, isn’t it?" he said.

She looked at him. Behind the shaded lenses, his eyes were as blank as a baby’s.

"Yes," she answered, hearing her own voice from a great distance. "Very beautiful."

"My name’s Donald Stevenson. From Aurora, Illinois. In town on business."

"Lucy Mallone."

"From?"

"Seattle."

"Great city, Seattle. Rains a lot, but I wouldn’t mind that. I like the rain."

"Me, too," she said absently, trying to decide what to do.

He was not her contact, obviously. He was just some asshole looking for a little action.

The bartender delivered the drink. "Put it on my room tab," Donald Stevenson said, opening his wallet to take out his electronic room key.

Pierce glanced inside the wallet and saw credit cards and a thick sheaf of bills.

Suddenly she was glad Donald Stevenson had chosen to sit beside her. She’d been wrong to think of him as useless. Quite the contrary.

She began to think he could be very useful indeed.

The two bureau cars turned east onto Pico Boulevard and rushed toward the skyline of Century City, an upscale complex of office buildings and shopping malls built on what was once the backlot of Twentieth Century Fox.

"Ever been to the Plaza?" Bickerstaff asked Tennant.

"In ’eighty-four, when Reagan was reelected. He held his victory party here."

"And you were on their invite list?"

"Fat chance. I was working out of the LA office at the time. Secret Service brought some of us in for extra manpower on election night."

He remembered that night-the tidal wave of votes crushing that wuss, Mondale. Afterward, he had shared a drink with some friends at the hotel bar…

"The bar," Tennant said with a snap of his fingers. "If she’s waiting to meet somebody, the bar is where she’ll be. It’s smack in the middle of the lobby. Gives her a way to watch the front doors without being noticed. And it offers more avenues of escape than any other part of the hotel."

"If she’s in the lobby," Dante said, "she may see us as soon as we enter."

"Right. So we go in fast, and we stay alert. Got it?"

They got it. There were no more smiles from Dante, no more smart comments from attorney Wilkins.

Jarvis hooked left onto the Avenue of the Stars-only in LA did they have street names like that-and steered the sedan into the curving driveway of the Century Plaza Hotel. A parking valet approached their car as the doors flew open. Tennant badged the guy. "Official business, stay back."

Tennant told the three agents from the second car to cover the hotel’s side and rear exits and monitor the tactical frequency on their Handy-Talkies. Then he led Wilkins, Dante, and J amp;B up the steps and into the lobby, his hand under his jacket, touching the Sig Sauer 9mm holstered to his hip.

She would have to kill him.

Amanda Pierce had never killed anyone, but she had no doubt she could do it. Survival was her imperative. Other lives were of no consequence in comparison to her own.

"You visit LA often?" she asked.

"Three or four times a year. I’ve got clients here. How about you?"

"First time in LA."

"Business or pleasure?"

"Pleasure trip."

Stevenson chuckled. "Well, we can all use some pleasure from time to time."

The lobby was spacious and elegant and nearly deserted at 1:15 A.M. The clerk at the reception desk gave Tennant a look that said, May I help you?

Tennant ignored him. The bar, identified as the Lobby Court, was straight ahead, its patrons in silhouette against the two-story windows that looked out on a spotlighted garden. Tennant led his team toward the bar, hardly daring to hope that Amanda Pierce would still be here, and then he saw her.

Dark hair, clipped in a bun. Brown blazer and slacks-the outfit she’d stolen from Agent Kidder.

She was seated at the far end of the bar, perched on a stool, a drink in her hand, chatting to a man who might be her contact or maybe some tourist trying to pick her up.

Her upper body was turned at an angle to give her full attention to the man beside her. She hadn’t seen them enter.