Hardbingers

1

The elevator chime jerked Jack from his semidoze. He looked up and saw two nurses coming back from their break.

He stretched in his seat. One a.m. and he had the trauma unit's family lounge pretty much to himself. Just a disheveled woman who seemed to live here—he'd overheard that her husband was in the unit—and a hollow-eyed couple on vigil for their son.

His bladder was sending pleading messages. He'd been putting it off because it meant leaving his post. But sooner or later…

He guessed he could risk a quick trip. He rose, pushed through the men's room door, and was approaching a urinal when he heard the elevator ding again.

He stepped back to the door and pulled it open a few inches. He palmed the Kel-Tec and waited.

The shock of seeing Zeklos, dark glasses and all, step into view delayed his reaction time. He shook it off and reached through the doorway, grabbing the little man by the coat collar as he passed and jerking him into the rest-room. Zeklos struggled but Jack had size and strength on him. He rammed his gut against a sink, knocking off his shades. Zeklos's face blanched when he saw Jack in the mirror.

"You!" he said and reached for the pistol in his shoulder holster.

Jack put him in an arm lock and bent him over the sink while he removed a now familiar suppressor-equipped H-K Tactical. He stuck his Kel-Tec in a pocket, then pressed the nose of the H-K against Zeklos's spine at midlevel.

Jack kept his voice low. "I thought you couldn't kill a woman."

Zeklos glared at him in the mirror and said nothing.

"You're here to finish off a helpless woman and child, right? Proud of yourself?"

Again no reply.

"If you don't open up, you're no good to me, so there'll be nothing to keep me from pulling this trigger."

Finally a response. "I am not afraid to die."

"Who said die? Know what a nine-millimeter hollow-point can do to a vertebra? It smashes it and severs the spinal cord in the process. You'll live, pal, but you'll never walk again."

Of course he might die if one of the fragments severed a good-size blood vessel, but so what?

"So give. Why'd they send you? I thought Miller kicked you out."

Zeklos's hard expression wavered. "He… he does not think I come back alive. But… why are you here? The woman you ask about?"

"Never mind that."

He glanced at the door. Any second now someone could walk through, see Jack's pistol, and shout for security.

He bent Zeklos over the sink and patted him down. Found a Kahr K9 in an ankle holster. He traded the H-K—which went into his waistband—for the smaller Kahr, then yanked him up straight.

"We're going for a little walk."

"Where?"

"Outside, where we can talk." He turned him toward the door and prodded him with the Kahr. "No funny stuff. Behave and you'll come out of this in one piece with both legs working. Act up and I'll shoot you down like a mad dog."