Red Stripes Read Online Free PDF Page B

the outer-office area had been left as a vivid reminder of what happens when you lower your guard. Alongside the bedroom is a short corridor, where there’s a small bathroom with a sink and a john, a small file room filled with rows of gray cabinets. Next to that is a closet. It holds mops, buckets, cleaning products. It also holds an armory locker. I also held the key to its lock.
    From the locker I took out my personal SIG Sauer P226. Unlike the SIG dumped in the Caribbean Sea as Velasquez steered us away from the kidnappers’ den, this one was in full working order. I checked the workings anyway—habit—and slapped in a full mag of 9 by19 mm Parabellums. Racking the slide, I put a round in the breech. Then, dropping the decocking lever, I lowered the hammer, making the weapon “drop safe.” All it would take to fire the gun now was slight pressure on the trigger, but I wouldn’t put my finger on the trigger until a viable target was in front of me. Cops and most military operatives would go postal on me for carrying around a hot weapon, but fuck them. I’d found the difference in a draw down was counted in milliseconds and any advantage outweighed the cons of an accidental discharge. Frankly, I’d never shot myself in the foot. My SIG went into my waistband at the back.
    These Jamaican mobsters, they liked their big knives. Well, they were no exception. I took from the armory two cutting weapons. One a military issue KA-BAR, the other an illegal push dagger that I slipped down inside my boot along my left ankle. I felt good to go. But there was something I had to do first.
    Using my cell, I asked first Velasquez, then McTeer to stay clear of the office until I gave them the all clear. Both men offered me their services, but I told them to enjoy their downtime. Rink wasn’t due back from his mom’s place for a few days, so I didn’t trouble the big guy. I knew if I called him, he’d be on the next plane out of San Francisco however forcefully I told him not to.
    Despite the heat, I pulled on a lightweight bomber jacket and ball cap, then locked up the office, going out the back way once more. I retraced my steps along the service alley to the first cross street and then decided that if I was going to draw out the Jamaicans, then now was as good a time as any. I headed for the main strip and turned for Jolie’s café, still two blocks up on the right.
    Before making it as far as Jolie’s, I crossed the street, jaywalking on a red light. A block ahead of me my Audi A8 waited. So did a tall black man. He was coal dark, bald headed: not the guy who’d spoken with Jolie about me. He was sitting on the hood of my car, arms crossed on his chest, sinewy muscles glistening under the sun. He wasn’t looking my way but across at the café.
    I picked up my pace, but not enough to draw the baldy’s attention, slipping into step with other pedestrians on the street. I kept my head down and facing forward, the peak of the cap casting a shadow on my face, but scanned to the right. As I neared my car I got a clear look across the street to where the outdoor tables were grouped on the sidewalk. I instantly recognized Jolie, who was standing talking with another black man. This one had café-au-lait skin and Bob Marley hair.
    Seems I wasn’t the only one with a raised alert level, because it was as if he sensed my scrutiny and turned to gaze at me. Even from across the street I could see he had intense jade-green eyes. Jolie also spotted me; she tried to distract the Jamaican, but he brushed her off with a flippant wave of his hand. Seeing the intensity in his friend, the guy perched on my Audi turned to follow his gaze. By then I’d put my right hand in my jacket pocket, and I pushed out with my index finger. He saw the positioning of my jacket and assumed that I’d a weapon pointed at him. Oldest, cheesiest trick in the book, but it still gets some people worried.
    The baldy slid off the hood of my car, unfolding his