With my right eye mostly gone and my left swollen half shut, I didn’t see it coming. My diaphragm seizes. I strain against the wire binding my wrists to the arms of the chair.
Blood and fluid trickle down my cheek. Tears? Whatever the shit is—or was—inside my eye? Who the hell knows.
“Names! All those you work with in Venezuela, Colombia, and Ecuador! Now!” A punch snaps my head back. The shock lets me draw in a wheezing breath.
“Fuck. You.”
The sound of the switchblade makes me flinch. The last time Asshole #1 waved it in front of my face, he sliced through my eyeball. The sharp edge presses to my cheek. I grit my teeth—damn painful with what I think is a fractured jaw—and prepare for the worst.
Until Asshole #2 grabs Asshole #1’s arm. “If he loses much more blood, he will be no good to us. Put the knife away. I have a better idea.”
I jerk awake, the memory of a lead pipe shattering my temporal bone as fresh now as it was nine years ago.
Cursing as my right lid sticks to my prosthetic eye, I reach for the lubricating drops I keep next to the bed. After I smooth a bit over the acrylic, I can blink again.
The late night didn’t do me any favors. Neither did the asshole who broke into Domina’s apartment. My jaw aches, and when I push myself up to sitting, my right leg is nothing but pins and needles.
Great.
I ease myself onto the floor and reach for my therapy balls and trigger point rollers. It takes me half an hour of painful exercises and targeted pressure all along my back, my ass, and my legs for most of the sensation to return.
By the time I shuffle into the kitchen to start coffee, it’s after nine, and I wanted to get to the El Chorrillo neighborhood well before noon in case the piece-of-shit I was hired to track down shows up at his mistress’s apartment to take her to lunch.
After I pour myself a cup of wake-the-hell-up from the French Press, I scroll through the text messages I shared with Domina last night. I can’t get a read on her. Vulnerable one moment, defiant the next.
The phone rings, and the number on screen sours my stomach. There’s no name. No information at all from the cellular carrier. But I memorized it the day I arrived in Panama City and hoped to God I’d never have cause to see it again.
The CIA’s Chief of Station.
* * *
An hour later,I follow a low-level CIA officer through the halls of the United States Embassy in Panama City. “Right this way,Mr.Basher,” the man says.
The subtle dig at my civilian status should annoy me, but I’m more concerned with the time I’m losing to work my case than petty shade thrown by a guy fresh off The Farm.
After two raps on an unmarked door, I’m ushered inside without a word.
Moses Ferrier—six-foot-two with more salt than pepper left in his closely cropped hair—braces his hands on his desk and stares me down. “You’ve been here for two months. Two goddamn months, and you never thought to check in? With anyone?”
“I’m retired.”
“Retired is puttering around a house on the beach, fixing up an old boat or a classic car. Not bribing the Commerce Minister to get your P.I. license and gun permit fast tracked!”
With how the veins in his neck bulge, Ferrier has a serious blood pressure problem. Shoving my right hand into my pocket, I shift on my feet, trying to relieve some of the pressure on my rebuilt ankle.
With a shrug, I drop my gaze so he doesn’t see my lopsided grin. “I didn’t bribe anyone. I made a generous donation to the police union and asked nicely if there was anything that could be done to speed up the process. I track down cheating husbands, deadbeat dads, and the occasional embezzling accountant. Nothing you need to concern yourself with.”
Ferrier’s dark brown eyes narrow. “And what about the man you half-blindedlast nightin your own fucking apartment building?”
Shit.
“I will keep your name out of this.”
So much for Domina’s word. And for that asshole going to jail quietly. Why didn’t I ask her what she did for the Vice President? For all I know, she’s nothing but a secretary. Or his Chief of Staff.
“Are you listening to me, Basher?” Ferrier demands. “This is fucking serious.”
“Yes, sir. But it’s not. I defended one of my neighbors from an intruder. Nothing more.”
