Page 34 of The Big Fix

“Neither. I believed them to be military because they told me they were.”

I didn’t think he was lying to me. I didn’t detect any pretense in the man. His sorrow over what he’d been forced to do seemed real.

“They gave me a cover story,” Nam continued, “and warned me not to tell anyone. They said they could get to my sister at any time and threatened to torture her and my niece to death if I disobeyed. Again, I had no choice but to trade Owen for them.”

I understood. I would trade a stranger for Owen if the roles were reversed.

After a few seconds of silence, he asked, “Is Owen still alive?”

“I don’t know,” I replied honestly.

“I have his laptop.”

I nearly jolted but squashed the instinct.

“They were looking for it, but I didn’t let on I had it.”

“Where is it?”

“At my flat. It’s close by.” He gave me the address. “You should know, his laptop is a brick. I tried to bypass its security, but the level of encryption on it is far beyond my skills.”

“Why would you try and break into it?” I asked pointedly.

“To see if there was anything there I could use to help Owen, now that my sister and niece are no longer in danger.”

“What makes you think they’re no longer in danger?”

He gasped. “I was told my part was done and the three of us were safe.”

But that was a lie, or why would he have a tail? “Listen, I think you’re still in a great deal of danger, and you’re going to need to trust me to help you.”

His lips parted as he stared at me. “Whyever would you do that? I’m the one who put Owen into their hands.”

“Because you were used, Mr. Nam, and that’s not fair or something I tolerate. Now, I need you to get up and come with me.”

We rose but never cleared the table.

Suddenly a man appeared behind Nam. I saw the knife and instinctively grabbed a fistful of the young man’s T-shirt and yanked him forward, off his feet and up against my chest. Before the stranger took another step, there was the crack of a high-powered shot. The round struck Nam’s shadow behind the ear, punching a hole through his neck. Scarlet jutted out the exit wound in an arc, drenching his face as he fell.

Someone had fired a kill shot, and it wasn’t one of my guys. Chris or George, as they were Army snipers, would have gone for the head. I shoved the table over, yanking Nam down beside me.

“What’s happening?” he cried out.

I tucked him against me, checking the dead man, noting the geyser coming from his throat that I knew wouldn’t stop until it ran dry. At the moment, it was pooling on the floor under him.

I had only fractured images of the moments that followed. A waitress screamed and dropped a tray of drinks. Guests ran for cover.

Normally, I acted on instinct, but those days were gone. In that instant, I prayed this would be the last time, ever, for this. I didn’t have this skill set anymore, to be sitting in blood, watching others die. My days of calmly seeing people turn to corpses were over.

I stayed low behind the table, holding Nam tight as he came apart, starting to hyperventilate. “My sister,” Nam gasped, “and my niece…will be—”

“No,” I promised him, my voice hard. “You’re going to be all right, and so will they. Just breathe for me. Breathe.”

He was trying, but it was getting harder for him.

“You’re doing so good,” I praised him.

Jing was there in seconds, joining us behind the thankfully large table. The fact that she would run into the path of bullets to be at my side was extraordinary.