Herman started to wonder whether he might have lost him. He scanned the distance across the garage over the tops of the cars and noticed at least one lighted exit sign on the back wall as well as a bank of elevators leading to the offices upstairs. Thorn could have taken either one and slipped away.
The garage was quiet. Most people were already at work. Herman looked back toward the entrance, thought for a moment, then turned and started toward the next row of cars, the third aisle down.
Before he could take a second step, he heard a scratching sound on the concrete somewhere behind him and off to the right. He stopped, turned, and looked. He was certain that the noise had come from the aisle in front of him, and close.
Herman took a tentative step toward the line of cars, then decided he couldn’t be sure which side of the aisle the noise might have come from. He moved as silently as he could on the rubber soles of his running shoes, one hand plunged deep in his pocket, the other balled into a fist.
Thorn slipped down onto his chest and looked under the car. He could see the shoes of the big man as he came straight down the center of the aisle between the two lines of parked cars. No doubt he was checking between each vehicle on each side as he passed them, trying to make sure that no one got behind him. It was a good tactic as far as it went, but Thorn could see that he had already blown it.
Thorn waited until the man was almost even with the other side of the car he was peering under and then, without warning, he suddenly bolted upright, stood straight up, and looked right at him.
Herman stood there wide eyed. Adrenaline shot through his body. He recognized Thorn immediately. The only thing he couldn’t see was the man’s hands, to tell if he was holding a gun.
Thorn took a step out from behind the car and Herman realized that the only thing in the man’s hand was the briefcase.
Liquida would have preferred Madriani. But he knew that unless he could get the lawyer alone, sooner or later he would have to deal with the big investigator. So it might as well be now, when he had the element of surprise. He came at him with catlike quickness, the deadly stiletto in his gloved hand behind him.
Herman took half a step forward and was about to lunge toward Thorn when the searing pain in his back, up under his ribs, froze the soles of his shoes to the concrete floor. Suddenly Herman couldn’t move. He reached with his one free hand behind his back and felt the warm blood as it pulsed from his body. Herman knew instantly who it was and that the sharp point still jammed in his back had pierced a main artery.
Liquida’s blade found that magic place that paralyzes with pain. The big man’s knees buckled. As he went to the concrete floor, Liquida went with him, holding the knife in place and moving it around for maximum damage.
Herman tried to call out, but he couldn’t. It was as if his voice was paralyzed. He realized he could no longer draw air in his lungs, as the blade had punctured one of them and blood began to fill it.
“You got him?” said Thorn.
“He’s mine.” Liquida withdrew the knife from its victim, straightened up, and looked over at Thorn. “Go. I’ll finish up.” Blood dripped off the tip of the stiletto as he stood there like a butcher over his quarry.
“Good work,” said Thorn. He turned and ran toward the exit sign at the back of the building.
Liquida watched him as he went. He stood there, his feet straddling the big, bald black man he had seen in every dark dream since that night in Costa Rica almost a year before. Liquida looked down at him. “I will make it quick, but you must know before you die that I have found the girl. Madriani’s daughter will die next, before he goes into his own grave.”
Liquida leaned down, drew the nine-inch stiletto back for the death plunge into the man’s chest, and felt a searing fire erupt from his right shoulder blade, all the way through to the muscles under his arm. He jumped back quickly, like a man who’s been snake bitten. He reached across his body with his left hand to grip his dead right forearm at the wrist.
The bloody stiletto toppled from his numb fingers and rattled onto the concrete pavement at his feet. His right hand had no feeling. Liquida was unable to grip or even close the fingers of his right hand into a weak fist.
Blood poured from the wound under Liquida’s arm as Herman lay on his back, his head raised up off the pavement. He was smiling. The open four-inch ceramic blade from Thorn’s exotic folding knife was in his right hand as his vision began to blur. He reached out feebly with the blade and drew it across the fading form of Liquida. In his final delirium his sight had lost any sense of depth.
The Mexican was standing three feet away from him, fury in his eyes.
Herman’s head settled back onto the concrete as his vision went dark and what shallow breath was left abandoned his body.
With his right arm hanging limp at his side, Liquida kicked the knife out of Herman’s hand. It skidded across the concrete and under one of the cars.
Liquida was breathing heavily as he heard the pounding of feet on the pavement coming this way. He turned and looked and saw the form of a man running into the dark parking structure from the sunlit outside. He looked down at the dying form at his feet, reached around and felt the warm blood oozing down his own back, and decided that discretion was the better part of valor.
I get only a fleeting glimpse of a running form in the distance as I walk and then run down between the lane of parked cars. I see the spreading pool of blood from under Herman’s body as I jump and curse and pound my hands on my thighs.
“HELP!” I yell at the top of my lungs. “Anybody! I need help now!”
I am down on both knees hovering over Herman, the man who has saved me so many times. There is blood on his chest but I see no wounds, yet the pool on the concrete beneath him is spreading. “Call an ambulance! I need help!”
Herman is trying to say something, but he’s unable to speak. He mouths the word “Liquida” and points with a trembling finger toward the bloody stiletto lying on the concrete. He tries to say something else: “Ssss…Sa…” and loses consciousness.
I roll him over onto his stomach. It takes all my strength. As he goes over I see the wound in his back still oozing blood, then a spurt and bubbles of air.
“That’s good,” I tell him. I get down in Herman’s ear. “Stay with me,” I tell him. I tear off my shirt, pulling it over my head. “Damn it! Can you hear me?” I scream at the guy in the kiosk out front. “There’s a man dying, I need HELP NOW!”
I press my shirt against the open wound to seal it, using my knees to apply as much pressure as I can, then grapple for my phone with a bloody finger. I hit the button and look for a signal. Nothing. The concrete of the garage has my phone sealed off. I drop it onto the concrete and yell for help.
“What’s happened?”
I turn my head. It’s the guy from the kiosk.
“Call 911. Get an ambulance. He’s been stabbed.”
He runs for the door.
I press down on Herman’s back, trying to clear the blood from his lungs while pressing the shirt against the wound with my knee.
I am wondering where the police and the FBI are as I try to stanch the bleeding and get him to breathe. I still see bubbles from the wound as I press down on his back.
“They’re on their way.” The parking attendant from the kiosk is behind me. Then suddenly two or three more people. One of them is a nurse. She grabs her large handbag, reaches inside it, and finds a sandwich in a plastic bag. She opens up the bag, tosses the sandwich, flattens the bag out, and says: “Move that!” She’s talking about my bloody shirt.
She lifts Herman’s blood-soaked shirt, pulling it out of the way, and places the plastic sandwich bag directly over the open wound. “Here, help me get his belt off.”