Scorpion Strike. John Gilstrap

“Please keep your voice down,” he whispered so softly that it was barely audible. “I know a way. Please come with me.”

      When Alpha called Hartwig—or something like that—the offended older woman raised her hand, and then struggled to rise to her bare feet and swollen ankles. Tyler got up from his seat to assist. “Here, ma’am, let me help.”

      He grasped her hand in a powerful thumb grip, and cupping her dimpled elbow with his other hand, he leveraged her to her feet. Ms. Hartwig leaned in as if to kiss Tyler’s cheek and whispered, “Don’t let a whiny girl get you killed. If you go, run for all of us. I’ll give you the distraction you need.” She ended it with a real kiss and turned to her captors. “I’m coming,” she said. “Just takes me a little longer. . . .”

      Did she say “distraction”? Tyler thought. What did that mean? And how did she know that—

      Ms. Hartwig was winding her way through the others in her way when her knees wobbled and she toppled sideways into a crowd of others. They tried to catch her, but there was a lot to catch. As she fell, several of the other guests lost their balance. Two of them splashed into the pool.

      In that instant, Tyler saw that every eye in the complex was staring at the older woman. This was his chance. This was her favor to him. He turned to Annie, who was also staring at the spectacle at the water’s edge. “Annie!” he whisper-shouted.

      She either didn’t hear him or she chose to ignore him.

      Either way, this was it. This was the unique moment when this would happen or it wouldn’t. “Bye, Annie,” he said.

      Bending low at the waist, he scurried behind the backs of two of the guests and made his way to the waist-high locked gate that closed the pool’s utility area off from the places where guests were allowed to go. He fought the urge to look behind him as he rolled his body across the top of the squatty fence and into the near-absolute darkness of the other side. A flight of six concrete steps was there, leading to a short subterranean sidewalk, which, in turn, led to a heavy steel door that was always locked.

      Unless you knew where the key was hidden.

      Tyler came down here frequently to smoke weed and hang with his buddy Jaime Bonilla. In fact, it was hard to think of a patch of real estate at the Crystal Sands where he hadn’t smoked weed with somebody. Jaime was a leadman for the maintenance crew, and consequently was a keeper of all the keys. To facilitate those times when Tyler wanted to toke alone, Jaime’d had an extra key made, which he stored under a loose bit of concrete that rested under a triangular box of rat poison. Call it a poor man’s security system.

      Tyler had never done this by feel before, but he was counting on muscle memory to pull him through. Facing the door, he used the flat of his left hand to follow the contour of the steel door from left to right until his fingertips found the vertical seam where it met the hinge side of the jamb. That put him close to the inside corner where the walls met.

      To his left and eight feet above his head, the decorative hedges and planters did nothing to mask the sounds of the continuing roll call. The commotion of Ms. Hartwig’s fall had died down, but the fact that another one had not blossomed in its place told him that no one had noticed that he was missing.

      Yet.

      After he’d acquired both walls, he converged his hands into the corner and traced the seam straight down to the ground, where he found the container of rat poison, right where it was supposed to be.

      He cringed as his fingers sifted through what could only be rat shit. He hated rats. And mice. And pretty much every other critter that didn’t bark and wag its tail. As he lifted the box to get the key, his mind conjured images of rat turds being driven under his fingernails. He didn’t realize that his hands were shaking until he heard them rattle against the hard plastic of the trap.

      Keep it together, he told himself. If he could get through this door, he’d have a chance at getting away. If he couldn’t get through . . . He had to get through.

      He used both hands to lift the box and move it off to the side. As he did, something poured out of the holes in its side, launching a stench that made him gag, a combination of stale shit and dead things.

      Jesus, when this was over, he was going to scrub his skin till he saw blood.

      He pried up the chip of concrete and found the key just where it was supposed to be. His fingers fumbled it and it dropped with a tink, which sounded like a striking bell.

      “Shit!” The word was out before he could stop it. For the first time, he dared a look back toward the top of the stairs. A guy in his thirties stood there, just on the other side of the gate, his face folded into a scowl. Tyler couldn’t tell if the guy had seen him, or if he was just staring out into space.

      Please don’t say anything, he prayed. And if you haven’t seen me yet, move the hell out of the way.

      That thought did it. The man at the top of the stairs heard his name and he raised his hand. “Here,” he said, and he pointed toward the restrooms. “I need to go,” he said. Apparently, he got approval because he thanked somebody and turned his back on Tyler to head off to pee.

      This time when Tyler got his fingers on the key, he held on tight. Using his left thumb to index the slot, he used his right hand to slide the key into place. It was always tricky to get this lock to turn. You had to jiggle things, but less tonight than on other nights, thank God. The knob turned and he pulled. He winced as he anticipated the metal-on-metal scraping sound that always accompanied this part.

      It couldn’t have been as loud as it sounded to him—otherwise, people would be shooting by now. He opened the door only exactly as much as he needed to slip through, and then pulled it closed behind him. Somehow, the scraping sound was less terrifying when he had a steel panel between him and the people with the guns.

      With the door closed, he spun the button on the lock. And he found himself in total darkness.

      CHAPTER 5

      “SO, WHAT DO WE THINK THE ‘PRIME PACKAGE’ IS?” HUNTER EDWARDS asked as they navigated their way through the undergrowth in the dark. Jonathan and Gail had both kept their radios on, and that was the first bit of chatter that had come through.

      Gail shifted her shoulder so that Jonathan could reach the radio, which was strapped to her vest behind her left shoulder. “Turn mine off,” she said. “We might want these later, and it doesn’t make sense to drain both batteries.”

      Jonathan’s fingers found the correct button in the dark and twisted it to the OFF position. “Good idea,” he said.

      Lori said, “What does ‘prime package’ even mean?”

      “Whatever they determine it to mean,” Hunter said. He walked behind Jonathan, and Lori behind Gail. “Say, Digger, you never did elaborate on where you got those knife skills.”

      Jonathan ignored him. The use of real names was a big problem, and a rookie error on his part. His head had been in survival mode, he figured, not tactical mode. Having spent decades of his life training and living the role of the wolf, he’d let his guard down and transformed himself into a sheep. That moment was past, but the damage was done. And dickless back there kept using the slipup as a prod. How could Hunter think that was a good idea?

      “What do you two do for a living?” Gail asked. Jonathan took it as her effort to change the subject and take him out of a homicidal frame of mind.

      “I’m an investment banker,” Hunter said. “We specialize in tech companies. The last deal we did was for seven hundred million dollars.”

      Such words did little to make Jonathan feel closer to the man. Bankers in general—and investment bankers in particular—ranked right up there with politicians and lawyers on his list of oxygen-wasters.

      “Are you a banker, too?” Gail asked.

      “Oh, no,” Lori said. “I’m not that smart. I just run an art