Suicide Squeeze

She opened her desk drawer, looking for another pack of cigarettes.

Instead, she saw her father’s six-shooters. She stared at them for long seconds. Goals are nothing. That you pursue them is everything. She’d risked her life before, many times in her special ops days. Could she honestly say that the reasons she’d risked her life those times were any better or worse than now?

Becker decided to let Co

Two contained various weaponry, ammunition. The third held Kevlar vests and electronic equipment. Becker had never had the opportunity to use any of this equipment, all items she thought of as severance pay when the Feds forced her resignation. Our tax dollars at work.

“Shit,” Otis said. “Your Sharper Image catalog has better stuff than mine.”

Co

Ninety minutes later, Co

Joellen Becker had draped him in Kevlar. Nylon straps. Buckles. An electronic headset with a single earpiece and a microphone strapped to his throat. Three guns. Three opportunities to shoot off his own foot. Some kind of automatic on the ankle, a small caliber. The little gun felt awkward down there when he walked, so he decided to leave it off and not tell Becker. The other two were nine-millimeter Glocks, one under each arm in lightweight canvas shoulder holsters. A Batman-style utility belt. Co

If my part of the fucking plan is so safe, then why the hell am I wearing a ton of guns?

Better safe than sorry, Becker had told him.

Otis wore the same outfit with two notable differences. One: He also carried a giant, fully automatic twelve-gauge shotgun with an enormous barrel magazine. Co

The other difference was almost comical. A single Kevlar vest didn’t even come close to covering Otis’s massive chest. In an awkward but serviceable arrangement, Becker had strapped two vests together. The new rig left only a few gaps, dangerous spaces where a lucky shot might find its way through. Better than nothing, thought Co

“Five minutes.” Becker’s voice echoed electronic in Co

Co

But now, he wasn’t sure. Fear.

“Otis, maybe this is a bad idea.”

“Go then,” the big man said. “I’m staying. I know what I’m about.”

“You got that leather bag of money. You could take off.” Take me with you.

“It’s Rocky’s money,” Otis said. “I’d say he’d want to buy revenge with it.”

Becker’s voice again. “It’s go time. Samson, get into position.”

Co

He looked at Otis one more time. Otis said nothing, only nodded.

Co

He left the Lincoln behind, walked fast around the back of the hotel, and found the service entrance Becker told him would be there. His heart pounded in his ears, mouth dry. He didn’t touch the knob. Too soon. It would be locked, maybe even have an alarm.

Becker had told him state-of-the-art, modern hotels had state-of-the-art, modern blind spots and weaknesses. She was parked somewhere with her laptop and her cellular modem, tapping into the hotel’s computer network. Voodoo magic. Again Co

A long buzzzzz followed by a click. Becker’s voice in his ear. “Go, Samson.”

Co

“Okay,” Becker said in his ear. “Is there a keypad or a lock? You’ll either need a key or a code to ride to the top floor.”

“A keypad,” Co

“Good. If you’d have needed a key, you’d be screwed. We can bypass the code. I’ll tell the computer system there’s an emergency evacuation. That’ll unlock all the restricted elevators. But I’ll disable the alarm. Give me a second.”

“How’d you learn to do all this?” Co

“I’d tell you, but then I’d have to kill you. Now clam up. I’m working.”

Co

Then the elevator moved. Up.

Becker’s voice. “I’m going to cue Otis. When he starts his commotion it should pull any guards away from the service elevator and give you a clear path.”

“What if I don’t have a clear path?”

“Then we’ll see what you’re made of, Samson. You’ve just got to have faith Otis will do his job.”

Yeah, Co

Otis sat stone still in the Lincoln, eyes closed. He’d been working on his breathing, in through the nose, out through the mouth. He was going to walk face-first into danger, and he’d need his mind straight if he wanted to come out alive. But he had to do this thing. He’d feel Rocky’s ghost haunt him forever if he didn’t.

Otis had graduated high school with average grades, hadn’t paid much attention to most of the stuff he’d read in English class, Hemingway stories and The Red Badge of Courage. He’d forgotten most of it. One thing stuck with him crystal clear. Hamlet. The ghost of Hamlet’s father had made a big impression on a seventeen-year-old Otis. The ghost defined certain responsibilities. You don’t forget your family. You don’t turn a blind eye when somebody does them wrong. He’d been surprised how applicable these lessons had been later in life.

His high school English teacher had asked the question: Was the ghost real or a manifestation of Hamlet’s guilt? What did it matter? Otis thought. Hamlet was fucked up either way.

Rocky Big had been family, and Otis didn’t want to risk any ghosts.

A hiss of static in his ear. Otis opened his eyes.

“You’re up, Otis,” Becker said in his earpiece. “Good hunting.”

Joellen Becker typed rapidly on the laptop in her dark car. She’d parked near the garage entrance, where she pla

The hotel’s system codes had been ridiculously easy to obtain even on short notice, an appropriate bribe with an underpaid hotel employee. She tapped a few keys and shut down all the hotel’s outside telephone lines and the rest of the alarm systems. It wouldn’t take long for somebody to realize they could still call the police on a cell phone. If she’d still been with her old special ops unit, she would have been able to jam those calls with high-tech equipment.