He’d insisted on being present during the autopsies.
The examination of Priyanka Talati. “Do you mind if I leave the gurney here and have it picked up later?” he had asked.
He’d been building up a store of gurneys in the lab.
And those gurneys would be packed with explosive.
Mubeen saw a digital readout that began counting down. With a shout, Dr. Abdul Zafar launched himself at Mubeen, a knife in his hand. Mubeen felt his shirt sliced open and warm blood course down his front. He grabbed at the knife hand and tried to wrench the weapon away from Zafar, but Zafar had the strength of a zealot and twisted until he was over Mubeen and pressing down with the knife, his lips pulled back over his teeth and beads of sweat popping on his forehead.
Chapter 112
MUNNA, WITH BLOOD pouring from his nose, still dazed, grinned. But Munna hadn’t fired the shot.
It was the girl. Somehow she’d grabbed Munna’s Desert Eagle from the waistband of his pants and used it to shoot Jack.
Jack kneeled with arms like a signpost, the Glock trained on the girl, the Colt on Munna, and his eyes going from one to the other, skittishly returning to the door of the booth. He had just seconds before the last gunman got his act together.
“Drop the gun,” he told her in a faltering voice. The bullet had gone through, thank Christ for that. He’d be losing blood. It gushed down his leg, filling his shoe. He could actually feel it pouring out of him, and that wasn’t a good sign.
“Drop the gun,” he said, more loudly this time.
Conscious of one, maybe two bodyguards cowering on the other side of the booth door, waiting for the chance to take him out. Didn’t want to shoot the girl, though. Not if he could help it.
“Shoot him,” growled Munna through his teeth.
“Shut the fuck up,” snarled Jack from the side of his mouth. “Just drop the gun, darling, or I’ll have to shoot you. You hear me? I don’t want to shoot you, but I’m going to shoot you unless you drop that gun—right this fucking second.”
“Shoot him.” This helpful
advice from Munna.
“I said, shut the fuck up,” shouted Jack.
And then the last bodyguard made his move. He came bundling through the door, like a man determined to die, all twitchy eyes and bared teeth, firing indiscriminately, before he’d even had a chance to take aim.
His first shot went wide, smacked harmlessly into the wall. His second ripped off the girl’s jaw and she fell in a welter of blood.
He didn’t have the chance for a third. Jack fired twice and he spun off, fell face first to the table, dead before he hit the glass.
Jack looked at the dead girl, wondering how many more innocent people were going to die today, and decided none.
Nobody else died. Not if he had anything to do with it.
He advanced on Munna.
Chapter 113
MUBEEN TRIED TO pull away. Couldn’t. He saw the bomb readout counting down. He saw Zafar’s knife inches away from his chest, the tendons in their arms standing out as they both struggled.
And then Zafar jerked, as though electricity had been passed through him, and looked down to where a blood-dripping blade sprouted from his chest.
Santosh stepped over him, already pressing a hand to Mubeen’s wound as he crouched on the blood-slicked tiles to peer at the base of the gurneys. He saw small stopwatch-like devices and looked at the timer.
They had two minutes. An injured man and a cripple in the lab.
Chapter 114
“ALONE AT LAST,” Jack snarled at Munna. “Now, what’s the protocol? Is there an abort code that can be issued remotely? A safe word? What?”