Sins of the Father by Christa Faust Read Free Book Online

and rifles.
    “Drop the suitcase!”
    Peter felt a sick, helpless fury racing through his veins.
    Goddamn, Jaruk—you swore that the cops had been paid off. Bastard probably kept the bribe money for himself, and left Peter with his ass in the wind. He’d been so close to pulling this off, too, and it infuriated him to think that his undoing would come from a trusted friend’s betrayal.
    Peter let go of the handle of the suitcase and slowly raised his hands, palms out. Then he heard a noise behind him. As he turned, the man in the Hawaiian shirt drew a massive Dirty Harry hand cannon and aimed it at the cops.
    “You won’t take me alive!” he shouted, revealing a rich, plummy, upper class British accent.
    Peter was so dumbfounded by this astounding turn of events that he just stood there for a surreal handful of seconds—until the crazed Englishman rushed him and shoved him aside. The man tripped over the jumble of their combined luggage as he fired a wild shot into the expensive modernist chandelier. The gun was so close to Peter’s ear that the sound deafened him.
    He dropped to the carpet and rolled away, wedging his body against the wall and trying to will himself to become invisible as the trigger-happy Thai cops returned fire. Their aim was much better than the Englishman, and when Peter looked up, he saw that their quarry’s ugly shirt had been enhanced by several large crimson blossoms.
    Those were getting larger by the second.
    The man staggered backward in a crooked zigzag, bouncing off the wall, and then threw himself onto his roller case. It was as if he was trying to protect it at all costs.
    The Thai cops swarmed in, completely ignoring Peter and surrounding the bleeding Englishman. One of them cuffed him, while another wrestled the suitcase out of his weakening grip.
    Peter was about to reach for his own suitcase and bug the hell out, when his previous mess came flooding out of the eastern stairwell. Two of the Chechens, neither of which was the kid calling himself Umarov, backed into the hallway, firing up the stairs at the pursuing Koreans.
    They started down the hall as the first of their pursuers came into sight. One of the Chechens took a bullet in the hip and went sprawling on the carpet while a stray bullet from the Koreans caught one of the Thai cops in the shoulder.
    That was enough to jolt the cops into action. One of them kicked in a nearby door, while another dragged the handcuffed prisoner and his precious suitcase out of the line of fire and into the hotel room. A third and fourth cop engaged with the Chechens, while the one who’d been shot grabbed Peter by the arm, shouting something unintelligible into his gun-deaf ear.
    The cop who grabbed Peter was thickly built and moon-faced, with small, close-together eyes and a wide, flattened nose. He was wearing so much fake sandalwood cologne that it made Peter’s eyes water. And even though the big man had just taken a bullet, he hardly seemed to notice it. He raised Peter up to a crouch, shoved his suitcase into his arms, and then duck-walked him to the elevator, using his Kevlar-covered body as a shield to protect them from the ongoing gunfire.
    When the elevator door opened, Moonface thrust Peter through so hard that he nearly fell back on his ass, clutching the suitcase like a precious child. The cop reached into the elevator and hit the “L” button, pulling his arm back out of the car as the doors started to close. Peter tried to thank him before they shut all the way, but he could barely hear his own voice, and had no idea how loudly he was speaking.
    Then it was too late.
    As the elevator slid smoothly down, he noticed there was something wet on the sleeve of his shirt where the Thai cop had grabbed him. He touched the damp spot, expecting blood, but was surprised to find his fingers slicked with a strange silvery fluid. He stared at it for a moment, trying to figure out what it was.
    Then he gave up.
    He was lucky to be alive. As