The Teeth of the Tiger - Tom Clancy [205]
"Beats the hell out of me," Brian responded. "Random chance has not acted in our favor, Captain Kirk."
"Thanks a bunch, Spock," Dom snarled back.
"Hey, I'm still here, remember?" Jack told them both.
"Junior, you can't-" But Jack cut Brian off.
"Why the hell not?" He asked quietly. "How hard is it?"
"You're not trained," Dominic told him.
"It's not playing golf at the Masters, is it?"
"Well-" It was Brian again.
"Is it?" Jack demanded.
Dominic pulled his pen out of his coat pocket and handed it across.
"Twist the nib and stick it in his ass, right?"
"It's all ready to go," Enzo confirmed. "But be careful, for Christ's sake."
It was 1:21 now. Mohammed Hassan had finished his glass of water and poured another. Mahmoud would soon be here. Why take the chance of interrupting an important meeting? He shrugged to himself and stood, walking inside for the men's room, which had pleasant memories. "You sure you want to do this?" Brian asked.
"He's a bad guy, isn't he? How long does this stuff take to work?"
"About thirty seconds, Jack. Use your head. If it doesn't feel right, back away and let him go," Dominic told him. "This isn't a fucking game, man."
"Right. " What the hell, Dad did this once or twice, he told himself. Just to make sure, he bumped into a waiter and asked where the men's room was. The waiter pointed, and Jack went that way.
It was an ordinary wooden door with a symbolic label rather than words because of Giovanni's international clientele. What if there's more than one guy in there? he asked himself.
Then you blow it off, dumbass.
Okay
He walked in, and there was somebody else, drying his hands. But then he walked out, and Ryan was alone with 56MoHa, who was just zipping up and starting to turn. Jack pulled the pen from his inside jacket pocket and turned the tip to expose the iridium syringe tip. He resisted the instinctive urge to check the tip with his finger as not a very smart move, and slid past the well-suited stranger, and then, as told, dropped his hand and got him right in the left cheek. He expected to hear the discharge of the gas but didn't.
Mohammed Hassan al-Din jumped at the sudden sharp pain, and turned to see what looked like an ordinary young man-Wait, he'd seen this face at the hotel
"Oh, sorry to bump into you, pal."
The way he said it lit off warning lights in his consciousness. He was an American, and he'd bumped into him, and he'd felt a stick in his buttocks, and And he'd killed the Jew here, and "Who are you?"
Jack had counted off fifteen seconds or so, and he was feeling his oats "I'm the man who just killed you, Fifty-six MoHa," he replied evenly. The man's face changed into something feral and dangerous. His right hand went into his pocket and came out with a knife, and suddenly it wasn't at all funny anymore.
Jack instinctively backed away with a jump. The terrorist's face was the very image of death. He opened his folding knife and locked onto Jack's throat as his target. He brought the knife up and took half a step forward and The knife dropped from his hand-he looked down at his hand in amazement, then looked back up -or tried to. His head didn't move. His legs lost their strength. He fell straight down. His knees bounced painfully on the tile floor. And he fell forward, turning left as he did so. His eyes stayed open, and then he was faceup, looking at the metal plate glued to the bottom of the urinal, where Greengold had wanted to retrieve the package from before, and
"Greetings from America, Fifty-six MoHa. You fucked with the wrong people. I hope you like it in hell, pal." His peripheral vision saw the shape move to the door, and the increase and decrease of light as the door opened and closed.
Ryan stopped there