Page 7 of One Minute Out

The gun didn’t faze him. I guess he’s ready to die, but he clearly does not like the looks of the knife in my hand. His eyes fill with terror as he realizes I have plans for him, and this won’t be a quick and painless end to his long, horrible life, after all.

I slip a gloved hand around his thick throat and push him up against the wall. The tanto blade of the Spyderco knife is pointed at his midsection, an inch away from drawing blood.

Quickly he says, “What does Gray Man want?”

I hold the blade up in front of his face. “For this to hurt.”

I talk too much in times like this. I should’ve taken this guy out from a quarter mile away, forgotten about penetrating his compound, and there would have been no talking.

But I am done talking now, so I put the knife against his bare stomach. Before I even draw blood, though, he says something that makes me hold again.

“Girls! Girls here. You take. I give all to you. Perfect girls. The best in world.”

At first I think he’s talking about the young woman who just ran out of the room, but he definitely said “girls,” so I next assume he means the three female cooks who I saw bringing the food out to the security guys. I’m not really looking to open a restaurant, so I don’t answer. I recover again, then ready the knife to drag it across Babic’s midsection.

“Twenty-three. No! Twenty-five. Twenty-five beautiful ladies. High class. For you! Yes!”

Wait. What? I ease up on the blade, but just a little.

“Twenty-five ladies, here? You’re lying.”

“I show you. You take. Make you happy.”

Oh my God. Is this motherfucker a war criminal and a pimp?

“You were already going to die poorly, Ratko. If you give me reason to form an even lower opinion of your character, this might get even nastier.”

He doesn’t get what I’m saying. He responds, “Here. In cellar. Beautiful. All for you, friend.”

I close my eyes. Shit. There’s always something. Some fucking fly in the ointment.

The knife is poised; I am ready. I think about just killing him, ignoring the crazed rantings of a condemned man.

But no.

Because I am an expert in detecting deception, and I don’t think this asshole’s lying. There probably are some more women down here, and my educated guess is that they’d rather not be.

And, much as I’d like to, I just can’t walk away from that. It’s my fatal flaw: time after time my conscience gets me deeper into the shit.

“Show me.”

“Yes, I show you.”

I draw the Glock again, sheathe the knife, and push him back out into the hallway.

We move quickly to the door at the end of the corridor where the music is coming from, the tip of my suppressor six inches from the back of his neck. I don’t know where the woman with the black eye has gone, but I assume she took the staircase up and is making a run for it.

In seconds Ratko and I arrive at the door; he taps a code into a keypad and turns the latch. Quickly I shove him inside, rush in behind him, and pull the door shut, because in the hall I was exposed to anyone who came down the stairs at the opposite end.

The room is so dark I reach for my NOD to pull it down over my eyes, but Ratko flips a light switch.

A low-wattage red bulb hanging from a cord from the ceiling gives an eerie dim scarlet glow over the room.

Before I can even focus on what’s before me, my earpiece comes alive.

I don’t speak Serbian, but it’s clear: the security detail is performing a radio check.

But it barely registers. I am too fixated on what I see.

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