Page 106 of Lord Have Mercy Part Four: Big Son

And one of the guards on the far side of the room yelled, “Sir!”

Another shouted, “Sir, there’s been a security breach. Twelfth floor!”

A guard came charging into the dining area, threw back a wall panel, and revealed a bank of security footage monitors. He pointed to the one in the top righthand corner, where a lens-distorted, full-color feed revealed men dressed all in black with stocking caps and flak vests overpowering the two guards stationed in a doorway there and flooding through.

Abacus wobbled, and flailed and turned to regard the monitors with a panic that brought his feebleness to the forefront. In moments of calm, he could maintain a certain aura of threat, but right now, he was trembling and wheezing, and convulsing like a starved dog.

Ghost put a supportive arm around the girl’s waist, and said, smiling, “I hope you don’t mind, but we invited some friends to the party. That’ll be the Kozlov bratva.”

Abacus turned to him creakily, pulse fluttering in the paper-thin skin of his temples. Ghost hoped he didn’t have a sudden aneurism, because where was the fun in that?

“Security breach on level nineteen!” another guard called, and Ghost found the feed easily on the monitors. Saw a guard take a shot to the head and spill messily backward to make way for the masked men who stepped over him and hit one of the rear staircases that led up to the penthouse.

“That’s Prince,” Ghost said. “More of a new acquaintance, but I like what I’ve seen so far.”

Abacus gaped at him, then pawed at the air. “Shut them down! Shut them down, now!”

Men scrambled to comply, leaving the room much emptier than it had been to start with. Ghost counted seven guards left.

The one standing at the monitors gestured to the one in the center. “Sir, the lobby…”

There was no mistaking who was coming in there, guns drawn, flashing badges. Pongo’s girlfriend, her blonde hair and short stature unmistakable on-screen, and her partner led the charge, backed up by uniforms with shotguns and vests emblazoned with the NYPD logo.

“Those are the cops, obviously,” Ghost said in an offhand manner. The girl rested her hand on his shoulder, and when he tapped his fingers against her hip, she hunkered down, so she was perched on the arm of his chair. “This lapel pin?” He flicked it with his free hand, when Abacus turned back to him; the old fucker’s neck was going to snap the way he kept whipping his head back and forth. “It’s a wireless mic. Shit knows if any of what you said will hold up in court, but it was enough to establish an immediate threat and get them in the door. That’s the Sex Crimes division.

“The guys on the floor right below us?”

“Sir!” the guard said, and Ghost didn’t bother checking the monitor this time. “Those are my boys. You’d think, given the way we fucked up the Beaumont Building a year-and-a-half ago, you’d have beefed up security a little bit. But.” He shrugged. “You didn’t. And now here we are.”

Ian grinned like a shark, and said, “How’s it feel to getfucked, old man?”

Abacus blinked at them, mouth hanging open, and then let out an animal sound of impotent rage, hoarse with age, shaking with fury. “You’re dead!” Spit flew off his lower lip and landed with a pitiful splat on the tabletop. “Kill them! Shoot them!”

“Now,” Ghost said, gripped the girl hard, and threw both of them to the floor. He heard Ian hit the ground on his other side, and then he heard the high, crystalline chime of glass breaking.

“Close your eyes,” he ordered the girl, who whimpered and pressed herself flat to the floor. He shielded the back of her head with one hand, and turned his head, peering beneath the table.

The thunder had reached a fever pitch outside, and so he couldn’t hear the gunshots, but in the white flares of lightning, he watched suit-clad legs kick, and stumble. Saw bodies hit the floor. Some of them twitched, most of them didn’t. He counted them: one, two, three, four…until all seven lay still.

The thunder rolled to a slow cessation, and he heard the sharper, deeper echo of the last gunshot fade.

“Stay down,” he told the girl, and got to his feet.

Somewhere beyond the crackling fire and the glittering sideboard, he heard a gunfight happening in a hallway; the muted shouts and muffled thumps of the guards making one last stand.

Ian stood and dusted bits of glass from his shoulders, tsking over a smudge on his jacket cuff. “I just had this dry cleaned.”

“I’ll comp you the bill,” Ghost deadpanned. He turned and waved through the shattered window, breeze whipping in hard, smoothing his hair off his forehead and stinging his eyes. Lightning tongued down between the high-rises, dayglow vivid, and he saw a silhouette in the building across the street wave back, and then stand. “You did good, kid,” he said, to himself, since Evan couldn’t hear him. “Talk to me about a patch when we get home.”

A keening sound drew his attention back to the table, and he saw that Abacus had dropped his face down onto its shiny surface, hands clasped over the top of his head, the wavering candleflames – undisturbed by the sniper fire – giving the impression that his whole body was waving and whipping in tremors so great he might simply phase out of existence like a ghost.

Soon.

“Pick your head up, you miserable piece of shit,” Ghost ordered.

Outside, the gunshots had ceased.

Abacus whimpered, and didn’t move.

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