to pacify him as to clear it. Under my fingers, amongst the trash on the backseat of a generally untidy car, I felt something that might just have been a paperclip.
Through the hood, I saw the unmistakable light of a fire flaring up in the direction of the van, and a few seconds later the driver got in. I heard the sound of wiring being ripped from under the dashboard, then the car started. Before the fire got bigger, we were off again, though at a comparatively leisurely pace.
“Don’t move, don’t try anything,” said the driver.
“I told him that already,” said the other one.
“Oh.”
One of them made a phone call. “Hey… yeah, we got him… He’s still in one piece… Yeah… We’ll be there in a few minutes.”
“Hell of a day,” said the driver.
“Yup.”
I unfolded the paperclip and tried to focus on bending it into the right shape. I’d managed to pick the lock on handcuffs a couple of times before. When I could see what I was doing. When I didn’t have a countdown to death clock ticking down from “a few” minutes, overwhelming everything else in my mind.
I worked on my restraints, as the car made a few lefts and rights, staying below the speed limit. I had no idea how far the van might have gone at that breakneck pace, but there was no doubt we were still pretty central.
Finally, it turned off the road, and I felt it go down a steep ramp into an underground parking lot. A second before the driver turned the engine off, I twisted the paperclip and felt the cuff loosen on my left wrist.
Between the time they stepped out and opened the back door, I slipped my hand out and held the cuff behind my back so it wouldn’t be obvious I had freed myself.
“Out.”
I swung my feet out of the car and stood up. One of them put his hands on my shoulders and moved me to the side, then leaned me against the car by the rear wheel well so he could close the door.
I took a deep breath, trying to figure out exactly where the two of them were standing, which way was light and which way was dark. I had one chance to run, and fucked if I wanted to run straight into a motherfucking concrete wall.
“You comin’ up?” a voice came from such a height that it could only be the huge guy.
“Nah, I’ll wait here until Mr. Barlow tells me what to do with these jerk-offs, make sure nothin’ happens to ‘em.”
I fucking ran, swinging my hands up to rip the hood from my head. I got maybe ten feet before the big guy caught me, moving at a speed I would have thought almost impossible for somebody of his size.
I whirled around with a haymaker punch and he blocked it easily, with an expression on his face as calm as he might have had watching the weather report. It was a face I vaguely recognized.
The fight drained out of me at the ridiculous hopelessness of the situation. Not only was he huge, he was Austin Fucking Aquila, the MMA heavyweight champion. What in the fuck was going on?
I waited for a knockout punch that never came. Instead, he spun me around and reattached the handcuff before pushing me back towards, and then past, the car. The other guy had taken off his balaclava too and was sitting on the trunk, lighting a cigarette.
At least he wasn’t the middleweight champion. I didn’t recognize him at all.
“No, no, don’t get up. I got this,” said Austin, sarcastically.
The other guy gave him the thumbs up and the two of us headed for the elevator. Another car parked right next to the elevator, and the guy who got out nodded at Austin, before falling into step behind us. As soon as I stepped inside, I knew this wasn’t the Acardi building; it was a completely different style.
“Who do you work for?” I asked.
“You’ll have to talk to my brother about that,” said Austin.
We stepped out of the elevator into a poorly-lit office space that looked to be undergoing renovations. Some guy sat at a desk with a headset on, staring at a six-screen display setup full of fuck-knew what.
He paid no attention to me, but another guy wearing a suit who was almost as tall as Austin, if slightly less muscle-bound, was scrutinizing me carefully. Austin pushed me down into a seat.
“Watch him,” said the guy who