Bonnie had done her research, quizzing her nephew, who was a detective with the Dallas PD, and watching dozens of videos of different models on the Hickok45 YouTube channel. This was the first gun and holster she’d ever owned.
Bonnie wasn’t a gun nut any more than a person who needed a pickup and bought one for a certain purpose was a truck fanatic. She did not concern herself with all the fancy gadgets and gizmos in the firearms culture. Still, she was practical and went to the range with her girlfriends once a month, religiously presenting the weapon the same way each time she took it out of the holster at night as her instructor had taught her. The little Kimber was plenty for her needs—and she was a heck of a shot. Her nephew told her so.
Her husband’s eyes grew wide as she brought the weapon up. He didn’t say anything or try to be a hero.
Bonnie had this.
She shifted her body sideways in the booth, head toward the wall, feet toward the aisle and the threat. She was aware of the booth across from her, which was thankfully empty, making her shoot/don’t-shoot decision a little simpler.
Bonnie’s finger tightened on the trigger as the front sight of her Kimber covered a tall and slovenly Hispanic man who was clutching a pistol that was tucked down into his waistband. He staggered, dragging his feet as if he were intoxicated. Definitely a bad guy.
A male voice to the left suddenly yelled, “FBI!” causing her to pause her shot.
Bonnie hardly had time to blink before the redheaded woman in the next booth swung around the corner with a long pepper grinder in both hands like a baseball bat. She bashed the tall man in the face, dropping him at the same moment that a second man, this one with a flat nose, staggered by. His attention split between the FBI agent behind him and the woman who’d just bashed his friend in the face, and the flat-nosed man roared, spewing curses in Spanish as he drew a black pistol from under his shirt.
Bonnie Porcaro let the man’s silhouette blur, focusing on the Kimber’s front sight as she pressed the double-action-only trigger. Her instructor had told her over and over that slow was smooth and smooth was fast. The pistol barked twice. It was so loud on the range, but, oddly to Bonnie, it seemed to make no noise as it fired. She wasn’t even sure it had fired, and then thought maybe she’d missed if it had. The man with the flat nose just turned his head to look at her, as though he was put out by her behavior. He started to bring his gun around, but she’d already adjusted her aim and pressed the trigger again. The Kimber’s third bullet punched an almost perfect hole in the bridge of his flat nose.
He lingered there for a moment, then pitched sideways on top of his dazed friend, who’d just been smacked with the pepper grinder.
“FBI,” a man’s voice said again to her left. “Ma’am. Please put down your weapon.”
Bonnie slowly lowered the Kimber to the table before raising both empty hands above her head. She’d trained for this as well. Across the table, Mike stared at her slack-jawed, as if he wasn’t quite certain who he’d been sleeping with for the last forty-four years.
? ? ?
Dominic Caruso secured the blond woman’s revolver while he aimed his own weapon at the guy Callahan had clobbered with the pepper grinder. Callahan had her handcuffs out and was already moving in. She looked up at the blonde.
“You okay?”
“He was going to shoot you,” the woman said. Her hands were still up, but she was remarkably composed for someone who’d just blown off the back of a man’s skull.
Callahan slapped the cuffs on the moaning assassin and smiled. “You can relax, ma’am,” she said. “Lucky for me you’re a good shot.” She looked up at Caruso. “And that you had the good sense to call my cell. I knew something was up because you’d just left. I did a quick peek over the booth and saw these rocket scientists wander in.”
Caruso scanned the restaurant, looking for any other would-be assassins. These guys tended to travel in packs. He saw no immediate threats, but what he did see was at least five more restaurant patrons with their hands either on the butt of an exposed sidearm or in a purse getting ready to draw one.
“FBI,” he said again. “Everyone please relax and keep your firearms where they are.” He chuckled and helped Callahan to her feet. “Texas appears to be a bad place to become an assassin.”
The blond citizen who’d saved the day gave a solemn nod, her hands just beginning to shake from the post-shooting adrenaline dump.
“You got that right, hon,” she said.
37
The alarm on Jack Ryan, Jr.’s cell phone began to chime at two a.m., nudging him awake with gradually increasing volume. He’d read somewhere that being jolted out of a deep sleep was a good way to suffer brain damage—and if that was the case, he and most of the people he knew were in serious trouble.
He pumped out thirty quick push-ups to clear his head and then suffered through a moment of benign panic that there was no hot water in the shower, until he remembered that the C on the faucet did not stand for cold. After a shower that was plenty caliente, he wiped the fog off the mirror and took a few moments to square away his beard with a razor and a small pair of scissors he carried for that purpose. He’d recently shaved down to a mustache—but he was glad to have the beard back. People said he looked like his dad. He didn’t see it. The full beard kept others from seeing it as well.
Ryan had taken the time to lay out his clothes and gear before his nap—he shot a quick glance as the tritium hands on his watch—just four hours before.
The area recon had been interesting if only for total immersion in the European-ness of Buenos Aires.
Lisanne Robertson had dropped Adara off an hour and a half behind the others—and stayed to check personally that the rental-car company had come through on their promise. The valet in the lobby of the Panamericano Hotel assured her that there was a Peugeot 408 and a Renault Duster parked in the garage. Like just about every other rental vehicle in Argentina, both had manual transmissions, a fact that drew a twinkle from every Campus member’s eye. They’d all attended numerous driving schools, and there was nothing like a stick shift to spur the last few horses out of an otherwise humdrum ride.
Lisanne had grudgingly returned to her airport hotel only after a direct order from Chavez. She’d suggested she could provide countersurveillance and force protection. It sounded like a good idea to Ryan, but Ding would have none of it.