He'd been unable to devise a third alternative.
On level ten, he cracked the metal fire door, peeked into the corridor, and found four guards on duty there, two Japanese, the other pair Chinese. Not being one of those benighted souls who claimed all Asians "look alike," he had no trouble differentiating them.
He double-checked the Uzi without needing to and was about to show himself when buzzing in his jacket's right-hand pocket made him hesitate. He checked the roam phone, mouthed a silent curse, and answered, "What?"
"I catch you at a bad time?"
"Just a little busy," he replied.
"I've got a job lined up, you want to come on board?"
"When would it start?"
"Meeting tomorrow with the team, same place as usual."
"I'll be there if I can," Dartnell agreed. "But if I miss it, go ahead without me."
"Right. Okay. We'll hope to see you there."
Dartnell switched off the phone without goodbyes, replaced it in his pocket, and stepped out into the hotel corridor. Four pairs of eyes immediately locked upon him and the automatic weapon in his hands.
"Yo, boys!" he called out cheerily. "Am I too late for appetizers?"
All four went for hidden pistols and he held the Uzi's trigger down.
3
Gaslamp District, San Diego, California
The headquarters of SFX Corporation stands on the east side of Fifth Avenue between Broadway and E Street, two and one-half miles southwest of San Diego's famous zoo in Balboa Park. On quiet nights, if one of those should roll around, locals claim they can hear the big cats roaring in their various enclosures.
Or perhaps that's only wishful thinking.
SFX is something of a mystery to other business owners on the block. Most casually know or recognize on sight its CEO, one Grant Mahoney, and they've seen his younger brother come and go from time to time, but none could tell you what the corporation does to stay in business and support its pricey digs.
Some speculate that SFX is in the movie business, possibly computer-generated imagery, since "SFX" is Hollywood-speak for special effects, but none can say they've ever seen a film or TV star hanging around the premises. The firm solicits no inquiries from potential customers, and no one can recall it ever advertising for employee applications. People come and go, of course, but they are generally nondescript and readily forgettable.
The Gaslamp Quarter—or the Gaslamp District, as locals insist, defying public presentation on its entry arch and all official city signage—covers sixteen and one-half blocks downtown, boasting several entertainment and nightlife venues, plus various seasonal festivals. Petco Park, home of the San Diego Padres, stands one block outside the district in San Diego's East Village. Developed from 1867 onward, the Quarter includes ninety-four buildings erected during the Victorian Era, earning the neighborhood's listing in the National Register of Historic Places. Tourists flock there, and to San Diego generally, but you'll find no visitors in gaudy clothes or school bus tours stopping off at SFX.
Sitting behind his desk, inside the headquarters, CEO and cofounder Grant Mahoney frowned over his copy of the San Diego Tribune, finishing an article whose headline read "Asian Gang Shootout in Las Vegas." The details were sparse, aside from a report of seven dead and four in custody, detained as material witnesses to multiple murders. None were named, but the Tribune's anonymous reporter wrote that all involved were either Japanese or Chinese, theoretically connected to the Yakuza or Triads operating out of Hong Kong.
This appeared to be one time when what happened in Vegas wasn't staying there.
"Something catch your attention?" asked his visitor.
"Nothing to do with me," Mahoney answered, keeping to himself the thought that followed: But it may be tied to somebody I know.
Someone who ought to be arriving soon.
Mahoney had selected San Diego as the home for SFX in part because the city's climate ranked as second-best in the United States according to the Weather Channel and among America's top ten from Farmer's Almanac. Its temperature rarely dipped below 50° Fahrenheit in January or exceeded 78° in mid-August. Granted, there were times when thick "marine air" clouds besieged the coast, imposing "May gray/June gloom" interludes, but nothing that unduly troubled zoo inhabitants or tourists.
Yet another selling point was San Diego County's role as economic centerpiece of Southern California, with proximity to the Mexican border as heart of the San Diego-Tijuana metropolitan area. To that milieu of tourism and international trade, add the University of California, San Diego, with its affiliated UCSD Medical Center, making the area a center of biotechnology research. In 2014 Forbes magazine ranked San Diego as America's best place to launch a small business or startup company.
Finally, a major portion of the region's thriving economy hinged upon military and defense-related activities, linchpins of SFX's raison d'être. The U.S. Navy operated Naval Base San Diego, homeport to the Pacific Fleet; Assault Craft Unit One; the Naval Surface Warfare Center; and the Navy Sealift Command Center, among others. Camp Pendleton is the Marine Corps' largest West Coast base of operations, backed up by Marine Corps Air Base Miramar and Naval Amphibious Base Coronado. The Air Force and Coast Guard, likewise, are well represented. The U.S. Army, on the light side in "Dago," still maintained a large Healthcare Recruiting Center, while a field office of the Defense Contract Audit Agency ostensibly kept close watch on the watchmen. Other agencies assigned to safeguard the nation include the Drug Enforcement Administration, the FBI, Homeland Security, the Border Patrol and other long arms of law enforcement, state, county and local.
Mahoney's visitor glanced at his watch and frowned. The timepiece looked like a black-dial Rolex Submariner, retailing around eleven grand, but it would have to be a knockoff—that is, if his guest was operating on the up-and-up, without padding his salary from some illicit source. Grant slotted that away, deciding it might rate further investigation if their project went ahead.
"Where are these guys that I'm supposed to meet?" his first-time visitor inquired, just as a faint chime from the outer hallway heralded an elevator car's arrival.
"That should be one of them now," Mahoney said. "But brace yourself. They're not all guys."
"You don't mean…"
"Wait and see," Mahoney said. "If you don't like the team, that door you came in through can take you right back out again."
In fact, the first team member through the door at SFX wasn't a "guy" by any stretch of the imagination. Grant Mahoney raised a hand to her, said, "Hey, Nat," while she took a moment to size up the stranger.
"Who's this?" Natalie Karpin inquired.
"I'll introduce him soon as everybody's here."
Not giving any names away, she said, "The rest of them are all downstairs."
Over the next five minutes, give or take, the SFX team's final trio entered. All of them were guys indeed, the last one taking time to lock the office door's interior deadbolt while he was studying the stranger in their midst.
The next to enter after Natalie, Grant's younger brother Blake, was cofounder of SFX and partner in the firm, though he left most of the daily operations to his sibling. They'd been friendly rivals for the most part, all their lives, competing with each other from to selection of the military branches they had served with—Delta Force for Grant, Blake with the Navy SEALS—but when their parents died together in an Arizona car crash, both sons, on deployment at the time, rushed home to meet at graveside, they'd agreed in principle that it was time to work together for a change. Settling the details and retiring from the military had required some time and unfamiliar compromise, but they were at the helm of SFX today.