Martinez cocked his pistol and walked into the abandoned warehouse. Well, almost abandoned. The one remaining life in there? He was the reason for the pistol. Dust in the air. The smell of sweat. People had been here not long ago. That, or Martinez’s man stunk bad. He’d given a heck of a chase, so either was possible. They’d spent hours like that, tearing through the desert heat in cars, then on foot, and the warehouse’s roof provided a reprieve from the sun, if not the heat. “Denny,” he shouted, his voice echoing across the tarped boxes and dusty desert air. “I know you’re in here.” A single deafening roar from his man’s assault rifle punctuated his call like an exclamation point. A familiar, smug face came up from behind a box in the western corner. Though the sound had startled him, Martinez smiled as he pulled his sunglasses down and locked eyes with the target. “Step out from behind the box,” he said. “Let me kill you quick.” He tried his own exclamation point, but Denny ducked back behind his cover by the time Martinez had lifted his arm to fire. The 9mm pistol sounded weak following a rifle like that. Another rifle shot. Martinez thought for a second he felt pain. He was sure it was just a stab in the gut from his nerves. Not, as he first imagined, a bullet. “Cheap shots,” Martinez said, conveniently forgetting his own a few seconds prior. “I can play that.” He waited for Denny’s head to surface as a flashbulb started to burst in his head. The box was wooden. He could shoot through the thing. He smiled again—this time at his own stupidity. pop pop pop The three rounds sent splinters flying and polluted the warehouse air with even more dust. The gunsmoke and sawdust irritated his lungs so badly he had to cough. The lack of a similar one from behind the box indicated at least one of the rounds had found Denny. One step forward, then another. Nothing but silence from his man. He’d done it, he hoped. He was ready to cash the contract. Retire to the Caribbean and— A final pop. Martinez was conscious up until the second he hit the floor. The rifle’s muzzle, poking almost invisibly from one of the hole’s he’d shot through the box, looked more like a smiling mouth to him than anything, even with the smoke coming out of it.