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“What other deal?” Bell growled

“Seems there’s a thousand-pound bounty on your heads, payable by an old son of Scotland named Foster Gly Benny!”

Devlin’s enforcer pulled a two-barreled derringer-style pistol from his jacket pocket and held it steady to Bell’s stoun was an antique, at least fifty years old, but it was no less deadly now than it had been in soambler’s waistcoat or up his sleeve

A flash of silver A jet of red and a high-pitched shriek The derringer, along with the hand holding it, hit the concrete floor with astuers Joshua Hayes Brewster stood on the bed of the Leyland truck and swung a follow-through with the flensing knife they’d kept since the escape froun screams of pain ceased in a heeze

Bell recovered his wits and scooped up the fallen pistol by first shaking loose its grisly adjunct The rooers-on scattered after witnessing the barbarity of Brewster’s assault A couple of others, the largest of the men, were hired for their brawn, not their mechanical skills, and they came at the truck in an all-out attack Bell cocked the pistol and let fly the ammo in one of the barrels The weapon oefully inaccurate, even for a ’s shoulder so softly that he didn’t even flinch

A blackjack appeared in his hand even as he swung a heavy fist at Bell The lead-filled satchel missed Bell’s head by a hair’s breadth Bell weaved out froht to theFro finished the job with a tire iron to the crown of the man’s scalp

A mechanic with more bravery than sense threw a ha leapt fro like a madman, the tire iron cocked and ready Theon him rapidly

Joshua Brewster had squared off with another guard, brandishing the flensing knife like a scythe and keeping the uard tried to take Bell fro to be a wrestling match rather than a rumble Bell rammed down on the man’s instep with his boot And when the tension went out of the hold, he snapped the attacker’s head back and broke his nose The man released Bell to stanch the flow of blood and Bell unceres As he went to the ground, another kick, this one to the face, took the last of the fight out of the man

In the opening seconds of the fight, George Devlin had rushed to his office and closed the door behind him Bell saw hi on the wall opposite his desk Devlin was calling in reinforcements in case the runner he’d sent earlier couldn’t find Gly’s agents Bell raced across the garage for the glass-enclosed space He torqued in midair so that he hit the ers laced behind his neck and his elbows clalass

He burst through the glass in a cascade of tinkling shards, landed on his side atop the gangster’s desk, and rolled to his feet, his right hand now extended so the pistol was pressed between the stunned Englishman’s eyes

Bell flicked his attention back to the garage floor Brewster and O’De their own, but they were outnumbered three to one, and Bell knew Gly had people on the way He needed h

“Drop the phone,” he ordered the English mobster Devlin complied, and Bell motioned him back to the shattered“Tell your people to stand down”

“You’re dead, Yank,” Devlin sneered “Only you don’t know it yet”

“Harder men than you have died with that threat on their lips,” Bell said, watching the brawl and the coweringone near the rear buer It was done

Bell returned his attention to the gangster, his eyes cold, and cocked the second of the derringer’s barrels “Call them off now”