Kim Oh 2: Real Dangerous Job (The Kim Oh Thrillers) Read Free Page A

accident, and I didn’t want to do it again – but sometimes I just couldn’t help it. I maneuvered the slender sportbike in and out of traffic, mulling over what I’d seen back at the warehouse.
     
    There’d been a time, not too long ago, when Cole had been the biggest, scariest person I’d ever seen. Or that a lot of other people had seen, Cole being the last person they saw as well. Not because he was so big in a physical sense – he was way taller than me, but then just about everyone in the world is – but because of that crazy killer radiation he used to give off. That sense that when you were looking at him face-to-face, you might also be looking at your own imminent demise. That’s always going to make somebody look big.
     
    Which indicates what a ruthless sonuvabitch our old boss McIntyre was, that he’d have his head security thug Michael set Cole up to be eliminated, when the company had no further use for him. I mean, it was one thing for McIntyre to toss his accountant out to the curb like a sack of trash – that would be me – when he decided to take his business operations to a new level. What was Little Nerd Accountant Girl going to do to get back at him? But to blow away somebody like Cole . . .
     
    Even if the set-up had ended with a shotgun blast to Cole’s back, severing his spinal column. Sure, that had left him crippled, but if McIntyre had been smart, he would’ve had Cole finished off, the way Michael had told him they should do. Instead of getting whatever sick enjoyment there was to be had in thinking about Cole wasting away on a piss-smelling mattress.
     
    Which was all too bad for McIntyre, I figured. I leaned over the motorcycle’s tank, tucking myself behind the windshield, and rolled on the throttle. He’d had his chance.
     
    Now Cole and I were going to have ours.
     

 
     
     
     
     
     
    THREE
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    “I had some interesting visitors.”
     
    Cole put his fancy, high-powered wheelchair into reverse. Leaning forward, he dragged a heavy duffel bag into the center of the warehouse floor.
     
    “With some interesting things to sell,” he went on. If he hadn’t had a restraining belt snugged around his waist, he might’ve fallen out of the wheelchair as he tugged at the duffel bag’s zipper. “Real interesting things.”
     
    This was the day after he’d gotten his new ride. Now that he was all pumped up with adrenaline again, back into whacked-out hit man mode, he wasn’t letting any time go to waste.
     
    As I watched him, I warily kept a safe distance between us. The last time I’d seen the duffel bag, it’d been lying empty and harmless over in a corner. I knew it had been his work bag – he’d already told me a bunch of stories it had played a part in. All kinds of scary equipment had come out of that bag, at one time or another. But after he’d gotten set up by McIntyre and his pet security thug Michael, and had come out of the hospital a cripple, a lot of his equipment had gotten sold off, just to pay the bills. There was only so much that his girlfriend Monica could bring in from working in the clubs.
     
    Now, Cole’s equipment bag was filled with some ominously heavy and clanking stuff again. Given the sources he’d cultivated over the years for acquiring lethal gear, he could’ve pulled a nuclear warhead out of it, and I wouldn’t have been surprised. Not much, at least. That was why I figured it was better to hang back, just in case there was something in there with a hair trigger.
     
    “Here –” He tossed something darkly mechanical to me. “Try this one for size.”
     
    I caught the object in both hands and looked down at it. A couple of seconds passed before I recognized it as some kind of rifle.
     
    “What is it?” There was a mean and functional appearance to the weapon. “I mean, what exactly?”
     
    “It’s an Arsenal 5.56 mm AR-SF.” He pointed to it lying in my hands. “You can pretty