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the man’s head in an explosion of plastic and electronics.
    That stunned the man enough for Ford to throw him off. Ford rolled onto his side and dragged air into his lungs. He spotted his gun lying on the carpet and scooped it up just as the man he’d been fighting with pulled a big, ugly revolver from somewhere. Maybe the two men had been trying to eliminate the target quietly at first, with a minimum of fuss, but that ship was
way
out of the harbor by now.
    The hell with this,
Fargo thought. He emptied the pistol into the man’s chest before the guy could pull the trigger.
    A bullet hitting a man’s body usually wouldn’t knock him down unless it was an extremely heavy caliber. That was something else those guys on TV had proven.
    But seven bullets, even of a smaller caliber, pounding into a guy’s chest in the space of three seconds would certainly make him stagger backwards, and that’s what happened now. With blood welling from the bullet holes, the man went back three steps through the open sliding glass door and then three more steps across the balcony. The backs of his thighs hit the railing, and inertia did the rest.
    The guy flipped right over it and plummeted toward the ground, screaming as he fell.
    Ford had time to mutter, “Look out below,” before a loud thud silenced the scream.
    He rolled over and reached in his pocket for a fresh magazine as he dumped the empty. On the other side of the room, Parker and the other killer were trading martial arts blows, their arms and legs moving almost too fast for Ford’s eyes to follow them.
    The blond kid who was the object of all this attention was making a beeline for the door into the corridor, taking off for the tall and uncut.
    Ford couldn’t really blame him for that, but he couldn’t afford to let the target get away, either. He scrambled to his feet and went after the kid, ramming home the fresh magazine as he did so.
    A shot blasted in the hall.
    By now there was a lot of yelling, cursing, and screaming going on all up and down the corridor, as the hotel guests thought—and rightfully so—that somebody was on a shooting rampage. As Ford stepped out into the hall, he saw the kid stumbling around and clutching a bloody arm. Another shot rang out, chipping wood and plaster from the wall near Ford. He saw the shooter, down in the alcove where the elevators were located, and returned the fire, forcing the man to duck back.
    Ford grabbed the target’s arm and slung him back into 627. “Stay there!” he bellowed.
    Then Ford went to a knee and traded fast shots with the gunman at the elevators.
    The kid scampered out of the room behind him and started running the other way along the hall, pushing past people who came out of their rooms to see what was going on. Ford glanced back and saw him fleeing, but there was nothing he could do except bite back a curse. He had his hands full with this firefight.
    Inside the room, Parker yelled, “Stop!”
    Ford looked back again, saw that his partner had managed to retrieve his gun. The other assassin didn’t want any part of it now that the target was gone. He turned and ran toward the balcony. Parker fired a warning shot, but the guy never slowed down.
    He bounded across the balcony, leaped onto the railing, and dived off.
    Committing suicide because he had failed in his mission? Ford didn’t think so. Parker comfirmed that when he ran onto the balcony, looked down, and said, “Son of a bitch! Right into the pool!”
    It took either a lunatic or somebody who was damned good to dive six stories into a hotel swimming pool and survive. This man must have fallen into one of those categories, although at this point, Ford didn’t know if he had actually survived.
    The shooting in the hall stopped. Ford heard a door slam open and then closed. There was a stairwell beside the elevators. From the sound of it, the third man was fleeing, too.
    Ford was leery of a trap, but he came to his feet and advanced toward the