Page 75 of The Money Man
Alice scooped up the gun, which was surprisingly small. Anger and fear flooded her veins in equal measure as she hurried down the hall to find the duffel sitting under a table where she and Derek couldn’t have seen it when they came down the stairs. She grabbed the handles and picked it up, surprised by how light it was. She wondered if they had taken out something other than the guns.
She jogged back down the hallway. She did not want Ivan conscious when she was trying to immobilize him. When she arrived back in the kitchen no one had moved, although Barsky’s shirt had gotten significantly redder. She hoped he would pass out.
Placing her gun carefully on the table, she unzipped the bag and pulled out a handful of black braided nylon loops threaded through locking mechanisms. Disentangling one, she figured out that you shoved a hand or foot in each loop and pulled the end of the nylon braid to tighten it. Luckily, Ivan had fallen on his side, so she could simply push him over onto his front.
“Can you manage him?” Derek asked as she grabbed another restraint and knelt down beside the inert bodyguard.
“Yup, I’ve got this.” Although she was a little worried that Ivan might be pulling Derek’s fake-out trick. But he no longer had a gun, so she just had to make sure he didn’t grab her in a way that she couldn’t escape. She was feeling pretty pleased with herself for successfully breaking Barsky’s choke hold without getting shot.
However, Derek had done a good job on Ivan. The man rolled like a rag doll, his nose still oozing blood. She wondered if he was still alive before she realized that she didn’t care.
She jerked one loop tight around one of his hands before pulling his wrists together in the small of his back and pushing the other hand through. After she yanked hard on the ends of the nylon to make sure it was tight, she blew out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding and sat back on her heels to enjoy the relief of knowing Ivan was no longer a threat. Then she secured his ankles and rolled him back onto his side. “He’s not going anywhere,” she said, standing up. The adrenaline was beginning to drain out of her system, leaving her feeling shaky.
“You’re a trooper,” Derek said, but his focused stare never left Barsky. “You can give him a couple of dish towels now. They’re in the second drawer nearest the sink. Stay away from him, though. Just slide them across the island. He’ll have to manage on his own.”
She found the towels and nearly threw them at Barsky. The hacker folded a couple of them into a pad, one-handed, and pressed it against his wound. “Now what?” he said. “Your friends can’t get in and you can’t get out because I’ve got all your electronic locks shut down. It’s a stalemate.”
“We wait,” Derek said.
“Can I sit down before I collapse?” Barsky asked, still looking unworried.
Derek gestured toward the chair Alice had been occupying, so Barsky picked up the handful of towels, walked around the table, and sank down with a wince. Derek repositioned himself by the island, roughly where Ivan had stood guard.
Alice still held the gun, keeping it loosely aimed at Ivan’s inert body, but small tremors had begun to rack her body. Now that the worst danger appeared to be over, her nerves were kicking in.
She didn’t want to ask Derek where the elevator was because she didn’t want to give Barsky any information, but she threw a quick glance around to see if it opened into the kitchen. Unfortunately, no obvious elevator door was visible.
“Hoping for the cavalry to ride to your rescue?” Barsky asked, tossing the blood-soaked towels on the floor and folding a fresh pad. He was beginning to look a little pale and strained. But his calm bothered Alice. He wasn’t acting like a man whose plans had been thwarted.
Alice looked at Derek. “I think he brought some other equipment with him in the duffel bag. I want to go check your computer room to see if there’s a laptop running. I’m afraid all those small business owners will get wiped out.”
Derek cursed under his breath. “There might be another hacker in there for all we know.”
“We could tie Barsky up and you could come with me,” she suggested.
Derek glanced at the clock. “Or we could wait.”
“You can’t stop it anyway,” Barsky said. “It’s encrypted.”
The man was so confident that he was volunteering information. That couldn’t be a good sign. “Then you can give us the password,” Alice said, pointing the gun at him. “Or I can just shoot the computer.” She liked that idea.
Barsky laughed, an unpleasant grating sound. “You’re an idiot. The program is not running on the laptop itself.”
“I still might shoot it,” Alice said. It would relieve some of her anger and frustration.
There was a groan before a string of Slavic muttering emanated from Ivan. She was willing to bet that it wasn’t G-rated. Even though she had pulled the restraints tight herself, she wished he had stayed unconscious. Checking her grip on the gun, she aimed it at the reviving thug with as much steadiness as she could muster. Now she agreed with Derek’s decision to wait for the cavalry that Barsky was so scornful of.
Barsky said something in whatever language he and Ivan spoke. Ivan grumbled a reply and tried to sit up.
“Shut up!” Derek barked. “Ivan, stay down! As you can see from your friend, I won’t hesitate to shoot if necessary.”
The big man subsided on the floor. Alice had the suspicion that he might even be relieved.
However, she kept her gun trained on Ivan anyway. Until Derek said, “About time you got here. We had to deal with the situation ourselves since you took so damn long.” But there was a smile in his voice.
Alice glanced around to see a door at the back of the kitchen swing fully open. A large, dark-haired man dressed in black with “FBI” printed in white letters on a bulletproof vest stepped into the kitchen, a gun held at the ready. “We were trying not to get you killed.”
Two more men in the same garb followed him. Behind them came Leland, only his vest was strapped on over his usual jeans and T-shirt. He also held a gun with a surprising ease that indicated he knew how to handle it.
