He was on the landing just below his floor when he heard a sound. It wasn’t a footstep or a door, it was a click. Just that. He knew it instantly, it was a gun being cocked, and moving like the speed of sound, he headed back down the stairs on silent feet, and slowed briefly only when he got to the desk. Something was off, very off. He realized they were behind him then, halfway down the stairs. There were three of them, and Luke wasn’t going to wait and find out who they were. It occurred to him to try and talk his way out of it, but every instinct told him to run. So he did, he ran like hell. He was already down the street by the time they made it out the door at a dead run. But Luke was faster than nearly any man alive. He had run track in the joint for exercise. People said that Q was faster than the wind. And he was now.

He was over a fence, behind a building, and grabbed the roof of a garage and swung over another fence. He was in the thick of the neighborhood, and he knew by then he couldn’t go back to the hotel. Something was very, very wrong. And he had no idea why. He had a snub-nosed gun shoved in his jeans, and he didn’t want to be caught packing arms, so he dumped it in a trash can, and ran behind a building into an alley. He just kept running and figured he had lost them, until he hit another fence, and suddenly a hand came up behind him and grabbed his neck in a viselike grip. He had never felt anything so tight, and he was glad as hell he’d dumped the gun. Now all he had to do was get rid of the cop. His elbow shot into the ribs of the owner of the grip, but all he did was tighten his hold on Luke’s neck, and squeeze, hard. Luke was dizzy almost instantly and despite his impressive size fell to the ground. The cop knew just where to grab. He landed a resounding kick into Luke’s back, who let out a stifled groan between clenched teeth.

“You sonofabitch,” Luke said, grabbing for the other man’s legs, and suddenly the cop was down, and they were rolling on the ground.