Pop Goes the Weasel

felt. He thought that was the safest attitude, but it told Shafer his suspicion was true: Famine was here to kill him. He was sure of it. George Bayer’s cool demeanor had given him away.
    “No, nothing like that,” Bayer said. “We’re going to play according to the rules tonight. The rules are important to us. It’s to be a board game, a contest of strategy and wits. I’m just here to pick you up, according to plan. We’ll meet face to face at the hotel.”
    “And we’ll abide by the throw of the dice?” Shafer asked.
    “Yes, of course, Geoff.” Bayer held out his hand and showed him three twenty-sided dice.
    Shafer couldn’t hold back a sharp laugh. This was so good, so rich. “So what did the dice say, George? How do I lose? How do I die? A knife? A pistol? A drug overdose makes a great deal of sense to me.”
    Bayer couldn’t help himself. He laughed. Shafer was such a cocky bastard, such a good killer, a wonderful psychopathic personality. “Well, yes, it might have occurred to us, but we played it completely straight. As I said, they’re waiting at the hotel for us. Let’s go.”
    Shafer turned his back to Bayer for an instant. Then he pushed hard off his right foot. He sprang at Bayer.
    But Bayer was more than ready for him. He threw a short, hard punch that struck Shafer’s cheek, rattled and maybe even loosened a few teeth. The right side of Shafer’s head went completely numb.
    “Good one, George. Good stuff!”
    Then Shafer head-butted Bayer with all of his strength. He heard the crunch of bone against bone, saw an explosion of dizzying white before his eyes. That got his adrenaline flowing.
    The dice went flying from Bayer’s hand as he reached for a gun, or some other weapon. It was tucked in the back of his waistband.
    Shafer clutched Bayer’s right arm, twisted with all of his strength, and broke it at the elbow. Bayer shrieked in pain.
    “You can’t beat me! Nobody has, nobody can!” Shafer screamed at the top of his voice.
    He grabbed George Bayer’s throat and squeezed with super-human strength. Bayer gagged and turned the brightest red, as if all the blood in his body had rushed to his head. George was stronger than he appeared, but Shafer was speeding on adrenaline and years of pure hatred. He outweighed Bayer by twenty pounds, all of it muscle.
    “Noooo . Listen to me.” George Bayer wheezed and gasped. “Not like this. Not here.”
    “Yes , George. Yes, yes . The game is on. The game that you bastards started. Tally-ho, old chap. You did this to me. You made me what I am: Death.”
    He heard a loud, crisp snap, and George Bayer went limp against him. He let his body fall to the sand.
    “One down,” said Shafer, and finally allowed himself a deep, satisfying breath. He snatched up the fallen dice, shook them once, then hurled them into the sea. “I don’t use the dice anymore,” he said.

Chapter 114
    HE FELT SO DAMN GOOD. So fine. God, how he had missed this! The mainline of adrenaline, the incomparable thrill. He knew it was likely that the Jamaica Inn was being watched by the police, so he parked the Mustang at the nearby Plantation Inn.
    He walked at a quickening pace through the crowded Bougainvillea Terrace. Drinks were being served while the wretched song “Yellowbird” played loudly. He had a nasty fantasy about shooting up the terrace, killing several dickhead tourists, so he got away from the crowded area immediately for everybody’s sake — but mostly for his own.
    He strolled the beach, and it calmed him. It was quiet, restful, the strains of calypso music gently weaving through the night air. The stretch between the two hotels was eye-catching, with plenty of spotlights, sand the color of champagne, thatched umbrellas placed at even intervals. A very nice playing field.
    He knew where Oliver Highsmith was staying: in the famous White Suite, where Winston Churchill and David Niven and Ian Fleming had slept once upon a time. Highsmith loved his creature comforts almost as much as he loved the game.
    Shafer despised the other Horsemen, in part because he wasn’t of their snobbish social class. Lucy’s father had gotten him into MI6; the other players had gone to the right universities. But there was another, more powerful reason for his hatred: they had dared to use him, to feel superior and throw it in his face.
    He entered through a white picket-fence gate at the property line of the Jamaica Inn. He broke into a soft jog. He wanted to run,