Sail by James Patterson Page A

behind the door.
    He edged closer. “What do you want? I don’t need nothing in here.”
    “Turn-down service,” she answered.
    He peeked through the peephole. Hotel staff uniform? Check. A maid’s cart loaded with towels and toiletries? Check.
    Still. He didn’t need no turn-down service.
    Then again, he really did like those little chocolates that had been on his bed when he checked in. They were shaped like seashells and were laced with some kind of liquor. Rum, maybe? All he knew for sure was that they were addictive.
    He peeked again through the door.
Hmmm.
Maybe she would give him a box of chocolates. He could probably work out something with her.
    This hotel maid was actually cute. Young, too. If she ditched that ugly gray uniform and let her hair down, she’d probably be quite the hot little number.
    “One second,” he told her.
    Sanz tucked the gun down the back of his skivvies and tied up his terrycloth hotel robe. He opened the door and let the pretty maid come in.
    In walked Agent Ellen Pierce of the DEA.
    “I brought you some extra towels, too,” she said.
    Chapter 25
    THE FLOOR PLAN of the suite’s layout fresh in her mind and her arms piled high with fluffy white towels, Ellen made an immediate left turn and headed straight for the master bedroom. The real chambermaid would know exactly where she was going, right?
    It was details like that—or rather, overlooking such details—that could blow an agent’s cover. Worse, get an agent shot, especially when a scummy dealer like Ricardo Sanz was involved.
    Not Ellen, though. She’d been on this case far too long to let a stupid mistake bring it all crashing down. Not today, and not ever. And she knew how dangerous Sanz could be.
    Sanz called after her, “Hey, lady, you got those chocolates you put on the bed, right?”
    “Yes, they’re on my cart,” answered Ellen over her shoulder.
    Satisfied, the drug dealer returned to the television show. It was the
Friends
episode in which Phoebe sings the “Smelly Cat” song. Only in Spanish it was “Un gato que huele mal.”
    He stood watching it for a bit before sitting down again. At the last second he remembered the gun tucked above his backside. Pulling it out, he gently placed it in the right front pocket of his robe.
Hey, is that a gun, or are you just glad to see me?
    Meanwhile, in the master bedroom, Ellen was getting down to work.
    She and her team had been charting Sanz and all his aliases for the better part of a year. They almost had him back in New York, where he had operated out of Spanish Harlem. It was assumed he felt the heat, because one day he just disappeared.
    Now he was back—in Las Vegas—with two black Samsonite suitcases filled with what they suspected was uncut Colombian cocaine. The street value was $4 million, which the agency would probably announce to the press as $10 million. Ellen hated the bullshit lying and the politics, but there wasn’t anything she could do about it right now.
    But before the DEA could bust down any doors, they had to be sure. Enter Agent Ellen Pierce, who had a reputation for doing her own dirty work.
    She placed the towels on the edge of the bed and began her search with the closets. Damn it. Nothing except a couple of tacky silk shirts and a pair of puke-gold trousers. Next she checked the lower drawers of the armoire that housed another large plasma television. Nothing worthwhile there either. No coke.
    Where was Diablo when you needed him?
He was the agency’s best drug-sniffing German shepherd. Unfortunately, letting him tag along with her would’ve been just a tad obvious.
    That’s when Ellen caught a faint reflection from under the bed.
    It turned out to be the metal handle of a suitcase. A black Samsonite suitcase.
    She immediately dropped to her knees and dragged it out.
Please don’t be locked.
    It wasn’t. As silently as she could, Agent Pierce popped open the case. The first
click
was nearly silent. So was the second.
    But as she