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a submarine, the torpedo signal would be going off. He scanned the restaurant as a sniper would—in quadrants, careful to take in every single element.

    Happy diners, innocuous-looking serving staff. A fat Santa Claus wishing everyone Merry Christmas.

    What was wrong?

    The frowning maître d’ was conferring with the head waiter, heads together.

    Drake started slowly hyperventilating. Whatever was wrong, his body knew it needed extra oxygen to deal with it.

    He’d had his hand over Grace’s and now removed it.

    He would need both hands.

    Fuck. He was without weapons. He was a superb shot but he was without any firepower whatsoever. It had been an executive decision. His jet had a disassembled long gun and a Beretta in a lockbox camouflaged as a first aid kit on his jet, but he’d decided to enter Australiaclean. If he bought an apartment here, he’d stock it with weapons. Just in case.

    A woman laughed and clinked glasses with another woman at a table ten meters away. They were obviously celebrating something.

    His stomach twisted, muscles readying themselves for action.

    What was wrong?

    “Ho ho ho! Merry Christmas!” the Santa Claus cried, edging his way through the tables along the wall.

    The maître d’ was talking into a cell phone.

    “Ho ho ho! Merry Christmas!”

    It was delivered in the exact tone and cadence as before.

    Drake looked at the Santa Claus more closely. There was something about the tone of the voice… at the next ho ho hohe got it.

    ho ho hohe got it.

    It was a recording, the words on a loop every two minutes or so. He was wearing an excellent Santa Claus outfit. Even Drake, who’d never celebrated Christmas, could see that. The suit excellently tailored, made of expensive material. Snow white, blood red. Big black belt around a huge belly.

    Santa Claus was making his way around the perimeter of the room, waving his hands covered in white gloves, wishing everyone a Merry Christmas in a recorded voice on a loop.

    He was coming closer to Drake’s table now. Drake could observe him more clearly.

    A ll Drake’s senses went on overdrive. The smells and sounds became acute. His vision sharpened. He’d swiftly eliminated all the diners as the source of his sharp sense of danger and now focused on Santa.

    The suit, the felt cap, the fake beard—they all looked very hot on this warm evening. Sweat fell down Santa’s face. Taking with it pale makeup. Beneath the makeup, Santa’s skin was very brown.

    The sweat was removing the pale makeup entirely, falling to the red jacket in pale streaks.

    Santa’s belly looked lumpy, as if full of hard things and not soft stuffing.

    The maître d’ finished his phone call, closing the cell with a snap, and headed Santa’s way.

    Santa saw him coming. His dark brown eyes opened so wide the whites showed and Drake’s highly evolved danger signals overloaded.

    Time slowed down almost to a stop.

    Santa pulled at his jacket, closed with Velcro, the ripping sound preternaturally loud to his ears.

    The maître d’ was twenty meters away, raising his hand to Santa, palm out. The universal stop sign.

    The panels of the red Santa suit were slowly pulled apart by Santa’s white-gloved hands and instead of cotton stuffing there was a vest with black cylinders attached, a string with a round pull hanging from the cylinders.

    In this time out of time, Santa’s hand slowly moved up to tug at the dangling string while the maître d’

    shouted and Drake picked up the silver charger from his table with one hand and a sharp filet knife from a nearby serving tray with the other and hurled both at Santa with all his strength.

    The charger and knife slowly, slowly made their way to Santa’s throat just as Santa’s hand closed around the string.

    “Allahu akhbar!” Santa screamed.

    A gain, in that slow-motion state of time during combat, as soon as the charger and knife left Drake’s hands, he slashed upward, knocking over the heavy