Gray War by Nealen Peter

Author:Nealen, Peter
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-01-31T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter

23

Strand’s next meeting wasn’t a covert rendezvous like he’d done in Atlanta, unfortunately. It wasn’t even a business meeting with a broker or anything like that.

It was a gala dinner for at least a dozen of Strand’s business partners, in the Sheraton Fort Worth Downtown. Which meant that while it wasn’t strictly speaking public, it was public enough, especially coming and going.

Worse, it meant we had to dress up for it.

It wasn’t as bad as it could have been. Button up shirts and jackets were about as far as the dress code went. Most of us were still wearing jeans, and since it was Texas, boots were still fine, even though most of us were wearing low-heeled work boots that laced up and were easy to move in rather than cowboy boots.

The layout of the hotel made it almost impossible to get long guns in, even though most of us would have preferred for at least one two-man team to have the carbines close at hand. Not only was Strand a target, but all of these other millionaires would be, as well. The fact that they were even associated with Strand would put a bullseye on their backs.

Glocks it was, though. We still had to maintain something of a low profile. A few of Strand’s guests might not like what Archer-Lin Investments and their proxies were doing, but that didn’t mean they liked guys like us or our hardware, either.

Drew and I had managed to draw the advance team slot, so we showed up early, meeting with the hotel receptionists and the security coordinator. He was a younger guy, seemed to generally know what he was doing, but his primary go-to strategy was to try to talk the disruption down while his people called the cops. Which was fine for protestors, or drunk and disorderly idiots, which was probably most of what he had to deal with. It doesn’t work so well with Mara Salvatrucha goons or cartel sicarios.

Still, neither of us disabused him of the idea that his plan was going to work. We weren’t sure how he’d react even to the knowledge that we were armed, let alone that we were prepared for a balls-out firefight in the middle of the hotel. Well, somewhat prepared. There’s no universe where that doesn’t turn into an absolute nightmare in seconds.

The gala was set to go in the Cypress Ballroom, at the northern end of the hotel. It could be split into two separate rooms with a sliding divider in the center, but that wouldn’t happen for tonight. While the guest list looked relatively small, each of those millionaires would have some kind of entourage, and none of them wanted to be crowded into half a ballroom. They were paying enough to get the full experience.

The hotel staff was already setting up as Drew and I walked around, checking things out. The carpet was covered in this weird, asymmetric orange, blue, and tan pattern, the ceiling was acoustic tile set above

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