Warning the cops about the second group of Chechens would count as my good deed for the day. Never hurts to put a check in the positive-karma box. I wiped some of the dried gore from my hands with a rag as I drove north. That third terrorist had been pretty tough, but everybody talks eventually. In the back seat was the second portable Russian surface-to-air missile launcher. I figured it might come in handy.
Flagstaff was my next stop. If my attempt on Eddie failed, then I knew he would kill my family purely out of spite. They deserved a warning. And there was only one person I could think of who might be clever enough to reach them all without Eddie’s goons finding out.
Too bad he was an FBI agent. I bet you thought your family reunions were awkward.
LORENZO
Flagstaff, Arizona
June 25, 2008
My brother’s house was in the suburbs. It had been easy enough to find with the address written in Eddie’s folder. The sun had been coming up by the time I found the place, so I had just done a quick drive-by. I had no way of knowing if or how Eddie was monitoring them, so I didn’t want to risk a visit during the daytime. Plus, I looked like I was here to pick fruit, smelled horrible, and was still splattered with at least a pint of Chechen.
I checked into a cheap motel, cleaned up, shaved, and slept until sundown. My dreams were strange and featured those dancing hippos from the old Disney movie until they were violently torn apart by an alligator with an effeminate English accent. I woke in a foul mood. Jill still hadn’t called back, and frankly that was really beginning to gnaw at me. I called in an update to Reaper before leaving for Bob’s place. At least he was sounding healthier, eager for revenge, and was ready to fly out as soon as I needed him.
There was another Ford Explorer in the motel parking lot. Using my Leatherman, I swapped license plates then headed back to the suburbs.
Bob had a great security system. It took me almost three whole minutes to figure out how to circumvent it after I’d climbed over the back fence. Luckily he didn’t have a dog. He was allergic to them.
It didn’t seem right to break into my own brother’s house, and it certainly wasn’t the best way to make an impression, especially considering that I hadn’t seen him for years and he had no idea what I actually did for a living. But I couldn’t risk just knocking on the door in case Eddie was watching the place. The last thing I wanted to do was contact him at work while he was surrounded by other Feds. I’ve got an aversion to cops. Nothing personal, mind you, just that our philosophies on life tended to diverge rather abruptly.
It was nearing midnight as I crept through the house. There were kids’ toys scattered across the carpet and dozens of pictures on the wall. The kitchen was empty, and there were crayon drawings held onto the fridge with magnets. It was a really nice house. Clean, organized, but with that little bit of chaos that healthy kids always managed to bring. It reminded me a bit of Gideon’s house, and that thought brought back memories. Gideon Lorenzo had been a good man to take me in. Compared to how I’d grown up, their house had seemed so warm, and I never had to worry about being hit with randomly thrown beer bottles.
Suddenly the room was bathed in scalding light, blinding me. It had to be one of those eyeball-melting police flashlights. “Don’t move!” a deep voice bellowed. It was a command voice that was used to being obeyed. I slowly raised my hands to the surrender position.
“It’s me, Bob.” Hands open, I turned toward the giant in the doorway. “Shoot me, and Mom will be pissed.”
The brilliant light moved to the side, leaving white ghosts floating in my eyeballs. “Hector?”
It had been a long time since anybody had called me that.
Robert Lorenzo was big man, six and a half feet tall, broad and barrel-chested. He looked nothing like me at all, which wasn’t a surprise, considering that I was a foster kid.
The Lorenzos were good people. I’d never really felt like I had fit in, no matter how hard I’d tried, but they had loved me as if I were one of them regardless. They were hard-working, honestly religious, salt-of-the-Earth decent folks. My real father had been a petty criminal, crackhead, piece of filth, and Gideon Lorenzo was the judge who had finally sent him away for murder.
Gideon had never confided in me the logic behind taking me in. I just remember him staring down at me from that tall judge’s seat while I had been giving my eyewitness testimony against my real father. His kind eyes had filled with involuntary tears as I’d talked about how I’d watched my mother get her head kicked in, even after I had tried to defend her by stabbing my father with a fork. I had been twelve.
Four years. For four years I had lived with the Lorenzo family. Then something terrible had happened, popping the happy bubble where I’d briefly gotten to live like a normal person. I had violated Gideon’s deathbed final wish, but my services had been needed to make things right, and I did what I had to do.
While in their care, I had never officially taken their last name. After I dropped off the grid, I’d lived under many different names, changing identities like clothing. Eventually I’d started going by Lorenzo. It had seemed like the thing to do at the time. It had seemed right. If only I had realized that it would eventually come back to haunt me.
“So, you want to tell me how you broke into my house?” Bob asked as he settled onto his couch. He put his bare feet up on the coffee table. His Remington 870 was leaning against the arm of the couch.
“Always right to the point with you, wasn’t it?” I dodged. “Where’s the wife and kids? How’s Gwen?”
“Visiting her mom. You’ll like her. She’s nice. Now back to the B and E.” Bob looked like Dad before he had died. The resemblance was almost eerie. The last few years had rendered him totally bald, but that wasn’t a surprise, as he’d starting losing his hair at sixteen. “You could have knocked. I almost plugged you back there. I’m a light sleeper.”
Real light, apparently. I had been in full ninja mode. “The door was open,” I lied.
“No, it wasn’t,” Bob said with finality. “It was locked, and the alarm was armed. It’s been forever since I’ve seen you, and you sneak into my house in the middle of the night. Why?”
I had to be careful here. He was my older brother, and he was damn smart. I had known him very well once, but we were almost strangers now. “I need your help.”
“What’s going on, man?” Just like his father, there was no way I was going to be able to lie to this man and get away with it. I just hoped that he wouldn’t try to arrest me. That could get messy.
“I had to sneak in because there are people watching your house. You’re in danger, the whole family is in danger, because of me, and I’m here to warn you.”
Bob laughed. “You always were a hoot. No, serious, what’s going on?” After a moment of studying my grim expression, he realized I was for real, and then there was a hint of anger in his voice. “What have you gotten into?”
The Lorenzos had always been a real law-and-order bunch, except for me, obviously. I leaned back on the comfortable couch and groaned. This wasn’t going to be easy. “Do you know what I do for a living?”
“You work for some international-relations firm. That was what the last Christmas card said, which, by the way, is the only reason any of us even realized you were still alive. You’ve only visited Mom, what, once since you ran off and joined the Peace Corps.” He said that with just a hint of disdain. Bob had joined the Army.