"I let them wake up! What a damn stupid thing to do. Careless idiot. Could have got us both killed."
He stopped when they reached the front door. He unlocked it, then slowly, gently pulled it open a crack.
Alicia peeked over his shoulder. The guard car sat at the curb, engine still running, the doors closed. Jack stuck his head out and checked the front yard.
"Looks clear," he said. "Let's go."
He pulled the door open and guided her onto the front stoop.
"Get moving and keep moving. Don't run but walk fast—real fast—to your right. We'll take the long way around to the car."
Alicia started walking, just as he'd said, but then the terror of hearing a phut! and ending up like those two guards took hold. Repressing a scream, she began to run.
11.
"Damn!" Sam Baker said and jabbed his thumb at the end button. "Why don't they fuckin' answer?"
He dropped the phone on the seat between him and the Arab and concentrated on driving. Mott and Richards were two of his better men, but they'd got snookered by the Clayton broad's muscle. They'd been groggy when they first called in, but seemed to be coming around pretty fast. By the time they hung up they were almost a hundred percent and heading into the house to see if the guy was still there.
What Baker hoped was that they'd caught the guy and were too busy rearranging his face and innards to answer the phone.
If it's the guy from the van, he thought, save a piece for me.
His kidney still ached from that punch.
But Baker was getting uneasy. After three calls, you'd think one of them would pick up the goddamn phone.
If this operation went south it would be his ass. He'd be blamed, and that meant kissing the bonus and a regular gig in Saudi Arabia good-bye. And it wouldn't be his fault, dammit!
His unease grew as he turned onto Thirty-eighth and accelerated up the block toward the Clayton house. Something was wrong. He could feel it.
"Look!" Muhallal said, pointing through the windshield. "That is Alicia Clayton!"
Baker squinted at the figure coming down the front steps of the house and hurrying toward the sidewalk. Sure as hell looked like her. And then he saw the guy following right behind her—
"That's him!" he said. "That's the son of a bitch from last week—the one I told you about!"
Rage burst like a hollow point in Baker's brain. He gunned the engine and the car leaped forward.
"No!" Muhallal shouted. He grabbed Baker's arm. "No! Stop the car! I do not wish them to know we are here!"
"No way! I owe that motherfu—"
"Stop immediately or you are fired!" Muhallal said.
Baker knew from the Arab's tone that he meant it. Shit. He eased up on the gas pedal and watched the two figures hurry away along the sidewalk.
"But they've been in the house," he said, so pissed his hands were twitching on the steering wheel. "They probably stole something! Don't you want it back?"
Baker didn't give a furry rat's ass about what they might've taken. All he wanted was to get his hands on that rotten lousy—
"If they stole a "thing" Muhallal said, "then yes, of course I want it back. And I will get it back. But if they are walking away with information—information that I do not have—then I want that even more."
"I don't get it." He wished he knew what the hell this was all about.
Muhallal pointed through the windshield at the street ahead. "Follow them. But do not let them see you. If he takes her home, we will follow him to where he lives and learn what he knows. If they drive somewhere else, then we must know where they go. We must not let them get away."
"Don't worry about that," Baker said, easing the car into motion. "Where she goes, we go."
"You are so sure?"
"Yep. Real sure." He couldn't help but grin. "That little ride we took her on last week:—you know, the 'idiotic stunt' you hated so much? It wasn't completely worthless. I didn't tell you at the time, but I planted a tracer in the bottom of that shoulder bag she always carries. No place she can go that we can't find her."
The Arab didn't comment.
What's the matter? Baker thought. Camel got your tongue?
He picked up the cell phone.
"Who are you calling?" the Arab said.
"The guys who were supposed to keep them out of the house."
Still no answer. He hung up after the sixth ring.
If Mott and Richards were busy working someone over, it was the wrong guy—the right guy was walking up the street.
This could be bad. Very bad.
Baker dialed Kenny's number. He might need some backup on this. Ahab the Ay-rab sure as shit wasn't going to be any help.
But who else in his crew to call? Hell, call them all. Get every damn one of them involved. Have them bring the tracking electronics and come loaded for bear.
Some serious ass gonna get kicked tonight.
12.
Yoshio waited until Kemel Muhallal and his mercenary were at the end of the block before he pulled away from the curb and followed. He had been expecting them, but had hoped the Clayton woman and her investigator would be gone by the time Muhallal arrived.
But the Arab had spotted them and now was following.
Yoshio wondered if he would be forced to intervene again.
He had seen the two guards regain consciousness and stagger from their car—the driver had leaned against a fender and vomited onto the pavement. He watched them call in and knew that Alicia Clayton had very little time left to find whatever she was looking for. As the pair drew their weapons and stalked toward the rear of the house, he'd debated what to do: Allow them to catch her and take possession of what she might have found? Or stop them and let her escape?
He chose the latter.
It had been almost too easy. The two guards had been so intent on the woman and her ronin that they'd ignored their rear. A quick shot to the head for each from Yoshio's silenced .22 was all it had taken. Then he had retreated to his vantage point to wait.
And calculate the death toll. Counting Alicia Clayton's first investigator, her lawyer, and that arsonist Yoshio had seen Baker and his men immolate, these two tonight brought the number of deaths connected with Ronald Clayton's secret to 252—at least that he knew of. How many more to come?
He wondered if the secret was worth it. Otherwise, Kaze Group was paying him for nothing.
He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel as he played through various scenarios in his head. If only he could be sure the Clayton woman had found some clue, then his course would be clear: Kill Muhallal and Baker, and close in on her. Clean and simple… but disastrous if she had nothing. He'd have revealed his presence for no gain.
Of course, he already might have done that by killing those two men back on Thirty-eighth Street, but he felt their deaths would probably be blamed on the Clayton woman's ronin. At least Yoshio hoped they would. His job so far had been made so much easier by the fact that no one knew of his existence.
He watched Baker hanging well back as he followed a white sedan. Yoshio followed Baker, wondering when he would have to choose.
The ronin's Chevrolet headed east, then uptown to the Fifty-ninth Street Bridge, where it crossed into Queens.
Leaving town. Interesting. That might be the sign he'd been waiting for. But shortly after he followed them onto the Long Island Expressway, heading east, the decision whether or not to act was made for Yoshio: a dark van pulled in front of Baker's car. The same van used in the aborted abduction last week. The driver waved an arm out the window. Baker flashed his high beams.