Bear's build suited him to playing homeless. Rags shifting about him, he dug in his shopping cart while red-vested Guerrera lit a new cigarette off the butt of his last. Den crossed his arms and leaned against the wall beside the pay phone. His sharp eyes picked over the scene, coming to rest on Guerrera. Guerrera played it cool, no eye contact, no rush, no angling for the Glock tucked into his belt.
From his post in the MGD van amid Thomas and six other ART members decked out in Kevlar and toting MP5s, Miller said, "Screw this. We don't move, he's gonna eyefuck Guerrera."
"He's not making a call," Tim said.
Malane said firmly, "Then he's waiting for one."
"We don't have the luxury of waiting with him. He's gonna make Guerrera. We gotta move."
"Give it a second," Malane hissed.
The phone rang. Tim exhaled through his teeth. "Hold. Hold your positions."
Malane said, "We're sending the phone splice through."
Keeping his eyes on the street, Den picked up the phone.
A quiet, accented voice on the other end: "I have an obligation to see that it arrived safely."
Den's lips barely moved. "So you can turn it back over to us?"
"I shall see with my own two eyes. Tomorrow, as we discussed."
"Noon."
"There had better not be a drop missing."
"There won't be. You can weigh it yourself."
Dhul Faqar Al-Malik said, "I intend to do more than that," and hung up.
"Let's move," Tim said.
"Wait!" Malane's voice was hard, driving. "We couldn't get a trace. He rerouted the call through UCLA's switchboard."
Den hung up the phone and started for his bike.
Tim said, "Sorry. You missed your shot."
"Are you kidding? Laurey's going to the stash house tomorrow. He'll lead us right in. We have ten agents here-we can tail him until tomorrow."
"No way," Tim said. "You know how easy it is to lose a bike."
"We won't let him out of our sight. Not for a minute."
"That wasn't the deal."
"The deal just changed. We couldn't trace the call."
"We can take him," Miller said. "This instant."
Den passed the mouth of the alley, crossing before Bear. Behind him, Bear offered Tim a frustrated glare.
"On three," Tim said.
"Goddamnit," Malane said, "we have Rich undercover right now, risking his life every minute to tie this thing up. Don't cut us short."
"One…" Tim said.
Malane was shouting, "We've got no drugs. No money. No terrorist. You play cowboy now, we lose the trail to the biggest threat on the West Coast."
Den paused beside his bike, securing the helmet over his head.
The handle on the beer truck's loading door rotated slowly until it pointed at the asphalt.
"Two…"
"You take down Laurey, the next 9/11 is on your head."
Miller's voice was high and angry. "We gotta move here. Now."
Tim lined up the crosshairs on Den's chest and hooked his finger inside the trigger guard, ready to give the final order. The FTW tattoo stood out through a sheen of sweat on Den's collarbone. Tim pictured the burst of flame erupting from Den's fist. Dray's boot, empty and upright on the asphalt. The stain at the crotch of her olive sheriff's pants. His head swam with desire; for an instant he forgot that he was here to provide overwatch for the ART team, not to execute a kill.
"We can do this," Malane urged. "We can tie the whole fucking thing up tomorrow."
Bear growled, "He's gonna walk outta here, Rack."
Tim listened for Dray's voice but for the first time couldn't hear it. She was done playing conscience. Everyone else was hidden, lost in disguise, holed up in trucks and sedans, phantom voices in his ear. Wind whistled through the balcony rails, cutting into the silence.
Bear again: "What's it gonna be, Rack?"
It was just him, the Troubleshooter, with the crosshairs on the man who'd shot his wife.
Den threw a leg over the bike and kick-started the engine.
"What's it gonna be?" Bear said.
Tim said, "Let him go."
Den carved a sharp turn, passing within feet of Guerrera. Scope to his eye, Tim watched him float unopposed up the street. The frosty MGD bottle flew by in the background. Den passed Haines's and Zimmer's Broncos, facing out of opposing driveways, ready to rev forward to form an instant barricade. Up the street a dark FBI sedan-probably Malane's-eased out from the curb behind the bike.
Moving through headlight splashes, Den drove evenly up the street, abiding the speed limit, signaling at the turn. Tim watched the black bulb of his helmet until it disappeared from sight.
Chapter 55
Squeeze, Dray. C'mon. Give a squeeze."
Tim finally slid his index finger from his wife's limp fist. Her hand fell open to the sheet. He walked around the bed and tried her other hand, but to no avail. Someone shouted from a nearby room, and he heard the tapping of running feet in the hospital hall, the clatter of gurney wheels. He sat for a few minutes in perfect silence.
Then he retrieved Dray's brush from the bag he'd brought and ran it through her hair, working out the tangles. He wet one of her wash-cloths in the sink and cleaned her face. He traced her hairline, circled her eyes, rode the bridge of her nose. Then he stopped to feel the warmth of her curved belly. Gently, he pulled up her eyelid so he could see her iris. Her eyes were emerald-true emerald-an arresting shade that had depth and layers like the infinite refractions of the gem itself.
But now they seemed flat and vacant, devoid of inner light. No longer did he hear her voice in his head. He wondered if that meant he'd lost her already, if she'd drifted beyond the pale of recovery.
"I could've killed Den Laurey," he said. "And I didn't."
But if he was looking for approval or absolution, he'd have to look elsewhere. He let go, and the eyelid pulled back into place.
Night crowded the hospital window. From his place by the bed, Tim could see neither stars nor streetlights, just the black square of glass, the opaque end of a corridor of darkness. The hospital might have been the last outpost of civilization; it might have been perched on the edge of a cliff or drifting through outer space.
He rose wearily and stretched Dray's legs, her arms. Her face, slack now for four days, no longer retained the lines and shapes that made her unique, that made her Dray. In another few days, the muscle tone would start to weaken. And her chances of recovery would weaken with it.
He was massaging her jasmine lotion into her hands when a noise at the door made him look up.
Malane came in an awkward half step, one arm still clutching the doorframe as if to indicate his willingness to extract himself from the intimate scene should Tim desire it. Tim nodded, and Malane entered and sat in the opposing chair, facing Tim across Dray's body.
"I'm sorry to bust in on you… Bear told me you were here."
Tim continued rubbing Dray's hands.
Malane flared a few fingers at Dray, a small, awkward gesture. "I, uh, I hadn't realized…"
"That's the job. For better or worse, it's part of the job." Tim blinked a few times, then said, "But that's not why you're here."
Malane took a deep breath, blew it out, and said, "The good news is, Den Laurey stopped again up the road, used a different pay phone to place a call to Babe Donovan."
"He addressed her by name?"
"Yeah. He calls her Dunny. We got him on the parabola mike. He told her to drop the car tomorrow in the Taco Bell parking lot at Pico and Bundy."
Tim rotated Dray's foot, the cranky ankle tendons putting up resistance. "And the bad news?"
"We lost him."
Malane watched him closely, but Tim merely continued with Dray's hands, lost in the smell of jasmine.