fear and desperation and loneliness. But she was so small and helpless, and the boat was drifting away from her. She needed help, a moment of pure grace from the great mysterious unknown to help her unravel this puzzle, please—
Her hands dropped into her lap. Her swollen eyes stared at the computer screen, frozen in a moment of exquisite, paralyzing hope.
She spun back to the keyboard, and very carefully typed in “g-r-a-c-e.” She entered it.
Password accepted. The menu options popped up, inviting her to proceed. She blinked the tears she had no time for, and clicked on the glasses icon. The X-Ray Specs logo flashed up, a catchy blur of animation that her eyes were too watery to follow. She selected, “Last area viewed.” Then “Track all.”
A map popped up on the screen, showing a large chunk of the residential neighborhood of her Templeton Street house. Tiny colored points blinked all over the place. She wiped her eyes and nose on her grimy, sticky arm. There was a big magnifying glass on the tool bar. She dragged it over the map, letting her eyes relax and unfocused. One moment of grace, she prayed silently. One little moment, and she would take care of the rest.
There it was, a flicker of movement at the bottom of the screen. She dragged the magnifying glass to the point, and selected Zoom, vaguely aware that someone was yelling and pounding on the door.
The jewel icon was on the move southbound on Carstairs Road, a parallel of Templeton. It turned off the main road, and stopped. She knew that place. It had been a timber baron's luxury estate back in the twenties. Now it was an abandoned, dilapidated mansion surrounded by a big, overgrown forest park. She had jogged there, back in the days before she'd gotten too tired to jog.
The office door burst open. That was all the grace she was going to get. A burly man in a security uniform peeked in and eyed her as if she were a rabid animal. “Miss, I'm afraid you're going to have to, uh, come with me now,” he rumbled, trying to look stern.
“I don't think so,” she said politely. “I've got things to do.”
He stepped in front of her, blocking her path to the door.
Damn. She'd hoped to avoid this, but there was no time to waste. She reached back, pulled out Ed's Glock and gave the man a big, toothy smile. “I'm out of here,” she said. “Have a great day.”
The guy almost tripped over himself to get out of her way, and Harriet squawked in protest. “See? I told you she was dangerous!”
Raine backed away from the horrified faces of the people she'd been trying so hard to please and placate for the last month. The Glock was intimidating, but it wasn't going to take them long to figure out that she would never use the thing.
“Uh... I'll see you guys around,” she said. “It's been real.”
She stuck the Glock back into her pants and ran like hell.
The cell phone rang. Victor checked the number before picking it up. It was Mara, whom he had assigned to watch the monitor in the control room. Memories of what he had done to the delectable, adventurous Mara in his bedroom the night before flashed through his mind. Memorable, yes, but the girl had better have a damn good reason for calling other than pillow talk. He pushed the button. “Yes?”
“Mr. Lazar, the jewel icon is very close to the marina, and moving closer,” Mara said.
He was unpleasantly startled. “Are you sure?”
“Yes. It's at the level of Morehead Street. Moving south, at about thirty miles an hour. It's within range of your monitor.”
He pulled the monitor out of his coat pocket, entered the password and keyed in the code. Mara was right. Katya was here.
“Thank you, Mara. Carry on.” He broke the connection and pulled the collar of his coat higher, chilled to the bone.
Katya wasn't supposed to be here. She should be far out of reach, guarded by both Mackey and Riggs.
He should abort the meeting. Something was very wrong. He could feel it. But if Novak had Katya in his grasp, he couldn't walk away. He had thought himself invulnerable, but Katya was his weak point. She always had been. And he had nothing to bargain with but a piece of cold metal, and images from a nightmare.
They were approaching the marina. The readout on the monitor shifted constantly with the changing flow of spatial information.
He switched off the useless thing and flung it into the water.
Maybe it wasn't Katya. Maybe someone else was carrying one of her tagged belongings. Maybe it was a malfunction. He could only hope.
To think that after all his plotting and planning, that he should be reduced to relying upon something so fragile as hope.
“I have got to get myself a pair of these,” Sean said, staring through the foggy woods with his goggles. “I haven't been so jazzed since the last time we burgled that bastard. I can already spot three ... no, four of Novak's goons with the long-range TI function. Playing with your toys is like having superhuman powers.” “That's the whole idea,” Seth said. He handed a pair to Davy and looped his own around his neck. He handed a tiny mike and earphone set to the brothers, identical in their green camouflage gear. They put them on with a swift efficiency that showed such equipment was not new to them.
“So what's your plan?” Davy asked. “March up to the front door and ring the bell?”
“No way to do recon if you don't know the site. I was going to wing it. You guys got any ideas, let's hear 'em.”
Davy and Sean looked at each other for a long moment. Their matching sets of perfect teeth flashed through the green ski masks.
“Hunting season,” Davy said, popping open the back door of the Jeep Cherokee. “Time to show you the McCloud family arsenal.” He pulled out a heavy black case and slanted a questioning glance at his brother. “Do you want the Remington 700 or the Cheytec .408?” He snapped open the case and hauled out a huge sniper rifle.
“You take the Cheytec,” Sean said. “You're the better sniper.”
“That's exactly why you should take the Cheytec,” Davy said with exaggerated patience. “And besides, you're a perfectly good sniper.”
“Sure, I don't suck, but you>e still better. You're the marksman. I'm the demolitions man.” He grinned at Seth. “Too bad we didn't know the site beforehand. God, how I would've loved to bomb the shit out of those assholes. There's nothing so satisfying as a nice big kaboom, know what I mean? Gives you a real sense of emotional closure.”
“Focus, Sean,” Davy muttered. “Take the fucking Cheytec.”
“Nah. The Cheytec gives me performance anxiety. You take it. I like the Remington with my Leupold power scope. We're old pals.”
“Whatever.” Davy hauled the Cheytec up into position and peered through the scope. “We used to hunt with a bow and arrow when we were kids. For run “ He shot a glance at Seth. “Ever try it?”
Seth stared at the massive rifle, impressed in spite of himself. He focused belatedly on Davy's question. “Give me a break. I'm a city boy.”
“Dad taught us how,” Davy said. “To prepare us for the inevitable day of doom and judgment when government is overthrown, anarchy rules, and civilization is flung back into the Bronze Age.”
“And the prepared, the elect, the chosen ones, would be the dukes and princes of that new world order,” Sean intoned. “Namely, us.”
“And I thought my childhood was weird,” Seth muttered.
“Yeah, Dad was a pretty original thinker” Davy said. “Anyhow, when you hunt with a bow and arrow, you have to get really close to your prey. Sometimes we'd make a game out of it, get close enough to the deer or elk to slap them on the rump and watch them run. Sometimes we shot 'em. Depended on how much was in the freezer.”
Seth held up his goggles and peered through me trees that obscured the house. “Do you guys have a point to make with all this?”
“Nah, not really” Davy said. He pulled a bunch of plasticuffs out of his bag, and offered a handful of them to Seth and Sean. “It's just been a really long time since Sean and I have gone hunting.”
“Too long,” Sean added. “Too bad Connor couldn't come. He was the best of all of us. The original shadow man.”
