sandwiches.
Rita looked at him expectantly as he walked in, but he said nothing. He passed up the sandwiches sitting in a tray on the island along with glasses of iced tea and got a bottle of Scotch out of the pantry, put ice in a tumbler, and poured a drink.
“How did that go with those calls? ”Rita asked, trying to make the question sound nonprovocative. The waiting was like attending a terminally ill friend; there was simply no way to get away from it. It had to be done, and you had to pretend not to be depressed or afraid or you wouldn't be any good to anyone. It was an exercise in the suspension of normal emotions.
He sipped the Scotch. “Actually, it was terrible, ”he said. “The twins”-he shook his head-“Leslie cried inconsolably. She just couldn't stop. I don't know what I said to her. Tried to be comforting. I don't know. Lynne was quiet and polite, almost as if she weren't affected at all. Something's changed deep inside her. She's not going to let anything, or anyone, comfort her.”
He went to the Scotch again.
“And Louise? ”Rita asked.
“Bless her heart. She wanted to review the funeral service. The songs, the scriptures. The order of things. She wanted to talk… you know, about Charlie. I took a lot of time with her. She needed me to do that. ”He paused. “And I wanted to… for her.”
He shook his head again, then turned and walked out the kitchen door to the veranda. At Kal's request, all the landscaping lights had been turned on, but the lights on the veranda were turned off. Titus took a momentary refuge there, the glow from the kitchen windows falling in puddles on the flagstones. He caught a whiff of honeysuckle on the night air.
But the respite was brief. His cell phone rang.
“This is Ryan. Can you come on over to the cottage? We need to start getting you ready.”
“Okay. ”Titus went to the kitchen door and stuck his head in. “Rita, we're getting things ready to go.”
Everyone was there except Burden: the three bodyguards; Herrin and Cline, wearing headphones and watching the screens and listening to transmissions; and Rita and Titus.
“We all need to be on the same page here, ”Kal said. “Here's what's set up. ”He was showing the strain. He and Ryan had been working nonstop to coordinate what needed to be done in the cottage with what was happening with Burden's people. Since Macias's phone call, the cottage had felt like the control tower at DFW. Plans were made and changed in a swirl of perpetual motion. Everyone had a job to do, and they had just enough manpower to cover the operation without a single person to spare.
“We've got about an hour, ”Kal said, “before you need to drive away from here. Garcia will be mobile the whole time, watching the dots on the LorGuides. There are three groups of Macias's people who need to be dealt with. Garcia has a tactical group from out of town covering two of those. Gil Norlin has quickly pulled together a couple of people to handle Macias's surveillance van. All of them will be in communication with us, each other, and Garcia in his van. And they'll all have LorGuides, too, so they can watch each other's progress.”
Kal wiped his mouth. The pressure was bringing on the nervous tics. He was pacing around the room, occasionally referring to a clipboard.
Titus made a mental note about the tactical group from out of town.
“What about Luquin? ”Rita asked, looking around as if she wondered why someone weren't addressing the most obvious target of concern.
“Yeah, Garcia's got someone covering him, too, ”Kal said quickly, and moved on. “There's one mole sensor left, ”he said, stepping over and handing it to Titus. “Use it, don't lose it.”
Titus peeled it off its clear sheet and put it on the inside of his right arm, at just about the spot you'd insert an IV.
“We're going to put a ticker on your Rover, ”Kal continued, “but they'll assume it's there. Still… ”He shrugged. “They want you to get to La Terrazza early, go on inside to the courtyard, and wait. That'll pull Macias in to you and, maybe, separate him from his driver and bodyguard at the Navigator.”
“Then what? ”Titus asked.
“Have your conversation. Come home.”
Titus nodded. “How long do I keep him there?”
“Until we call you. One of us, or Garcia.”
“Then I take the cell phone?”
“Yeah.”
“The encrypted one?”
“Yeah.”
“What about a wire?”
“Useless. He'll check; he'll find it.”
Again Titus nodded. This all sounded too slick.
“Listen, ”he said, looking at both Kal and Ryan, “I know I don't know a damn thing about what's going on here, or should be going on here, but this just doesn't feel quite right. This just seems a little too neat.”
“It seems neat, ”Ryan said quickly and with unexpected candor, “because we're not telling you everything. The details. A lot of shit's going down, but you're not going to be a part of all of it. It's not your job. You don't need to know. ”He paused. “And you shouldn't know.”
“The point is, ”Kal added, wiping his mouth, “those other guys don't know what's going on at your end, either. And they don't need to know. But everybody's got to do their thing right if this operation's going to succeed. If you don't hold Macias at La Terrazza long enough, you could be jeopardizing what the other guys are doing. They've got to have the time they need. Everybody knows what the others are doing, in general, so we all understand the rationale for our own responsibilities. But beyond that, you're not any different from anybody else in not knowing all the details.”
“Okay, ”Titus said. That made sense. Shit, he guessed it made sense. “Look, at least give me some idea of where the situation is most critical. When is something most likely to go wrong here?”
Kal nodded at him. “The moment you drive out those gates at the bottom of the hill, from that point on something's likely to go wrong. It's that damn simple. Every moment of every operation is the most critical. You can never-ever-kid yourself about that.”
Titus stared at him. But just in case he was having any doubts about it, Ryan spoke up again.
“That's no bullshit platitude, ”he said. “That's the message of salvation.”
Titus and Rita stepped outside and stood at the head of the allee. The landscape lights illuminated the beginning of the long double row of laurels until they converged into the sloping darkness.
“That was sobering, ”Rita said, referring to their brief tutorial inside. “Okay, Titus, I'm going to be following this every step of the way in there with the rest of them. I insisted. We've already talked about it. But the moment you're in the clear, you call me.”
“Yeah, I will, ”he said. He was suddenly humming with adrenaline. He was aware of a kind of giddy anticipation, but at the same time it was mitigated by the things that weren't said. The stuff he had to read between the lines. It seemed absolutely impossible that Burden and this loose collection of people who seemed underprepared and short on time would be able to do what he knew Burden wanted to do. But they were going ahead with it. He wondered if this was the way it always felt for these people. Or if every operation was different and carried with it a different set of emotions. Was it an unending stream of never-repeated episodes? Was that the juice that kept these people in this business?
“Titus? ”Rita had taken his arm and pulled herself to him, close. He could smell her, not her perfume, but her, a far more compelling fragrance. He put his arms around her.
“Tomorrow it'll be over, ”she said. “And we'll have our lives back. I believe that.”
“You know, I do, too, ”he lied. He didn't believe it because he knew they'd never have their lives back. Not the way they had been, anyway. But they might be free of Luquin, and right now he thought that would be worth any amount of lying and killing. That appalled him even as he thought it, but he wasn't going to pretend that he had moral scruples about what was about to happen.
The door to the cottage opened and Kal stood on the threshold.
“Time to go, ”he said.
Titus embraced Rita and held her very tight. He felt his throat thicken with emotion. He couldn't say a word.
