traditional rules of society, that Titus would not resort to Macias's own lawless tactics, even though not doing so would put him at every conceivable disadvantage. The condescension of that presumption suddenly struck Titus like a lightning bolt. What in the hell had Titus been thinking about?
He fixed his eyes on Macias and lowered his voice.
“Has Luquin ever stopped to think how much revenge that amount of money will buy… me?”
Macias said nothing. He waited. He was dealing with the unavoidable reality that everything Cain said about Luquin was directed at him as well.
“I'm not going to pay for more lies, ”Titus concluded. “Unless I can believe what you tell me, I'll just keep my ten million.”
Macias was suddenly scrambling to reevaluate his position. This kind of talk from Cain was not what he had anticipated. Why was he suddenly so confident? How much more did Cain know than Macias had thought he knew? If Cain was after revenge, then maybe he was on his own after all. No legitimate law enforcement agency would be involved in that kind of operation. Was it possible that Cain had hired some very capable professionals? Maybe Macias had caught this just in time to prevent a debacle of his own tightly planned scheme.
“Maybe I can tell you a few things, ”Macias said, buying time to think.
“How's he protected? ”Titus asked again. “What will my people be facing if you ‘give’him to me? How many guards? Where are they located? Give me some details to believe. But I've got to have a hell of a lot more than a promise from a man like you before I'll fork over another dollar.”
Macias's handsome face was stiff with anger and more than a little suspicion.
“You are asking a lot for a man who has Cayetano Luquin hanging on to his balls with both hands. Maybe I should just let him go ahead and take your fifty-four million… and however many more lives he wants in the process.”
Titus put his elbows on the table and leaned forward, way forward, almost in Macias's face, to make his point. “Listen to me, you sick son of a bitch. Just sitting here with you makes me want to puke. Don't… threaten… me.”
Even as he spoke, it occurred to Titus that he had juiced himself up so much that maybe he had said too much. Maybe he had gone way too far, way past smart. But from the moment he'd walked into the courtyard and seen Macias, the idea of conversing with this man had been repugnant to him. It was suddenly fantastical to him that he should be sitting down and talking calmly with the man who had orchestrated the deaths of Charlie and Carla.
But now maybe he had really screwed up. He could see from the look on Macias's face that he knew something was definitely wrong here. Why the hell couldn't Titus have contained his temper for another hour? And where the hell was Kal's phone call?
Chapter 50
Cope and Tito checked in with Calo just moments before they drove past the Pathfinder parked down the street from Luquin's house. They passed it only once, slowly, going in the opposite direction, with Cope driving and Tito slumped down out of sight in the seat beside him.
“Windows down, ”he said. “I think I heard a radio.”
Two blocks away they pulled to the curb in front of a darkened house.
“They're parked beside an embankment, ”he went on, “to the side of the house. The yard sits about four feet higher than the street. The garage opens up right at the rear of the Pathfinder. There's some kind of hedge, about six feet high, at the top of the embankment to give the house privacy from the street. There's a bush jammed up next to the rear of the Pathfinder, planted right at the curb to hide the trash cans.”
“What about the approach?”
“We could come at the house from the back of the garage through the street side of the neighbor's yard. From the corner of the garage we'd be protected from their rearview mirrors by the big bush. They can't see the rear right corner of the Pathfinder from inside the vehicle.”
Tito was silent.
“I don't like the high-speed drill and gas idea, ”Cope said. “This has to be bloody quick, and with the windows open we can't guarantee we'll get bloody quick.”
“Then it's got to be the CS grenade, ”Tito said. “We drive by and I'll toss it in, bam. They won't be able to get another breath for about thirty seconds. It's like getting slapped in the face with a board. But then it wears off quick, so we have to get in quick and do our thing.”
“What kind of noise does it make? ”Cope asked.
“None.”
“Flash?”
“None.”
Cope thought a moment. “We can't risk them getting a shot off, not even one.”
“Their throats and lungs are locked up, man, ”Tito assured him. “They can't even draw a breath… for thirty seconds. After that, they're going to start coming around.”
Silence. Cope looked at his watch. “Okay, then I'll just pull up and you toss the bomb. I'll jam on the brakes, and we bail out. The second you know it's okay, jump in and get behind the wheel, and I'll go into the back.”
That was it.
Cope pulled away from the curb and slow-rolled to the intersection. He eased out, looking right. Two blocks ahead they could see the Pathfinder up the slight rise in the street, looking like a sitting duck. He turned into the street and started up the hill.
Suddenly the taillights of the Pathfinder came on.
“Shit. ”Tito leaned forward over the dash, but then the taillights went out again. “Guy's just shifting in his seat.”
Cope was watching his rearview mirror for approaching traffic, but they were so far off Bull Creek Road that there was no through traffic, and at this hour the neighborhood was quiet.
He noodled along, not wanting to change pace when they pulled past the Pathfinder. Then they were there.
He looked to his right just as they were even with the Pathfinder driver, and Tito lobbed the CS grenade as if he were tossing back a wadded piece of paper into a trash can. The little canister sailed right past the surprised face of the driver.
Cope slammed on his brakes, stopping just past the front left fender of the Pathfinder so that Tito could fling open his door. Cope scrambled around the back of the car to find the Pathfinder's opened windows swirling with gas.
“Wait, ”Tito barked. They stood there three beats, and then: “Go!”
As Tito was opening the door, he reached in and shot the driver in the face twice with his suppressed USP, then shoved the dying man from under the steering wheel as he crawled in. At the same instant, Cope plunged into the backseat and shot the gagging guard in the mouth twice, crawled over his body, and shot the passenger-side guard three quick bursts in the left ear as he pushed him down into the floorboard out of sight. Then he was out and back into the idling car.
In less than fifteen seconds it was over. Inside the Pathfinder, three men were in various stages of dying as Tito slowly pulled the SUV away from the curb and eased out into the street. Cope followed him at a distance.
The man had crouched in the pocket of deep shade among the cedars and settled in to endure the stifling heat of the afternoon. The sun beat down on the thick canopy of the woods above him, sucking all the air out of the underbrush. Forty meters away, the lake water lapped against the rocks. Cicadas throbbed in the hot trees, and their drone blended with the occasional drone of ski and pleasure boats plying the long, narrow lake. Peering through a break in the brush, he had found a spot across the lake halfway up the sloping hillside, a terracotta tile roof, and he concentrated on it, using it as his gateway out of time.
Everything else that happened for the next four and a half hours happened in his parallax view and in his head. He was fully aware of the changing light, but not in the gradual way that an observant person might be aware
