Betrayal

wasn't sure why he wanted it, and he knew how to get it.

But now, having learned where Nolan lived and having driven up there, he found himself sitting in his car, parked curbside, again with his gun in his hand. If Nolan came home alone, it wouldn't be the same situation at all as it had been when Tara was with him. This was a quiet street, far less traveled than Tara's, lined with mature trees.

The address was a nice-looking, stand-alone townhome with attached garage amid a cluster of similar units. Separate, yet somewhat isolated. Perfect for…

For what? he asked himself.

And suddenly, again, the awareness of where he was, of what he was doing, flooded back. He was doing something here-figuratively staring at a drawing of a reindeer and wondering what the name of it was-but the exact nature of what he hoped to accomplish continued to elude him.

Looking down at the gun, he reached over and placed it back into the still-open glove compartment, then closed the door behind it, turned the key to lock it up. Then, the keys in his hand, he realized that he had to get out of here before he did something stupid. Something that he couldn't even explain to himself.

So he hit the ignition. The dashboard clock read ten forty-two.

Putting the car into gear, he pulled out from the curb and hadn't gone twenty feet when he jammed his foot on the brakes enough to make the tires squeal. His windows were down, he hadn't turned his headlights on, and running dark with a warm breeze over him sparked a jolt of familiarity.

In the months since he'd been injured, it had left the forefront of his memory, but now, suddenly, all the elements of this night rekindled a vision of the episode with Nolan when they'd raided the insurgents' lair in the neighborhood close to BIAP. The bright light and the terrific explosion blowing out the windows; the flames licking into the night as gunfire erupted behind him.

A mercenary mission to kill.

An explosion and then a fire.

A dog barked somewhere in the neighborhood.

Evan let out the breath he'd been holding, turned on his headlights, and eased his foot off the brake.

13

'Well, my son, the latest theory, which might still be wrong,' Spinoza said, 'is that it was a thing called a fragmentation grenade. You ought to know about them. They're evidently using ' em in Iraq right now. Blow the shit out of everything so you need a snow shovel to pick up the pieces. Which pretty much fits what happened here, by the way.' He sat back in his chair and picked up his sandwich. Putting his feet up on the desk, he took a bite. 'So why do you want to know? You teaching execution techniques in DARE to the little fuckers?'

'No reason, really,' Evan said. 'I just thought it was interesting. I don't think I've ever heard of somebody being killed that way. At least not here in the States.'

'Yeah, well.' The lieutenant chewed thoughtfully. 'It's not the norm, I'll give you that. Somebody wanted these people completely dead, in a big loud way. It wasn't some gangbanger taking potshots at a residence and hoping somebody gets hit.'

'Could the guy, the victim, have done it himself?'

Spinoza shrugged. 'Not impossible, I guess. There's no evidence pointing to anybody else. But also there's absolutely no sign so far of why Mr. Khalil would want to do that. The businesses were going great. He apparently loved the wife. No health problems. At least that's what we got from the rest of the family. And, believe me, there's a lot of the rest of the family. So I'm betting against murder/suicide, which leaves a pro. 'Cause I'll tell you one thing. Whoever did this did it right. At this moment, the only evidence we've got is-maybe-the bits of the frag grenade. And just between you and me, I'm kind of hoping we don't have that.'

'Why not?'

'Because as we stand now, we've got a local murder of a businessman. At least we can get away with calling it that, since Ibrahim was a naturalized citizen.'

'Where'd he come from?'

'I thought I told you that last night. Iraq. Half his family, evidently, still lives there. The other half has the 7- Eleven concession for the Bay Area wrapped up here.'

'So what's the issue if you've got a frag grenade?'

'You can't own a frag grenade. It's a federal offense. Which means the ATF's involved. Which, in turn, sucks.'

'So how do you find out if it was a frag grenade?'

Spinoza came down in his chair, brought his feet to the floor. 'Fear not, my son. The ATF has already picked up samples from the scene. They'll have it analyzed by tonight and soon we'll all know for sure. If it is what it is, the FBI's in before morning. The preliminary call is yep, frags. So it's gonna be their case.'

'Why's that so bad, Fred? Don't they have a lot more resources than we do?'

'Oh, no question,' Spinoza said. 'More resources, more money, more access to data, the whole nine yards. The thing is, though-they don't share. So we wind up spending a week finding stuff they already have. It's kind of a race to see who can get there fastest, but we've got one leg tied behind our backs.'

'I don't think that's exactly the expression.'

'No?' Spinoza popped his last bite of sandwich. 'Well, that's what it feels like.'

He knew the locksmith from Ace Hardware both from his high school class and from his men's softball team. Now, at a few minutes before two o'clock on an afternoon after Evan had told his lieutenant, James Lochland, that he was suffering from a migraine and needed to go lie down in his dark bedroom, Dave Saldar pulled up outside of Nolan's townhouse and parked in back of Evan's CR-V.

Evan, in his police uniform to reinforce his legitimacy, got out of his car and they high-fived each other on the sidewalk. After a couple of minutes of catching up-Saldar had heard some of Evan's story from guys on the team- they got around to what Evan had called Dave up here for.

'You didn't hide a spare under a rock or something?' Saldar asked.

'No. I didn't think I'd ever forget my keys. Who forgets their keys?'

'My wife does every time she leaves the house.'

'Yeah, well, I don't. I never have before.'

'I would love one thin dime for every time I'd heard those exact words. Why do you think the world invented locksmiths?'

'I never could figure that out.'

'Well, now you know.' Saldar inclined his head toward the town-homes. 'Okay, which one's yours?'

They went down to Nolan's doorway, partially enclosed and blocked from the street by an L-shaped, glass- block privacy screen. Saldar got out his tools and went to work. Evan found that his legs were weak enough that he had to lean against the screen for support. With each passing second, the enormity of the implications of what he was doing worked on his system. He felt as lightheaded as he'd been on Nolan's night raid outside of BIAP. A jackhammer pulse pounded where they'd cut open his skull. The migraine he'd invented for Lieutenant Lochland threatened to become a reality-pinpoints of light exploded at the outer edges of his vision. He kept looking to the street, nearly passing out when a yellow Miata convertible crested the incline and drove by.

Saldar, noticing something in his reaction, glanced up at him. 'You all right?'

'Good,' he said. In fact, he could feel the sweat breaking on his forehead. Summoning all the control he could muster, he brought his hand up and dragged it across his brow.

At last, Saldar turned the knob and pushed the door open. 'There you go, a minute and fifteen seconds. This could be a new record.'

'I'm sure it is, Dave. That's awesome.'

Saldar was holding open the front door. 'Hey, are you okay, Ev? You really don't look so good.'

'I'm all right. The head's acting up a little, that's all.' He reached back for his wallet, thinking,