the bucket, but Kwan stalked across the room, jerked him away, and scooped up the bucket. He brought it to the door, and pounded hard with his fist, shouting aggressively. When the guard pulled open the door, Kwan threw the piss on him, tossed the bucket aside, and shouted at the guards in Korean. They swarmed him as they had before, driving him backward into the room and onto the people who were huddled in the center of the room.
The guards came in hard, and beat down Kwan. It took four of them to subdue him, and when it was done, Medina looked at the piss all over the floor.
Jack said, “I’ll get the paper towels and a plastic bag. I’ll get some soap.”
Medina waved him past, then spun toward Kwan and kicked him hard in the side while the other guards held him. Medina kicked him three times, then dropped to his knees and punched. He punched so hard he grunted each time he threw a shot, but Kwan only stared into the floor and took it. It was crazy the way that kid took it.
Jack locked eyes with Krista, then hurried down the hall to the kitchen. He scooped up the Dawn and a roll of paper towels, then ducked into the utility room.
Jack’s heart pounded. He didn’t want to leave Krista, but if he could get into the garage, he was going to slap the button to open the big door and run like hell-dive under the opening door, slide through, and run into the street screaming and shouting and waving his arms, stop a car if he could or run to the closest house.
The door to the garage was locked. He shook the knob and twisted, but the guards had thrown the deadbolt.
Jack glanced up at the hatch, then climbed onto the washer. He paused, listening to hear if anyone was coming, hunched under the hatch and put his shoulder under it. He pushed with his legs as hard as he could. He pushed so hard the washer rocked, and slid an inch with a squeal.
Jack’s heart clutched at the noise, and once more he listened.
Nothing.
Jack set his shoulder to the hatch, and tried again. They would come looking for him soon, but he had to try. He couldn’t just quit.
He pushed as hard as he could. He pushed harder, and kept pushing. He pushed so hard his vision blurred and his head throbbed, and the washing machine suddenly squealed sideways. Jack lost his balance, teetered, and dropped to the floor.
The washer had twisted a foot out of whack.
Miguel’s voice came from the entry.
“Get this shit cleaned up. Where them towels?”
Jack shouted back.
“I’m getting the plastic bags.”
He put his weight to the washer, frantic to push it back into position, and that’s when he saw a slender black shape matted with the years of dust.
Jack slid it from beneath the washer, and discovered he had found an old fisherman’s knife with a black plastic handle. It had a cutting edge on the bottom of the blade and a file edge on top for scaling fish.
Miguel’s voice was close.
“Them bags are right on the washer.”
Jack pushed the washer into place, and snatched up the box of garbage bags as Miguel appeared in the door.
Jack held up the box.
“Found’m. I thought they were in the kitchen.”
“C’mon, clean up this mess. The whole fuckin’ house smells like piss. Don’t forget that soap.”
Miguel had already turned away.
Jack slipped the knife into his pants, and followed Miguel back into hell.
Jon Stone: three days before Cole is taken
20
This time of morning, still more than an hour before sunrise, Jon Stone watched Los Angeles turn gold from his home in the hills above the Sunset Strip. The ocean to his right was a black smudge dissolving into a murky night sky as the first glow of the new day seeped over the horizon. Soon, the eastern faces of downtown skyscrapers would catch the light, and as Jon watched, their golden fire would jump to Wilshire Corridor high-rises to the buildings along Hollywood Boulevard and on to the twin towers of Century City.
Jon stood naked on the tile deck at the edge of his pool, raised his hands to the city, and shouted as loud as he could.
“KISS. MY. ASS.”
Then Jon Stone shouted even more loudly.
“KISS! MYY! ASSSS!”
Jon loved Los Angeles, he loved his house, and he loved being home. It was great to be back.
Then he lowered his arms, and spoke quietly in a soft voice.
“Made it again, you bitches.”
Jon did a forward flip into his pool, tucked in tight for a fast rotation, hit the cold water, touched bottom, then pushed up and out in a single motion, back on the deck no problemo, dripping. It was a small pool, but still-Jon was built like a diver, but had never dived or swum competitively. He had played football and baseball in college, pole- vaulted all four years, and was captain of the judo and fencing teams. Junior and senior years, he part-timed as a bouncer. Jon Stone was good with his body, and enjoyed being physical.
Jon padded inside to his living room bar, and dug around in the fridge for a carton of apple juice. His house was dark except for the royal blue LED strip under the bar and bar cabinets. Mood lighting, to bounce off the steel tile and black marble counter. Earlier, Jon had pushed the four heavy glass doors into their wall pocket, joining the terrazzo interior with the tile deck to open his home to the pool and the city beyond.
Jon had purchased his house at the beginning of a down market: a twelve-hundred-square-foot, two-bedroom fixer on a tiny lot on a small street off Sunset Plaza Drive with an epic view and stellar privacy. Jon made a good living, but the house had been beyond his means, both then and now, so he funneled almost all his earnings into its re-creation. Floor-to-ceiling glass sliding doors, terrazzo floors, Italian tile deck, and French gray pool. The two tiny bedrooms had been transformed into an amazing master suite with a view of the city, a whirlpool tub, an oversized steam shower, and a walk-in, walnut, twenty-foot closet in which hung almost no clothes. Check out Casa Stone: black marble counters, German fixtures, Japanese toilets, and a full-on commercial kitchen. State-of-the-art, computer-controlled audio, video, climate, and alarms. Jon put his money into the house. It was his passion. A work of art in progress. An obsession with a home in which he did not live.
He kept his guns elsewhere.
Most of them.
Jon grabbed a carton of juice, then returned to the deck where he dropped onto a chaise lounge, still wet from the pool. The pool had been cold, and the pre-dawn air even colder, but Jon didn’t mind. He had spent twenty of the past twenty-one days above 12,000 feet in the Hindu Kush of Afghanistan, not far from the Khyber Pass and close to the Pakistan border. It had been a lot colder than his beautiful house high above the Sunset Strip. He could see the Whisky from here. He could see the big red, blue, and green buildings of the Pacific Design Center on Melrose where he had bought most of his furniture for cash.
Jon Stone was a professional military contractor-a PMC, also known as a mercenary. These days, he made most of his money by placing other professionals in contract jobs for a fifteen percent fee, though occasionally he still worked as a special teams operator for certain corporations and governments, namely the good ol’ U.S. of A.
Stone had the credentials to do this, and, like many elite soldiers, his credentials were surprising. He had attended Princeton University on a National Merit Scholarship, where he studied history and philosophy, though most of his time was spent drinking beer and playing sports. His course work was an afterthought, but completed with honors, after which he enlisted in the United States Army. No-brainer. His passion in history had been the great wars and generals, and the monumental land and naval campaigns that carved world history and elevated
