“What makes you think I have children?”
“Right before they die, I’ll tell them Daddy let this happen.”
“Oh, the tree house, right? That was here when I bought the house. I don’t have kids, asshole. Just like you don’t have a gun.”
Kowalski had been perfectly content to take the bag by force and leave this guy alive. That’s what he’d thought about as he broke the lock on this guy’s back door: Let him live. Because the body count was already high —hell, he’d just walked away from a dying woman in a shallow creek. No need to toss another body onto the pyre.
This, though, demanded a response.
“Go ahead. Take what you want out of the bag, and let me get out of here. I can hear the sirens.”
The professor smiled, then unfastened the bag. He looked down into it. His jaw dropped.
Kowalski closed the distance and slapped the man across his nose with an open palm. Better than a fist—less likely to break your own hand that way. The prof was stunned, but he threw a wild right roundhouse punch, which Kowalski deflected by snapping it to the side with the flat of his hand. Without losing momentum, he grabbed the professor’s wrist and yanked him forward, giving Kowalski a clear shot at the kidneys and base of the spine. He pounded his fist down repeatedly until the man was paralyzed on the carpet and sobbing.
“You’re probably a sociology professor, aren’t you? All that talk about mandatory sentencing.”
The guy squirmed, and moaned. Kowalski patted his pants pockets until he found what he was looking for.
“Tell me something. What’s mandatory sentence for dental floss?”
1:45 a.m.
Kelly was asleep. Jack could tell by her breathing, which had settled into a slow, comfortable rhythm.
Thank Christ.
Nanomachines? The Operator? The Olsen twins? A killer satellite? Proof in San Diego? Luminous toxin? Deflecting a kiss one moment, offering a blow job the next? What kind of con game was this?
But deep down, Jack knew this wasn’t a con. More likely, this woman was simply stone nuts. Some kind of research scientist who had lost her mind, or stayed up one too many nights with a complex equation.
Jack slowly rolled off the bed and made his way to the other side, where she had stashed her bag. It was one of those vinyl messenger bags you see strapped to twenty-something hipsters. He opened the flap, and yep, she wasn’t kidding. Handcuffs. He gently placed them on the carpet, trying to avoid the sound of metal jangling.
They weren’t authentic police handcuffs. Unless some city departments had started purchasing restraints from a store called the Pleasure Chest. The name was featured on a purple stamp on the base of one of the cuffs. Hot-cha.
Still, they seemed solid enough. Sex games were no fun unless there was that element of realism.
Enough to cuff her to the bed while he called the police.
Let them arrive, and she can tell them all about the Operator and Alary Kate and Bob Saget and whoever else is in the Full Nut-House in her mind. They could force her to surrender the antidote. … In fact, wait a fucking sec. It was probably right here, in her bag.
As quietly as he could, Jack fished around in her bag, but he found only three items of interest, poisonwise. A bottle of CVS-brand contact lens rewetting drops. Clear liquid inside. Could she have used this to store the antidote? There was also a plastic tube with a Tylenol Extra Strength label on it. He twisted it open. It was full of round white tablets. He shook one out—they were stamped OP 706. No idea. So maybe they were it. Finally, there was a sheet of foil-wrapped Imodium tablets. Or at least they looked like Imodium. Could be anything.
Was it one of these three? Did she even have it on her? Well, the police would be able to make her talk.
Jack picked up the handcuffs and crept closer to Kelly. She was the kind of woman who slept with her arms over her head, which was perfect. He placed one of the cuffs around her wrist and gently snapped it into place.
Her eyes opened. She breathed sharply. Then she screamed, “
Jack hooked the other cuff around the bedpost.
Then he felt a blow to his chest, and he fell backward to the carpet.
Kelly was astride him in seconds. Her thighs squeezed his rib cage, which was amazingly painful.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” she said. Jack coughed; the burning in his nose intensified. “But you almost killed me. You have to understand that.”
She squeezed his chest again, and Jack felt the cool metal over his wrist. Then a click.
“I thought you
1:50 a.m.
The all-night diner was called Little Pete’s. It lived up to its name. It was a tiny rectangular wedge on the first floor of a seven-story garage complex. Just enough room for a row of six booths, a breakfast counter, a compact cashier’s station, and a stainless-steel kitchen in back. It was a greasy spoon as imagined by Fisher-Price. But it was the only thing open this time of night in this part of town. And that’s where his handler had told him to go.
Good news was, the night was almost over for him. Sure, it’d had its bumps, but four hours of work wasn’t too hideous. He could get some sleep and resume his personal mission the next evening.
Kowalski had called his handler once he was safely away from the scene of his most recent crimes. One headless burned guy (not his fault!) in a burned-out shell of a house, one dead woman in a shallow creek, one strangled asshole in his own living room. He’d taken the asshole’s Audi—an awfully nice car for a young college professor. Maybe the guy—Robert Lankford, according to his ID—had had a sideline going. Stay up all night, hoping that armed robbers would wander by his backyard. Take a cut of the loot, buy some flashy wheels to impress the barely dressed undergrad criminal justice majors.
His handler’d had a rare bit of good news for him: “No need to travel. We’re sending someone to recover the bag from you.”
She’d given him the address of a diner two blocks from Ritten-house Square.
And here he was, Ed’s head stashed between his feet on the floor, plate of bacon, bowl of cottage cheese, bowl of mixed fruit, and a cup of chocolate skim milk on the table before him. Usually, he waited until after an assignment, but the running and killing and planning had left him ravenous. An infusion of protein would help.
He’d wanted to talk to his handler.
Maybe say, We should talk.
Or: I need to explain a few things to you.
Or even the classic: This is not what it looks like.
But how could it not?
Let’s say you’re her.
A handler in an ultrasecretive government agency. Your boyfriend—also your number-one field agent— disappears on a long-term op, only to emerge with a pregnant fiancee. How’s it supposed to look?
Never mind that the fiancee is dead. That doesn’t help things at all. Not in your eyes.
