response vehicles, a middle field of screens and checkpoints, and a final layer at the entrances and around the individual dignitaries. All meeting and public areas had been swept several times for bombs, and every guest not registered with the Pacific Rim Forum had been (unbeknownst to them) subjected to a background check. Even if he was right, and this was the terrorist target, the conference was as guarded as it could be.
“Why is that son of a bitch always right?” Tony muttered.
“Who? Jack?” Nina said.
“Yeah. Every goddamned time.”
“No, he’s not!” Nina laughed. “Are you insane? Not even close.”
“You don’t think—”
“The thing about Jack isn’t that he’s always right. The thing is that he’s always eventually right. He just keeps fighting until he gets it right.” She shook her head and spoke with grudging admiration. “No, I always figured that Jack’s secret isn’t that he’s always right. It’s that he isn’t afraid to be wrong.”
“Mao understood it,” Zapata was saying. Kyle was drowsy from the sun and alcohol, and he was nodding. Zapata noticed, but didn’t care. He was not without ego, and now and then he enjoyed fleshing out his theories. “Centers of gravity. That’s how he defeated the Nationalists in China. He understood that the goal wasn’t to win a certain piece of territory, it was to wear the enemy down. He fought and ran, fought and ran, making the enemy stretch his supply lines thin. The center of gravity wasn’t a line of battle, it was a method of fighting. Modern terrorists understand it. The center of gravity isn’t to be moral. It’s to terrify the enemy into changing his way of life. It is utterly effective.
“The system, as it is currently run, simply doesn’t work. There is no effort at equality. There will never be equality, of course. There never has been. But there is supposed to be a movement toward it. Things should get a little better. But they don’t. Seven hundred years ago an Aztec peasant was brutalized by his priest-kings. Five hundred years ago he was massacred by the Spaniards. And ten years ago he was oppressed by the aristocrats. No, it’s not working. It’s a puzzle without a solution. I’m going to break it. This country is the key. And the key to this country is its economy.”
Jack parked the truck in front of Smiley Lopez’s house. He’d crossed the east-west access of Los Angeles on Mulholland Drive, riding the spine of the Santa Monica Mountains to avoid as much traffic as possible. The Dodge’s bullet-ridden back window — not to mention the dead body crammed in the leg area of the cab — were bound to attract the attention of any policemen who saw it.
Smiley Lopez was sauntering out of his house by the time Jack exited the truck. The gang leader wore a plaid shirt over his wife-beater now. His thumbs were stuck in his pockets and he walked belly first, nodding his head admiringly.
“No shit,” he said. “You got the stuff.”
Jack nodded. “And I brought you a present.” He opened the passenger door. Franko’s dead face stared out at them.
“No shit,” Lopez said again. “You gotta come work for me full-time, homes.”
Jack shook his head. “Zapata.”
Lopez clicked his tongue. “Come inside.”
He turned and walked up the steps with Jack close behind.
“You know, that
“You guys do him favors?” Jack asked. “We don’t do favors for nobody,” Lopez retorted. He opened the front door. “He pays.”
They walked inside. Jack saw another gang-banger standing by the couch. It took him a moment to realize it was Oscar, and that Oscar was holding a gun.
“Hey,
“How could you let that happen!” Ryan Chappelle fumed.
Peter Jiminez blushed. “I blew it.”
“No!” the Regional Director said sarcastically.
“He sandbagged me. He gave up so easy, I didn’t expect any trouble—” Chappelle sneered. “You fell asleep and put this whole mission in jeopardy.” “Not to mention one of our agents,” added Christopher Henderson, hovering nearby.
“Is. is there any word?” Jiminez asked timidly.
“No,” Henderson replied. “We can only hope for the best.”
Jack felt the pressure of the gun tucked in his waistband, but he knew he couldn’t get to it in time. Lopez was standing to his right. He’d have to go for the gang leader and hope Oscar was afraid to shoot his boss.
“I got out, too,” Oscar said. “But no one seemed to care much about me.”
“Funny thing, though,” Lopez added, “somebody wants you dead, and they pay for it. So I figure now that we have the tina, we just—”
Jack lunged to his right. Oscar squeezed off one round and then, as Jack expected, he stopped as the line of fire swept across Lopez. Jack wrapped his left arm around Lopez’s neck and ducked behind him as he drew the Glock.
“Go back to jail, Oscar,” Jack said. “I’m through just beating you up.”
Oscar’s eyes widened and he shouted something in Spanish. Lopez replied angrily in the same language until Jack choked off the reply. “I’m counting to three,” Jack warned Oscar, who continued to point the gun at him.
“One. ” He fired. Oscar’s head snapped back and he fell. Before he hit the ground, Jack punched the muzzle of the Glock into Lopez’s temple and shoved him forward. The Salvatrucha stumbled and turned around to face Jack and the gun.
“I’m done playing with you,” Jack stated. “I want Zapata.”
“I’m not telling you sh—”
Jack shot him in the foot. Lopez screamed and kicked his foot back in pain, falling onto his side and clutching his foot, pouring a stream of Spanish obscenities. Jack moved forward and put his knee on the Salvatrucha’s chest, pressing the gun against his cheek. “Last chance.”
“Risdow!” Lopez said with the pistol jammed into his face. “Kyle Risdow.” Jack kept his knee down but eased the pressure off the gun. “Who is he?”
“No fucking idea!” Lopez practically sobbed. The bullet had shattered his foot. “Zapata doesn’t tell me shit. I just heard the name once.”
Jack smacked Lopez’s forehead. “Who hired Oscar to kill me?”
But Lopez was too busy crying in pain. Jack patted him down to make sure he had no weapons, although the gang-banger looked too far gone to be a threat. He pulled his cell phone out.
Ryan Chappelle took Bauer’s call. “What have you got?”
“Kyle Risdow,” Jack said. “Run that name and tell me where to go. Also, send someone over here. I’ve got someone here who knows who’s trying to kill me.”
Chappelle paused. Almeida and Myers were still in Marina del Rey, along with most of Henderson’s field agents. He didn’t have many choices. He put the phone back to his ear. “I’m sending Peter Jiminez.”
A few minutes later, Jamey Farrell was watching her screen fill up with information on Kyle Risdow. There were six of them in the Los Angeles area, but Jamey began to weed them out quickly. Two of them were grandfathers. One was mentally disabled. Two others were incarcerated in Folsom and Chico, respectively. The last one lived in Temescal Canyon.
Jack couldn’t wait for Peter to arrive. He pulled Oscar’s belt off his corpse and used it to strap Lopez’s hands behind his back. He didn’t worry about the feet.
He found two sets of keys on the coffee table next to a wide flat ashtray. He took both sets out back where
