wanted to call his mother, they would pay for the call. Anywhere in the world. But they would be listening. They were sure, the leader said, that he could understand their desire to protect their investment.

They would send a whore to him whenever he wanted one, provided he never let her see the prisoner or even hinted that there was a prisoner being held there. And the whores were much classier hookers than the ones he had enjoyed while working with Adrianos. At first he had taken a lot of advantage of that perk, but even his appetite for whores seemed to be waning these days.

As happened on visiting days-when one of the four strangers would stop by-the prisoner’s morphine had been cut back. Sometimes, if he wasn’t waking up fast enough, Julio gave the prisoner a low-dosage injection of an amphetamine. That would counteract the morphine’s effects for a while. Julio was so tired of this routine, he was tempted to go in there and kill the prisoner himself, and tell whichever of his bosses who showed up today that the man had tried to escape. But he wasn’t going to blow five million-six, if you counted his mother’s share-by being impatient.

He heard the prisoner pacing. He watched him on a security camera. It had bothered him a little at first that he was going to spend time watching a naked guy night and day, but by now it hardly registered with him.

He understood the man’s restlessness. At first, whenever he was awake, the prisoner had ranted about wanting his lawyer. Julio wondered if the guy had finally figured out that it wasn’t the good old cops who had him now. Then again, where he came from, maybe this was the way the cops treated all their prisoners.

Watching the news, Julio figured he had a good idea what was going on. Adrianos had been on the FBI’s Most Wanted list. The prisoner was on it, too. His name was Farid Atvar, and he was one of those fucking terrorist assholes, one of the few who were on both the top ten and the special list for terrorists.

The day he had learned that, Julio, who was not unpatriotic, had been ready to go in there and fucking put Farid’s lights out permanently, and to hell with the money. He had no patience for these head cases, these so- called religious men who blew up buildings and shit like that in the name of God.

That was bullshit, anyway, Julio thought. Who the hell would be dumb enough to worship a god that wanted you to do senseless crap like that? You didn’t do shit like that because of God. Julio figured this kind of guy must embarrass the hell out Arabs who really did believe in Allah, the way some of those preachers on television embarrassed Christians.

Julio never would believe anybody bombed anything on account of God. No. You blew things up because you were a powerless little fuck who found another bunch of dickless wonders and let lunatics who hid themselves half a world away talk the group of you into being suicide attackers. You let them do it because they were good at mind games, and they knew exactly what you thought of yourself-that you and your useless life weren’t worth the paper you used to wipe your ass. Well, they got that part right, at least.

Julio had no respect for them at all. He had done his share of killing, but he had killed to live, because his life was worth something. Somebody came toward the man he was protecting, he knew it, he was there. He was ready for you-bring it on.

At least, that’s the way it was before. Now, who knew what he’d do when he was done with this job?

Well, he’d deal with that when the time came. But no matter what happened to him, he’d never blame God. The way Julio figured it, God was this guy at the show, and when it was your time to leave the stage, adios. While you were on the stage, go for it, but just keep in mind you weren’t writing the play-He was. And He loved a good laugh. As for encores, well, Julio would wait and see.

He’d had a lot of time to think about these things lately, whenever he wasn’t playing video games or watching porn.

He watched the news, too, which was usually just about as repetitive as the porn. When he kept hearing about the dead guys from the Most Wanted list, he figured he was fly to the time of day. His new bosses were sick of the cops being so lame. They were rich boys trying to prove they had balls. He wasn’t sure they were all that different from the prisoner. Really, didn’t they get that there were just going to be ten more brand-spanking-new assholes on the Most Wanted list? There were already new ones taking the places of Adrianos and the others. What did they think was going to happen-the country would run out of criminals?

Crazy.

But he didn’t mind taking their money to help them do their bit while they were front and center stage. No one was going to connect him with it, or by the time they did, he’d be long gone. Even if he was caught, what could they accuse him of-holding this guy hostage? A guy who planted a bomb on an Oceanside bus-a bus that he knew young marines often took to get back to Camp Pendleton at the end of leave? Who killed three kids and half a dozen retirees at the same time? Shit, Julio thought. More likely he’d get a medal for keeping the bastard from planning some other fucking bombing.

He was pretty sure his bosses would get away with it somehow, too-they had money. He hadn’t seen a hell of a lot of wealthy people punished in his day, unless they fucked with other wealthy people. These guys were killing people everybody hated.

To keep himself from going in and killing Farid just to make God laugh His ass off, Julio always tried to call Farid “the prisoner” in his mind. He figured he earned his five mil by self-restraint.

He stood up and stretched, and got ready for a visit from one of the four. Chill-his name for the boss of them all, as cold a bastard as he had ever met-had called but hadn’t said who would be coming by. He never did.

Julio went up to the roof. The prisoner didn’t have a prayer-no matter who he prayed it to-of getting out of his cell, and there wasn’t a thing in there that could be used for a suicide attempt. But Julio took a little portable monitor with him anyway.

He watched until he saw a van approaching. It wasn’t the usual one, but he caught a glimpse of the driver and recognized him. So, it was the Surfer this time. Julio went downstairs.

The Surfer was wearing a suit, looking exactly like a guy who puts on suits only for funerals and weddings. But Julio didn’t think that was what was bothering him as he watched the prisoner on the monitor.

His voice was kind of high-pitched when he said, “I thought he was supposed to be drugged.”

“My instructions were to sober him up,” Julio said.

The kid-really, he was no more than a kid-looked at him, and Julio saw that he was scared shitless.

“What’s supposed to happen here?” Julio asked, his tone inviting confidences.

“I’m supposed to kill him.”

God, the kid looked like he was gonna barf just saying it.

“You ever done anything like that before?”

He thought he knew the answer, but the kid surprised him. “Yes.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, but-I just helped.”

Julio found himself suppressing an urge to laugh. “You want me to help you? It would be my pleasure.”

For a moment, he thought the kid was going to say yes, but in the end he shook his head.

“What would you like me to do?” Julio asked.

“Just let me in there, and-and watch. If there’s any trouble…”

“Help you out.”

“Yes.”

The entrance to the prisoner’s cell was through a triple set of doors, each with a short hall between them. The doors were heavily reinforced. Julio let the Surfer into the first door. The Surfer waited in the hallway while Julio closed and locked the first door.

Julio went over to the monitor closest to the door and watched.

The Surfer entered a code that released the electronic lock on the second door. He closed it behind him, and entered the code again, locking it. He stepped up to the third door.

On the days when he was not fed intravenously, the prisoner received his meager rations through a slot in this door. The Surfer leaned over and called through it, “Mr. Atvar? I’m an attorney with the ACLU.”

Julio wondered if it was the drugs that made the prisoner start crying. He was shouting some stuff that Julio thought might be prayers, and saying, “Help me, help me, please.”

“Maybe some of those people on that bus wished someone would help them,” Julio said.

But when the Surfer stepped into the room, the prisoner said, “You? You are no lawyer. You are too young.”

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