conversation several weeks ago as Haddad had waited outside his doorway. He could remember nothing else about what had been said; it hadn’t seemed important. But that word-now that he’d heard it again-came back to him with clarity. And it troubled him.
Was this something else Zuabi was keeping from him?
He looked at the Turk. “This is nonsense. There is no Operation Roadshow.”
“Why would I lie? You have my life in your hands.”
Haddad pressed the knife against the Turk’s throat again as if to prove that point. “Then where did you hear about it?”
“I… I don’t remember. On the street. People talk…”
“What people?”
“I told you, I don’t remember.”
“And I don’t believe you,” Haddad said. “Tell me now or I swear to Allah-”
Suddenly, the Turk brought his left elbow up hard, digging it into Haddad’s chin. Pain tunneled through Haddad as he stumbled back, loosening his grip on the knife. Before he could recover, the Turk jumped to his feet and shot a hand out, grabbing hold of the bigger man’s wrist, twisting so that the joint was bent with the force of the Turk on one side, the weight of Haddad’s body on the other. It was a basic combat technique, simple and debilitating.
The nerves inside Haddad’s arm caught fire and the knife fell free, clattering on the floor.
The Turk may have been small, but that was an advantage in the confined space. Throwing another elbow, he connected with Haddad’s temple, causing both ears to ring. Then he squirmed around him, kicked Haddad from behind-sending him belly-down on the floor-and made a mistake. Instead of running out the door, the Turk looked for the knife.
It was under Haddad.
Scooping it up and scrambling to his feet, Haddad spun and tackled the Turk by the legs, taking him down just short of the door. Rolling the Turk over, he straddled the man, pinning his arms with his knees as he pressed the knife against the smaller man’s jugular.
“ Why were you following me?”
“Die in hell!” the Turk spat, struggling beneath him.
Haddad smacked him across the face. “You first! Tell me who you work for!”
Suddenly, to Haddad’s surprise, the Turk stopped fighting. There was a quiet rage in his eyes and Haddad knew he would get nothing from him.
Nothing at all.
The Turk said softly, “May Allah condemn you for what you are about to-”
Haddad didn’t let him finish the sentence.
He uttered a prayer as he thrust the knife into the man’s throat, dragging it deeply along the jawline.
10
San Francisco, California
“So what is this, Jack? Some kind of black thing?”
Maxine no longer had stitches in the side of her face, but the mark they’d left behind still looked raw and painful. She was driving at a fairly good clip, headed south on Van Ness, Jack in the passenger seat.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“You think because I look like everyone else in the hood, I’ve got the key to the kingdom?”
Jack could tell by the tone of her voice that she was only half serious, but now that she’d put it out there he had to respond.
“Correct me if I’m wrong,” he said, “but you did grow up in the Dale, right?”
Max stopped at a red light. “Fourteen years of hell before my mom got a job that paid her enough money to move us out of that dung heap.”
“So what’s the problem? This is more about knowing the territory than anything else. Although you have to admit this Jamal kid is more likely to talk to you than me.”
She gestured to the side of her face. “You almost got me killed once. Isn’t that enough?”
Jack smiled. “We run into any trouble, I figure they’ll be too mesmerized by your beauty to do anything stupid.”
“They call that a bulletproof marshmallow,” she said.
“Say again?”
“Someone soft and tasty that they’re not going to hurt.”
“I like that,” Jack said. “Besides, you know how to handle yourself.”
Max had proven that more than once. Most recently, when she was shooting footage of the dock workers’ strike, one of the union apes had threatened to hurt her and break her camera. The moment the goon made his move, Max sidestepped him and drove the ridge side of her hand into his exposed Adam’s apple without skipping a beat-or losing a frame.
She shot Jack a look. “You’re on crack, you know that? Have you ever even been to Sunnydale?”
“It’s not part of my usual routine, no.”
“So you really have no idea what you’re asking me to do here.”
Jack had to admit he didn’t. He’d heard stories about the place. But he’d also spent time on the streets of Baghdad so how bad could it really be?
“Besides, what makes you think the kid will be up and about?” she asked. “Hasn’t he got a couple of busted limbs?”
“Yes, and that’s why he’ll be out struttin’.”
“I’ll bite. How do you figure that?”
“The kid was obviously trying to impress a gang,” Jack said. “He blew it, totaled the jacked car and didn’t waste the owner. Two strikes. So how does he save face?”
“By sucking up the pain and showing off his injuries.”
“Exactly,” Jack said.
Max shook her head. Jack didn’t know if she admired his thinking or just thought he was crazy.
“You didn’t have to come along, you know,” he reminded her. “You could’ve stayed home.”
Max sighed. “ Somebody’s gotta protect you from yourself. And when have I ever told you no?”
“I can think of a couple times.”
The light turned green and Jack saw a flicker of a smile on Max’s lips as she rolled her eyes, then faced forward and hit the gas. “You’re lucky I did, Casanova. You wouldn’t know how to handle me.”
Jack grinned. “Neither will the gangstas in Sunnydale.”
It was less than half an hour before sunset when Max turned onto Sunnydale Avenue. Jack immediately understood her trepidation and started having second thoughts about asking her to come along.
The place was a lot worse than he had expected.
The Sunnydale Projects were built during the Second World War as military housing-a square mile of sturdy new cinder-block buildings sandwiched between the McLaren Park golf course and the Cow Palace, home to the Grand National Rodeo.
The place was turned into low-income housing in the 1970s, but the buildings were never renovated. By the time Max was born, what was left were several blocks full of decrepit, tumbledown hovels with peeling paint, bad plumbing, worse electricity, and enough rats and roaches to keep a fleet of exterminators busy for a dozen years.
Now, despite promises by government officials to clean the place up, the Dale was considered one of the top ten areas to avoid in the city, where murders were frequent and muggings were an everyday occurrence. Over sixteen hundred people were crammed into these neighborhoods, many of them for generations. And most of them
