He was on his way out when his gaze happened to fall on the stack of coasters, which were discs that seemed to him larger than normal. He went through each one in the stack, but they were precisely what they purported to be.
Then he picked up the coaster with the water stain and turned it over. There, winking up at him with its rainbow glimmers, was the slick surface of a DVD.
THIRTY
THE SAFEHOUSE was a three-story building on the corner of a quiet residential street. An alley along one side revealed a wall almost completely covered with mature ivy vines. There was a streetlight at the rear, but it wasn’t on. The other side of the house overlooked a narrow, heavily shaded street. The windows had been boarded up. At the rear was what looked and smelled like an open sewer. As they had crossed the city, they had observed periodic blackouts; many of the intersections were in chaos. Homemade banners announced student protests starting at dawn.
“There’s only one way to do this,” Alli said when she, Thate, and Vasily had completed their surveillance circuit of Xhafa’s safehouse. “You take me in.”
“Impossible,” Thate said at once.
Vasily watched the two of them with complete impassivity.
“The place is a virtual fortress,” Alli said. “There’s only one way in or out. What’s our other alternative, to let Vasily bull his way in?”
Thate licked his lips nervously.
“As far as these people know you’re part of Xhafa’s American operation. You have the medallion, you know the code words. You’ll bring me in as a new cherry.”
Thate grinned suddenly. “More like a cherry bomb.”
Alli turned to Vasily. “Do you have a better idea?”
“Once you’re inside, I can’t help you,” he said.
“But you can,” Alli said. “Give us—what, Thate?—fifteen minutes, then create a diversion.”
“A big one,” Thate added.
Vasily flexed his muscles and hefted the flamethrower he’d salvaged from the military vehicle. “No fucking problem.”
“Okay, then.” Thate glanced from one to the other. “Let’s synchronize watches.”
WHEN ALAN Fraine was a decade younger, he was a successful hostage negotiator. Before that, he was the best sharpshooter Metro had seen for more than twenty years. People inside the department still talked about him and the string of astonishing hits he’d made without ever harming a civilian even though some of them were standing right next to or right in front of his target.
Stepping up off the street had been a mixed blessing. It had brought with it a higher salary, an entree into the inner circle of Metro police, as well as an opportunity to come to the mayor’s attention, never a bad thing in the highly politicized atmosphere of D.C. Occasionally, though, when he played poker with the mayor, or with his belly full with rich food, he felt a shadow of sadness pass through him, as memories of his salad days surfaced, and he turned briefly melancholy.
Following his electrifying phone conversation with Dennis Paull, he’d got to work, pulling together a team of experts from all divisions of Metro—a half-dozen men he knew personally and trusted implicitly.
They had no difficulty locating John Pawnhill. Almost immediately, they reported that he was traveling with a crew of three—an antisurveillance team. So he ordered his men up onto the rooftops. He himself and one of his team rode Harleys, dressed in Hell’s Angels leathers they had borrowed from the impound room at HQ.
The moment Pawnhill pick-locked his way into Billy Warren’s building, Fraine gave the order for his men to go to work. In short order, they had picked up all three of Pawnhill’s men. He spent a fruitless thirty minutes interrogating them.
“This is useless, they won’t give me anything,” he said when he’d turned away from the third of the men. “Tony, take them down to HQ for arraignment.”
“On what charge?” Tony said.
“Suspicion of terrorism,” Fraine said. “A matter of national security, so no calls whatsoever.”
“Got it.” Tony passed them off to the patrol officers they’d called in.
“Go with them,” Fraine said. “I don’t want any fuckups.”
“Yessir.”
Fraine returned his attention to the rear of Billy Warren’s building. Then a thought struck him and he turned back. “Tony, on second thought keep them here. I want them in a lineup.”
Tony laughed.
THATE’S ABSOLUTE calmness served to keep Alli’s mind clear as they approached the front of the safehouse. Apart from the two men lounging on the steps, it didn’t look much different than the other residences on this fringe of the city.
The guards rose, their bodies tensing, as Thate approached with Alli in tow. She was squirming, trying to get away from him. Her fear and anxiety, expertly feigned, had the expected effect on the guards. They smiled and engaged Thate in a short exchange, during which Thate produced his pendant. Another even terser conversation ensued, which Alli assumed was an exchange of code phrases.
She must have been right because one of the guards nodded and went up the stairs while Thate dragged her along. The guard unlocked the door. As she passed alongside him, he gave her a hard pinch. Snarling, she lunged at him, and bit off the lobe of his ear.
He yelped, the other guard came running, and Thate kicked him hard in the groin. He went to his knees without a sound, and Thate drove the heel of his shoe into the side of his head. At the same time, Alli slammed the heel of her hand into the bleeding guard’s mouth, then drove her knee into his solar plexus. As he went down, she took his head in her hands and smacked it against the side of the door frame.
They went inside, closing the door behind them.
PAWNHILL OPENED the attache case and thumbed the laptop out of sleep mode, inserted the DVD, and had a look. Sure enough, the Gemini Holdings account data was there. Enormously relieved, he closed the attache case and pressed the metal tabs home one at a time.
Exiting the apartment, he made sure the front door was locked before he closed it. In the stairwell, he took off his hood and booties, but kept the gloves on. The same radio was playing, the music louder now. The baby had returned to squalling. The stairwell smelled of cold pizza and the grease that’s left in a bucket of KFC when the chicken is eaten.
Down on the first floor, he stood very still, listening for any anomalous noise. Hearing none, he pulled the locking lever down, opened the rear door, and stepped out. The moment he did so, a thin man in Hell’s Angels leathers appeared.
“Mr. Pawnhill.” He gestured. “Walk with me.”
Pawnhill said, “Do I know you?”
“You will,” Fraine said.
Pawnhill shook his head. “I don’t think so.”
Fraine pulled back the flap of leather jacket to show his service revolver.
Smiling with his teeth, Pawnhill revealed the Sig Sauer in its shoulder holster.
“You don’t want a shoot-out,” Fraine said.
Pawnhill moved his hand toward the butt of the Sig Sauer. “You ever see
“Actually, it’s a favorite of mine. But that won’t happen today.” Fraine called and two Metro officers paraded Pawnhill’s team, hands behind their heads, into view.
“You’re out of uniform,” Pawnhill said.
