State of War

cheap, disposable digital cellulars. Whichever ones weren’t used by the end of the week were crushed and trashed, and never anywhere near Ames’s residences.

Every clandestine call Ames made or received was on a two-hour throwaway. Since there was no way to trace them to him, there was no real need to worry about encryption. To be safe, though — and Ames was always very, very careful — they talked in a sort of code, even on these throwaways. Junior would call and say something like, “Your order is ready,” or “We’ve had to back order that item,” and that would be enough.

If they needed a longer conversation, or something that couldn’t be said in code, they would do it face-to- face. Ames had more than one safe location, each with enough antibugging electronics going so that if Junior had suddenly taken it upon himself to use a hidden wire, Ames would know it before the first word was spoken.

He’d met Junior at a shooting range and had carefully checked him out and cultivated him before… activating him. He was a rough tool, but he was greedy enough to be useful. If he stepped out of line, Ames would simply erase him and find another cat’s paw.

And even if Junior ever decided to try to blackmail Ames — or, more likely, if he got caught and tried to use Ames to cut a deal — he had nothing solid to give up. Like the leader of a good pickpocket team, Ames never held a stolen wallet any longer than it took to transfer it to a confederate. All his dealings with the man were in cash, and nobody save Bryce, who would spend ten years in jail before he said a word against Ames, knowing he’d retire rich when he got out, ever saw Junior and Ames together.

So Ames was as safe as he could make himself. Which was good, because Junior was important to his plan. Not irreplaceable, but very important.

Ames had never seen anybody as good with a handgun in a hurry, snub-nosed revolvers at that, and he’d been a shooter himself for most of his forty-six years. A man who could shoot, and who would shoot who you wanted him to, was an extremely valuable tool. You just had to be careful that you didn’t cut yourself using him.

He washed the greens, put them into the electric centrifuge, and hit the button to spin the water away. The machine’s whirr rose in volume, and the scent of the slightly bruised greens wafted to his nostrils. Ah.

Well. Enough about Junior. Corinna Skye was a much more pleasant subject upon which to dwell. After their drink to discuss her further lobbying efforts on behalf of CyberNation, he knew he had to spend some time and energy on her.

He smiled at the double entendre and went to collect the fresh baby carrots. No matter what season of the year it was in New York, it was always harvest somewhere in the world…

Halethorpe, Maryland

Junior was at a drugstore not far from the U of M Baltimore campus, just off I-95, and just a little bit nervous.

He smiled at that, laughing at himself. Big Bad Boudreaux.

He shook his head. A little nervous? The sweat was practically coming off him in buckets, and he kept wiping his hands on his jeans. It would be really stupid to die just because he was so scared he couldn’t get a grip on his piece.

The cop didn’t have to worry about that. He wouldn’t even know he was in trouble until it was too late to get sweaty.

There came the car now, a single police officer in it just like the last two nights. The drugstore’s parking lot was dark, a timer had shut the outside lights off at ten P.M. The inside lights were all dialed way down low, too. Thanks to conservation efforts, cities were a whole lot darker than they used to be. Tonight, though, Junior was glad for that.

The squad car went through the lot of the all-night restaurant across the street. The place looked just like a Denny’s, but its sign said Pablo’s instead, no doubt catering to the ex-Cubanos who had recently moved into the neighborhood. Junior didn’t have anything against those people. Back when he was a teenager, he’d bought his booze at a place called Cuban Liquors, down in Louisiana, and they’d always treated him okay.

The cop looped out of the parking lot and came across the street. There was a pay phone on the front of the drugstore, one of those little half-booths attached to the side of the building, but there was no light to speak of. Junior had busted that out earlier. Still, there was enough glow from the store to see somebody was standing there, even if you couldn’t tell much about who it was.

The cruiser came across the street like a prowling cat, and pulled into the drugstore lot. The building sat kind of down in a little hollow, lower than the roads to the south and east of it, and the pay phone was behind the corner of the building. The combination didn’t let the headlight shine on the phone when the cop pulled in. The only way to get a light directly on Junior would be if he looped wide from the driveway and turned in toward the front of the place. The cop hadn’t done that either of the two previous evenings until he was ready to leave.

Junior wiped his hands again. It wasn’t too late to bail out. He could still pick up the receiver and pretend to be talking, just a guy who had to use the phone late at night. Maybe his wasn’t working in his apartment, or maybe he was behind on the bill and they’d shut it off. No law against that, just being here to use the phone. The cop would mark him, but probably drive by.

But, no. If he didn’t do it now, he never would. He knew that. He had been arrested for simple assault a couple times, and he’d done a nickel for ADW. He had even been busted once for murder, but had gotten off — he should have, since he hadn’t done it — but he never told anybody that he hadn’t, even his lawyer, so people thought he had skated for a killing. They figured a smart lawyer had gotten off another guilty man, and more power to the mouthpiece. That gave Junior the rep, and it had paid a lot of freight. When serious folks wanted a bodyguard, they wanted a man who wouldn’t be afraid to drop the hammer when the guns came out, and they thought he had already done it. He’d talked the talk for so long, he had ’em all fooled. They thought he was a killer, but he couldn’t fool himself any longer.

Junior had never killed anybody. Never even shot at anyone. Not for real. Sure, he had beaten more than a few bloody, and had waved his guns a lot to intimidate people, but he’d never actually killed anybody.

And that ate at him. It made him feel… hollow, somehow. He knew he could squeeze the trigger, if it came down to it. He knew it. But he never had.

Time to walk the walk, Junior, or else shut the hell up.

He was scared, no question about that. But he was ready. He knew that, too.

The cop idled the cruiser into the parking lot. It was a big Crown Vic, the car version of Jaws.

He saw the cop spot him. He could see his face in the lights from the computer screen on the car’s dash.

Junior could have picked up the phone, now was the time, but he didn’t. He just stood and stared.

Cops were used to seeing people look at them, but there were citizen looks and then there were the “up- yours” looks. Junior was giving him one of those. No cop could let that pass, not in the middle of the night, not one on one, not unless he was a wimp.

The cop in the Crown Vic was no wimp.

He pulled over and stopped in the driveway twenty-five feet away. The door opened and the cop, maybe thirty or so, stepped out. He had his big aluminum head-basher flashlight in his left hand, but he didn’t shine it at Junior. Not yet.

“Good evening,” the cop said. “Something wrong with the phone?”

Junior took a deep breath. The little sleeveless nylon vest he wore had half a box of bullets in each of the side pockets, enough to give them some weight so he could clear them with a little buck and wiggle of his hips. The two Rugers were underneath the vest, secure in their holsters, as ready as they would ever be.

Shit or get off the pot, Junior.

“Nope, no trouble with it,” Junior said. His voice sounded pretty calm. He was worried it might break, but it was okay. “I wasn’t usin’ it anyway, no.”

Junior saw the cop shift into a higher state of alertness. He edged his right hand back toward the pistol in his holster. Junior knew it was a Glock, probably a 22C in a.40 S&W, ten rounds in the magazine, one in the pipe, three-and-a-half-pound pull and not the heavier New York trigger. More gun than Junior’s, way more. It would knock a man down ninety-five times out of a hundred with any solid hit.

But that didn’t matter, not if Junior was better.

“Hey, let me ask you somethin’.” Junior took a couple of steps toward the cop. Twenty feet. Eighteen.