State of War

going to play it. He squatted and picked up a handful of gravel from around the base of the building next to him, using his left hand. With his other hand he pulled his right-side Ruger.

Edging out of the dark, he stayed low and duckwalked toward the guard. He angled to his left a little, so the guard would stay backlit by the office lights. He was still thirty feet or so away when the guard reached the door and, after checking it out, got ready to shove it open.

Junior softly tossed the gravel at the wall to the man’s left, underhanded, and came up from his squat and into his isosceles stance.

The little rocks, all pea-sized or smaller, pattered against the metal siding like a sudden gust of hard rain, making a lot of noise in the quiet night.

GuardMan was wired tight. He twisted fast, lit the wall up with the flash — and it was bright, even not pointing at Junior, who had slitted his eyes tight to protect his night vision. Had to be bad on the guard’s eyes. The guy held the light and his weapon right at chest-level, textbook perfect.

The guy started to sweep the light his way—

Junior had already brought his left hand over to cup his right; now he shoved the revolver out like he was punching somebody in the throat, and yelled, “How’s your sister?!”

The guard was good. He never paused to think about that, but came on around, that big ole floodlight beam of his leading, but Junior started pulling the trigger as soon as he yelled, indexing his hold just above the flashlight and walking his aim up. Three double-taps, pow-pow! to the high chest, pow-pow! to the neck, pow-pow! to where he figured the guy’s head had to be—

— the guard’s pistol roared, adding its yellow-orange blast to the bright light. A.45, like Junior figured.

Between the flashlight and the muzzle blast, Junior’s night vision was pretty well shot, but he wasn’t hit — he wasn’t hit! A moment later the light fell, and then the guy did, too. Junior heard him thump hard on the concrete, and the guard’s shot, wherever it went, hadn’t hit him!

Junior came up from his crouch, holstered the empty gun with his right hand as he drew the full one with his left, fast and smooth like he had practiced a thousand times. He hurried forward, ready to cook again if the guy moved, but when he got there, he could see in the reflected gleam of the still-lit tactical light on the ground that the guy was done. Had a vest on, GuardMan did, and if it was as good as the rest of his gear, it stopped the first two rounds, but the higher ones got him. Junior saw three entry holes, one in the neck just under the chin, one in the right cheekbone, the last one into the hairline on the same side. An inch or two higher and that last one would have missed. One of his six had missed, but so what? In the dark like that, five were enough, especially with three of them hitting paydirt. He’d take it.

Junior’s breath came and went like an express train flying down a steep grade. He forced himself to slow it some, but his heart kept pounding hard. It was true what he had heard. There was nothing in the world that felt as good as being shot at and not hit, nothing like it!

Especially when you took out the guy shooting at you.

He saluted the dead man. “Bon soir, ma frien. See you in Hell.”

Junior turned and hurried to his car.

Washington, D.C.

Mitchell Ames decided that, as long as he was in town, he might as well make a different set of rounds. He always had business he could do here in the nation’s capital. You didn’t get big things done without making connections here. He had a few lawyers, a couple of doctors, and several senators and congressmen he wanted to touch base with, and he spent the rest of the day and evening doing just that.

He had sent his assistant back to New York, so he was at loose ends for dinner. On a whim, he called Cory Skye’s number. She answered on the second ring.

“Mitchell. How are you?”

“Fine,” he said. “Actually, I’m in D.C. on business.”

“Really? Are you free for dinner?”

“As it happens, yes.”

“Let me take you to Mel’s. It’s a new Northwest Cuisine place, fresh crab, planked salmon, that kind of thing. I think you’d really like it.”

“Great. What time?”

“Ten okay? It doesn’t start to clear out before then. You have a car?”

“Yes.”

“Good. I’ve got some business over drinks. Why don’t I just meet you there?”

“Sounds fine. Ten it is.”

After she discommed, he grinned at the phone and slipped it back into his jacket pocket. She was bringing her own transportation, so she was still keeping her options open. He liked that. No reason to hurry this. He had gotten a preliminary report from his investigators on her, and so far he liked what he’d heard.

Corinna Louise Skye, parents Holland George Skye and Gwendolyn Marie Sherman Skye, who lived full-time in Aspen, Colorado. Her father was a retired corporation president, her mother a college professor, also retired. No siblings for Cory. She’d gone to school at Columbia and graduated first in her class with a major in political science. She had gotten into lobbying after working on Marty Spencer’s winning senatorial campaign two terms back and had been immediately successful at it. She was beautiful, personable, bright, educated, and had, as far as he could tell, gotten to the top on her own — she’d never slept with a current client, nor with anybody she’d been lobbying. A member of Mensa, decent chess player, scratch golfer, and a qualified aerobics instructor. She had done a little sky-diving, some hang-gliding, and she liked to ski.

Her love life was somewhat sparse, and it appeared she tended to go for active men. She’d had brief affairs with a fireman while she was in college; an Olympic-class cross-country skier in Aspen; and, most recently, just a year or so back, a police detective-lieutenant in D.C. Nothing since that he’d been able to find. Jocks and authority figures.

Ames had noticed that kind of thing before. Sometimes, among intellectual women, there was a fondness for men with physical attributes, with a different kind of power, as if that somehow balanced things. Well, he wasn’t in bad shape, he certainly could run with her when it came to brainpower, and she seemed to enjoy his company.

He wanted her, and he was used to getting what he wanted. Determination counted for a lot. In fact, most of the time, determination to achieve a goal was more important than anything else. Given two people chasing the same rabbit, the man who wanted it the most had the edge.

The next report he was to get on dear Cory should include specifics on what kind of entertainment she liked — what DVDs she rented, movies she downloaded, plays, operas, concerts she went to, and the like. It would also tell him where she shopped, what brands she liked, what her favorite toothpaste was. All the little things would become his. The devil was in the details, and nobody knew that better than Ames.

Cory Skye was going to find herself on the receiving end of a lobbying effort unlike any she had ever known. When somebody knew everything that could be found out about you, that man could be a formidable opponent, especially when that man was an expert in waging winning campaigns for the hearts and minds of supposedly unbiased jurors.

Ames knew how people worked, mentally, socially, psychologically, and physically. He went after what he wanted, and he didn’t fail to get it.

He wasn’t planning to start now.

18

Washington, D.C.

Alex Michaels was in the garage, beginning another light workout. It was almost eight o’clock. Toni was bathing the baby, and Guru was cooking supper. Alex had to admit that the old lady’s Indonesian recipes had been pretty good, so far, at least.

Michaels was still stretching when Guru stuck her head out and said, “Telephone for you.” She tossed the