Rage burst like a hollow point in Baker's brain. He gunned the engine and the car leaped forward.
"No!" Muhallal shouted. He grabbed Baker's arm. "No! Stop the car! I do not wish them to know we are here!"
"No way! I owe that motherfu—"
"Stop immediately or you are fired!" Muhallal said.
Baker knew from the Arab's tone that he meant it. Shit. He eased up on the gas pedal and watched the two figures hurry away along the sidewalk.
"But they've been in the house," he said, so pissed his hands were twitching on the steering wheel. "They probably stole something! Don't you want it back?"
Baker didn't give a furry rat's ass about what they might've taken. All he wanted was to get his hands on that rotten lousy—
"If they stole a "thing" Muhallal said, "then yes, of course I want it back. And I will get it back. But if they are walking away with information—information that I do not have—then I want that even more."
"I don't get it." He wished he knew what the hell this was all about.
Muhallal pointed through the windshield at the street ahead. "Follow them. But do not let them see you. If he takes her home, we will follow him to where he lives and learn what he knows. If they drive somewhere else, then we must know where they go. We must not let them get away."
"Don't worry about that," Baker said, easing the car into motion. "Where she goes, we go."
"You are so sure?"
"Yep. Real sure." He couldn't help but grin. "That little ride we took her on last week:—you know, the 'idiotic stunt' you hated so much? It wasn't completely worthless. I didn't tell you at the time, but I planted a tracer in the bottom of that shoulder bag she always carries. No place she can go that we can't find her."
The Arab didn't comment.
What's the matter? Baker thought. Camel got your tongue?
He picked up the cell phone.
"Who are you calling?" the Arab said.
"The guys who were supposed to keep them out of the house."
Still no answer. He hung up after the sixth ring.
If Mott and Richards were busy working someone over, it was the wrong guy—the right guy was walking up the street.
This could be bad. Very bad.
Baker dialed Kenny's number. He might need some backup on this. Ahab the Ay-rab sure as shit wasn't going to be any help.
But who else in his crew to call? Hell, call them all. Get every damn one of them involved. Have them bring the tracking electronics and come loaded for bear.
Some serious ass gonna get kicked tonight.
12
Yoshio waited until Kemel Muhallal and his mercenary were at the end of the block before he pulled away from the curb and followed. He had been expecting them, but had hoped the Clayton woman and her investigator would be gone by the time Muhallal arrived.
But the Arab had spotted them and now was following.
Yoshio wondered if he would be forced to intervene again.
He had seen the two guards regain consciousness and stagger from their car—the driver had leaned against a fender and vomited onto the pavement. He watched them call in and knew that Alicia Clayton had very little time left to find whatever she was looking for. As the pair drew their weapons and stalked toward the rear of the house, he'd debated what to do: Allow them to catch her and take possession of what she might have found? Or stop them and let her escape?
He chose the latter.
It had been almost too easy. The two guards had been so intent on the woman and her ronin that they'd ignored their rear. A quick shot to the head for each from Yoshio's silenced .22 was all it had taken. Then he had retreated to his vantage point to wait.
And calculate the death toll. Counting Alicia Clayton's first investigator, her lawyer, and that arsonist Yoshio had seen Baker and his men immolate, these two tonight brought the number of deaths connected with Ronald Clayton's secret to 252—at least that he knew of. How many more to come?
He wondered if the secret was worth it. Otherwise, Kaze Group was paying him for nothing.
He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel as he played through various scenarios in his head. If only he could be sure the Clayton woman had found some clue, then his course would be clear: Kill Muhallal and Baker, and close in on her. Clean and simple… but disastrous if she had nothing. He'd have revealed his presence for no gain.
Of course, he already might have done that by killing those two men back on Thirty-eighth Street, but he felt their deaths would probably be blamed on the Clayton woman's ronin. At least Yoshio hoped they would. His job so far had been made so much easier by the fact that no one knew of his existence.
He watched Baker hanging well back as he followed a white sedan. Yoshio followed Baker, wondering when he would have to choose.
The ronin's Chevrolet headed east, then uptown to the Fifty-ninth Street Bridge, where it crossed into Queens.
Leaving town. Interesting. That might be the sign he'd been waiting for. But shortly after he followed them onto the Long Island Expressway, heading east, the decision whether or not to act was made for Yoshio: a dark van pulled in front of Baker's car. The same van used in the aborted abduction last week. The driver waved an arm out the window. Baker flashed his high beams.
Reinforcements? Yoshio wondered. It appeared that they meant business.
So now it was a four-car procession, with Yoshio bringing up the rear.
But then Baker and his men did something strange: the car and the van began dropping back… too far back, Yoshio thought.
Weren't they afraid of losing her?
But then, perhaps they knew where she was going.
Yes, this was turning out to be a most interesting night—perhaps a decisive night. Yoshio had a feeling the best was yet to come.
Almost a shame to take money for this, he thought as he settled behind the wheel and kept driving.
13
I don't think I like this, Alicia thought as Jack stopped his car across the street from a tiny ranch house on a gravel road in the middle of a sea of potato fields.
They had turned off the LIE a while back, traveled through some suburban towns that had given away to farmland, and now they were… here.
"I want to go back, Jack," she said. She'd said that maybe a dozen times now. He probably thought she sounded like a broken record.
Broken record… an irrelevant question fluttered through her mind: would the next generation, raised on CDs, even know what that sounded like?
"I told you: I'll take you back as soon as I'm sure we're not being tailed."
He got out and stood with the door open, staring back along the dark country road. Alicia turned and looked through the back window.
"There's nobody there, Jack."
"But there was. Somebody picked us up as soon as we got the car moving. That's why we made this little detour."
"Little" was not the word Alicia would have chosen to describe this trek. She'd had a long day, a harrowing night. My God, when was this going to end?
First, reentering the house… bad enough, but then those two men had been gunned down right in front of her. That bloody face and staring eyes, glimpsed for only a second, still strobed through her brain.
Death… so much death connected with the house.
So now she just wanted this awful night to be over. She wished she were back in her own little place with her plants and in her own bed, getting some sleep. Or at least trying to get some sleep. She did not want to be skulking through this empty farming country in eastern Long Island.
Especially with an armed man who insisted he was being followed when it was obvious to anyone with eyes that he was not.
"Okay," she said. "Maybe somebody was following us for a while. But there's nobody back there now. There hasn't been for miles. So can we please go home?"
He looked up and scanned the sky. Alicia followed his gaze. A clear cold winter night, with half a moon and a billion stars providing the light.
/>
"More than one way to follow somebody. And trust me, we've been followed all night. I can feel it." He leaned inside and grabbed the keys. "Maybe we'd better go inside."
She looked past him at the little house. Even in the. moonlight she could tell it was run-down. The storm door hung open at an angle, and an old pickup rusted amid the knee-high, winter-brown weeds in the front yard.
"In there?"
"Yeah. It's mine." He grinned. "This 'delightful little two-bedroom ranch' is my country place."
"I don't think so."
"Come on. Just for a few minutes. I've got a feeling we're going to have company soon, and I'd rather be inside when they arrive."
Alicia looked back along the road again. "Jack… there's nobody coming."
"Just ten minutes. If nobody shows by then, we're outta here.. Okay?"
"Okay," she said, and checked her watch. "Ten minutes, and not a second more."
She saw him pull a toothpick from his pocket, then kneel and fiddle with something inside the car door near the hinge. The courtesy lights went out.
"What are you doing?"
"Jamming the light button."
He snapped off the rest of the toothpick and closed the door without latching it.
"What in God's name for?"
"You'll see. Won't matter if we haven't been followed. Let's go."
She followed him up the walk where he unlocked the front door and flipped on the lights. Alicia stopped at the threshold and took it in.
First off—the smell: Mold and mildew had been having a ball here. Then the look: The living room rug was filthy, the furniture sagging and worn, and here and there around the room, near the ceiling, corners of wallpaper curled back like peeling skin, revealing mildewed plaster.
"Your 'country place?' " she said. "When was the last time you stayed here?"
"Never." He closed the door behind her and moved to the drawn Venetian blinds. "This is my decoy place."
"For hunting?"
"No. For a situation just like this—when I'm being followed, or think I am, and can't be sure."
"You bought a house way out here just for that?"
He nodded as he lifted one of the slats on the blind and peered through. "Well, yeah. I wanted three things: isolation, low maintenance, and cheap."
She glanced around again. "I don't know what you paid for it, but you certainly got one and two."
"It was cheap enough to allow me to make some improvements."
"Improvements? Where?"
"They're not readily apparent."
"You can say that again. Looks like a crack house."
He laughed as he kept watch through the blind. "Oh, right. Like you'd know."
"Yeah, I would know," she said, resenting his sarcasm. "I've gone along when we've had to retrieve sick children from addict parents. You don't know a fraction of what I've seen."
Jack glanced at her. "You're right. I don't. Sorry. I'm sure there's lots I don't know about you."
What does he mean by that? Alicia wondered as he turned back to peeking through the blind. She was about to ask him but held back.
Ease up, she told herself. You've been acting a little weird tonight. All right, more than a little. He's got to have some questions about you. Anybody would.
She glanced at her watch: three minutes gone. In seven minutes she'd hold him to his word and make him take her home.
"Uh, oh," he said from the window. "Company."
He stepped aside and held up the slat for her. She peeked though.
Out front, beyond the derelict pickup, a car and a panel truck—her heart began to race as she recognized that truck—were pulling to a stop.
14
"Everyone get out on the street side of the truck," Baker said into the cell phone as he pulled to a stop behind the panel truck. No point in advertising how many men he'd brought.
He opened his door and jumped out to take charge. He could almost hear the blood singing through his veins, coursing through his limbs, tingling in his fingertips. This was Sam Baker's element, this was when he felt most alive.
"Remember," the Arab said, leaning over from the passenger seat. "You must not harm the woman."
"Yeah," Baker said. "I hear you."
He'd been hearing that since they'd hit the LIE. He knew all about it. Muhallal had made that a condition from Day One. Fine. They wouldn't hurt the girl.
But the guy… that was a different story.
Especially since Baker had got the word about Mott and Richards. When they still weren't answering their phone, he'd called Chuck and sent him to limp over to check on them. Chuck was glad for something to do. He wasn't much good for anything else, what with his right arm in a splint and his knee in a straight brace—courtesy of the guy in the house.
But Chuck had been pretty shook up when he called back. Mott and Richards were dead. Head shots. Looked like hollow points.
Baker had heard of blind rage before, but never had experienced it until tonight. He'd been so pissed, and screaming so loud, he'd almost put the car in a ditch.
Not that Mott and Richards didn't deserve to be dead. Really—how dumb were they, first to get gassed, then to get whacked out in the open? Served them fucking right.
Bad enough that guys he knew had been offed, but they'd bought it while they were working for him. That was a bitch slap to Sam Baker. He could not let this guy live to talk about it.
But he could make him squeal like a pig before he died.
His six remaining men, Kenny and the rest, were out of the van and donning their vests and checking their weapons by the time he got there. He pointed to the big black guy who was kneeling, tying his shoe.
"Briggs. Go check the car. Just to be sure. This guy's tricky, so be careful or you could end up like Mott and Richards."
As Briggs hefted his Tec-9 and trotted toward the Chevy, Baker turned to Perkowski and pointed to the utility pole. "Perk. Climb up there and cut the phones." Then he pointed to Barlowe. "Take DeMartini and cover the rear."
Briggs returned as they took off toward the backyard.
"Car's okay," Briggs said.
"Hey, look."
Baker turned and saw Kenny pointing toward the house. He followed his nephew's point and saw two silhouettes through the open Venetian blinds. A second later the blinds closed again.
"They know we're here. Where's my Tec?"
Kenny pulled one of the Tec-9's from inside the van and tossed it his way. Baker caught it one-handed. He checked the clip, then worked the slide. He loved these little beauties. They emptied their thirty-two-round clips in an eye blink.
"Let's go," he said.
"Wait," said a voice behind him. "I am coming with you."
Oh, shit. What a time for Ahab the Ay-rab to get some guts.
"I don't think that's such a good idea. There may be some shooting."
"That is what I fear. The woman must not be hurt."
"Don't worry. We won't—"
"I am coming. Lead on."
Baker looked at him and thought, If you weren't paying me, you lousy twerp, I'd shove this barrel right up your nose and give you a 9mm headache.
He smiled. "Okay. Your call. But don't blame me if you get hurt."
15
"Why'd you open them?" Alicia said as Jack pulled the string to close the blind.
"Wanted to make sure they know we're here." He stepped back from the window and shook his head. "They're carrying assault pistols. Looks like they mean to do some serious harm."
Alicia's intestines writhed into a painful knot. Men with guns… looking for her… how did she ever come to this?
"You mean they're going to kill us?" Alicia said.
"That's about the only thing Tec-9's are good for," Jack said. "Close-range annihilation." He gave her a quick smile. "But not you. Killing you is the last thing they want to do."
Alicia noticed that he'd left the obvious unsaid: Killing Jack would be the first thing on their list.
> Will Matthews, where are you when I need you?
"Call the police," she said, suddenly frantic. She didn't want Jack to join the other three men she'd involved in this. "Maybe if they know the police are coming—"
"That guy who climbed the pole fixed that. And even if he hadn't, the cops couldn't get here in time. And even if they could, we wouldn't call them."
He strode across the living room into the small connecting dining room. Alicia followed.
"Look, Jack. I know you have a thing about the police, but there are a dozen armed men—"
"Eight," he said as he knelt by a dusty, scratched sideboard and pulled it away from the wall. "And one of them isn't armed—or at least isn't showing it."
On the wall behind the sideboard was what appeared to be a security system keypad. Jack began punching in a code.
"All right, eight" she said, her fear and frustration rising. "Whatever the number, there's a small army out there and just you and me in here. And what are you doing? Setting an alarm? We don't need an alarm, we need help!"
"No," he said. "We need out. And that's where we're gonna get." He pushed the sideboard back against the wall and headed toward the kitchen. He motioned her to follow. "Let's go."
He led her through the kitchen without turning on a light. A quick left past the refrigerator to a dark open doorway.
"This way to the basement," he said. "The handrail is on the right. Soon as you close that door behind you, I'll turn on the light."
The basement was partially finished—half-paneled, half-bare cinder blocks. Jack crossed the littered floor to a section of paneling, poked his finger over the top, then pulled. The section swung away from the wall on hinges. Behind it, a circular opening, four feet across, gaped in the block.
"What on earth?" Alicia said.
"Not on," Jack said, "in the earth."
"A bomb shelter?" The thought of being sealed up in that dark hole, crouching and cowering while men with machine guns searched for her was too much. "Oh, no. I don't think I can."
"It's a tunnel." She sensed from his tone that his patience might be wearing a little thin. "It'll take us to the field across the street. Come on. We don't have much time."