With the handhelds, Mann opted for simplicity. Every time you talk on your cell, you use two frequencies—talk through one, listen through another. The simplest way to block your cell is to jam one of those frequencies. This makes your phone believe there is no service at all, and it tells you so. You can curse at the phone and shake it, but it will do no good. Cell phones are stupid that way.
To stay in touch with her operatives, Mann issued multiband intrateam tactical radio units with encryption designed to look like ordinary phones, including hands-free Bluetooth devices so they could look like pretty much every other asshole in L.A.
No bars—no service.
No car.
Get ahold of yourself there, Chuck.
Breathe.
Let’s think this through.
All of this talk about Them and ooh, watch out, THEY might see you?
Bullshit.
What Hardie had interrupted was probably a home invasion. Two addicts who knew that Lowenbruck had left on a long trip; maybe even one of them glommed his security code from some party. Hell, maybe the security company even sold them the code—it wouldn’t be the first time.
So we have this girl and probably some crackhead boyfriend. Lots of expensive AV gear on the top floor, even more expensive recording equipment on floor two. They hear Charlie on the roof, then on the deck, and then he’s in—and they’re freaking out, scrambling, not thinking straight. Chick goes downstairs; boyfriend slips out the front. Takes the opportunity and steals the Honda Whatever. Now this chick would be all about getting away while she could.
“I’m telling you, get away from the window!”
Hardie reached out, grabbed her wrist, and squeezed.
She cried out. The metal mic stand fell out of her hand, clattered on the hardwood floor.
“Please stop sticking that thing in my face.”
As he continued squeezing, the girl’s eyes widened, her mouth opening in a silent scream. Then she looked down at Hardie’s chest, and her expression changed completely. From pain to revulsion.
“Oh God, your chest…,” she said.
Hardie was halfway through the motion of looking down at his chest when he realized he was being an idiot.
But by then it was too late, because she had already shoved the palm of her free hand up into his jaw.
Lane always thought it was funny that she became known for the action movies. It had all started with that stupid remake Dead by Dawn. A woman-on-the-run story, and that summer, she’d been the face du jour. EW and Vanity Fair and everybody else had made a big deal about her first shoot-’em-up, having previously dismissed her as the sweet-but-dippy friend of the hero’s girlfriend in a trilogy of vapid preteen comedies. But after Dead, the only scripts she saw were actioners, and she found herself in what seemed like an endless succession of grueling mixed-martial-arts sessions. It felt like she spent more time being thrown around onto vinyl mats than on a stage actually acting. She used to run lines in her sleep; now boyfriends complained about being kicked and rabbit-punched in their sleep. Enrico used to work her hard.
The move she pulled on this asshole now came from a heist thriller called Your Kiss Might Kill Me, where she’d had to (believably) overpower a former Navy SEAL/bank guard who had at least two hundred pounds on her.
Funny how it came back to her so easily.
Hardie’s head snapped back, his teeth smashing together so hard it sent jagged bolts of pain through his skull. She’d gotten him good. He staggered back on his heels, instantly aware of the mic stand she’d dropped on the floor. If she stooped down, picked it up, and rammed it through his guts, well, then he’d die a ridiculously stupid death.
Fortunately she opted for kicking the living shit out of him instead, throwing a rapid succession of punches, chops, and kicks at his face, torso, balls. She clearly had training, but the coke and whatever else buzzing around in her bloodstream made her hits sloppy and unfocused.
Hardie absorbed the blows, waited for his moment, and then lunged, wrapped his thick arms around her, and squeezed. The girl struggled and opened her mouth to scream—which was the moment Hardie flipped her to the floor, blasting the air out of her lungs. While she was still stunned, he straddled her, pinning her arms under his thighs.
“You finished?” Hardie asked.
“G-Get off me!”
“Shhhh. I’m two hundred forty pounds. You’re not going anywhere.”
The girl struggled a bit more, as if she could summon the adrenaline to prove him wrong. But then she stopped and looked up at Hardie defiantly.
“So, what now?” she said.
“What now? Well, for starters, how about you tell me where your boyfriend took my rental car? It’s not that I give a damn about the car. But I’ve got a bag inside that means a lot to me, and if I don’t get it back, I’m going to track him down and beat the living fuck out of him.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Beat who?”
“Your boyfriend.”
She huffed.
“Boyfriend?”
“Boyfriend, husband, accomplice, whatever… whoever took my fucking car.”
“Don’t you get it? They took your car… your own people… so whatever this is, what are you waiting for? Just do it already. Do it!”
Hardie could feel her body start to shiver. Her lips trembled, too, and her eyes slid to the corners.
“Hey.”
Hardie gently touched her chin and moved it slightly. Her eyes found his again. He’d seen plenty of overdoses back in the job. She wasn’t quite there, but whatever she’d shot herself up with, she’d flirted with the edge.
“Let’s cut the bullshit, okay? I’m not Them, there is no Them.” Now she focused on him again. Narrowed her eyes.
“You really don’t know who I am, do you?”
“I have no idea. You kind of look like this actress, what the hell’s her name…?”
“Lane Madden.”
That was it. Now Hardie understood why she’d looked familiar. Over the past decades he’d studied faces, coaxing unwilling witnesses through countless descriptions, running his eyes over an endless stream of black-and-white photos in mugshot binders. He’d come to the conclusion that God was a shameless self-plagiarist, because he had no problem using the same molds over and over again. A lot of people resembled a lot of other people.
“That’s her. I guess you’ve been told that before.”
“All of my life.”
“So what’s your name?”
“Lane Madden.”
Hardie started to laugh, but the sound died in his throat, because now that he looked at her and saw the stone sincerity in her eyes, he knew she was telling the truth. Holy shit. He’d been stabbed and beaten by Lane Madden. In any other circumstance, it’d be an amusing little story to share with the world. Hey, guess who rear-ended me on Beverly Boulevard! Winona Ryder! Now, though… not so much.
Lane—Lane Madden?—looked up at him.
“Can you please get off me?”
Hardie was already shifting his weight off her body, embarrassed. Confused, but embarrassed. He’d been straddling a celebrity, not subduing a drugged-out teenager. Every cell in his body wanted to apologize. He felt her tense up beneath his thighs. Hardie tried to lighten things up.
“You’re not going to try to stab me or punch me in the jaw again, are you?”
“I’m going to assume for the moment,” Lane Madden said, “that you’re not one of Them. But let me say for the record, that if you are one of Them, and this is you playing dumb just so you can kill me later, then you’re a big fucking asshole.”