“Not fucking now,” Mann said.
The plan was to go in all stealth.
Hardie reasoned that they didn’t know he was coming. The topless lady in the sunglasses would be busy digging around the bushes for at least another few minutes, trying to find her stupid hands-free thing. (Good luck with that, honey.) It wasn’t too late. Lane was still alive. Topless had confirmed as much:
You know me. I like constant updates. Keep searching.
And Lane Madden knew who these people were, what they were all about. Hardie didn’t have to stop them. He didn’t have to solve the case. Which was never his strong suit, anyway. He didn’t have to root out corruption at the highest levels of government, or dismantle the nuke, or any of that crazy hero shit. He just needed to find out who these fuckers were, and then dutifully report it to Deacon Clark, who would get the FBI up their asses sideways.
So…
Stealth.
Don’t let them see you coming.
Inflict maximum damage as quickly as possible.
Get the girl.
Get the fuck out.
Of course, Hardie had no idea how many of them there were inside the house. Could be one guy in there or a dozen. There had to be at least two, right? One to steal his Honda Whatever while the other kept watch on the front of the house?
Whatever. Keep it stealth.
Hardie finished his charge up the hill and came around to the front of the house. Nobody in sight. He crouch-walked to the front door and saw the device the crafty fuckers had stuck to the door frame.
Hardie was no mechanic, but even he could see how it worked. Your victim opens the door, a little leg thingy falls, and then a nozzle sprays the knockout shit. Well, the leg thingy was down; payload spent. Hardie grabbed the box by the edges and pulled. It came loose easily. He tossed it in the bushes. Maybe it would come in handy later—at their trial. Exhibit A, Your Honor. The little box of death that almost murdered me!
Hardie put his hand on the doorknob and took a mind-clearing breath. This was it. Remember: stealth.
He twisted the knob and pushed open the door and—
BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP
A.D. looked at O’Neal.
O’Neal signaled.
Check it out.
A.D. hit the stairs.
Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck, Hardie thought, looking for a place to hide, some kind of weapon… anything.
Up on the first floor in record time, silent the whole way. The actress might be up here, waiting to ambush them. Then A.D. saw the front door, still cracked open. The empty body bag on the floor.
Goddamnit. The house sitter.
Charlie Hardie.
If Hardie had run for the literal hills, that meant someone (probably A.D.) would have to waste even more time chasing him down. A.D.’s first impulse was to go through the front door and see if he was still within view—after all, the alarm had only been triggered a few seconds ago. Then he wised up. The road ran down behind the house. He could just go to the back deck and see if Hardie was headed down toward Belden. If so, then he could back out and run down his stupid ass with the van.
A.D. darted through the media room and was two steps onto the deck before he realized he’d stepped in animal shit. Great. O’Neal would never let him live this down. He scraped his shoes on the wooden planks.
And somebody grabbed him from behind.
Number of accidental falls per year: 14,900.
There wasn’t time for Hardie to take a good look at his attacker, but at least this one was fully dressed. Looked young, too, with one of those shaggy haircuts all the teenagers seemed to have these days.
Hardie propelled him forward toward the edge of the deck, using all of his weight to body-check him into the railing. The force of the blow was so intense, the guy immediately vomited—whatever he’d eaten last came spraying out of his mouth and made a four-story drop to the grass below. His arms flailed uselessly at his sides, trying to find something to hold on to. It probably hurt like hell. Hardie didn’t care. He couldn’t waste any time with this one.
Hardie took a few steps back, then ran up and placekicked him in the balls, sending the guy up and over the railing. He saw the guy’s legs kicking out like he was riding an invisible bicycle, and then he disappeared.
There.
Two down.
Who the fuck knows how many to go.
Which is exactly the moment Hardie went stiff, tried to curse, then hit the patio floor.
12
Swell.
—Clint Eastwood, Sudden Impact
AND THAT would be fifty thousand volts, motherfucker.
O’Neal gave him fifteen seconds in the back, enough to drop him. Then another ten seconds to discourage him from getting up again.
He hooked the Taser back onto his belt, then took the pen out of its zip case and popped the top. O’Neal didn’t know how this stubborn bastard had survived the wasp’s-nest blast—maybe they’d underestimated the payload for two people. But he wasn’t going to make it through this.
If O’Neal were ever to be stopped and searched by the LAPD, the pen could be easily explained as an EpiPen, used in case of an allergic reaction (and O’Neal had the requisite card in his wallet to back up this claim). But the pen actually contained a dose of something a mob-backed scientist perfected back in Vegas during the go-go sixties: an injectable heart attack. Works within seconds, utterly untraceable.
Heart attacks were the leading cause of death of men in Hardie’s age group, followed by cancer and strokes. Someone had actually come up with a stroke simulator, deliverable by injection, but why go for the third-most common when you could use the best?
O’Neal loved the pen.
He’d use it all the time if he could.
He lifted up Hardie’s arm for a direct vein jab. Sure, it would work if you stuck it pretty much anywhere. The muscles would absorb the toxin and diffuse it to the bloodstream soon enough. But O’Neal preferred the straight shot right to Aortaville.
He unlatched the safety mechanism with a flick of his thumb, then pressed down on the top to activate it.
Enjoy the afterlife, my friend.
One common misconception about the Taser is that it renders you briefly unconscious.
Au contraire.
You are completely cognizant. Entire body racked with the worst kind of pain imaginable, but cognizant nonetheless. You are even fooled into thinking you can speak, and most people think they’re delivering a Tourette’s syndrome version of the Get-tysburg Address at five thousand words a minute. But in reality, you’re not saying a thing. Your body has just ridden the lightning, and your mind is patiently waiting for it to come back.
Most people, that is.
Like most Philly cops, Hardie had had Taser training. And if you have Taser training, you have to ride the lightning at least once. It’s a rule. Just so you know firsthand what you’re dishing out.
Hardie’s first time became a kind of legend in law enforcement circles. Because just a few seconds after the training officer put the contact pads on Hardie’s back and gave him a fifty-thousand-volt kiss and started to explain the effects of the shock, Hardie coughed and began to stand up. He shouldn’t have. Not so quickly. The training officer blinked and halted his speech, kind of stunned. He quickly hem-hawed and said the unit must be defective or carrying a low charge, and he asked Hardie if he’d be up for another shot in a few minutes. Hardie told the training officer that if he came near him with one of those things again, he’d shove it so far up the man’s ass, he could use it as an emergency pacemaker.