"This thing you are doing… it is clever," said the Engineer. "Lazurus will not know how long I have been working with you. He will not know how deep the betrayal goes. He will suspect everyone-" He stepped back into the trees as his bodyguard lumbered past on the main path. "This is trouble."
Thorpe was equally surprised at the bodyguard's abrupt appearance.
"You said Lazurus would find out later. What else are you wrong about?"
Somebody at the shop had screwed up; the place hadn't run smoothly since Billy quit. Thorpe led the Engineer through the trees, the man right behind him, huffing and puffing. They stopped in the brush at the edge of a second parking lot. His rented Jeep was still there. While they watched, three men got out of an idling black Mercedes.
The men looked around, scowling; then the driver got out, too, stood beside the car. The other three headed for the trees, their route taking them forty or fifty feet from where Thorpe and the Engineer crouched. The park was small-both parking lots would be staked out now, Lazurus's men fanning out along the running path.
Thorpe flipped open his phone.
"Yes, call for help," the Engineer whispered, clinging to him. "Say 'Come now.' "
"There is no help. No reinforcements. No black helicopters. There's just you and me."
The Engineer released his grip. "Then we are dead."
Thorpe called the safe house.
"I saw Lazurus kill a man once," the Engineer mumbled. "A broker who sold us industrial milling equipment. We had used him before, but this time he substituted an inferior grade of ball bearings." He stared straight ahead. "Lazurus brought him to a warehouse filled with old bicycles, rusted bicycles with flattened tires. The broker knew something bad was happening even before Lazurus lit the blowtorch. The blowtorch… it lights with a popping sound. The broker jumped when he heard it. I jumped, too."
Kimberly answered on the first ring. "Trouble," said Thorpe. He watched the driver pace beside the Mercedes, a sturdy young guy in jeans and a leather jacket, hair slicked straight back. "The Engineer and I are still at the park. We have company."
"How did that happen?"
"You tell me." Thorpe heard voices behind them. "We're playing hide-and-seek."
"Call the cops. Tell them to come with their sirens full on. Maybe you'll scare off-"
"Too late."
"The broker tried to explain that it had been a mistake," said the Engineer, plucking leaves off the bushes. "He took out his wallet, showed Lazurus photographs of his family, his wife and children. Lazurus looked at the photos for a long time, with no expression on his face, just looking. Then he took the blowtorch and burned them up."
"Ditch the Engineer," said Kimberly. "Tell him you'll be right back, and stroll away. Lazurus's men won't stop you. They don't know you."
The Mercedes driver kept one hand on the car as he bent forward, checking first one shoe, then the other. Thorpe slipped his 9-mm out of the front pocket of his sweatshirt, dropped the safety.
"Leave him, Thorpe. We won't get to debrief him, and that's a loss, but Lazurus won't know that. He'll still have to retool his whole operation."
"First Lazurus burned the photographs… Then… then, he burned the broker."
Thorpe closed his phone. "That's a sad story, and when this is over, we'll sit down with some herb tea and have a good cry. Right now, I want you to take off your clothes."
"You are serious?"
"They'll be looking for a red jogging suit. If you're buck naked underneath, you'll still be less noticeable." Thorpe waited as the Engineer undressed, raising an eyebrow at the man's polka-dot bikini briefs. "Those may buy us an extra couple of seconds while your pals try to stop laughing." He tucked the Engineer's cell phone into his sweatshirt.
The driver of the Mercedes was still scraping the bottom of his shoes on the pavement when Thorpe reached the edge of the parking lot. Thorpe heard shouts from the woods, then gunshots. The driver looked up, reached for the pistol in his waistband, and Thorpe shot him twice in the chest, the man flopping backward as though jerked by a string. Thorpe was running now, the Engineer right behind.
Bullets dinged the nearby cars, popping out windshields. Thorpe returned fire, hit another one of Lazurus's men, sent the others diving for cover. Thorpe emptied the magazine as the Engineer ducked into the Jeep. Thorpe threw open his door, when something knocked the wind out of him. He straightened up, got behind the wheel. A bullet shattered his side-view mirror as he peeled out of the lot. Thorpe watched his rearview as they sped away. He thought of the Mercedes driver tumbling to the pavement, and how strange it was to die with dog shit on your shoes.
"Alexi… the driver," said the Engineer, "I was playing chess with him last night."
Thorpe raced onto the I-5 freeway. No one had followed them. He took out his phone again. There was blood on the keypad.
"Are you all right?" Kimberly asked before he even spoke.
"We're on our way. He's fine. I got shot in the side."
"Do I need to find you an ER?" Kimberly's voice was even.
"No." Thorpe pulled a pair of white socks from under his seat, pressed them against the wound. "See you soon." He broke the connection. The white socks were turning pink. He pressed them harder against his belly, driving with one hand.
The safe house was in an upscale development, a house like every other in the neighborhood, except for the tiny video cameras covering the front and back. Kimberly and Weeks were standing in the doorway as Thorpe drove up. Kimberly had her dark blond hair pulled back and was wearing jeans, cowboy boots, and a clingy blue silk T-shirt, looking not at all like the innocent girl who had bumped into the Engineer at the mall. She would handle the initial interrogation. She looked eager to get to work, striding toward the car while Weeks stayed put, big arms crossed.
"It's not as bad as it looks," said Thorpe as Kimberly leaned in the open window.
The Engineer got out of the Jeep, stood there in his polka-dot briefs, shifting from one foot to the other, waiting for Kimberly to notice him. Weeks smirked.
"I called that plastic surgeon we've used before," Kimberly told Thorpe, her mouth tense, their faces so close that Thorpe wanted to kiss her, but he hurt too much. "He only had consultations scheduled. He sent his staff home. You want me to drive you?"
Thorpe shook his head.
Kimberly checked his eyes. "You're not getting all heroic on me, are you, Thorpe?"
He looked back at her, lingering. "Not a chance."
1
THREE MONTHS LATER
Out of the corner of his eye, Thorpe saw Kimberly heading toward the escalator. He ignored her. It took everything he had, but he managed it, jaw tightening as he concentrated on the revolving luggage carousel at LAX. He had been standing there for the last ten minutes, matching up travelers with the bags sliding down the chute. He had nailed a computer jock and his yellow plastic Hello Kitty knapsack, even paired the dreadlocked skateboarder with an incongruous brushed-chrome footlocker-the peeling Reggae rainbow sticker on the case had been the tell. Nice catch, but it didn't mean anything now.
Vacation was a bitch, and permanent vacation was even worse. He didn't expect much from this trip to Miami; he was just tired of sitting around his apartment. Miami was as frantic as L.A., overcrowded with tourists and drunks and geezers doing fifty-five in the fast lane, but there was Cuban food and Cuban music, airboating through the Glades by moonlight, and conch chowder at Shirttail Charlie's. There were still parts of the Keys where you could slip through the mangrove trees, stand knee-deep in the warm Atlantic, and it was so quiet that you could hear mermaids singing sad songs under the sea. "A lapse in judgment," that's how the shop described the Lazurus fiasco-they might as well be accusing him of forgetting to take his vitamins or failing to rotate his tires.