The minutes chip away and still no sign of Theo. No sounds at all. Not a shout. A scream. There wouldn’t be, I tell myself. Not when they were inside the building, and I was inside the car. Not in general, if Theo is going about doing it right. But silence is much more ominous than sound. It leaves room for so much more that might happen or that you worry will happen, no matter how irrational it seems.
So you go on telling yourself that. That your fears are irrational. That the time you imagine moving extra slowly is really moving at the normal pace and that you’re only just more tuned into it. That everything is all right like you’ve told yourself already over and over again and will keep on being alright but only if you remain calm and do your job. Even if your job is waiting, holed up and useless.
Then, finally, Theo comes out of the pavilion. No jumper cables in his hand. Item hidden back beneath his coat. He’s not walking with a limp, which is something I was sure he’d have when he came back out, though I don’t know why.
“Everything cool?” I say when he gets back into the car.
“No problems at all.” He puts us back into drive. “Your men are to press in a number on the keypad outside the gate, and it will open automatically for them. Your friend, the guard, is unhurt for the most part. Only several very nasty bruises on the front of his head. I misjudged the weight of the gun, you see, otherwise, it would have been only one.”
“What’s that number?”
He tells me, and I text it off to Bolt, and that’s that. Bolt responds instantly.
“Fifteen minutes away. They’re taking these roads like fucking speed-racers.”
“Wouldn’t it be better if they were already here?”
“No. I need to run surveillance first. The fewer guys you got for that, the better. Park here, next to sixty-eight. That road to the left there—that’s the one we want.”
“I see.”
He pulls up and stops abruptly, no skid this time.
“Number eighty-three?”
“That’s what the man said.”
“Okay. I need to get my bearings for the area around: sort out some territory and so on. Number of guards. Entry points. Weapons. I remember some big columns on the porch at the front. I betcha they’ll have someone there for cover. And someone else on either wing of the house, second floor, on the lookout for guys like us.”
“Is there anything I can do?”
“Kirill’t lose the car. And make sure the guys don’t get any further than this when they come. And if I’m not back in twenty, sound the alarm and give them hell.”
“No—don’t think about it that way. You mustn’t get yourself shot until all this is over. You’re still my employee and no employee of mine dies when I’m still paying for his time.”
“Should I consider that the nicest thing I’ll probably ever hear from you?”
As an answer, Theo hands me the magnum. Then, he leans over my seat, unlocks and opens my door. “Be careful, Quinn.”
“I’ll give it a try, sometime.”
I step out into the cold and squeeze the door tightly shut, careful not to make a slam. So now this is it. Just Oren, me, and a few guards to wade through before getting to Maya. I’m calm, I tell myself. Calm. Calm. Direct your airflow. Good. Steady yourself. Remember that you are invisible and quick. Remember that you already know what the other guy is thinking even before he’s thought it. Remember who you are. Remember what you do.
Then I go.
I run to the end of the street, and the first thing I do is look left to make sure no one’s waiting at the mouth of the entrance for us to stumble through. But the street’s blank. Not a single car along the curb. No one waiting outside with telltale pocket bulges or bulky coats. All these places look untenanted anyway, same as last time. Good. No distractions.
Tucking the magnum in the back of my belt, I jog to the side of the fence of number sixty-nine. It’s a little more than eight feet, but with a running jump I clamp my hands over the top and swing myself over, quick and easy, onto the adjacent lawn. Each of the apartments has got this little segment of a backyard for gardens or a back porch or whatever. There’s a whole vista of them with gates in between to cross from one to another, which makes my job that much easier. No more climbing over big fences. It’s always better going the back way when it’s an option.
I cross through three, four more lawns, careful to keep track of the house numbers so that I don’t stumble in too close by mistake. Seventy-three. Seventy-five. Seven. Nine. Then we’re in the low eighties. Eighty-five.
I stop once I’m in eighty-seven. Maya’s place should be right across the street. And if everything’s gone like we’ve expected it to go, there ought to be a black BMW right smack dab in the front, the same as last time. I crouch down, finding a hole in the wood of the fence through which I can spy to the next side. But I don’t look right away—not before a good long pause to take stock of the situation. This is it. This is where everything we’ve planned and thought through will be proven right or wrong. The make or break moment. Best not to take these things too lightly, or too heavily.
I give it another second before looking. And sure enough, the first thing my eyes are drawn to is that goddamned BMW like a giant, black magnet. That’s it then. That’s where Maya is, and that’s where I’ve got to go.
Having a definite purpose, even if it’s difficult or, hell, even if it’s impossible—it’s still better than a rumor, or nothing at all. Mine’s facing me down across the street: that sure as hell isn’t impossible.
I keep my eye glued to the keyhole and move around to the left to see if I can make out the porch. There’s the first pillar. The second. Then a tree, and my vision through the keyhole cuts out halfway through the porch. Nothing on the right-hand ground-level side, which means they’ve probably got the second story covered. No way to check that and avoid being seen. I’d have eyes trained down on me long before I caught anything with my own. We won’t attack from the right-hand side. Now for the center.
I give the back of the apartment I’m standing in a once-over, which is plenty to determine if you can climb the back or not. Sheer wooden walls you can’t get a foot on, but this one has a little covering over the back porch, with another roof above this and a third—the main, above that—plus railings you can stand on to lift yourself up and swing over.
I shimmy up the first roof, about ten feet from the ground, move a bit down the tiles to give myself leverage for the second roof, and then lift myself up onto this one. One more and I’ve got a view twelve houses down to my left and right, with Theo’s car just barely visible in the distance.
There’s a chimney sprouting up in front of me, a little to my left, which looks like it might provide some cover to get an eyeball down at the center of number eighty-eight. I move to it and peek around. The apartment’s a little smaller than this one. Just two levels, with a wide circular window at the front that has silhouettes cut out in them like patterns from paper, two bulky guys with submachine guns. I look down and see if I can make out anything near the covered porch, but I can’t. Best to assume the worst and plan for it. Three guys, then. And if they’ve got two out in the front, then I’m going to assume two on each side. Seven guys, plus Oren. Plus whoever’s hiding out inside.
I go back down to the lawn and jog back in the direction of Theo’s car, trying to think of the best means of attack. Coming in from behind and we’d have all of three minutes before getting shot to shit by the guys on the sides. That’s not even considering the idea that they’ve got two guys out back with blasters just waiting for that kind of thing. A guy who gets what he wants by kidnapping a girl is sure as hell gonna make sure she’s protected.
So, what then? Run in screaming, shooting off rounds like a bunch of cowboys? Hope we can just scare the guys into giving up their territory? But that’s all just variations on a theme of getting yourself mowed down. We need a distraction to direct the line of fire. And then we need a sharpshooter to plug the two out front. Strategy. Big weapons. An army. That’s what it came down to.
I hoist myself back over the fence and stop.
“What the hell?” I actually say it out loud. It was maybe seven minutes ago since I saw Theo’s car. It’d been the only car there. There are seven others now. And milling around the place, no less than twelve Stitches. But that’s not what I’m stopped here for, standing like an idiot with my mouth open.
“Caught a fur ball, Q?”
Leaning against the hood of his car and looking as relaxed and carefree as any other time I’ve seen him, is a grinning Palmer Glass.