Jamie huddled and shivered against Jack as they crouched in the brush. The car sat ten feet away. Keys in one hand, Glock in the other, Jack watched it through the downpour. The good part about the pounding rain was that it drowned out the sounds of their approach. The bad part was that he had no light, not even starlight, to scope out whoever was watching the car.

And someone had had to be watching it. to be watching it.

He'd seen people do amazingly stupid things, but leaving a getaway vehicle unguarded... uh-uh. Jensen was calling the shots here-either on-site or over the phone-and Jensen was no dummy.

Above and behind them, the thud thud! of an explosion.

"What-?" Jamie started to say, but Jack clamped a hand over her mouth.

He tried to shut out the sound of the rain, the feel of it pelting his face and hair, tried to funnel everything into his eyes as he studied the area around the car. Movement on the far side of the road caught his eye. Was that-? Yeah, a man had stepped out of the trees and was crossing toward the car. He stopped by the hood.

His face was little more than a pale blur, but he seemed to be looking up the hill, waiting for whatever he'd heard to happen again.

It wouldn't. Jack had figured the bomb would go off sooner or later. He was glad it had happened now.

He put his lips against Jamie's ear and whispered, "Wait. Don't move."

Pulled out the car keys, then crouched and began to snake through the remaining brush toward the front of the car. The rain's loud tattoo on the hood and roof covered his approach. Reached the front b.u.mper and moved around it until he was only a few feet from the sentry. Raised his Glock and hit the unlock b.u.t.ton on the car remote. As the locks clicked up and the interior lights came on he leaped to his feet and caught the guy whirling toward the pa.s.senger compartment, pistol up and ready but pointed in the wrong direction.

"Freeze right there!" Jack shouted. "Freeze or I'll shoot you dead so help me!"

It sounded B-movie-ish, he knew, but what else do you say? However it sounded, it worked. The guy turned into a statue.

"Hold it just like that," Jack said as he came up behind him.

He pressed the muzzle of the Glock against the back of his neck, then pulled the pistol from his hand. It had the weight of a .45.

"Heavy artillery," he said as he stuck it in his waistband. "Who were you expecting?"

The guy had a pinched face and thin hair plastered against his scalp. He said nothing.

"Be a good TP and put your hands way up." Jack did a quick one-handed pat down but found no other weapon.

"Now... lie facedown in the middle of the road."

"Hey, come-"

Jack jammed the muzzle harder against his neck. "Look, Mr. Temple Paladin. You haven't done anything to me so I'm giving you a chance. One way or another you're gonna wind up facedown on the road. Now, you can be there breathing or you can be there not breathing. Makes no difference to me. Which'll it be?"

Without speaking he did a slow turn, took two steps, and stretched out facedown on the wet asphalt, arms extended at right angles from his body.

"Jamie!" he shouted. "Into the car!"

Out of the corner of his eye he saw a dim shape emerge from the brush and make a beeline for the pa.s.senger door.

"Over here! You're driving!"

"I d-don't think I can."

"You can and you will." He held out the keys. "Here. Get it started."

Jack never took his eyes off the man in the street. He'd been a little too agreeable. You don't argue with a man with a gun, sure, but this guy was playing it a little too meek and mild for one of Brady's enforcers. Might mean a lot of things, but to Jack it meant Mr. TP had a backup weapon, one he'd missed in his pat down. Probably in an ankle holster, just like Jack's AMT .380, but he hadn't wanted to risk squatting to check.

He felt the keys tugged from his hand, heard the car door open and close, the engine start.

He opened the rear door behind Jamie, found the window b.u.t.ton and lowered it.

"Don't do anything stupid," he warned the guy, privately hoping he would.

Jack backed behind the door and moved his pistol into the open window s.p.a.ce. He knelt on the back seat and slammed the door, keeping the TP covered all the time.

"Go!"

As soon as the car began to move the TP rolled over and-sure enough-reached for his ankle. Jack fired off three quick shots, hitting him twice. He kept an eye on his thrashing form until the car rounded a bend and he was out of sight.

"You shot him?" Jamie said.

"He had a second gun. Probably going to try for our tires."

"Did... did you kill him?"

"Hope not. Better for us if he's alive."

25.

Ears ringing, Jensen regained his feet. He wiped his eyes and looked at his hand. It glistened with red.

"s.h.i.t!"

A spot on the front of his scalp, just where his hairline would have been if he'd had any, stung when he touched it. He looked around and saw Hutch, on his feet and looking fine.

"You okay?"

Hutch nodded. "I ducked behind the couch. But you..."

Jensen touched the spot again. "Yeah, I know. How bad is it?"

Hutch stepped closer and peered at the wound. "Not bad. Maybe an inch at most."

Jensen moved into the kitchen area and grabbed a roll of paper towels. He ripped off a sheet and pressed it against his scalp.

Cut by his own bomb. s.h.i.t, this was embarra.s.sing. When he got his hands on this son of a b.i.t.c.h...

Hutch said, "Hey, what's the story with that guy in the driveway-or what's left of him? Who-?"

Jensen stiffened. Through the ringing in his ears he thought he heard three pops from somewhere outside.

He turned to Hutch. "Were those-?"

Hutch was already on his way to the door. "d.a.m.n right!"

Jensen followed him to the car where Hutch got back behind the wheel and Jensen squeezed into the front seat.

The good news was that Lewis had found the pair; the bad news was he'd had to do some shooting. Jensen hoped the mystery guy was still breathing.

They backed around and roared down the driveway. As they again pa.s.sed the scattered remains of Cooper Blascoe, Jensen made a mental note to get back here ASAP with some garbage bags and clean up whatever parts of the old fart hadn't already been carried away by the local wildlife.

Hutch skidded the car to a stop as they hit the pavement. Someone was writhing in the middle of the road.

"Hey, that looks like Lewis!" Hutch said. He pushed open the door and started to get out.

Alarm flared through Jensen as he scanned the area and didn't see the Crown Vic.

"The car's gone! s.h.i.t! They took off! Get back in here and go after them!"

"But Lewis-!"

"d.a.m.n a.s.shole let them get the jump on him. He's on his own!"

"f.u.c.k that!" Hutch said. "He's one of us. A few minutes ago you didn't want to leave a car in the bushes, but now it's okay to leave a bleeding guy? Where are you coming from? What's a cop gonna do if-"

"All right, all right!" He was right. "Drag that sack of s.h.i.t over here and put him in the back."

Jensen sat and fumed. Lewis had been wounded and left here to slow them down. But they still had a chance to catch them if they drove like h.e.l.l.

A slim chance, but a chance.

FRIDAY.

1.

"We've got a problem."

Luther Brady had already guessed that. A call from Jensen on his private line at this hour of the morning could mean only trouble. Serious trouble.

"Go ahead."

Luther listened with growing dismay as Jensen described the night's events. His stomach was burning by the time the man had finished.

"You've got to find them."

"I'm full into that right now. But I have to ask you something: After all the face time you spent with this guy, why didn't your xelton pick up that he was a phony?"

The question stunned Luther. The audacity! How dare he?

And yet... it was a question he had to answer.

"I don't know," Luther said as his mind raced around for a plausible explanation. He tried to buy some time by acknowledging the problem. "My xelton has no answer, and I'm baffled as well. A Fully Fused xelton such as mine should have been able to pierce his masks in a moment, but it didn't. That's virtually impossible... unless..."

"Unless what?"

Brady smiled. He'd just come up with an explanation. A doozy.

"Unless this man has achieved FF."

"That's impossible!"

"No, it's not. How many temples do we have? Do you know every man worldwide who's reached FF? Of course you don't. He's a rogue FF. It's the only explanation."

"But why would an FF try to harm the Church?"

"Obviously his xelton became corrupted. If it can happen to our PD, of all people, it can happen to a lesser man."

He let that sink in. That was the same line he'd fed Jensen and the HC when Cooper Blascoe became a risk: The PD's xelton had gone mad and, as a result, Blascoe had gone even madder. The corrupted xelton had allowed him to get sick and was refusing to heal him. Just as a human could become a WA, so could a xelton.

Far out, far far out, but they'd all believed. Because they out, but they'd all believed. Because they wanted wanted to believe. To doubt would destroy the foundation on which they'd all built their lives. They to believe. To doubt would destroy the foundation on which they'd all built their lives. They had had to believe. to believe.

"You mean-?"

Luther had had enough of this.

"Forget him for now. He and his corrupted PX don't worry me half as much as Grant. She's had it in for the Church and now you can bet she knows everything. Well, almost everything. She can't know about Omega because Blascoe didn't. Noomri, what a mess! We've got body parts up at the cabin and a muckraking reporter with a tape of Blascoe saying who knows what. You've got to stop her before she talks."

"I'm on it. I have a clean-up detail heading for the cabin. They'll remove what needs to be removed and burn the rest. As for the tape, can't we say it's a fake?"