Alicia stood on a chair and stared out at the night through one of her skylights. She faced northeast. Toward Murray Hill.

Benny had said he'd do the job tonight.

"I'm workin' another job farther uptown," he'd said.

"But why wait? Your place is empty and ready to go. Piece a cake."

Another job waiting... arson sounded like a booming business.

And then the police scanner she'd bought on her way home this afternoon squawked behind her. Something about shots fired near Madison Square Garden. Not what she wanted to hear.

Smoke reported from a house, on East Thirty-eighth.

That was what she was waiting for.

She knew she'd never see the flames or smoke from here, but something drew her to the window anyway. She'd stay here, squinting into the darkness until the alarm came through on the scanner. Then she'd run downstairs, snag a cab to Murray Hill, and stand there on Thirty-eighth Street, watching the flames burn that house to the sidewalk.

A tremor ran through her body and she wobbled atop the chair. She steadied herself against the skylight frame and closed her eyes. Her frazzled nerves were stretched to the breaking point. She wasn't cut out for this.

G.o.d, what have I done done? I actually hired someone to burn down the house. Am I out of my mind?

Sometimes she thought so.

And after finally finding time to read the will today, she wondered if madness ran in the family. Leo Weinstein had mentioned in pa.s.sing that it was "rather unusual," but she hadn't realized just how unusual.

Having read it, she knew the answer to Jack's question as to why the people she hired wound up dead but she remained unharmed.

And now she was convinced more strongly than ever that the only solution was to destroy the house.

Then she'd be free of Thomas's ankle-biting lawyers. And if insurance money came of it, she'd donate it to the Center.

And her world would be free of that house and all it represented.

"All right," Kenny said as he came down the steps. "He's stowed in the trunk. What next?"

Sam Baker stood in a cone of light in the bas.e.m.e.nt of the Clayton house and wiped the b.l.o.o.d.y blade of the filleting knife on a rag. He wanted to take a chunk out of Kenny and make him eat it for s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up tonight. But Kenny was family, his older sister's kid, a broad-shouldered twenty-five-year-old with his mother's red hair, and you didn't scar up family, not even when they deserved it.

He'd punish Kenny and his partner another way.

"A number of things are next, Kenny. The first one is docking you and Mott five percent of your bonus."

Kenny's eyes widened. "Five percent? What the f.u.c.k for?"

"For letting that torch slip by you."

"s.h.i.t, man, we caught him, didn't we?"

"Yeah, after he was already inside and setting up his goodies. If you hadn't smelled the gasoline, this whole place'd be up in smoke, and we'd all be out of a sweet gig." Baker pointed the knife at Kenny's chest. "He shouldn't have got in in the first place."

"Guy must be a magician. We never saw him, and I swear we weren't goofing off."

"Swear all you want, but don't expect any sympathy from the rest of the crew. If this place had gone up, they'd have lost a hundred hundred percent of their bonuses. You too. So maybe this'll keep you on your toes during your next shift." percent of their bonuses. You too. So maybe this'll keep you on your toes during your next shift."

"That sucks, Sam."

"Don't feel so bad. I'll see that it goes to Grandma."

Kenny made a disgusted face. "Yeah, right. Think she'll remember to send me a thank-you note?"

Suddenly furious, Sam grabbed the front of Kenny's shirt and jerked him close. Family or not, he was ready to do a tap dance on his nephew's head.

"You watch your tone when you mention your grandmother, kid. Got that?"

Kenny looked away and nodded. "Sorry. I didn't mean it."

Sam released him. "I hope not. Now, lug the rest of this accelerant upstairs and wait for the others."

As Kenny stomped up the stairs, Baker looked around the cellar and shook his head. Too close. Too d.a.m.n close. He'd d.a.m.n near s.h.i.t his pants when Kenny had called to say they'd caught a firebug in the house. He'd run over and found this weasel-faced wimp tied to a chair in the bas.e.m.e.nt. The guy had been carrying a couple of gallons of accelerant in quart bottles stashed in pockets inside his overcoat.

Hadn't taken long to break him down. Amazing how persuasive a filleting knife could be. Remove a couple of wide strips of skin and the words tended to pour out. The torch said some broad had hired him. Someone who fit the Clayton babe's description to a tee.

s.h.i.t!

Didn't that b.i.t.c.h know when to quit? What did it take to scare her off?

Baker had been so p.i.s.sed, he'd gone a little crazy. Grabbed the nearest pistol and started bashing away. Softened the torch's skull real good. He was out cold. Maybe he'd never wake up.

Baker had considered calling Kemel, but changed his mind. Little ol' Ahab the Ay-rab was turning out to be something of a wimp. Look how bent out of shape he got over that itty-bitty car bomb. Probably work himself into a pretzel if Baker told him how he planned to take care of the torch.

Kemel just didn't get it. You don't play footsy with problems-you eliminate eliminate them. That way they don't come back to haunt you. them. That way they don't come back to haunt you.

Like this firebug.

This guy had been taught his lesson-maybe permanently. But that wasn't enough. Baker wanted to send the Clayton babe another message. Her PI splattered on the street hadn't done it. Her lawyer blown to pieces right in front of her hadn't done it. Maybe the third time would be a charm.

But he wasn't doing this one alone. He was gathering all eight of his crew for this. With the body count rising, it was time to take out a little insurance. Get everybody involved. Raise the stakes all around.

Baker knew these were tough, stand-up boys. Not of the caliber of the SOG teams he'd accompanied into Laos and Cambodia in the early seventies but they knew their stuff, all veterans of mercenary ops in Central America, Africa, and the Gulf. Over the years he'd used them when he'd hired out to the various players in Medellin and Cali to do their dirty work along the drug routes in Central America.

But now the Mexicans had pretty much taken over the trade, and they preferred to use their own boys when they needed muscle.

The Mideast was the place. Saudi Arabia, especially. Plenty of money to spend, but no infrastructure. And feeling pretty paranoid after what Iraq did to Kuwait. His contacts over there kept telling him they didn't want or need mercenaries, but Baker knew different. Every Saudi he'd met thought he should be a prince. No one No one wanted to do the dirty work. That was why the country was full of Koreans and Pakistanis, imported to do all the menial work. If your Mercedes broke down, there was no one to fix it. But so what? You bought another one. And as for soldiering, why put your a.s.s on the line when you can hire someone else's a.s.s to take your place? wanted to do the dirty work. That was why the country was full of Koreans and Pakistanis, imported to do all the menial work. If your Mercedes broke down, there was no one to fix it. But so what? You bought another one. And as for soldiering, why put your a.s.s on the line when you can hire someone else's a.s.s to take your place?

Baker wasn't getting any younger. He was tired of shopping himself around. His lion's share of the bonus when this job was done would put his finances on an even keel and pay up his mother's nursing home bills, but he wasn't about to spend the rest of his life sitting around and watching the tube. He needed a reason to get up in the morning, and Saudi Arabia looked to be a bottomless well of steady, low-risk paramilitary work, waiting to be tapped. If he showed this Iswid Nahr group Muhallal worked for that he could get things done, that he was the man man, he'd be set for the rest of his working life.

But Baker believed in his own version of Murphy's Law: No matter how deep you've buried it, never underestimate the ability of s.h.i.t to find a fan.

He wanted the whole crew in on tonight's dirty work. They could look on it as a sort of bonding ritual... a sort of baptism of blood.

Baker smiled. Not blood... a baptism of fire.

After which they'd be more than comrades in arms. They'd be accomplices.

And the Arab? Baker would tell Kemel Muhallal about it later.

Yoshio stood by the lamp in Kemel Muhallal's second bedroom and stared across the courtyard at his own apartment.

He had seen Muhallal leave and had sneaked over to do a quick search. Nothing. He had opened and thoroughly searched every drawer, every closet, every corner, every possible hiding place, and had found nothing unusual.

And now he stood where Muhallal and sometimes his superior, Khalid Nazer, stood and studied something almost every night. What? What could interest them so? And why did they always gaze at it here, under this lamp that was never turned off?

Was that the key? The lamp?

Yoshio reached under the shade and found the k.n.o.b. He twisted it, and the lamp turned off. He twisted it again, and the bulb glowed once more.

Just a lamp.

Nazer or Muhallal must have taken the object with them. Whatever it was that fascinated them so was not here now, so that was the only answer. Was it so precious that they did not dare leave it in the apartment? Perhaps he could intercept one of them and take it from him... make it look like a mugging...

But no... too risky. They might get suspicious... might guess a third party was involved here...

Yoshio sighed and headed for the apartment door. A wasted trip. All he could do was keep watch, just as he had been doing for months.

So frustrating. He wished something would happen. And soon.

Alicia had given up peering through the skylight. She'd dropped into her reading chair and sat among her mending trees and plants, staring at the scanner.

But no word of a fire in Murray Hill.

Had Benny the arsonist scammed her? He didn't set fires, he just told people he did. Then he took the money and ran.

But then again, maybe he hadn't found the conditions right. He knew about the security guards Thomas had hired but had told her he could easily slip past them. Maybe it hadn't been as easy as he'd thought.

Maybe he'd go back tomorrow night.

Alicia shuddered.

"Do it tonight," she said to the empty room. "I don't know how much longer I can take this waiting."

THURSDAY.

"So, did you hear about Benny the Torch?"

Abe's offhanded question stopped Jack in midbite.

He'd dropped by the shop with some bagels and Philly-the cream cheese was for Abe; Jack ate his dry. Abe supplied the coffee.

"No," Jack said as a premonition started a slow crawl up his back. "What about him?"

But Abe's attention had turned to Parabellum, perched on his left shoulder this time. The parakeet was pecking away at the piece of bagel Abe held up to him.

"Look at the little fellow! He loves bagels. A kosher parakeet."

"I think it's sesame seeds he likes," Jack said. "And that one's coated with them. But what about Benny?"

"Found him dead early this morning under a ramp to the Manhattan Bridge."

"He fell?"

"No, he burned. To a crisp, I'm told. With his own accelerant."

The piece of poppy seed bagel Jack was swallowing paused halfway down as his esophagus tightened.

"How'd he manage to do that?"

"Oh, I doubt he had much to do with it. Somebody burned the word 'firebug' in the ground next to him."

"Jeez."

"And word is he was still alive when he burned."

Jack shuddered. Benny was a lowlife... but burned alive...

"Oy, Parabellum," Abe said. "This is the way you show appreciation?"

Jack looked up and saw that the parakeet had dropped a load on Abe's shoulder. From the look of the stains up there, it wasn't the first.

"What goes in, must come out," Jack said. "And look at it this way. You only had stains on the front of your shirts before. Now you've got them on the shoulders as well."

"I know, I know," Abe said, wiping at the glob with a paper towel. "But I think this little fellow's got a condition. Colitis, maybe. Hey, you buy that stock I told you about?"

"You know I can't buy stock."

"Not can't-won't. You're missing out on a lot of easy money. Such a broker I've got. Puts me in these IPOs. I'm out before I know I'm in. A thousand shares, it goes up two bucks, we sell. Money for nothing. All you've got to-" He stopped and stared at Jack. "That face. You're making that 'when-will-you-drop-it-Abe' face."

"Who me?" Jack said, wishing Abe would would drop it. drop it.

"Yes, you. And I should be making my 'when-will-Jack-wise-up' face."