If it's the guy from the van, he thought, save a piece for me.

His kidney still ached from that punch.

But Baker was getting uneasy. After three calls, you'd think one of them would pick up the G.o.dd.a.m.n phone.

If this operation went south it would be his a.s.s. He'd be blamed, and that meant kissing the bonus and a regular gig in Saudi Arabia good-bye. And it wouldn't be his fault, dammit!

His unease grew as he turned onto Thirty-eighth and accelerated up the block toward the Clayton house. Something was wrong. He could feel it.

"Look!" Muhallal said, pointing through the windshield. "That is Alicia Clayton!"

Baker squinted at the figure coming down the front steps of the house and hurrying toward the sidewalk. Sure as h.e.l.l looked like her. And then he saw the guy following right behind her- "That's him!" he said. "That's the son of a b.i.t.c.h from last week-the one I told you about!"

Rage burst like a hollow point in Baker's brain. He gunned the engine and the car leaped forward.

"No!" Muhallal shouted. He grabbed Baker's arm. "No! Stop the car! I do not wish them to know we are here!"

"No way! I owe that motherfu-"

"Stop immediately or you are fired!" Muhallal said.

Baker knew from the Arab's tone that he meant it. s.h.i.t. He eased up on the gas pedal and watched the two figures hurry away along the sidewalk.

"But they've been in the house," he said, so p.i.s.sed his hands were twitching on the steering wheel. "They probably stole something! Don't you want it back?"

Baker didn't give a furry rat's a.s.s about what they might've taken. All he wanted was to get his hands on that rotten lousy- "If they stole a "thing" "thing" Muhallal said, "then yes, of course I want it back. And I will get it back. But if they are walking away with Muhallal said, "then yes, of course I want it back. And I will get it back. But if they are walking away with information information-information that I do not have-then I want that even more."

"I don't get it." He wished he knew what the h.e.l.l this was all about.

Muhallal pointed through the windshield at the street ahead. "Follow them. But do not let them see you. If he takes her home, we will follow him to where he lives and learn what he knows. If they drive somewhere else, then we must know where they go. We must not let them get away."

"Don't worry about that," Baker said, easing the car into motion. "Where she goes, we go."

"You are so sure?"

"Yep. Real sure." He couldn't help but grin. "That little ride we took her on last week:-you know, the 'idiotic stunt' you hated so much? It wasn't completely worthless. I didn't tell you at the time, but I planted a tracer in the bottom of that shoulder bag she always carries. No place she can go that we can't find her."

The Arab didn't comment.

What's the matter? Baker thought. Camel got your tongue?

He picked up the cell phone.

"Who are you calling?" the Arab said.

"The guys who were supposed to keep them out of the house."

Still no answer. He hung up after the sixth ring.

If Mott and Richards were busy working someone over, it was the wrong guy-the right guy was walking up the street.

This could be bad. Very bad.

Baker dialed Kenny's number. He might need some backup on this. Ahab the Ay-rab sure as s.h.i.t wasn't going to be any help.

But who else in his crew to call? h.e.l.l, call them all. Get every d.a.m.n one of them involved. Have them bring the tracking electronics and come loaded for bear.

Some serious a.s.s gonna get kicked tonight.

Yoshio waited until Kemel Muhallal and his mercenary were at the end of the block before he pulled away from the curb and followed. He had been expecting them, but had hoped the Clayton woman and her investigator would be gone by the time Muhallal arrived.

But the Arab had spotted them and now was following.

Yoshio wondered if he would be forced to intervene again.

He had seen the two guards regain consciousness and stagger from their car-the driver had leaned against a fender and vomited onto the pavement. He watched them call in and knew that Alicia Clayton had very little time left to find whatever she was looking for. As the pair drew their weapons and stalked toward the rear of the house, he'd debated what to do: Allow them to catch her and take possession of what she might have found? Or stop them and let her escape?

He chose the latter.

It had been almost too easy. The two guards had been so intent on the woman and her ronin ronin that they'd ignored their rear. A quick shot to the head for each from Yoshio's silenced .22 was all it had taken. Then he had retreated to his vantage point to wait. that they'd ignored their rear. A quick shot to the head for each from Yoshio's silenced .22 was all it had taken. Then he had retreated to his vantage point to wait.

And calculate the death toll. Counting Alicia Clayton's first investigator, her lawyer, and that arsonist Yoshio had seen Baker and his men immolate, these two tonight brought the number of deaths connected with Ronald Clayton's secret to 252-at least that he knew of. How many more to come?

He wondered if the secret was worth it. Otherwise, Kaze Group was paying him for nothing.

He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel as he played through various scenarios in his head. If only he could be sure the Clayton woman had found some clue, then his course would be clear: Kill Muhallal and Baker, and close in on her. Clean and simple... but disastrous if she had nothing. He'd have revealed his presence for no gain.

Of course, he already might have done that by killing those two men back on Thirty-eighth Street, but he felt their deaths would probably be blamed on the Clayton woman's ronin ronin. At least Yoshio hoped they would. His job so far had been made so much easier by the fact that no one knew of his existence.

He watched Baker hanging well back as he followed a white sedan. Yoshio followed Baker, wondering when he would have to choose.

The ronin ronin's Chevrolet headed east, then uptown to the Fifty-ninth Street Bridge, where it crossed into Queens.

Leaving town. Interesting. That might be the sign he'd been waiting for. But shortly after he followed them onto the Long Island Expressway, heading east, the decision whether or not to act was made for Yoshio: a dark van pulled in front of Baker's car. The same van used in the aborted abduction last week. The driver waved an arm out the window. Baker flashed his high beams.

Reinforcements? Yoshio wondered. It appeared that they meant business.

So now it was a four-car procession, with Yoshio bringing up the rear.

But then Baker and his men did something strange: the car and the van began dropping back... too far back, Yoshio thought.

Weren't they afraid of losing her?

But then, perhaps they knew where she was going.

Yes, this was turning out to be a most interesting night-perhaps a decisive night. Yoshio had a feeling the best was yet to come.

Almost a shame to take money for this, he thought as he settled behind the wheel and kept driving.

I don't think I like this, Alicia thought as Jack stopped his car across the street from a tiny ranch house on a gravel road in the middle of a sea of potato fields.

They had turned off the LIE a while back, traveled through some suburban towns that had given away to farmland, and now they were... here.

"I want to go back, Jack," she said. She'd said that maybe a dozen times now. He probably thought she sounded like a broken record.

Broken record... an irrelevant question fluttered through her mind: would the next generation, raised on CDs, even know what that sounded like?

"I told you: I'll take you back as soon as I'm sure we're not being tailed."

He got out and stood with the door open, staring back along the dark country road. Alicia turned and looked through the back window.

"There's n.o.body there, Jack."

"But there was. Somebody picked us up as soon as we got the car moving. That's why we made this little detour."

"Little" was not the word Alicia would have chosen to describe this trek. She'd had a long day, a harrowing night. My G.o.d, when was this going to end?

First, reentering the house... bad enough, but then those two men had been gunned down right in front of her. That b.l.o.o.d.y face and staring eyes, glimpsed for only a second, still strobed through her brain.

Death... so much death connected with the house.

So now she just wanted this awful night to be over. She wished she were back in her own little place with her plants and in her own bed, getting some sleep. Or at least trying to get some sleep. She did not not want to be skulking through this empty farming country in eastern Long Island. want to be skulking through this empty farming country in eastern Long Island.

Especially with an armed man who insisted he was being followed when it was obvious to anyone with eyes that he was not.

"Okay," she said. "Maybe somebody was following us for a while. But there's n.o.body back there now now. There hasn't been for miles. So can we please go home?"

He looked up and scanned the sky. Alicia followed his gaze. A clear cold winter night, with half a moon and a billion stars providing the light.

"More than one way to follow somebody. And trust me, we've been followed all night. I can feel it." He leaned inside and grabbed the keys. "Maybe we'd better go inside."

She looked past him at the little house. Even in the. moonlight she could tell it was run-down. The storm door hung open at an angle, and an old pickup rusted amid the knee-high, winter-brown weeds in the front yard.

"In there?"

"Yeah. It's mine." He grinned. "This 'delightful little two-bedroom ranch' is my country place."

"I don't think so."

"Come on. Just for a few minutes. I've got a feeling we're going to have company soon, and I'd rather be inside when they arrive."

Alicia looked back along the road again. "Jack... there's n.o.body coming."

"Just ten minutes. If n.o.body shows by then, we're outta here... Okay?"

"Okay," she said, and checked her watch. "Ten minutes, and not a second more."

She saw him pull a toothpick from his pocket, then kneel and fiddle with something inside the car door near the hinge. The courtesy lights went out.

"What are you doing?"

"Jamming the light b.u.t.ton."

He snapped off the rest of the toothpick and closed the door without latching it.

"What in G.o.d's name for?"

"You'll see. Won't matter if we haven't been followed. Let's go."

She followed him up the walk where he unlocked the front door and flipped on the lights. Alicia stopped at the threshold and took it in.

First off-the smell: Mold and mildew had been having a ball here. Then the look: The living room rug was filthy, the furniture sagging and worn, and here and there around the room, near the ceiling, corners of wallpaper curled back like peeling skin, revealing mildewed plaster.

"Your 'country place?' " she said. "When was the last time you stayed here?"

"Never." He closed the door behind her and moved to the drawn Venetian blinds. "This is my decoy place."

"For hunting?"

"No. For a situation just like this-when I'm being followed, or think I am, and can't be sure."

"You bought a house way out here just for that?"

He nodded as he lifted one of the slats on the blind and peered through. "Well, yeah. I wanted three things: isolation, low maintenance, and cheap."

She glanced around again. "I don't know what you paid for it, but you certainly got one and two."

"It was cheap enough to allow me to make some improvements."

"Improvements? Where?"

"They're not readily apparent."

"You can say that again. Looks like a crack house."

He laughed as he kept watch through the blind. "Oh, right. Like you'd know."

"Yeah, I would know," she said, resenting his sarcasm. "I've gone along when we've had to retrieve sick children from addict parents. You don't know a fraction of what I've seen."

Jack glanced at her. "You're right. I don't. Sorry. I'm sure there's lots I don't know about you."

What does he mean by that? Alicia wondered as he turned back to peeking through the blind. She was about to ask him but held back.

Ease up, she told herself. You've been acting a little weird tonight. All right, more than a little. He's got to have some questions about you. Anybody would.

She glanced at her watch: three minutes gone. In seven minutes she'd hold him to his word and make him take her home.

"Uh, oh," he said from the window. "Company."