"Oh, don't worry," Perkowski said. "Richards was a friend of mine. I remember just fine."

Perkowski's head and his Tec were swallowed by the dark opening, then he barked a harsh, humorless laugh.

"Oh. Yeah. This guy's a real clown."

"What is it?" Baker said, climbing up behind Perkowski.

Standing on a lower rung, he had to stretch against Perk's back to get his eyes to floor level. A quick look-see showed him half a dozen toy cannons, identical to the one on the ladder, arrayed on either side of the opening. A string ran up to a naked bulb directly overhead.

Baker ducked and dropped back to the floor.

"I don't like the looks of this," he said. "Get down from there."

"Aw, just some more of the clown's funny business," Perkowski said, reaching for the light string. "Let's shed some light on the subject."

"I wouldn't-" Baker started to say, but was drowned out by the deafening roar of half a dozen shotgun sh.e.l.ls firing at once.

Perkowski's body-his head and arms a b.l.o.o.d.y ruin-hurtled from the ladder and landed on Toro.

Fury overtook Baker then. Another of his men down! The son of a b.i.t.c.h!

He raised his Tec-9 and began firing. He st.i.tched all thirty-two rounds into the ceiling that ran along the hall, and was flipping the clip to spray another thirty-two when a hand grabbed his arm.

"The woman!" It was Muhallal, his expression a mixture of anger and fright. "You'll kill the woman!"

Baker was about to tell him to f.u.c.k off when howls of pain started from the living room. He wheeled around the corner to find Briggs writhing in agony with his hand in the wall.

"What the f.u.c.k?" Baker said.

"The wall safe!" Briggs gasped. "It wasn't locked. I saw some cash inside, but when I reached in, it spiked me!"

Baker saw blood oozing out of the circular opening and dripping down the wall.

"You jerk!"

"You gotta get me outta this thing, man!" Briggs wailed. "I think I'm spiked through. It's killin' me!"

s.h.i.t! Baker thought. What else could go wrong?

That was when the beeping started.

Everybody froze. Even Briggs stopped his yelping.

The beeping... it was coming from the beat-up stereo cabinet across the room. Kenny stepped over to it and pulled open the doors.

An LED display was doing a countdown in big red digits, beeping as each new number appeared.

... 58 58... 57... 56 57... 56...

Kenny knelt for a closer look, then jumped back.

"Christ, Sam, it's a bomb!"

Baker froze for an instant, then stepped closer. Kenny didn't know bombs; that was his domain.

Baker felt his scalp crawl when he recognized a brick of C-4. He knew the stuff. He'd used it when he wired that lawyer's car. And this brick had a lot lot of wires running in and out of it. of wires running in and out of it.

...45... 44... 43...

"Well, don't just stand there, Sam!" Kenny shouted. "Defuse it!"

"In less than a minute? Afraid not."

... 40 40... 39 39...

Behind Baker, Briggs started wailing, calling on G.o.d and his mother for help.

"I'm outta here!" Toro said, and headed for the door.

"Hey!" Briggs cried. "Where y'goin'? Hey, guys-don't leave me here with a bomb! Please, guys! Please Please!" The last was a drawn-out wail.

... 36 36... 35 35...

Baker noticed the Arab heading for the door and wasn't surprised. He wanted to follow, wanted very much to be far from that bomb, but...

"Sam?" Kenny said, looking spooked. "Shouldn't we be-?"

"You got your knife?" Baker said, pulling his big Special Forces blade from its sheath.

... 32... 31 32... 31...

"Sure," Kenny said.

"Then get it out and come over here. Move!"

"Hey, Baker!" Briggs said, wide-eyed as he saw them rushing at him with drawn knives. "What you gonna do?"

"I oughta, cut your arm off for sticking your hand where it doesn't belong," Baker said, stopping on Briggs's right. "And I may have to yet, but let's try something else first. Lean back." He slapped the wall on the other side of Briggs, above and to the left of the level of the safe, and told Kenny, "Cut a hole there. Do it!"

...28... 27...

"We'll never never get this safe out of the wall!" Kenny said, his voice a couple of notches higher than usual. get this safe out of the wall!" Kenny said, his voice a couple of notches higher than usual.

"I know," Baker said.

He went to work on the wall directly above the safe, punching a hole in the plasterboard with the b.u.t.t of his knife. Once he had the hole, he reversed the blade and used the saw-toothed edge to cut over to a stud, then angle down.

...24... 23...

He tried to keep looking cool, couldn't let Kenny think he was scared, but his heart was going like a jackhammer and he could feel sweat breaking out all over his body.

As soon as Baker's blade reached the top of the safe, he hauled back and punched the plasterboard, popping the cut piece into the wall s.p.a.ce.

Baker glanced over and saw his nephew hacking furiously at his spot on the wall. His face was waxy-white, making his red hair look like fire, but he was getting the job done. "Do it, Kenny!"

... 20 20... 19 19...

"I don't want to die because Briggs is stupid, Sam," Kenny said as Baker went to work on the section above and to the right of the top of the safe.

"Neither do I, kid. But you don't leave one of your guys behind if you can help it. Even if he's an a.s.shole."

That had been one of the rules in SOG. A man went down behind the lines, you risked almost everything to extract him.

...16... 15...

He heard Kenny punch through, and then he was through with his second opening. He stood on tiptoe and peered into the hole. He needed more light.

"Kenny, get that lamp over here."

"Sam..."

d.a.m.n, his nephew was practically whining.

I know how you feel kid, but you gotta hang in here with me. Don't let me down.

"Do it!"

...12... 11...

Kenny picked up the lamp and held it high with shaky hands.

Now Baker could see, and he spotted the powerful spring that had powered the spike into Briggs's arm.

"There's the sucker," he said.

...08... 07...

He reached in and inserted the point of his blade under the bottom of the spring. His own hand was beginning to shake, and the point slipped off the spring.

"Come on! Come on!"

He positioned the point again, then grunted as he threw all his strength into levering that spike out of the safe. It moved, and he heard air hiss through Briggs's teeth as the spike slowly withdrew from his flesh.

... 04 04... 03 03...

With a piercing cry, Briggs yanked his b.l.o.o.d.y arm from the safe and began a headlong dash toward the front door.

Kenny was right behind him. Baker brought up the rear, leaping off the front steps and pushing Kenny to the ground.

"Hit the deck!" he shouted.

"Where are we?" Alicia said as Jack helped her up the ladder from the tunnel. "Take a look." Alicia turned in a slow circle to get her bearings. They'd emerged in the center of a clump of bushes bordering a potato field. Fifty feet to her right, she saw the white rented car, parked where they had left it. Beyond the car lay Jack's ranch house, with every window lit.

"We're across the street," she said.

"Right."

"Are we going to-?"

Alicia jumped as a booming retort echoed from the house, followed by a burst of machine-gun fire.

"My G.o.d, what happened?"

"Somebody just became cannon fodder, I imagine," Jack said.

"You mean dead? dead?"

He nodded. "Most likely. I told you, it's my decoy place. b.o.o.by-trapped to within an inch of its life."

She looked at Jack. She'd grown to like him, even trust him during the short time she'd known him-unusual for her, because her list of trusted people was a short one-but there was so much she didn't know about him. And here was something she hadn't realized-maybe she'd guessed it, but hadn't wanted to confront it: beneath that unprepossessing, low-key, regular-guy surface was someone willing and able to kill when necessary.

And he was standing only a foot away. Her mouth went dry. She took a step back.

"You... killed one of them?" She tried to make out his expression in the dark.

"I like to think he killed himself-by being someplace he had no right being, doing something he had no right doing."

Alicia felt weak and shaky inside. She took another step back. "This is-very scary."

"You worried about them?" he said.

"I'm not a killer."

"But they are," he said softly, his eyes on the house, not her. "They killed your PI, they burned Benny the Torch alive, and they blew up your lawyer. What was his name again?"

"Weinstein... Leo Weinstein."

G.o.d, she'd almost forgotten about poor Leo.

"Okay. They blew him to pieces. And for what? For doing his job. You think Mrs. Weinstein would object to her husband's killers getting a dose of what Leo got? I don't think so."

"I wouldn't know about Mrs.-"

But Jack wasn't listening. He kept talking, his voice getting lower and colder.

"But I'm not doing this for Mrs. Weinstein, or your PI, or even for Benny the Torch, who I knew in a small way. I'm doing this for me and, whether you like it or not, you."

"Not for me," Alicia said. "I never wanted-"