The creepy chick slashed again. Mann leaned back quick and felt the speeding tip of the blade nick her chin.

Who the h.e.l.l are you!?

Mann took a step back. The girl advanced. Mann blocked the next wild slash with her cut forearm-which hurt badly-and hurled a punch at the girl's eye. This angered the girl, who started slashing away more furiously than ever, the scalpel barely missing Mann's flesh each time. Then the girl pulled the scalpel above her head, Norman Bates Psycho-style, and plunged it straight into Mann's chest.

The only thing Siege could do was watch the strange battle taking place just a few feet away from his immobilized face. He couldn't follow all of the action; he saw the blade dancing through the air and heard Mann's grunts and cries. Siege didn't know whom he should root for. Would it be too much to ask for them to kill each other and leave his family alone?

Then he saw the crazy girl stab the older one ...

Oh G.o.d.

Right in the t.i.t.

Mann saw the scalpel enter her breast and plunge halfway in. She reached out and grabbed the creepy girl's wrist anyway, locking it in place.

The creepy girl looked at Mann's chest, then up at Mann, waiting for a reaction. None came. Creepy girl's face fell. Something was wrong with this picture ...

"Breast cancer survivor," Mann said by way of explanation, then headb.u.t.ted the girl. The blow caused Mann's entire skull to pulse with instant throbbing agony, but it was worth it to see the creepy girl's eyes roll back up in their sockets, her entire body staggering backwards, leaving the scalpel hanging out of Mann's fake b.o.o.b.

Over the years Mann's falsie had served as an excellent place to hide poisons, weapons, and other a.s.sorted items. Now it had most likely saved her life. Had she known this, she may have been tempted to have both cut off years ago and a pair of Kevlar girls installed.

Mann yanked the scalpel out of her breast, fully intending to use it to carve the flesh from this little b.i.t.c.h's face (which, again, was so, so f.u.c.king familiar!), but then she heard a frenzied shout.

"Jane!"

She wasn't alone.

What was going on, then? Did Abrams double-book this job to really, really make sure they nailed Hardie and his family? No. That would be an act of blazing stupidity. Wait. Was this knife girl a mercenary, hired by Hardie himself to protect his family? He'd seemed so c.o.c.ksure of himself on the phone. I can stop you.

If that was the case, then there was only one way to play this out. Mann dropped the scalpel into her jacket pocket and used her remaining good arm to continue dragging the younger Hardie toward the back door of the house.

f.u.c.k you, Charlie Hardie. You're still going to lose.

26.

I never knew who anybody was. I could meet you the night before and not remember you the next day. If they dug my mother out of her grave I wouldn't know who she was.

-Charles Bukowski, Hollywood.

YOUR NAME IS Charlie Hardie. You're back in Philadelphia to save your family from the Accident People. To finish a job you started seven years ago.

Only you weren't Charlie Hardie back then. Sure, you've taken over the role now, but seven years ago you played a vastly different role. Back then, you played on the opposite team-which of course was why they courted you for this role. See, you had a couple of encounters with the real Charlie Hardie-b.a.s.t.a.r.d almost killed you, as a matter of fact. Twice.

And that would be fifty thousand volts, motherf.u.c.ker.

Seven years ago you took the name O'Neal. You served as second-in-command for the Lane Madden job. The a.s.signment was supposed to be simple; it turned out to be anything but ... thanks to Charlie Hardie.

You had Lane Madden pinned down in the house, but then the a.s.shole house sitter-your future ident.i.ty-showed up. Wrong guy, wrong place, wrong time, wrong everything. At first you thought, no big deal. You'd take out the house sitter, then Lane Madden. You even caught the house sitter by surprise and tazed his a.s.s but good.

Fifty thousand volts.

Fifteen seconds' worth in the back, then ten more to really discourage him.

And then you prepared to deliver the coup de grace: an EpiPen full of a heart attack serum, perfected by a mobbed-up scientist back in the go-go 1960s.

You'd lifted up the house sitter's arm for a direct vein jab-goodbye, you stupid f.u.c.k, thanks for playing ...

And then the house sitter executed something that could only be described as a break-dancing move, his limbs flying out wildly as he spun, sending the EpiPen full of sure-fire heart attack- -straight into your own thigh.

What went through your mind right then?

s.h.i.t!

s.h.i.t s.h.i.t s.h.i.t ...

You had no choice but to yank the pen out and make a hasty retreat back outside to the supply van, where you might-might-have a chance of getting out of this alive, all the while ignoring the vise grip in the middle of your chest, the jolts of pain in your arm, the sudden feeling of impending f.u.c.k THIS HURTS AND I AM GOING TO DIE.

Thankfully you'd managed to find, load, and shoot enough adrenaline to counteract the heart attack special. The experience had left you shaken like nothing else you'd ever experienced. And you killed people for a f.u.c.king living. Mann, meanwhile, had enjoyed her own encounter with the house sitter, and it left her with a mangled eye that would later have to be removed.

The second time Charlie Hardie almost killed you was nearly as life-altering. You'd followed the house sitter and Lane Madden up the Hollywood Hills, near the peak that overlooked a dog park as well as the Hollywood Reservoir. You were in a speeding van; they were not. You ran them over the side of a cliff. You thought they were both toast.

They were not.

All you did was seriously p.i.s.s off the house sitter-who punched you with so much raw power that your bladder let go. And then he hurled you off the same cliff. On the way down your body was riddled with hundreds of cacti needles and all you could think was what a stupid way this was to die, straight out of your boyhood nightmares of falling, unable to stop your descent ...

This also did a number on your mind.

And then later that night, the life you knew ended.

This was the final showdown: House Sitter vs. the Accident People.

Lane Madden was dead, but that pesky Charlie Hardie was still among the living and determined to skull-f.u.c.k the rest of the a.s.signment as hard as he could.

When the end came, you were a block away, on Moorpark, and you counted off the shots in your head. Bang bang. Pause. Bang bang bang. Still another pause-a little longer this time, and then finally bang bang. Seven shots total. Plenty for everybody on Mann's. .h.i.t list: Hardie, a dad, a mom, and two kids, with two bullets to spare. You hoped they'd used those extras on Charlie Hardie, the stubborn pain in the a.s.s.

You waited on that suburban street.

Soon this would be over.

You made a promise to yourself to sprawl out on your king-size bed and just sleep for days and days after this job, pausing only to eat, shower, drink, and then crawl back into your big, soft bed.

Then you heard Mann screaming over the line: "Get in there, my AD and Grip are down! Kill them all!"

And that's when you realized that this night was far from over. You pulled your gun and jogged down a green path between two houses that led to a lush, overgrown backyard. Something in your pocket vibrated.

Your other boss.

A lawyer named Gedney.

He'd sent you a text message: WALK AWAY.

See, you were the fail-safe on this job. If things went t.i.ts up on one of the Accident People a.s.signments, your job was to report it to one of your bosses and await further instructions. Thanks to Charlie Hardie, things had been going t.i.ts up pretty much all day on the Lane Madden job, so you'd pressed the panic b.u.t.ton four times throughout the day. Each time came the calm reply: STEADY ON.

But this time, the message was different. And, boy, was that a chilling message to read. Not for your own sake. But for Mann's. You could practically hear the grade-school sing-songy voice in your head: You're-gon-na-get-in-truuuuuu-ble. But you followed orders. You slid the gun back into your pocket, plucked the earpiece out, snapped it in half, put the pieces in your pocket, crossed Moorpark, looking both ways, then headed north. You exited the scene, hit the nearest safe house, disposed of the gun and the broken earpiece, then disappeared.

You never worked with Mann again.

In fact, for the longest time, you a.s.sumed Mann was dead.

You had more a.s.signments with other Accident People crews, under different names.

They never made you a director, and you were fine with that, always serving with the professionalism that was expected of you. Besides, being a director wasn't easy. Directors were the first to be blamed if something went wrong. The pay was fat but nowhere near compensated for the headaches. You told yourself: No, I'm happy in this role. Steady pay, lots of work. At a certain point you'd have enough to retire very comfortably, and then you'd look back at all of this and laugh. You had no real attachments, neither within nor outside the Accident People, but that was by design. This was the life you chose. You told yourself, This life is enough.

Even then, you knew you were full of s.h.i.t.

Because you did crave more. The power of being a director, and the thrill of an intense connection with another human being that didn't involve death or a fistful of untraceable hundreds in the champagne room.

You realized that you dedicated your whole life to practice a highly illegal craft and ... for whom? For what?

This realization was accompanied by a professional malaise and fits of depression and then finally ... a mistake.

One that put you on the blacklist among the Accident People.

Which made you ripe for the picking when the spooks in the NSA came a-calling.

This whole time, you've been telling yourself: The NSA doesn't know you're a fiercely independent operator. You are using them, not the other way around.

What you didn't know: You weren't dealing with the NSA at all. Rather, you were still working for the Cabal. A secret division set up by Doyle himself, meant to test his own security devices.

A mindf.u.c.k inside a mindf.u.c.k.

Doesn't matter, though, in the end.

You know there's something valuable in Charlie Hardie's soon-to-be-dying head, and you'll be able to exchange that for a new life. You, your wife, and your son. Maybe you'll go to the NSA. Maybe somewhere else. Someone would be happy to pay for the information inside the Other Hardie's brain.

But first you had to deal with the Mann.

You worked for Mann only a short while before you knew she was trouble. Arrogant and reckless, all the while purporting to be a stone-cold pro. That's what annoyed you the most, because you know what? You were the quintessential stone-cold pro. Mann, on the other hand, always had to inject a little bit of personal into the equation.

These a.s.signments weren't supposed to be personal! If you were running the show, you'd never send a damaged director like Mann against the family of the man who sent her life into a tailspin. Never.

Just another reason you're glad to be getting out of this business.

You park the coma car down the road, near a Catholic girls' high school. Across the street is a field full of horses. If you knew how to ride one of those things you'd pull a western on Mann and her crew. They were prepared for a thousand contingencies-but a guy charging in, guns blazing, on horseback? That would be amazing.

Alas, you grew up a city kid, hardly ever seeing horses, let alone riding one. You're going to have to do this the old-fashioned way.

Taking out Mann and her team one by one, on foot.

You know how these f.u.c.kers operate-you were once one of them. Mann would have at least two support team members: a right-hand man (or woman) and an AD. She could have brought in more personnel, but you don't think so. They've probably already got your future wife and son paralyzed inside the house, waiting for Charlie (you) to arrive to arrange some kind of psycho-comes-home scenario. The worst thing you could do would be charge right in and play into their hands.

For a minute you wished Hardie was not dying in that trunk but able to help. Two Charlie Hardies were better than one.

Oh, to have two Charlie Hardies on horseback even ...

Stop this, you tell yourself. Fantasize later. When you're inside a secluded mountain resort with Kendra, working on repairing your badly fractured marriage. It would take work; your previous self botched this as badly as could be. But the situation wasn't hopeless. You could hear it in hervoice. This could work ...

And then, out of the darkness, came a man with a bow and arrow and a girl with a scalpel.

27.

Come on in and experience some of my bulls.h.i.t.

-Eddie Murphy, 48 Hrs.

THE VOICE-m.u.f.fLED, from the other side of the back door: "Let me in or your son dies."

Kendra had been on her way down to the bas.e.m.e.nt when she heard more knocking, and for a moment there-just a moment-she thought the back of the house was being riddled with arrows, too. She could barely, barely appreciate the absurdity of the moment. Because it seemed like the savage Indians were attacking, and it was up to Ma Hardie to defend the ranch with hot lead and a steely determination to save her brood ...

"Time is of the essence, Kendra. Open this f.u.c.king door now."

She nudged the curtain aside enough to see ... oh no, CJ was out there, in the arms of a woman with a patch over her f.u.c.king eye. Pirates and Indians. Her world had turned deadly and surreal at the same time.

Deadbolt, handle lock, handle ...

The woman in the eye patch didn't enter so much as explode inside, pulling CJ along with her. Kendra pulled her son away from her. Eye Patch kicked the door shut behind her and flipped the deadbolt. There was blood dripping from the woman's forehead and right arm.

Kendra brushed the hair from CJ's forehead. His eyes were open but dilated. His mouth was open slightly. He wasn't moving.

Oh G.o.d oh G.o.d no no no ...

"What did you do to him."