t.i.tus recognized Luquin's voice.

Chapter 28.

He took off the hood and found himself in a one-room shack. It was lighted by a kerosene lantern that sat on an overturned bucket in front of a caved-in fireplace. The light was harsh around the lantern, giving way quickly to shadows that waited anxiously around the edges of the room. The odor of kerosene mixed with the stench of rat urine and rotting wood.

"Sit down, "Luquin said. He was sitting to one side of the lantern in a canvas deck chair. His shadow, thrown against a near wall, was broken by the angles of a corner. The seat he offered t.i.tus was another overturned bucket. He was dressed in very nice street clothes (t.i.tus could see the silk in the trousers), which made him look entirely out of place in his surroundings, as if he'd stepped off the back lot into a movie set. They were alone in the room.

"You wanted to talk, "Luquin said. He was relaxed, his arms resting on the arms of the chair, his hands dangling loosely over the ends.

t.i.tus stepped over and sat on the bucket, five feet from Luquin. He looked hyperreal. Knowing what he had done to Charlie had altered t.i.tus's perception of him.

"You had Charlie Thrush killed."

"Yes."

The monosyllable, so readily given, so free of guilt, was disarming.

"Do you know how he was killed?"

"No. "Said with the same weightlessness of conscience.

"You don't know."

"No. "Luquin twisted his head in irritation. "What do you want, Mr. Cain?"

"You shouldn't have killed him, "t.i.tus said.

Luquin raised a finger and wagged it slowly at t.i.tus. "Be careful. You are up to your a.s.s in s.h.i.t here, and sinking."

"Why?"

"I told you, "Luquin said, "that I would decide who died and when. And so I did. That surprises you? What in the world did you think I meant when I said that?"

A beetle flew in, heavily, like a miniature aircraft, and smacked into the globe of the lantern. It fell at Luquin's feet, spinning around in circles on the dusty floor with a broken wing. Luquin didn't even notice.

"What did that accomplish, killing him?"

"Did it change the way you thought of your situation?"

A rhetorical question. t.i.tus didn't answer.

Luquin's expression soured, and he nodded. "That's what I accomplished."

Luquin's manner dripped arrogance, and t.i.tus hated it that Luquin thought that this was the way to play him.

"Have one of your people come in with a telephone, "t.i.tus said, "and I'll put through the first ten million right now. And I'll make the next payment of twenty-one million within twenty-four hours, rather than the forty-eight you've instructed."

Luquin's eyes brightened, but even as he nodded affably in gratified surprise, his brow puckered in skepticism. t.i.tus could see him formulating a question and then instantly correcting himself and moving his chess piece to another square.

Without taking his eyes off t.i.tus, he lifted his foot and crushed the beetle with a sharp pop of its crusty sh.e.l.l.

"Roque, "he said in a voice no louder than the one he was using to speak to t.i.tus. There were stirrings outside in the darkness, the door to the shack opened, and a man came in and stood behind t.i.tus.

"Tu celular, " Luquin said, lifting his chin at t.i.tus. The man unsnapped a cell phone from a holder at his waist and handed it to t.i.tus. Luquin said, lifting his chin at t.i.tus. The man unsnapped a cell phone from a holder at his waist and handed it to t.i.tus.

t.i.tus dialed Lack Paley's number and listened to it ring. Luquin was watching him like a lizard, motionless, processing. Paley answered.

t.i.tus told him to move the money to Cavatino first thing in the morning, the moment the bank opened. He told him to get the second investment ready. Lack knew the drill, and though he didn't know what was behind it all, he knew something extraordinary was going on. That was that.

After Paley had hung up, t.i.tus pretended to be listening. Before Roque had handed him the phone, t.i.tus had managed to work off one of the lighter moles and was holding it between the forefinger and thumb syof his right hand. He held the phone in his left. As soon as he had the mole the way he wanted it, he concluded his feigned exchange with Paley, punched the disconnect b.u.t.ton, and with his right hand handed the phone to the waiting man. The mole stuck like a leech. The man returned it to the clip at his waist.

"That's it, "t.i.tus said to Luquin.

"We'll see. "Luquin was studying t.i.tus. He had lighted a cigarette, and as he smoked he seemed to be trying to come to some kind of conclusion.

"But, "t.i.tus added, "if anyone else dies, you won't get another dime."

Luquin's face changed as if t.i.tus had reached out and slapped him. His surprise was genuine, and so was the gall that replaced his enigmatic expression.

"You don't have any f.u.c.king idea what you're saying, "he said. "I really don't think you are capable of understanding what that would mean."

"If I let you ... if I bargain with you over lives, I won't be able to live with myself, "t.i.tus said. "And I know that you don't understand that. But that's the way it is. It's called normal. It's not extraordinary. It's what decent people do."

"Decent people, "Luquin mused, nodding. "Yes. Well, Mr. Cain, it has been my experience that there is just a hair-a very thin hair-between decent people and animals. I have learned that what works with animals, works with decent people, too."

"Fear."

"Yes, of course. Fear."

t.i.tus listened to the faint hiss of the lantern in the following silence. Even though the windows of the shack were open, the heat was oppressive, and the acrid smoke of Luquin's cigarette mingled with the decaying odors of the old shack. t.i.tus was sweating under his uniform, and he saw that Luquin was sweating now, too, almost suddenly.

"You are a stupid man, Mr. Cain, "Luquin said.

"Within forty-eight hours you can have thirty-one million dollars in your accounts, via Cavatino, "t.i.tus said. "But if another person dies, I'll go straight to the FBI with everything. I'll have them hunt your a.s.s all the way to Patagonia. And if they don't find you ... I will."

Luquin flinched, and his right arm shot up as he thrust his upper body forward in his deck chair and pointed the first and second fingers at t.i.tus, the cigarette smoldering between them. The swaggering affability was gone, and t.i.tus saw rage. He saw Luquin's beast, a thing that had hungers that could be satisfied only if someone grieved.

Like a silent image in a wax museum, Luquin remained frozen in midgesture, his arm outstretched, his eyes fixed in midheat. His words, whatever they might have been, remained in his throat. Only the cigarette, trembling slightly, smoke waffling up from its ember, betrayed his reality.

"Do not, "he managed to say in a voice made hoa.r.s.e by his extraordinary effort at self-restraint, "presume anything with me, Mr. Cain. "His breath was squeezed to a whisper. "You do not threaten me."

Luquin's eyes flicked to the side, and in an instant t.i.tus remembered that Roque was still standing just a step back. The b.u.t.t of Roque's gun caught him at the edge of his eye in the right temple. He heard the sound of flesh splitting between metal and bone and felt his head fling back before he went out.

Unfortunately he was out only seconds, stunned, really. He could've gotten up sooner, but the lantern kept trying to go out, and for reasons he didn't understand he seemed to have gained several hundred pounds and had to get his legs in just the right position to be able to lift himself.

He heard Luquin barking angrily in Spanish, and then Roque was on him again, and t.i.tus covered up his head to ward off another blow. Suddenly he was horrified that he would be beaten to death. But there was no second blow.

"La capucha, " Roque said, standing over him, and t.i.tus felt the black hood hit him in the head. Roque said, standing over him, and t.i.tus felt the black hood hit him in the head.

Chapter 29.

There was a driver and a camera operator with a thermal infrared videocamera in each of the four surveillance cars, all local talent. The local talent was a necessity. So much of chase surveillance was about antic.i.p.ating moves, and antic.i.p.ation required an intimate knowledge of the geography and the traffic ways. Burden was in the fifth vehicle, a van, where he sat in the back with two technicians monitoring three types of mapping computer screens and four live television screens picking up the cameras from each of the cars.

Burden never even met the chase people he was working with, but the driver and the two technicians in his own van were regulars that he used on these kinds of operations, flying them in from different locations.

From the moment t.i.tus was picked up outside the gates of his property, Burden watched LorGuide monitors that registered the feedback from the moles t.i.tus was carrying for distribution. Green dot signals registered the moles put on people, the yellow dots registered moles left on vehicles.

Using a complicated tag relay technique, the chase team was able to keep visual contact with the vehicle carrying t.i.tus, even when he was taken into the thousand-acre greenbelt of City Park, nestled into a large U-shaped bend of Lake Austin. It was on the isolated City Park Road that Burden watched his monitors as t.i.tus was switched to another vehicle, which then left the park's only paved road and headed out into the dense cedar brakes.

But it was also on City Park Road that the chase cars had the good luck to spot Macias's own surveillance van. They dropped off a marksman in the woods when the van entered a loop that would bring it out the same way it went in. From his blind, the marksman shot the van's right rear wheel with a paint ball filled with a black dye that popped up on the LorGuides as a bright raspberry dot.

For the two hours that t.i.tus was in the hands of Macias's people, Burden's teams never stopped moving, dropping off cars and picking up others to avoid any vehicle being seen more than once by the Macias surveillance. It was a complex operation, and by the time t.i.tus was dropped off at an apartment complex overlooking Loop 360, Burden's people had a good idea of the size of Macias's tactical team. Many of the vehicles and people had been tagged by t.i.tus, and their positions could be monitored constantly.

It was two-forty in the morning as t.i.tus guided the Rover up his private drive, past the place where the Rover had been taken away from him, and went on to the wrought-iron gate. He punched the remote under his dash, the gates swung open, and he drove through.

Suddenly a man stepped out in front of his headlights, at the far edge of their reach, and stood in the middle of the drive. t.i.tus's heart slammed so hard, he lost his breath. No, he didn't want any more of this. And then: Had something happened? Had they gotten in somehow? The figure grew brighter and brighter until he realized it was Garcia Burden.

t.i.tus stopped, and Burden came around and opened the pa.s.senger door and climbed in.

"s.h.i.t! "he said when he saw t.i.tus's face in the dash lights. "What happened?"

"I p.i.s.sed off Luquin and his man banged me with the b.u.t.t of his gun. I've been bleeding like a pig, but I'm okay except for a h.e.l.l of a headache."

Burden was already past it. "After you clean up I need to talk with you. I need to hear the details."

Rita conquered her every instinct to explode and instead helped him clean up the cut. Though she quickly realized that it wasn't a really serious wound, she stubbornly insisted that he needed st.i.tches. But when t.i.tus flatly refused to go to the emergency room, she cobbled together a b.u.t.terfly st.i.tch of her own manufacture that she said would do the job but would leave a scar as big as a third eyebrow. After he put on clean clothes, they called Burden, who had gone to the guest house to talk to Herrin and his mobile crews over the radios and secure phones.

They sat at the island in the kitchen, t.i.tus, Rita, and Burden, with papers and radios and telephones scattered out in front of them on the black granite counter. Rita had made a pot of strong French roast coffee to help them stay alert.

Rita, t.i.tus discovered, had actually listened to the whole thing in the guest house with Herrin, an experience that she said she had found fascinating and horrifying, but ultimately rea.s.suring. The subdued control with which Burden and his teams had handled the hectic two hours was a lesson in a new kind of reality for her. Somehow-irrationally, she admitted- it had made her feel as though there might be some way to get through this after all.

Burden was focused on the debriefing and repeatedly took t.i.tus through his trip from the moment he was taken from the Rover to the moment he was returned to it. He asked t.i.tus about the things he heard, of movements he heard, of what he sensed. What about accents? What about personalities? He asked how many people t.i.tus could count, and then he took him over what they had seen on their monitors. He asked t.i.tus for his guesses about this and that, and then he told t.i.tus his own perspective of the same guesses.

They went over t.i.tus's conversation with Luquin, and Burden asked about Luquin's manner, the way he sounded when he said certain things, the expression on his face, the set of his eyes. How did he choose his words?

Finally there was a pause in the debriefing. Burden checked his messages on his phone, looking at the readout without saying anything. t.i.tus glanced at Rita, trying and failing to mask his anxiety. Rita caught his expression and frowned.

Burden cleared his screen, looked up, and paused.

"Okay, "he said, "let's talk about it. Whatever it is. There's no time for being subtle. I don't have time to decipher signals. Bring it out in the open."

t.i.tus shifted in his chair.

"The whole thing tonight, "he said, rubbing his face with his hands, flinching when he touched the cut that he'd forgotten about. "He's running a pretty d.a.m.ned tight operation, isn't he."

"He always does. You can't afford many mistakes with this guy."

"I'll be honest, "t.i.tus said. "It doesn't look to me like you've got what it's going to take to do this."

Burden kept his eyes on t.i.tus, but his expression was unreadable.

"It looks to me like the disadvantages that you outlined for us earlier add up to a d.a.m.ned big handicap. Too big for you to overcome."

"I've already told you our odds aren't good, "Burden said. "So that shouldn't be a surprise. And if you're judging the battle by what you see on the battlefield, you're making a mistake."

"What I see, "t.i.tus said, "is a guy who's got a well-oiled machine operated by disciplined and brutal men. What I see is that he came prepared to win, and he brought men who'll do anything to make sure that he does."

"That's what you've seen, "Burden said.

"Yeah."

"Well, in this business what you see isn't a good gauge of the reality. The whole plan of engagement-on both sides-is designed to be unseen. It's what you don't see that you need to worry about."

"That sounds good, Garcia, but I can't make my decisions based on what I don't see."

"Keep this in mind, "Burden said. "Those people who handled you tonight have been here a month or more, and during that time you saw nothing, knew nothing. They came into your house, many times, planting bugs, familiarizing themselves with your security system, sniffing you out, and you didn't have the slightest idea about it. Until Luquin himself told you what he'd done.

"And don't forget this: What you saw of Luquin's operation tonight you saw only because of what we did, my people and you. We drew him out, and he didn't even know what was happening. As powerful as he is, we were able to do that. Right now we're processing that information in our computers, and after I add in what I learned from you during the last hour or so, we'll have a pretty good picture of the number of people we're up against."

Burden took a sip of his coffee and glanced at Rita before he spoke again.

"You haven't done the wrong thing, t.i.tus. Don't start second-guessing yourself now. We sure as h.e.l.l don't need Ruby Ridge or Waco tactics here. We've come a long way in a short time in understanding how to deal with the Luquins of the future. What you're seeing are the rough edges. The slicker stuff you won't see at all. We don't want spectacle. We want invisibility ... and silence."

He paused. "One other thing: Remember our conversation in San Miguel? Once we've committed to this thing, there's no turning back. I'm holding you to that. We're sleeping with the serpent now, t.i.tus. The only way we're going to live through the night is to be very still and very quiet until it's dead. If we wake it, it'll kill us."

FRIDAY.

The Fourth Day

Chapter 30.