While Macias was running all of this over in his mind, Luquin had been brooding, too. He was still furious about the way t.i.tus had talked to him; it was the sort of effrontery that would corrode his concentration until he did something to correct the indignity.

Luquin flipped his cigarette away and then leaned forward and had a last sip from his cafecita, cafecita, his thick fingers holding the little handle of the white demita.s.se cup between his forefinger and thumb, his other fingers fanned outward delicately. He smacked his lips at the rich brew as he put down the cup and sat back in his chair. He stared at Macias from behind his sungla.s.ses. his thick fingers holding the little handle of the white demita.s.se cup between his forefinger and thumb, his other fingers fanned outward delicately. He smacked his lips at the rich brew as he put down the cup and sat back in his chair. He stared at Macias from behind his sungla.s.ses.

"I've been thinking, "he said, and at that moment Macias's phone rang. Luquin lifted his head in permission, and Macias answered it. He listened, then snapped the phone closed.

"This should be interesting, "he said, and he reached over to the computer and tapped in an address string.

The two men listened as t.i.tus Cain told his wife in a flat, lifeless voice that he was going to go ahead and have the rest of the ransom money processed and sent to Cavatino. If that's what it took to get this nightmare over with, he said, then that's what he was going to do. He'd had enough. There was a brief conversation between the two of them, and then it was over.

Luquin sat at the table as if hypnotized, bending forward, listening to a recording coming in over one of the laptops. When it was finished, he said, "Play it again, "and Macias snapped his fingers over the keys, and they listened to it again.

"Son of a b.i.t.c.h, "Luquin said quietly as the recording ended the second time. He stood. "This is getting d.a.m.ned close, Jorge, "he said. "d.a.m.ned close."

"Another twenty-four hours, "Macias said, punching a key to get out of the file.

"Maybe."

"Maybe sooner, "Macias said, punching another few keys to check his messages. And it couldn't be soon enough.

Macias checked several more files, getting routine hourly postings from each of his teams. Nothing happening. When he looked up at Luquin again, he was surprised to see him stewing, staring at Macias.

"I want to go ahead with Cain's wife, "Luquin said. "She will be my going-away gift to him. When the last of the money clears Cavatino, I want you to do her. Then we'll see if he feels like following my a.s.s to Patagonia."

Inwardly, Macias cringed. None of these operations was worth a single dollar to him if he didn't get out of them alive and well. But two bodies were never enough for Luquin. He wanted two bodies before he could even take a s.h.i.t. This wouldn't be the first time Luquin had put undue pressure on an operation simply because he wanted someone else to die. And things were going so well. Machismo. It was going to get the son of a b.i.t.c.h killed one of these days.

Macias was about to say that he would begin putting it together when his computer pinged, and he turned to see an incoming message from Elias Loza. He glanced at Luquin and decided to wait until later to open the file.

Chapter 38.

By the time Burden got down the hill to Cielo Canyon Road, he was soaking in sweat. His shoes were full of rocks and twigs, and cedar needles had gotten into his shirt and had worked their way into his skin in a dozen itchy places. He beeped his van crew and waited a couple of minutes in the woods that crowded up to the edge of the road. When they pulled up, he was inside in seconds.

Gil Norlin had gotten a rental house not half a mile from where t.i.tus lived, a small frame bungalow built in the fifties and tucked into the woods. There weren't many of these kinds of houses left in this high-dollar part of the city, where seclusion was a large part of the real estate appeal. Probably the absentee owners of the property were asking an exorbitant price for what they had and were willing to sit on it until somebody coughed it up. Which they would, sooner or later. But the place was a dump. The small rooms were bare, empty, smelling of insecticide, and crawling with roaches.

The three-member van crew had already eaten lunch and left him a few slices of pizza in the kitchen. He took one of the delivery boxes with the last of two cold wedges of pizza littered with jelled cheese, leathery pepperoni, and flaccid olives and opened an RC. Tired, he sat on the floor in the kitchen, his back against the wall. He'd eaten only a few bites of the cold pizza and washed it down with the RC when he heard the front door open.

He heard Cal's curt bark, "Garcia? "as he addressed the room of technicians, then heard one of them respond, "Kitchen."

Cal, an Italian whom Burden had first met in Buenos Aires, headed up a team that comprised only three people besides himself. Sometimes one or two of them were women, but mostly they were men, and there were never more than four altogether. Cal himself wasn't a big man, middle weight, dark complexion with dark hair, not muscular, not distinctive in any particular way. His face was unremarkable, and he didn't look physically imposing enough to do the things that he was in such demand to do. Close work was often misunderstood. In general his team was always a variation of himself, common in appearance, quiet, observant.

Cal walked into the kitchen and went straight to Burden as if he knew where he would be sitting. Burden was already getting up, and the two men embraced, Cal's usual abrazo abrazo that for him served as the sealing bond for any given operation. He turned to his three team members, all of them dressed in street clothes. that for him served as the sealing bond for any given operation. He turned to his three team members, all of them dressed in street clothes.

"Baas, "he said, indicating a man with wide-set eyes and a soft smile, his dark hair as tightly coiled as an African's.

"t.i.to ... "He pointed to a very thin young man with a little series of symbols tattooed on one cheek and a pretty mouth.

"Cope ... "The only blond in the bunch, the oldest of them in appearance, maybe in his mid thirties. He didn't look directly at anyone.

"Good, "Burden said. He'd seen t.i.to before, but the other two he didn't know. "The stuff's out here, "he said, walking out of the kitchen and into a long screened porch that looked out onto the dense cedar woods. The porch was scattered with knapsacks and various other bags that belonged to the van crew that had spent the night there. Burden grabbed a cardboard box next to the wall, swung it into the middle of the room, and sat on the floor. The others followed suit, forming a loose semicircle in front of him.

Burden began handing out photos of the clifftop house on Las Ramitas along with several maps: the street plan, the house plan, an area plan. The four men pa.s.sed the photos and maps around in silence while Burden went over the little intelligence that they had so far, acknowledging its weaknesses, knowing that every unanswered question created a risk for them.

For the next hour he went over the details of the operation, outlining the logistics of dealing with the various teams Macias had put together, emphasizing again and again the importance of absolute silence and of leaving no trace of their presence.

"No evidence at all. If you touch it, it walks away with you. No abandoned cars, no discarded weapons or casings, no bodies, no blood. Nada." Nada."

"Can't be done, "Cal said. "Not with this many targets." He was looking at the list of vehicles and bodyguards that Burden's surveillance crew had compiled from the previous night's operation. "Not enough intelligence. Too little time to plan. Too many targets."

"I understand that, "Burden said. "But I'm not looking for a total take here. I'm just saying what you do take has got to be clean. We've got something going for us on this. You saw in the file that Jorge Macias put this operation together. In the past he's followed pretty conventional tactical discipline and procedure. Everything mobile. Everything compartmentalized. Most important: At the first sign of operational breach, everybody disappears. No discussion. Gone. "He looked around at each of them. "I want you to take out as many as you can. But if the risk of discovery is too high, if you can't do it silently, cut them loose."

"And Luquin?"

"Isolating him in that house is your main objective. I'll be responsible for him after that."

There was a pause of surprise. Cal pretended to be looking at the maps on the floor in front of him. But no one was going to ask Burden to elaborate.

After a few moments, Cal rose and went to the kitchen sink. He put his cigarette under the faucet, then tossed the soggy b.u.t.t into one of the empty pizza boxes on the cabinet. He came back to the porch and leaned against the door frame. Everyone was sweating. The dense cedar brakes cut off any chance of a breeze reaching them through the screened porch. It was still, oppressive. Cicadas keened in the midday heat.

"Isolating him, "Cal said. "That's a problem."

"Yeah, "Burden said. "I know."

Cal bent and picked up his copy of the notes that had been prepared for them. He looked at them.

"Macias is staying in the same house, "he said. "With his bodyguard and driver. And then there's Luquin's bodyguard and driver. That's six people. How isolated do you want him?"

"Alone, if possible."

"And if it's not possible?"

"We've got to get Macias out of there, at least. And his two people."

"Any head-on confrontation is going to cause a stink," Cal confirmed.

Burden nodded. "Can't do that."

Cal looked at his intelligence report. "We don't know their routines, their schedules, nothing."

"We just barely had time to find out how many there were, "Burden said.

It was quiet on the porch for a moment, each person taking counsel of his own thoughts. Burden knew the routine and waited, letting them do what they had to do. All of the men had read the file on Luquin, so they knew the kind of man they were stalking.

Cal's teams all operated under the same rule of egalitarianism. He pulled together the best people he could find and then trusted them. Because his teams were small, any individual could pull the plug on any operation. Everybody had to be in 100 percent or it wouldn't work. A small team was like a fine mechanical watch-all the parts were essential, none expendable.

Cal's teams were a.s.sembled according to a kind of Zenlike intuitiveness. It mattered, somehow, who the target was, and the individuals he chose for each particular a.s.signment seemed to have att.i.tudes about the kinds of people they were going after. It made a difference, Cal said, in the synergy of violence that was a potential in each mission. He was vague about it, but Burden knew that it was important to Cal and to the team's success. It didn't matter that it didn't seem logical. He had learned a long time ago that logic was only a part of this business, sometimes a surprisingly small part of it.

Burden interrupted the silence. He had to say this before anyone spoke up.

"Look, I know this thing is full of holes, "he said, "and we'll never get them all plugged. The thing is riddled with risks. Bad odds. But I just wanted you to know that I know that I'm bringing you into a mess. Cal, you can vouch that this isn't the way I work. But I couldn't walk away from a chance at Cayetano Luquin. And, unfortunately, this thing had to happen fast, or not at all."

There was no response from any of them. These were not men who felt any emotional need to pat Burden on the shoulder and say, That's okay, we understand.

"These guys are ex-Mexican intelligence, you think?" Cal asked Burden.

"That's my guess. It's only a guess."

Everybody was quiet again, looking at the maps, thinking, playing it out in their minds, trying to see the worst of it.

"Okay, "Cal said finally, looking up, "let's decide. You have reservations, we discuss them right here, right now. It's go, or no go, right now."

He turned to his left and looked at Baas, who nodded without any hesitation. Cal's eyes moved to the right, to t.i.to. t.i.to was thinking, preoccupied, absently moving a delicate finger over the tattoos on his cheek. Then he nodded. Finally he looked at Cope, who was resting against the wall next to Burden.

"I don't like the skimpy intelligence. "He had a strong Aussie accent. "I don't like the last minute feel to this thing. And isolating Luquin ... s.h.i.t, that sounds like a snake pit." He looked at Burden. "But I've read this a.s.shole's files, and I'd like to help you with this one. And you've got a reputation that washes over a whole lot of s.h.i.t. "He nodded at Cal. "I'm okay with this."

Cal snapped his head at Burden.

"We're in, "he said. "We'd like to look at your LorGuides now. First, we start with who's where so we can start setting priorities, and at the top of the list is isolating Luquin. That's the b.i.t.c.h. Everything comes down to that."

Chapter 39.

Burden was sweating. He was fascinated. The man was sitting where he had sat the night before, but now he was dressed. Nearly. He wore the trousers of a suit. No shoes. No shirt. His skin glistened in places with perspiration. His hair was slicked back with water.

Burden had watched him walk into the dank bathroom. Standing next to a plastic shower curtain with turquoise fishes to and froing amid rising blue bubbles, he had stuck his head under the faucet and run cold water on it. Then he'd stood up and let the water drip over his neck and bare shoulders as he'd combed back his thinning hair in sleek convenience.

Then he'd come back into the room and sat in the chair by the window. He'd rested the ankle of one leg on the knee of the other. His trousers were limp in the heat, and Burden imagined the sweat underneath them.

Burden liked talking to him.

"Where do you stand now with your list? "he asked.

"Four of five."

Burden nodded. Should he say, That's good? He said nothing.

In the afternoon heat, the room smelled horribly of dank. The old motel was only just on the edge of reality. Its reality was all past, and there was no future at all, or so little of it as to make it incapable of being quantified. The curtains by the man's head were creamy with age, their white as distant and irretrievable as the children who had played on the merry-goround.

"Can you name them? "Burden asked.

"Only you, Garcia, would ask that. "He paused. "Sotomayor. Zabre. Vega. Mojarro."

He spoke their names as if he were reciting the rosary, a relished exercise. Breathed words. Each syllable was p.r.o.nounced with precision, pungent with remembrance. To Burden, the recitation was scintillating. And despairing. It was a recitation that almost pulled from Burden the antiphonal response after each name: Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Cicadas and gra.s.shoppers hummed in the high dead gra.s.s that grew up around the seesaw and broken swings.

"And that leaves ... ? "Burden said.

The man turned his eyes on him. He was by the window, beyond which the July sun sizzled through the cysted leaves of the hackberries. The light behind the rancid curtains created a gauzy, luminous veil behind him. In this backlighting his features sometimes deepened out of sight, nearly making him a silhouette. But the whites of his eyes remained distinct, shards of bright in dirty shadow.

"Only one more, "the man said without speaking the name.

"Do you worry about not finishing? "Burden asked.

"No."

"Why?"

"There's no rush."

"You don't want to get it over with?"

"Why?"

"I don't know. To finish it."

"And then what?"

"I don't know."

"Exactly."

"Just to have it done."

"Closure?"

That word sounded strange coming from a man like him. Burden wouldn't have believed he even knew the word.

"I guess."

"No. There is no closure."

That was why there was no future. It wasn't going anywhere. And the man wasn't going anywhere. Like Zeno's arrow, he was only where he was, in the instant. His existence was within a continuum that was neither past nor future, neither leaving nor arriving. It was all of a piece. And yet, like the arrow, he miraculously advanced all the same, between instants, where there was neither time nor memory, neither hope nor disappointment.

The man wasn't ordinary. Maybe he had been before it happened, but not anymore. Some men rise above the ordinary because of who their fathers were, or because of the amount of money they have made, or because of something they have done, or because of the women they have bedded or lived with or married. But this man rose above the ordinary because of what had happened to him, of what he had seen and lived with ... and because of what he had become as a result.

A fly appeared and lighted on the man's bare right shoulder. In the sunlight it threw a shadow twice its length across the collarbone. The man looked at it to see what he'd felt, then ignored it. The fly was thinking, and so was its host. Moving in advancing jerks, the fly went down into the concave shallow near the man's neck, the relief of trapezius, it was called. The fly stayed there, out of sight.

That, Burden thought, was an odd thing.