He spoke with a grounded sureness, without animation, his voice almost devoid of inflection.

t.i.tus hadn't taken another swallow of his beer. He was entranced. Immobile, he waited for the emerging revelation. It was like seeing the moment of his own death coming down a long road, a small speck, slowly, slowly growing larger as it made its shambling approach. It was a horrible thing to see, and fascinating. He couldn't pull himself away from the spectacle of it, even to flee.

Alvaro continued. "CaiText is worth two hundred and fifty-six million dollars, Mr. Cain. I want the equivalent of a quarter of that."

In the warm breeze of the summer night, t.i.tus went slowly, serenely cold.

Alvaro waited, seemingly understanding what t.i.tus was going through.

"Are you all right, Mr. Cain? We have a long way to go yet."

t.i.tus couldn't answer.

"The most important thing in this entire negotiation, "Alvaro said, "is secrecy. I want to acquire the money in clean, legal silence. Indirectly, of course. Through business arrangements."

t.i.tus's mind latched on to the words business arrangements business arrangements . Reality. Something he could wrestle with. Something he understood. The hallucination shuddered. . Reality. Something he could wrestle with. Something he understood. The hallucination shuddered.

The embodied shadows drifted now and again in the darkness, and like the hour hand of a clock, they moved without moving. They were here, and then they were elsewhere. But they were always there.

"What kind of business arrangements? "t.i.tus finally managed to ask. A negotiation. A deal, something that required him to rein in his wildly scattered thoughts.

"I have a number of enterprises that I want you to invest in, "Alvaro answered. "Foreign enterprises. You will be given opportunities to invest in international charities. Good causes. All of them are front companies through which the money will wash away to places unknown."

He smoked the cigarette again, clenched his teeth, parted his lips, and let the stench seep out into the air. t.i.tus thought he saw an ocherous tint to the smoke, to the edges of it, maybe. The stench seemed not to have its source in the cigarette so much as in Alvaro's own rancid nostrils or, more precisely, from somewhere within him.

"Why me?"

"Oh, there are many reasons, Mr. Cain, but there are a few obvious ones. Neither you nor your company is flamboyant. You keep a very low profile. You are relatively small, but the company has been a solid and profitable enterprise for more than a decade. And you have refused to take it public. You are a wholly owned, private company. You are CaiText. You answer to no one, normally an enviable position."

t.i.tus could hardly make himself formulate the next question in his mind, but it wouldn't go away. It kept trying to take shape, a venomous idea lingering in the place of hazy fears at the back of his mind.

"And why, "t.i.tus heard himself say, his stomach tightening, "would I do this?"

Alvaro closed his eyes lazily and nodded as he drew on his foul cigarette. "Yes, of course, "he said. He stared at t.i.tus as if making judgments about him, about how much to tell him or about how to tell him. "There will be critical junctures in our negotiations, moments when I will expect you to perform precisely as I've directed. There will be certain criteria that you will be expected to meet. Maintaining secrecy. Meeting deadlines. Following precise instructions. There will be no, as they say, no wiggle room in your response to these instructions."

He paused for emphasis.

"I am not a patient man, "Alvaro added. "I will never say to you, 'The next time you don't follow instructions ...'No. You will receive instructions only once. And to answer your question, why would you do this ... It's very simple. People are going to start dying, and they will die at a rate of my own choosing based upon how well I think you are cooperating. And they will continue to die until I have sixty-four million dollars."

Chapter 6.

t.i.tus should have seen it coming, but he hadn't. The hallucinatory feel of his situation returned instantaneously. The flagstones on the veranda swung around and floated above him, and the fountain in the courtyard hovered upside down over the dark night sky that spread out in front of him like a black valley rich with sparkling flowers.

Jesus Christ. Jesus. Christ.

"We have to move on, Mr. Cain, "Alvaro said.

t.i.tus looked at him. "Move on?"

"Yes. Do you understand your situation?"

He understood what this guy had said, yes. But he was still waiting for it to seem real.

"Mr. Cain, do you understand?"

t.i.tus would try. He would address the business of this ... hallucination, and he would follow the lines of logic.

"Yeah, "t.i.tus said, "I understand. "It just didn't seem real. "When ... am I going to learn more about the 'business arrangements'?"

"Soon."

"You don't want it all at once?"

"Oh, I'll take it all at once, but I happen to know that you can't get it that quickly. However, I'll want the first payment immediately."

"How much will that be?"

"I'll let you know."

t.i.tus quickly ran over his personal a.s.sets in his mind. How much was this maniac going to ask for? t.i.tus was beginning to come around, as if he were regaining consciousness. "My financial people will be flabbergasted if I start dumping millions. It won't make any sense to them."

"You'll have to be creative to avoid curiosity, "Alvaro said. "I don't want anyone suspicious about what you're going to be doing. That would be unacceptable."

"What kind of enterprises are you talking about?"

"Oh, a wide variety. I'll get to that later. The main thing is, when all is said and done it must appear that you've simply made a series of business decisions that have resulted in these unfortunate losses. Everything you do has to lead to that appearance. The way you set up these acquisitions, all of it."

"I'll look like a fool for making decisions like that, "t.i.tus said.

"I have people who will work with you, "Alvaro said, "to give it the best face possible. "He paused. "But, really, I don't give a d.a.m.n about how it will make you look, one way or the other. You need to understand that. So long as it isn't suspicious. That's the important thing. I really can't emphasize that enough."

Moment by moment, reality was filtering back into t.i.tus's thinking. The disabling numbness of shock lessened, and he came to himself as if he were awakening from a drugged stupor. Fear was still there, potent and sweaty, and there was a stirring of resistance, too. Though he was still reeling, there was a germinating seed of anger.

"As for your law enforcement agencies, "Alvaro said, "don't do it. It's a gamble. If you call them, and you are able to keep it hidden from me temporarily, you may indeed save your money. But I will find out about it sooner or later, and then it will cost you your peace of mind for the rest of your life. If I can't get to you, I'll get to people you know. Friends. Family. You will be responsible for what happens to all of them, for everyone you've ever known."

He paused and lolled his head as if weary of trying to be convincing.

"Mr. Cain, believe me, I've done it all before. I know the tricks men want to play. I know that after I leave here tonight you will begin scheming of ways to escape your situation with your money and your life intact. I know you will do this because you are an intelligent man-after all"-he spread his arms out and looked around him-"look at the fortune you have created by your own ingenuity, your own cleverness. No? So, who am I to come in here and give you instructions, do this, do that, as if you were stupid and couldn't figure out a way to outsmart me? Right?

"But ... listen to me, Mr. Cain. "Alvaro lifted his chin and p.r.o.nounced his next words with exaggerated care. "You-cannot-do-it. And if you try, you will create a f.u.c.king monster. As of tonight your life has changed, as surely as if you had discovered a terrible disease inside you, and there is nothing you can do about it. The only thing in your power regarding this situation is to do as you are told. It will save lives."

He c.o.c.ked his head at t.i.tus. "And that's no small thing, is it?"

Again, t.i.tus was speechless. How could he possibly respond to such ... insanity? He couldn't even formulate a question that didn't seem surreal.

A tiny red light out in the courtyard caught t.i.tus's eye, just a couple of winks and it was gone, and one of the dark smudges drifted away from the others and stood alone. t.i.tus could hear the man talking. His head was throbbing. He reached out and put his now tepid bottle of beer on the wrought-iron table.

"Suicide, "t.i.tus said abruptly.

"That's always an option, "Alvaro said, unfazed. "But you're really not the issue. I want the money. I don't care if I get it from you or from your wife. It's irrelevant to me. The important thing is that I get it."

"I could put it all into a trust. I wouldn't have any control over it."

"Mr. Cain, please understand: People die if I don't get the money. It's not a matter of how clever you can be, or how clever your lawyers can be. Anything you do that prevents the transfer of sixty-four million to me will cause people to die. You go to the FBI, they die. You find a financial escape hatch, even more people die. It's very simple."

"How many people? "t.i.tus asked stupidly. But he thought of only one person. Rita. Jesus Christ. Rita's face lodged in his mind-an unthinkable a.s.sociation that crowded out the faceless plurality of all the others that might have been there.

"How many people do you know? "Alvaro asked. It was a ghoulish response that left no doubt that he would take it fur ther than t.i.tus could bear. t.i.tus didn't answer.

"Well, "Alvaro said, turning in his chair with a little gesture to the shadows, "that covers the big picture."

t.i.tus heard the dogs and then saw them coming, lumbering along through the allee of laurels with their noses down, scanning the earthy scents. They were happy to be out of wherever they were being kept and came onto the veranda and straight to t.i.tus.

He bent to the dogs and petted them firmly, as they liked. It was so good to see them. This was reality; these s...o...b..ring, affectionate old friends were reality.

But when the dogs turned to Alvaro, expecting the same treatment, he stopped them with a scolding grunt. They flinched away, casting puzzled, wary glances at him, and then stood looking at him, their tails hanging still.

In that moment Alvaro made another gesture, and t.i.tus saw a flash from the shadows and heard a m.u.f.fled pumft! pumft! pumft! pumft! pumft! pumft! pumft! pumft! The first dog's head flew back, and he dropped on his folded legs, his brains thrown twenty feet back against doors into the house. The second dog, caught in midturn, stumbled as if tripping, the bullets catching his brain at such an angle as to buy him another millisecond. He emitted a m.u.f.fled yowl, and his hindquarters collapsed, and for an instant his front legs remained rigid, refusing death, his head extended awkwardly as if to maintain his balance. And then he went down. The first dog's head flew back, and he dropped on his folded legs, his brains thrown twenty feet back against doors into the house. The second dog, caught in midturn, stumbled as if tripping, the bullets catching his brain at such an angle as to buy him another millisecond. He emitted a m.u.f.fled yowl, and his hindquarters collapsed, and for an instant his front legs remained rigid, refusing death, his head extended awkwardly as if to maintain his balance. And then he went down.

t.i.tus was on his feet instinctively, which brought the shadows instantly into the light at the edge of the veranda. Three men, Hispanics in dark street clothes, small, high-tech automatic weapons, headphones.

Alvaro was as cool as boredom. He put his hand up and signed for t.i.tus to step back away from him. t.i.tus did, his heart rattling around in his chest, driven by fear and fury and simple astonishment. Alvaro stood and moved closer to his men, closer to the dark. He lifted his chin at the dogs.

"It's that easy, Mr. Cain. "He shrugged. "Friends. Relatives. Strangers. I hand them into your safekeeping. Don't hand them back to me. They're all dogs to me."

He turned and stepped into the darkness.

Chapter 7.

t.i.tus stood on the veranda as if he had just walked out of the house and had forgotten what he'd come to do. He stared at the silent fountain in the courtyard and listened to the cars starting in the drive at the front of the house. He heard car doors slamming and heard the cars driving away, their engines fading as they wound their way down the hill and into the night.

He turned and looked at the dogs. Jesus. He had to think. He had to be clearheaded. He had to think things through all the way to their logical conclusions.

After walking over to the first dog, he knelt and worked his hands underneath. He was warm and limp and bloodsoaked. t.i.tus avoided looking at his head. When he picked him up he felt that odd density of death, a strange thing he had known before with animals, how they seemed so much heavier after they had died.

He carried the dog through the courtyard, into the allee of mountain laurels and out into the darkness, where a broad, sloping path led down to the orchard. At the back of the orchard, where the only light was the reflected glow of the city lights haloed over the ridge of hills, he put the dog down on a flat plot of thick Bermuda gra.s.s. Then he returned for the second dog.

With a pickax and shovel he got from the reservoir work site a hundred yards away, he began digging in the loam. It took him the better part of an hour to get the hole deep enough to discourage the coyotes and feral cats from digging them up, and then he laid the two dogs one on top of the other and filled in the hole.

When he was finished he was soaked in sweat, his clothes ruined, smeared with dirt and dog's blood that combined into a sad crust. He returned the pickax and shovel to the reservoir site and then walked back up to the house, where he got a hose and washed the pools of blackening blood from the veranda.

He crossed the courtyard and went through to the walled enclosure surrounding the pool. Behind the poolhouse there were showers and dressing rooms and a large storage room where they kept the tables and chairs and other accessories they needed for entertaining.

Outside the dressing rooms, he removed his clothes and mud-caked loafers and threw them into the trash cans. Naked, he went to the ice machine in the cabana beside the pool and filled a plastic bucket there with ice and threw the ice into the pool. He did this repeatedly until the ice machine was empty. And then he dove in. He swam four laps slowly, back and forth through the cold pockets of floating ice, trying to clear his head.

Once out of the pool, he made his way to a deck chair and sat down. He started trying to work it out. For a moment his thoughts just wouldn't gel. He couldn't come up with anything at all. He just wanted to call Rita, hear her voice. But that was out of the question. He didn't trust himself to hide his emotions, and to make her suspicious-maybe even frighten her- without having some kind of plan in place was simply irresponsible.

If he was going to believe this guy's threats, then there was nowhere to go. No options. But t.i.tus found that inconceivable. There were always options, weren't there?

How would this guy know if he contacted someone? Obviously he had some kind of tactical team. How thorough were they? There were bound to be bugs in the house. The phones were probably tapped. And it didn't take geniuses to pick up cell phone transmissions. Would he be followed, too?

Still, doing nothing was out of the question. Alvaro had said: Even if you do contact law enforcement people and are able to hide it from me temporarily ... So maybe his surveillance wasn't as infallible as he would like t.i.tus to think. Sure, he'd want t.i.tus to believe that he, Alvaro, was all over him, that t.i.tus couldn't even have a change in his pulse rate without Alvaro knowing about it; but what if that wasn't true? Was t.i.tus just going to roll over and believe that? It's a gamble, Alvaro had said.

t.i.tus sat up in his chair at the memory of that remark. A gamble. Well, where there's a gamble, there's also a chance, isn't there?

He stood up, his mind racing. No police. No FBI. No law enforcement agencies. But t.i.tus remembered a guy. Four years ago, one of t.i.tus's female employees was abducted from the CaiText parking garage. It developed into a hostage standoff situation (it turned out to be a bad marriage turned worse) that lasted a couple of days. Among the various law enforcement-type consultants brought in during the ordeal was a guy named Gil Norlin. It was never clear to t.i.tus who brought him into the situation or whom he answered to, but he was always sort of hanging around on the edges of it. Never fully engaged, never having any authority for anything. Yet t.i.tus noticed that people did consult him, even the FBI agents, but always quietly, to the side.

t.i.tus heard later that he was a former CIA officer, retired now. A consultant. He had left t.i.tus his card, avoiding his eyes, t.i.tus remembered. t.i.tus headed for the house.

Wearing his robe, he rummaged around in his office for twenty minutes before he found the old card in an outdated Rolodex at the back of a drawer.

He looked at his watch. At this hour the winding roads of the wooded hills were spa.r.s.ely traveled, and even t.i.tus would be able to see someone following. On the other hand, it really didn't matter. Even with all the advanced technology available today, a call from a spontaneously chosen pay phone was still a safe call. Even if Alvaro's people had a surveillance tag on the Rover and knew he was making the call, they wouldn't know whom he was calling or what the call was about.

Alvaro had specified no law enforcement. But he knew that t.i.tus would have to make arrangements with a variety of people in order to raise the money Alvaro was demanding. For all he knew, t.i.tus could be calling his banker, his broker, his accountant, his lawyer. Surely those conversations could be private and not considered a violation of Alvaro's bans on communication? Was t.i.tus to have understood from Alvaro's instructions that he could never have another private conversation? That just didn't seem realistic. It was worth the risk of pushing the envelope a little to find out just how tight a grip this guy had on him.

He grabbed the card from his Rolodex, threw on some clothes, locked the house-feeling stupid, considering what had just happened-and went out and got into the Range Rover.

It took him only ten minutes to get down the winding narrow roads below his house to the lone all-night convenience store at an isolated intersection in the woods. He hadn't seen anyone following him so far, although he knew that his countersurveillance skills had to be less than great.

There were no other cars there. He placed the call from the pay phone outside. That number had been changed. He dialed the new number. He got a recording that gave him yet another number, where he received a cell phone number, where he got a recording to leave a pay phone number and state if he had an emergency. He did both.

Agitated, he sat in the Range Rover with his window down so he could hear the phone ring and stared at the bright interior of the store. n.o.body was in there except the night clerk. No other cars were parked outside except his. The two of them, the middle-aged woman suspended in fluorescent isolation as she stared into s.p.a.ce from her stool behind the cash register and t.i.tus staring at her from his solitary, lightless cubicle, were polar opposites, bound together by their dissimilarities. Black-and-white metaphors for the bewildered.

When the phone rang he was out of the Rover in an instant and picked up the receiver on the third ring.

"Yes?"

"Yeah, this is t.i.tus Cain. I met you about four years ago. There was this abduction-"

"Yeah, I remember."

"I need to talk to you."

"What's the situation?"

"Extortion. Death threats if I call law enforcement. This phone call's a big risk."