Chapter Nineteen

[Chapter Nineteen]

I had an idea. It was a long shot, and it meant I'd have to move fast, so I was already running as I started to figure out the small details.

White hadn't fired when I'd jumped up and emptied my clip, which could have meant he was ready to extract. To get the hell out of there. Assuming he hadn't left immediately after the last shot he'd fired, he would need time to break down his rifle, get to the street level, and get to his vehicle. With the black Caddy just tearing around the corner as I watched, I figured he hadn't started packing it in until Meskhiyev contacted him to let him know they had Laura.

White would have had stairs or an elevator to deal with, whereas I had distance. The building across the courtyard from the City Center was a block away, and I could cover a city block pretty fast. As I made it to the end of the block, I flattened myself against the wall and peeked out quickly. Nothing moving on the street yet, but there was another big black Cadillac parked just across the street from the entrance to White's building.

I paused to check my weapon -- empty, and I didn't have another clip on me. I would just have to hope that White wasn't rocking a secondary weapon. That was, of course, past the hope that he hadn't already vanished. Really, there was very little plan at this point, but plenty of blind, stupid hope.

It only took a few seconds of waiting before White came barelling out of the building, a long duffel bag slung over his shoulder. For an ex-Marine, his situational awareness was crap -- he didn't bother looking left or right as he left the building, just headed straight on towards his Cadillac. I only had about ten steps between me and him, and I covered them as quickly and quietly as possible.

Though not quietly enough, as it turned out. When I was still three steps away, White turned and reached inside his coat, but he wasn't fast enough. I was already on him, and I tackled him to the ground like he had just caught a nice 30-yard pass near my end zone. Whatever he was reaching for in his jacket stayed in his jacket, and the back of his head bounced off the street next to his car. I didn't have to make sure he was out cold -- I'd heard a loud crack when his skull hit the pavement. I had to check to make sure he was still alive.

He was, thankfully. He was breathing, and there wasn't any blood coming from his head. Would have been kind of counterproductive to kill him -- no way to beat any information out of him then. I knew I'd have to move fast, though. Unless I'd done some severe damage, he wouldn't be out more than a couple of minutes.

First order of business -- neutralize any threat he might pose when he woke up. I checked his jacket -- he had been reaching for a handgun, a 1911 model .45, which I took and shoved into my own jacket. Further searching turned up two knives and an extra clip for the handgun, so I took all of those, as well as his car keys.

I used the knife to slice up his jacket into strips, then wrestled the large ex-Marine into the Caddy's passenger seat. I used what was left of his jacket -- high-tensile stuff, like a black BDU coat -- to tie him securely to the seat.

There wasn't time to go back and get Mendez and Rodriguez, as Laura was just getting further away with each passing second. Besides, I'm pretty sure neither one of them would approve of what I was about to do. Hell, I didn't even like the idea, but it was the only one open to me.

I got into the Caddy, started the engine, and tore off in the direction I'd seen the other Cadillac heading. White woke up after maybe a minute.

"They're going to kill you, you know," I heard him say from the passenger seat. His words were slurred a bit -- concussion, probably.

"Yeah, probably," I said. "So, let's make it easy on them. Where are we headed?"

White said nothing. Not taking my eyes off the road, I pulled one of his knives from my jacket. It was a smaller blade, maybe three inches long, but double-edged and pretty damn sharp, if the way it had gone through his coat was any indication. I held it up in the area between us.

"Might want to tell me," I told him.

"Fuck off," he grumbled.

So I jammed the knife into his thigh just above the kneecap.

To his credit, White didn't scream, though anyone with eyes could tell he wanted to. His eyes went wide and his face turned red, and he bit into his bottom lip hard enough to draw blood. I knew I'd gotten him pretty good -- I'm pretty sure I felt the blade hit bone. Not that I'm an expert at torturing people for information, or anything, but I think I was off to a pretty good start. Or a bad one, I guess. Depends on your point of view.

"Now, if you don't want me to start twisting the blade around, or see what else I can stab while keeping my eyes on the road, you probably want to tell me where we're going."

"Fuck, man. I didn't think you'd actually do it," White panted.

"Yeah, well. I did. So, where are they taking Laura?"

"Couldn't make the bomb work without her," White grumbled. "Needed her to execute the plan."

I chanced a look over in the passenger seat -- White was, no pun intended, turning white. He was going into shock, I guessed. Looks like I wasn't so good at this torturing thing after all.

"I already figured that much out, jackass," I told him. I could feel sweat forming between my nose and mouth.

"He's taking her to the bomb," White said. His voice was getting weak.

"Again, figured that bit out," I said with a sigh, reaching for the knife handle, exaggerating my shoulder movement so he could see I was going to twist the knife in his thigh.

I really didn't want to do that, though. I was already feeling a little sick about the damage I'd done -- what if I'd hit the femoral artery? I hadn't even thought of that before now. What if he bled out?

"Los Angeles," White said. "Aon Center. Sixth floor."

"See? That's all you had to say. Hey, you know where there's an emergency room around here?"

* * *

I had a choice to make, and I had to make it fast. Did I get on the phone to Jason Black, let him know what was up? Or did I ditch White's car and weapons and catch the next commercial flight to Los Angeles?

The logical thing to do would have been call Jason Black, of course. The guy obviously had the power to get me from Dallas to Los Angeles with no problem, but there was this itching in the back of my brain, like a single fire ant had crawled up in my skull where I couldn't kill him. Jason Black had sent us to Dallas. Dallas was a trap. Dallas was exactly where Umbra Dynamics had wanted us to go, exactly where they sent their two best shooters (at least) to snag Laura and bring her to the actual bomb site. Now, there was no way for me to *prove* Jason Black did or didn't know about the trap, but how had the Umbra folks -- the majority of them from the Las Vegas facility, I'm sure -- left for Los Angeles without him knowing it?

The only thing that made me kind of trust him was that he was chasing down a bum lead, as well. But as I thought about that, I couldn't even be sure that was true. He *said* he was on a flight to Russia, but it's not like he called me when he got there. It's not like I even saw him get on the plane. Could the guy be on Umbra's payroll? I didn't think so, but they did work contracts for the government, and Jason Black was part of the government. Did Umbra's plan have some Shadow-Agency stamp of approval? Did it go deeper than one corporation's greed?

In the end, I decided to go to the airport on my own and call Black when I was in Los Angeles. With luck, I'd be able to head Laura and Meskhiyev off at the airport, but that would take a lot more luck than I seemed to be having lately -- Dallas had three airports that I knew of (DFW, Love Field, and Addison), and probably five more that I didn't.

I decided to head for DFW -- it was the biggest, and therefore probably had the best chance of having a flight to LAX sometime soon. The airport itself was bigger than the city I grew up in, so I didn't even know where to start. Eventually, I just decided to dump White's car in long-term parking (along with anything incriminating I might have on me, wiped down and cleaned of fingerprints) and take the shuttle to one of the terminals.

I walked up to the American ticketing counter and found that there was a flight leaving for LAX via Phoenix in twenty minutes. I bought a coach ticket in cash, and ran to make my gate.

It wasn't a crowded flight, and I ended up having a row to myself. Once the flight attendants were through their safety lecture and we were airborne, I went ahead and threw up the armrests and laid down. I've never been able to sleep on planes -- something about being in motion while trying to rest -- but that wasn't an issue this time. I'd been running full-bore for days, and apart from a quick nap at the start of this whole debacle and a little bit of sleep in Quentin's hotel room, I'd been awake and moving (and by moving, I mostly mean getting my ass kicked) the whole time. I was out before the seat-belt light turned off.

In Phoenix, I finally got a chance to grab something to eat, something else I realized I hadn't done in a while. I realized then that I had no idea what was keeping me moving -- adrenaline had to have run out about a day and a half ago. I didn't have too much time to think about it, though -- I had a flight back home to catch.

The flight to Los Angeles was strangely packed, and though I'm quite obviously the size of a small tree, they went ahead and seated me right in between two rather hefty gentlemen in full suits. It was a Friday night, well past midnight, so I couldn't figure out the reason for the formal wear. As I looked around (if I really concentrated, I could turn my head almost halfway to the left), I saw a bunch of other rather large guys in suits as well.

"What is there, a convention?" I muttered.

Must have been the large collection of concussions I was putting together, but it never really occurred to me that both of the portly dudes on either side of me could hear that. They sure could, though.

"Yeah. Pharmaceutical sales convention in Phoenix this whole week," the guy on my left said. If he caught the condesending tone in my voice, he was polite enough not to mention it. Or, possibly, I looked too damn scary for him to want to make an issue of it.

"Oh, yeah?"

"Yeah. This company called Umbra Dynamics introduced some new anti-cancer research. It was pretty exciting," the guy on my right said. It was obvoious this dude hadn't heard anything amiss in my tone -- he was too damn excited.

I nodded, but something about what he said struck me as odd. I thought Umbra was in the defense business. What the hell were they doing in the pharmaceutical field, too? And cancer research? That didn't sound like something a company dead-set on detonating a nuclear bomb in a major American city would waste money on.

I had planned to catch another nap on the short flight from Sky Harbor to LAX, but that wasn't going to happen. You try catching a few winks when you're jammed between two sweaty human sausages wrapped in ill-fitting suits. It didn't help that both of them had the air conditioning fucking blasting, which shouldn't have surprised me. Big, out-of-shape dudes are always sweating, seems like. So in addition to being crushed on both sides, I was freezing -- my jacket was more for looks (and to cover guns) than it was for warmth. I was suddenly reminded of the scene in Empire Strikes Back where Han Solo cuts open that weird camel-thing and sticks Luke Skywalker inside to keep him warm. Using these guys for insulation would have been an improvement -- at least they wouldn't have been chattering back and forth across me the entire flight.

A thought did occur to me while I was trying to tune out the whales on either side of me -- there could be Umbra employees on the plane with me. I mean, they had just been at the same conference as my morbidly obese seatmates. I doubted any Umbra pharmaceutical reps would know their company was looking for (or trying to kill) me, but I couldn't be sure of that. They'd surprised me with how far they could reach already -- I figured I'd better make it off the plane as soon as it hit the ground.

That is, if I could extricate myself from the cellulite sandwich before the plane headed back to Phoenix for the night.

Chapter Eighteen

I wasn't dead. As much as I'd like to say I realized that instantly, I didn't. It took Airman Mendez slamming into me -- for a little guy, he made a hell of a defensive tackle -- for me to realize I was still alive.

Good thing he did, too. Otherwise, the bullet that just nicked my left shoulder would have gone straight into my chest. I hit the ground hard, jamming the other shoulder into the pavement, which slowed me down enough that when the side of my head hit the concrete, it didn't knock me out. It just hurt like a motherfucker.

"Get away from the door!" Rodriguez yelled. I could see Laura, her back against the brick wall to the left of the door, and I managed to pull myself most of the way over to her. Mendez was right in front of me, dragging me the rest of the way.

"What the fuck happened?" I groaned, blinking several times. There were spots in front of my eyes so big I could see more white than anything else.

"Flashbang grenade," Mendez told me, reaching into my coat and pulling out one of the pistols. "Someone really doesn't want us to go in there."

"Miguel! You ready?" Rodriguez yelled from the right side of the door.

"On three!" he yelled back.

Though he'd said they'd go on three, I didn't hear either of them counting. Instead, they both were on the move a couple of seconds later, clearing the doors with their guns at the ready. I struggled into a sitting position and reached in my coat for the other pistol, which turned out to be my Sig.

"You really shouldn't go in there," Laura said, shaking her head.

"Yeah, I know," I said, getting to my feet. I could hear gunshots inside.

I blinked a few more times -- my vision was almost clear now, and my feet felt as steady under me as I suspected they were going to get. I crouched low and crept towards the open door, my gun held up and at the ready. As I spun inside, I caught a glimpse of Miguel. He was taking cover behind a decorative planter made of brick. I jumped toward him just as a bullet smashed into the door behind me.

"You good, big man?" Miguel asked. He sounded calm.

"Yeah."

"Good. Shooter on the balcony across the way. One guy, bolt-action rifle. Remington 700's my guess. He's only got two more rounds before he has to reload."

"Brendan White," I said. "He's a former Marine sniper."

"Crap. That means he's not going to shoot again until we give him something to shoot at," Miguel said, sighing.

"I'm wearing Kevlar," Rodriguez told us. I looked past Miguel -- she was taking cover behind a column about five feet from us.

"No good," Miguel said. "My guess is on armor-piercing, the way it didn't even slow down when it went through my man's shoulder here."

I looked at my left shoulder. I thought the bullet had just grazed me, but it had gone clean through my deltoid, making a neat little hole. I expected it to hurt more, but it just felt kind of numb.

"So what do we do? Hang out here until he gets bored?" I asked.

"He won't. Not if he's a Marine sniper like you say," Mendez said, shaking his head. "We're pinned down until one of us moves."

"Or all three of us," Rodriguez said.

"Now, that's something. All three of us take off for cover in different directions. He can only shoot at one of us at a time -- the other two can open up on him," Mendez replied. "But I think you're the one he really wants, big guy. You good with that?"

"We got any other choice?"

"Not that I can think of," Mendez admitted.

"Looks like that's what we're doing, then," I said with a sigh, thumbing the safety off the Sig and getting ready to sprint.

"You set the tone. You move, we move," Rodriguez told me.

I didn't need to be told twice. In fact, I was glad they didn't. No countdown, no "go," just a simple sprint before I could talk myself out of it. It's easier to do something stupid like put your huge gorilla body out there as a target for a fully-trained Marine sniper if you don't take the time to think about it first, and I certainly didn't think this plan through. All thinking was going to do was get me killed, and I was pretty sure that was going to happen anyway, so why waste the energy?

My destination was a matching planter on the other side of the doorway, the one some uninspired architect had put there to balance out this one. I ran for three steps and then dove, and it turned out that was the right thing to do. Just as I jumped, I heard the crack of the rifle, felt the wind of the round as it passed just over my back and took out what was left of the door behind me. I hit the tile floor hard, chest-first, as I hadn't even had time to put my hands up in front of me. I felt the air rush out of my lungs, and I rolled over on my back. I had the wind knocked out of me and I was seeing starts, but I wasn't dead. So that was a plus.

As I moved, I was vaguely aware that Mendez and Rodriguez were running and shooting. Unless they were amazing shots, there's no way they could have hit White. The distance from us at the door to the balcony across the wide, open plaza was a good 300 yards, I estimated. If one of them managed to put a bullet within ten feet of him, it would be a miracle.

White had only fired once, just the one that narrowly missed turning my spine into goo. That meant he had at least one round left, I thought. And that was when I realized -- he could have reloaded at any point. He didn't necessarily have to wait until he was out of ammo to reload -- he could have popped a fresh magazine in any time while Rodriguez, Mendez, and I thought we were being clever and coming up with a strategy. He could keep us pinned down here as long as he wanted.

And he was just keeping us pinned down. The guy was a former Marine Scout Sniper -- they don't miss unless they want to, yet this guy had missed me once and grazed me once. It was impossible. Unless he was drunk or injured, there was no way he wouldn't have killed all three of us already. He meant to miss, and I was beginning to figure out why.

You know how in movies, the hero sets off an explosion, and every dumbass thug runs right toward it? I never got that, and I often played the dumbass thug doing the running. It never made sense to me -- why would you run directly *toward* something that was trying to kill you? Yet the three of us -- a cop, a Special Forces guy, and a bounty hunter -- had just done exactly that, running right into gunfire. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

We'd left Laura on her own. And that's just what they'd wanted us to do.

The door was out -- White had already shown he could hit that anytime he wanted to. I briefly considered trying to run for more cover, find another exit where he couldn't easily shoot me, then circling back around outside, but giving up any bit of cover I had was probably a bad idea. I mean, I'd already figured out I wasn't his primary target, but I don't doubt he'd be only too happy to explode my skull if I made it easy for him to do.

Mendez and Rodriguez were conversing quietly, but I was too far away to hear what they were plotting. I saw Rodriguez reach for the radio extender on her shoulder, and guessed that she was finally calling in backup. It didn't surprise me too much that she'd been hesitant to do so up until now -- none of us were supposed to be here, anyway. There would be a lot of explaining when the cops showed up, and I didn't doubt I'd be seeing the inside of a holding cell if I was still around when they did.

So, you ever done this? Sometimes, you've just spent a couple of minutes convincing yourself that something's a bad idea, but then you inexplicably go ahead and do it anyway? What's that about? It's like our brains have a tiny suicide switch, and when (like me) you've been awake for far too long and are probably walking around with some minor brain injury, that switch goes firmly into the "on" position.

And then you go ahead and take a deep breath, stand up, and fire directly at where you guess the sniper is camped out, even though you know you have no chance in hell of hitting him.

And even though you know a .308 round is probably on the way to your chest even as you pull the trigger.

I emptied my clip, but White didn't fire. I have no idea why, but I wasn't going to waste my time trying to figure it out. I dove back out into the street through what was left of the door, again landing hard on my tortured right shoulder again. If I kept this up, the damned thing would need to be held together by pins and plastic cartiledge. Even then, I was aware it had slipped out of joint at least a little bit.

But I had to put that pain on hold for a second. There would be time to bitch about that later, and if you've followed me this far, you'll recognize that I will, indeed, bitch about it later, in great detail. Now I needed to find Laura, needed to make sure that White taking potshots at us wasn't just a distraction while Meskhiyev or someone grabbed her. I checked where I'd last seen her, but she wasn't there. That didn't necessarily mean anything -- she could have moved to what she felt was a more secure hiding spot. I know I would have.

I checked behind and around the police car, and the Air Force car Mendez had used to ferry us there. Nope. I quickly jogged up and down the street about fifty feet in each direction, dropping low to check under cars and sticking my head into alleys. Still nothing.

It wasn't long before I had no choice but to start yelling.

"Laura!" I shouted, aware as I did so that I sounded like I was calling for a runaway puppy. "Laura!"

No answer. But I soon saw why.

I didn't find Laura, but I found her shoes, both of them, one neatly next to the other in the middle of the street. I don't know how I'd missed them as I was running around -- possibly because I was almost completely ignoring the street in favor of possible hiding places. As I looked up from the shoes, I saw a black Cadillac tearing off down the street. And that was when I knew they had her.

Someone had left the shoes deliberately, both to ensure it was harder for Laura to run if she got free and to serve as a nice "fuck you" to me. That latter part made me suspect it was Meskhiyev. Guy was really becoming a pain in my ass, especially because he kept winning -- as of right then, I had no idea where he was taking Laura, but I was pretty sure the bomb wasn't in Texas. No, Texas had been a ruse for them to separate us from Jason Black (don't know how they knew he was involved) and get Laura.

Back when she'd first showed Quentin and I the bomb in the back of the BMW, she'd said it was "nearly complete." And when I thought about that versus her abduction right of the street, it all came together. They weren't chasing Laura because she was going to expose them. They were chasing her because she was the one who could complete the device.

And now they had her, and I had no idea where they were taking her.

Chapter Seventeen

So, my memory is pretty good. Not foolproof, but decent. Especially my memory for faces -- I'm better with them than with names, though I've gotten better with names in recent years, thanks to my current job (where a name and a photo is often all I have to go on when tracking someone down). So, I thought I remembered what Jason Black looked like.

The guy I met in the hotel bar at the Debbie Reynolds... well, I suppose it *could* have been the same guy I met back on the set of that horrible action film a few years back. I remembered him as being a few inches shorter than me (most people are), but built like a brick shithouse. This guy looked at least similar in the face, but I got the impression he was taller. Thinner. His hair had more gray in it than I remembered, too. But his voice matched up, and it was definitely the same guy I'd been talking to on the phone. I put it down to a combination of fatigue, a budding concussion, and reasoned that the last few years might have been a little tough on the guy. The height thing must have been an illusion, or an error of memory on my part.

"Captain Black?" I said as I approached, though he was the only one at the bar and had probably had eyes on me as soon as I entered the casino floor.

"Jake. Man, have you gotten bigger? Try a few minutes a day outside the gym, kid."

I nodded. The way he talked matched up to the guy I knew. Must be the same guy. I realized at that point I should probably get a CAT scan to make sure my brain wasn't swelling. But that would have to wait.

"What are you drinking?" he asked.

"Something nice and strong. Vicodin in a glass, if they have it," I said, grinning and waving my hand past my wrecked face.

"Rum it is, then."

"So what did you find out?" I asked as my drink arrived and I took a sip.

"Off-the-book flights. Two of them. A little tracking and some frankly illegal digging revealed that both of them were Umbra personnel."

"Did you find out where they were going?"

"One's headed to Moscow. The other one landed at Addison Airport in Texas about forty minutes ago."

"Addison. Is that anywhere near Dallas?"

"Yep."

"Dallas and Moscow were two of the towns on my list," Laura said.

"Yeah, he told me," Black said, nodding to me. "Now, this is unofficial, mind you, and I need you to understand that I am not speaking for, nor acting in any capacity for the United States government."

"I get that."

"Good. Personally, I think it's pretty fucking odd that two off-the-books flights are headed to two cities that could be targets in this little wargames scenario you say Umbra is running. Makes me think there might be something to this. Dr. Mills, do you have a precise location for each of these cities?"

"Part of my job was to find a theoretical location in each city to maximize the damage. So, yeah."

"I have some leave coming to me, so I'm going to take it. Let's check this thing out."

Black took a long, slow sip of his drink. I realized I was the only one drinking alcohol -- Black had strong, black coffee, and Laura hadn't ordered anything. But to be fair, neither of them had the shit kicked out of them by a huge ex-commando. The rum was stinging the two holes where my back molars had been, but I like to think it was also working on the pain.

"So, I'll take Russia. I can get you guys on a black flight to Dallas in about twenty minutes," Black said, finishing off his coffee and waving to the waitress, who was making a show of ignoring the only three customers at the bar.

"Black flight?"

"Unlisted. No plan filed with the FAA. Or I could send you to Moscow, but something tells me neither of you speak Russian, am I right?"

I nodded, and Laura shrugged.

"Not well," she told him. "My passport isn't up to date anyway."

"Heh. Not like I'm going through official channels, here. My cell will stay on the whole time I'm gone. You find something, you call me immediately, got it?"

"Got it."

"Good. When you get to Maccarran, go to the airport security office and ask for a man named John Dixon. He'll set you up." Black looked at his watch. "Better get a move on. And don't worry about the stolen truck you rolled up in. I'll have someone take care of it."

Black waved for the waitress again, but she continued to ignore us. I drank off the rest of my rum, and Black shrugged and dropped his coffee cup on the table.

"Fine. Fuck you, then," he mumbled, getting up.

"I'll take care of the check --" I started.

"Don't bother. We don't pay for anything here. Call me from Dallas."


* * *

John Dixon wasn't what I expected. I was looking for a big dude, ex-military looking, crew-cut and Marine First Recon tattoos. When we got to the security desk and asked the short, thin guy with huge engineer glasses for John Dixon, he pointed to the nametag over his chest, which read, of course, "John Dixon."

"I'm Jacob Harris. Jason Black told me to talk to you."

Again, John Dixon said nothing, just nodded and hopped out of his chair behind the security desk. He was even shorter than I thought, as his chair lent him some height -- the guy was barely over five feet when his two tiny shoes hit the floor. He gestured for Laura and me to follow him, so we did. He badged his way through a security door and led us through a maze of poorly lit tunnels. I was lost pretty quickly, but Dixon seemed to know where he was going. After about two and a half minutes of walking (and for a little guy with a tiny stride, this dude was fast -- I had a hard time keeping up), we walked through a heavy steel door and out onto the tarmac quite a good ways away from the main terminal. Not 50 feet from us, a Gulfstream II sat waiting, the door open and the stairs down.

Dixon just kind of nodded to the plane, jerked his head in the general direction of the open door. Laura went in first, and I followed her. As the stairs lifted up and the door closed, we saw Dixon standing there on the tarmac, short and gnomelike, waving goodbye with one of his tiny hands.

The plane was airborne in minutes. I don't fly often for work these days -- most guys I'm chasing don't get much further than a day's drive. Once, I had to catch a plane to New Orleans to chase after this bank robbery suspect, and that all kinds of sucked. In Louisiana, we bounty hunters have to wear *uniforms* identifying us as such. Kinda makes it hard to sneak up on a motherfucker when you're wearing a blue shirt with "BOUNTY HUNTER" on it in bright, yellow letters.

But anyway, I had to take a flight to that one, and the plane sat on the tarmac for a good half-hour after we boarded. Not so with this flight -- we were screaming down the runway as soon as Laura and I took our overstuffed seats. We were the only passengers, and the door to the cockpit was closed. The thing could have been flown by a robot for all I know.

"How long is the flight to Dallas?" Laura asked me.

"No idea. You're the one who's good with numbers. It's in the top middle part of Texas, and Texas is really fucking big. That's all I know."

A small TV next set into the wall next to the cockpit door flickered on. There was a map of the Southwest on the screen, and as we talked, the words "ETA: 1 hour, 52 minutes" appeared on the screen.

"Well, there you go, then," I said.

I woke up as the plane landed. I wasn't even aware I'd fallen asleep. You know that feeling you get when you're dozing off, when your brain goes all nonlinear and all these odd, random thoughts start appearing in your head? Yeah, I didn't have that. Not a bit. This was more like being knocked out -- a hard, brutal awakening with no memory of being hit in the first place. It was like when that rig exploded, except I didn't wake up with a snapped spine this time.

Felt like it, though. The chairs on the Gulfstream were great, but my back had taken a beating over the last couple of days. I realized that I was probably facing a couple of months of physical therapy when and if I made it back home to Los Angeles. I hate physical therapy.

The plane taxied to a stop, and the door opened on its own again. As the stairs descended from the open door, I pulled myself out of the chair, stretched my back as best I could, and headed down to the pavement. I could hear Laura behind me. She wasn't moving terribly fast, either, not that I could blame her. The last week or so couldn't have been easy for her, especially since she normally worked a desk job. Hell, they'd been rough for me, and my job regularly consists of running, jumping, shooting -- like a human Super Mario, only without the greasy mustache, red overalls, or plumbing acumen.

A dark blue Plymouth Reliant was waiting for us, and a young guy in an Air Force uniform was standing outside. He looked about 14 or 15 years old.

"Jacob Harris?" the kid asked, yelling over the noise of the Gulfstream's engines.

"Yeah!"

"I'm Airman Mendez. Captain Black asked me to take you and Miss Mills wherever you need to go, sir."

"Talk to the lady, Mendez. She's running the show," I said as I opened the Reliant's back door and crammed myself in behind the driver's seat.

"Where are we going, Miss?" Mendez asked.

"Downtown. Pearl and San Jacinto. Know it?"

"The City Center, sure."

"Don't rush. We have plenty of time," Laura said.

"How do you figure?" I asked as Mendez drove us out of the small airport.

"It's night. No way they're going to set off the bomb at night," she told me. "Not enough casualties."

"She's right, sir," Mendez said. "It's past close of business. Downtown is dead right now, save a couple of folks out to nice dinners."

"That's fucked up," I said, shaking my head.

"Oh, you want to hear fucked up? Wanna know why they choose downtown areas instead of, say, residential ones?"

"Like you said, more casualties, right?"

"That's kind of it. But why not set it off in a neighborhood?"

It wasn't me who answered. It was Mendez.

"High-rise buildings."

Laura nodded.

"Exactly. It's a small device, a tactical nuclear weapon. Set it off in a neighborhood, you take out maybe a kilometer or so. You take out the same area downtown, but you kill a whole lot more people when the buildings just outside the blast zone start falling down."

"You mean... all of the people in the high-rises are dead," I guessed.

"Well, yeah. And all the people that the rubble falls on, well... they're having a really bad day, too. And optimal placement ensures a domino effect -- buildings fall into other buildings, knocking those down, too. Devastation and death combined."

"And you designed this blast?"

"In what I thought was an academic exercise, one to prevent terrorism. Not as a blueprint for terrorism."

I couldn't think of anything to say to that. Sure, a big part of me wanted to condemn her for her part in a plot that could kill ultimately millions of people (provided her "provoke a war with China" story was true), but I could see how something like this could happen. As far as she knew, after all, she was just doing her job. How was she supposed to know that elements in her company would use her work to attack a friendly city? Besides, if we couldn't prevent the bomb from going off, I expect I wouldn't need to condemn her. She'd be doing it quite effectively herself for the rest of her life.

As he drove, Mendez pulled out a slick-looking Nokia cell phone and started dialing a number into its lit-up keypad.

"Who are you calling?" I asked.

"Buddy of mine in DPD," he said over his shoulder. "We'll need someone to get us into City Center. It's closed this time of night."

"Police?" Laura asked. She looked worried.

"Yeah. But don't worry. Andrea's cool. And she knows what's up. You're not getting arrested, promise."

Mendez wasn't on the phone long. He talked like most guys I know -- get out the required information and hang up. That's why our cell bills stay manageable, I suppose. I had a girlfriend who was always complaining about the size of her bill, but you should have seen her just bullshitting on the phone for hours. Somehow, she never connected the two.

When we arrived at City Center, a Dallas Police black-and-white was waiting outside, with a young, female Hispanic officer leaning against the hood. As we approached, she gave Mendez a wave.

"Hey, Miguel," the young cop said as we got out of the car. "More shit you're not allowed to tell me about?"

"Afraid so," Mendez said. "Gotta check the building for some missing property. This lady and gentleman here will be conducting the search -- all you and me have to do is stand around and collect our paychecks."

"That's what I was doing before you got here," the cop grumbled. As we got closer, I saw her name tag -- Rodriguez.

"Thanks for coming out to help tonight, Officer Rodriguez," I said, smiling and forgetting that I was all busted up.

"Jesus Christ, kid. Looks like someone used your face for soccer practice," Rodriguez said, shaking her head and reaching for the radio extender on her shoulder. "One Fourteen."

"Go ahead, One Fourteen," a dispatcher's voice crackled over the radio.

"Advise property owner at City Center I'm conducting a search of the building as arranged."

"Copy."

"After you," Rodriguez said, indicating the door.

I moved to open the door... and that's when the explosion happened.

Chapter Sixteen

Laura wanted to look around the complex more, but I knew it was pointless. Tracking scumbags over the past couple of years had taught me a couple of things, and one of them was to recognize when a place had been cleaned out. When a guy was about to run, he went to his place and took what he thought he couldn't live without. As I looked around the lab, I realized that was what had happened here. Tools had been left, but documents and the bomb, gone.

"They might have left some clue where they were going," Laura protested after I suggest we leave.

"You know where they were going. One in ten shot," I said. "This neighborhood's crap, but the security guards have definitely called the police. We don't have long before we have a lot of explaining to do."

Reluctantly, she followed me back out to the car. I turned the key in the ignition, but nothing happened. A quick check revealed one of the guards' wild shots had cracked into the engine. Fluids had emptied themselves all over the pavement.

"Gonna have to leave it," I said.

"The cops will track Quentin down," she said as she got out of the car.

"We can slow that down a bit," I told her.

I lit one of the Molotovs and chucked it into the car with the rest. By the time we'd cleared the fence out onto the street, the car was burned down to the frame.

That left us on foot in a neighborhood that even the most charitable of real-estate agents would consider "undesirable," or "hellish." Calling for a cab wouldn't work -- they wouldn't come to that part of town, and even if they did, waiting on one would just leave us out in the open to get shot at, robbed, or worse. We needed transport out of there, and we needed it yesterday.

I learned everything you could ever need to know about cars during my stunt driving courses, except, of course, how to hotwire one. I knew I could get us into a car without a problem, but getting it started? No clue. I was running through the possibilities in my brain as Laura and I walked as fast as we could away from the burning mess we'd left.

"You wouldn't happen to know how to hotwire a car, would you?" I asked. I was kidding, of course.

"Yeah," she said.

"Seriously?"

"I'm an engineer, Jake. Hotwiring a mid-80s car is like... well, like something really easy you do. I don't know. Ripping phonebooks in half?"

We found a 1982 Ford F-150 about a block from the complex. The window was cracked, so I had it unlocked in about ten seconds. Laura crawled into the driver's seat and started messing around under the steering column.

"Hey, y'all stealing that truck!" a young black guy, maybe 20, covered in tattoos and dreadlocks, yelled from across the street.

I pulled out the shotgun and aimed it at him. It wasn't like I could hit him from across the street with it, but I had no intention of firing. It was just a big, fuck-you looking gun, and it got the message across quite nicely.

"Not that I got a problem with that," he yelled, his face splitting into the widest, whitest grin I've even seen.

It took about thirty more seconds, but Laura got the truck started. She situated herself in the driver's seat, and I climbed in through the passenger door. She had the pedal floored almost before I got my door closed.

"Jesus, kid, slow down."

"You said we needed to get out of here fast."

"And we do. But keep it somewhere near the speed limit, yeah? We are driving a stolen truck, after all, and I know you have warrants. I probably do by now, too. We get pulled over now, we're done."

She nodded and laid off the accelerator, letting the truck drop down to 35 miles an hour. The engine didn't sound good, and forcing it up to 55 almost immediately probably hadn't done it any favors, but we didn't need it to get us far. Just...

It was at that point I realized I had no idea where we should go next. The Strip would be my first choice, if for no other reason than we could probably blend in with the crowd while we figured out our next move. But, really, we had no base of operations anymore, nowhere we could sit and talk this out. While I considered what to do, I pulled out my cell phone. Might as well call Quentin and let him know his truck was gone.

"I wouldn't," Laura said, looking at me out of the corner of her eye. "You can bet they have your number by now, and any idiot with a police scanner can pick up cell conversations."

She was right, of course. I didn't want to admit that to her, though -- for a good-looking chick, she certainly knew how to get on my nerves. I just put the cell back in my pocket.

"I'll stop if I see a pay phone. This thing's almost out of gas anyway."

We stopped at a gas station that wasn't on the Strip, but well within view of the Stratosphere, so we had to be somewhere close. There were still bars over all of the windows, so we weren't out of the ghetto just yet, but if you've never been to Las Vegas... well, most of it is the ghetto. I think we were in a *better* ghetto, anyway.

There were two pay phones on the outside of the building, but only one of them had the handset still attached. The other one had been ripped off in an apparent fit of Hulk-smash rage, if the remains of the phone itself were any indictation. The keypad looked like it had been punched squarely in the center by a massive, powerful fist. As Laura went inside to kick the guy behind the counter a couple of bucks for gas, I picked up the reciever on the un-Hulked phone. There was a dial tone, so I dropped in a quarter and dialed the Monte Carlo. I asked for Ken Adams.

Quentin took the news about his truck better than I would have expected, but he explained that the vehicle wasn't *technically* his anyway. I asked if it was stolen, and he told me he'd rather not say. I was going to push a little on that point until I realized I'd rather not know.

"You hear anything on the radios after we left?" I asked.

"A bit of chatter about moving to another location. Something in code, Staging Area November. It's been quiet for the last hour or so, though."

"All right, man. Thanks. You can probably roll out of there whenever you feel like it -- I think Umbra's burned right on out of here."

Laura was putting gas in the truck when I finished talking to Quentin. After a moment's thought, I put another quarter in the phone and dialed Jason Black's number.

It rang only once this time, and Jason Black picked up instead of his... I don't know, intermediary? Secretary just doesn't sound right. Anyway, it was him that answered.

"Go for Black," he said.

"Jason, hi. It's --"

"Jake Harris. Assault not go like you thought, Jake?"

Shit. He knew I was out there doing stuff I shouldn't, and he was in the employ of the Federal Government. Part of me wanted to hang up the phone right then, but I stayed on the line. I'm glad I did.

"They moved the package."

"And by package, you mean..."

"I think you know what I mean."

"I really don't. Though I'm guessing it has something to do with Umbra Dynamics, doesn't it?"

"You know them?"

"They're a major defense contractor, Jake. I really hope you aren't trying to supplement your income by stealing government research."

"Umbra is dirty, Jason. I've got evidence they're planning something, something very bad."

"You know what you sound like, Jake? You sound like a conspiracy nut. Tell me why I shouldn't scramble the FBI to hunt you down and put you in a nice, padded room where the big, mean companies can't read your thoughts through your TV."

I was stuck. If I told him, would he believe me? More importantly, could he help in any way? I figured it really didn't matter. If I told him and he didn't buy it, or if I just didn't tell him, the results would be the same -- the FBI and probably military intelligence would join the police and Umbra in hunting me and Laura.

So I took a shot. I told him what I knew.

It didn't take me but a minute to explain it all. The last few days had been hellish, and probably the most active of my adult life, but when I boiled it down to the essentials, it didn't sound like much. Still, even though it probably took only about 60 seconds to explain, Laura was making the "hurry up" gesture over by the truck. I waved her off.

Black was silent for almost as long as it had taken me to tell the story. I was beginning to think there was something wrong with the line, or that he'd hung up and the dial tone just wasn't happening for some reason, but he finally spoke.

"That's some pretty heavy shit you're accusing them of."

"I have one of their lead scientists backing it all up. And I believe her."

"And if I was to believe this -- not saying I do, but if I did -- what is it you need from me?"

Fair question, I suppose.

"I've figured out that you're not just an Air Force desk jockey, or a PR guy who goes out to movie sets to make sure someone doesn't call an F-16 an F-15. You're deep in. I was hoping you could... I don't know. Find some way to help me figure out where they're going. The scientist gave me a list of potential targets."

"Judging by the area code, you're still in Vegas. You know a place called the Debbie Reynolds?"

"Yeah, I think so."

"Good. Meet me there at sundown. Check into a room under my name. They won't ask for ID."

* * *

The Debbie Reynolds Casino Hotel was definitely on the way out. First, I had no clue who Debbie Reynolds even was, and, by the lack of people in the building when Laura and I walked in, neither did anyone else. The place was, charitably, a dump. But the bored-looking middle-aged lady at the front desk didn't bat an eyelash when I said my name was Jason Black -- she just slid a key across the table without a word.

Laura and I went up to the room, and I sprawled out on the bed. My head had started hurting again, and I really wanted nothing more than to go to sleep. Maybe if I was lucky, I'd wake up in my apartment with Eammon banging on the door about the rent, and find out everything in the past three days had just been a nice, nonsensical dream after one too many rum and cokes down at the Viper Room.

Turned out that wasn't the case, of course. I got about ten minutes to lay down. Then the phone on the rickety table by the bed rang. I picked up the receiver and held it to my aching skull.

"Yello?" I managed to mumble.

"OK. Not saying I believe you, yet, but I did some checking. Meet me downstairs in the hotel bar," Jason Black said.

Before I could say anything else, he hung up the phone.

"Want a drink?" I asked Laura, rolling off the bed and stretching my shoulders as far back as they would go, trying in vain to knock some of the knots out of my back.

"More than you would believe," she said.

Chapter Fifteen

Finding a liquor store in Las Vegas isn't much of a challenge. Basically, you can just head in any direction and you'll be at one in a couple of minutes. And the stuff I was looking for wasn't rare or expensive, so I wasn't exactly picky. Still, though I didn't so much care where I ended up, I know I could have done better than Fredo's Discount Liquors.

The bars on the windows weren't a great sign, nor was the armed, overweight security guard padding around out front. In my experience, fat security guards are way more dangerous than the overmuscled, jock types. The fat ones are less likely to chase you and more likely just to open fire. This guy definitely had that look about him, that hard, unfocused glare that he cast over Laura and I as we got out of the car.

"Nice place," Laura muttered.

"Yeah, it was highly recommended by the Las Vegas Convention and Visitor's Bureau."

My head was still killing me, but by now, it wasn't anything a couple hundred Advil wouldn't cure. I was pretty sure I had a concussion -- I've had them before -- but it wasn't severe. I was banged up, sure, but I'd still be able to carry the plan through.

We left Fredo's Discount Liquors a few minutes later with five bottles of Bacardi 151, all they currently had on the shevles. Apparently, according to the talkative guy at the register, they'd just opened the last case before we'd come in. An on-duty cop had bought the first bottle. That was comforting.

Laura was a little suspicious of me buying what was essentially a metric fuckton of booze, and it probably didn't help her confidence any that the next place I stopped the car was a dumpster. I rooted around until I found a half-dozen empty glass bottles, then found what looked like a very stained hotel pillowcase. I put the bottles in the pillowcase and came back to the car.

"So now we're rooting for junk?"

"Jesus, Laura. Did you grow up in a complete cultural void, or what?"

"I don't follow."

"You never watched any action movies when you were a kid?"

"I was studying when I was a kid."

"Ah. You were a nerd. Then riddle me this -- what happens when you fill a bottle half-full of something flammable, then stuff a rag down the mouth and light it?"

"Molotov cocktails?"

"Exactly. And Bacardi 151 is more flammable than gasoline. Even comes with a little flame supressor on the bottle to keep it from spontaneously combusting when you pour it. What, did you think the plan involved getting blackout drunk or something?"

She didn't say anything, but I could tell from her expression that was exactly what she'd been thinking. She really didn't give me much credit, and my performance thus far probably hadn't merited a whole lot of respect. That was fine, though. When this was over, she'd probably still underestimate me, and I'd use that to my advantage to get her back to Los Angeles and turn her in.

"You sure you can handle those? I've heard those things can go bad in a hurry," Laura said as I climbed back into the truck.

"Yeah. I'm fire certified," I told her.

"That a big thing in the bounty-hunter world?"

"I used to be in entertainment. Stunt performer. I've been lit on fire by one of these before."

"Under controlled conditions, of course."

"Well, yeah. But I don't plan on getting lit on fire this time."

"And just what is the plan? I'm a little vague on that."

That was intentional, of course. I'd only shared the broad strokes of the plan back in the hotel room, mainly because I wasn't sure I could trust her. I wasn't sure I could trust her because I didn't believe her 100 percent, but that had changed after Roth kicked the fuck out of me. So I knew I had to trust her now, even if she had been acting cynical and, let's be honest, like a bit of a bitch.

"The plan is... well, we roll up hard on the complex. Go right through the front gate. When the security car comes after us, that's where the first couple of Molotovs come in," I started.

"Oh. I really don't like this plan," she grumbled.

"Wait. It gets better. You're going to be driving -- unless, of course, you want to be throwing Molotovs -- so you're going to take us right up to where they're keeping the bomb."

"It could only be in two places, and one's much more likely than the other," she said.

"Good. Now, how heavy is it, would you say?"

"About 70, 75 pounds."

"I can do that. We grab it, put it in the truck, and get the fuck out of there. Then you disassemble it and we scatter the parts to the four winds."

"And when they start shooting?"

I nodded towards the duffel in the back seat, the one that held all of our guns.

"We shoot back."

I sounded confident, but that was, of course, a lie. I would really rather have just forgotten I knew anything and gone back to Los Angeles, stick my head under a pillow and pretend I dreamt the whole thing. But I knew I couldn't do that -- I knew I had to do this thing. There was no way I could live with myself if I saw a mushroom cloud on the news one day and knew that I could have stopped it.

Laura helped me make the Molotovs. It wasn't exactly rocket science, but it went faster with both of us working on it. A few minutes later, we were ready to roll. Laura assured me she knew how to handle a gun, so I gave her Meskiyev's pistol. She started up the engine, and we were on our way.

It's hard to really put into words the feeling I had as we cruised into North Las Vegas. I mean, sure. There was fear, obviously. But more than that, there was a sense of... well, just of not wanting to do any of this. We were rolling into a heavily armed compound with guns and homemade explosives, which isn't something I'd want to do on any day, ever. And we stood a very good chance of getting killed, also something I didn't want to do. But worse yet, I would probably have to kill someone, and I really didn't want to do that.

I'd never killed anyone before. Oh, sure, I'd shot people, but they'd never died from it. And I'd messed some dudes up pretty badly. Once, I was serving a warrant in Silver Lake, and the dude charged out of his house like a coked-up rhino with a shotgun. He was ready as hell to kill me, and I would have been well within my rights to kill him at that point, but I didn't. It was the closest I've ever come to killing someone, but I emptied a clip into his legs and put one in his shoulder, one in the side of his neck. The guy survived.

Now... well, someone was going to die, and I had to make sure it wasn't going to be me.

It seemed to take less time to reach Umbra's compound this time around, but that was probably just my perception, not reality. Traffic thinned out right on schedule, and before I knew it, we were deep in the ghetto again. I could see the fence coming up, and I opened the Pathfinder's sunroof.

"Gun it right through the gate," I said as I grabbed two of the Molotovs in one hand and my lighter in the other.

I heard the engine rev as I took off my seat belt and stood. Laura missed a gear, and when it caught, I almost dropped one of the Molotovs all over the front of the car, but I managed to save it. The jolt from the missed gear was worse than the one when Laura crashed through the fence, and that one, I was ready for. Laura sped us toward the buildings, and my head was on a swivel for the security car.

It came, all right, fishtailing around the corner and rocketing through the hole we'd made in the gate. I waited until it got within about fifty feet, then lit both Molotovs and rocketed them, one after the other, right at the security car's windshield. The first one went high, tumbling end-over-end just over the roof and smashing on the concrete behind the car. The second one, though, slammed right into the spot where the hood met the windshield, exploding in a perfect fireball that washed over the entire windshield.

Crazily, the security car's windshield wipers came on. It was as if the driver was trying to wipe the fire off the glass like rain. I chuckled in spite of myself, but it didn't last long. As the wipers melted to the burning glass, the security car slammed on its brakes, and both doors opened. Out came two security guards.

They were fat, both of them, which in my experience meant they were about to start shooting. I already had another lit Molotov in my hand, and I chucked it in their general direction before reaching into my coat and pulling out my Sig. The two guards broke to either side of the car to avoid the new firebomb, but quickly had their guns in their hands. They fired on us, but I fired back. I caught one of them in the hip, the other in the arm. They kept firing, but their shots weren't coming anywhere near us now.

Laura slammed on the brakes, spinning the Pathfinder so that the driver's door was next to the building. I dropped back down through the sunroof and followed her out the driver's side, grabbing the bag with the guns and Molotovs inside as I went. She entered a security code on the keypad by the door, but the lights above the pad stayed red.

"They changed the codes," she said. There was a hint of panic in her voice.

"Don't worry. Those guys will run out of ammo soon," I told her.

I pulled Quentin's pump-action out of the bag and motioned for Laura to get clear of the door. With two slugs, I obliterated the hinges -- not a great design, that -- and the door fell open. Laura dashed inside the darkened building, and I followed.

"Where are we headed?" I asked.

"There's a lab on the second floor. Be ready to shoot -- there's going to be security between us and the lab."

There wasn't, though. We made it up the stairs and down a long hallway without seeing a soul. I used the shotgun as a masterkey again, opening the lab door with a combination of slugs and kicks from my right boot. Laura flipped on the lights inside, and the only thing I saw was a long, empty metal table.

"Um..." I said.

"Must be in the other lab, in the other building."

We encountered no resistance on the way to the second lab, either. In fact, apart from the now-quiet security guards, we'd seen no one since we got into the complex.

"Something doesn't seem right here," I told Laura as she led me to the second lab, this one on the third floor of the next building over.

"I expected this to be tougher, too."

The second lab was also empty. Laura tore around the inside of the lab, opening cabinets and drawers, as if someone had stashed a 75-pound nuclear device in their desk.

"It's gone," she said.

"Yeah, I can see that."

Chapter Fourteen

I wasn't sure at first how long I slept -- only that it was still daylight out when I opened my eyes. I'd pretty much passed out where I'd fallen, stretched out on the couch in the living-room area of Quentin's suite. Though they were trying to be quiet -- nice of them, really -- I could hear Quentin and Laura arguing in the next room.

"He can handle it," Quentin was saying.

"Look, he's a big guy. But so far, you and he have just kind of been stumbling through this. I mean, he had to call somebody to ask how to get into the complex."

"You've never seen dude in a fight. He's got this."

"He's got what?" I asked, walking into the bedroom and stretching out my arms.

"Quentin seems to think you can punch your way out of the building," Laura said, sneering. It wasn't a good look on her.

"Q? What've you got?"

Quentin shuffled off the bed and walked over to the desk on the other side of the room, motioning for me to follow him. He was up and moving now -- not quickly, but moving -- so I figured that was a good sign. As I walked up to the desk, he gestured down at a piece of paper. There was a sketch of the building floorplan on it, with several spots marked with X's.

"Here's what we have so far. We've gotten seventeen separate signals, seventeen different guys watching the exits and common areas," Quentin told me.

"Jesus. This is pretty detailed. How long have I been out?"

"Couple of hours. Now, here... it's not exactly a hole, but it's the weakest point in their network. One guy, guarding the back entrance for the valets. You get past him, you get outside."

"One guy. I can do that."

"See?" Quentin said, winking at Laura. "Told you."

"Yeah. Now tell him the rest."

Quentin sighed and ran his hands through his hair. He shot Laura a glare, then turned back to me.

"Laura here thinks it isn't a weak spot at all. Says she knows the guy they put there."

"His name is Eric Roth, and he's former Israeli Special Forces," Laura said, returning Quentin's glare. "There's no way you'll be able to beat him in a fight. He's the one who teaches all of the combat classes for Umbra Security."

"He's still just one guy," I told her, emptying out one of Quentin's duffel bags and putting the shotgun and pistols inside. "And it's not like I've never been in a fight before."

"Look, you seem OK. Both of you do. But you do not want to underestimate this guy. I've seen him take a loaded gun out of someone's hand and knock them out before they even knew what was happening," Laura told us.

"I can handle it. Besides, have you got another way out of here?"

After a long moment, she shook her head.

"That's what I thought."

"Stairway down to the valet entrance shows clear," Quentin said, tracing the route from our room down to the back stairway on the diagram with his finger. "Once you get there and take out this Roth guy, you'll have to cut back around the building to catch a cab or a shuttle."

"Right. We should probably walk down a couple of blocks off-Strip, minimize any chance of being seen by the guys up front," I said, zipping up the duffel and hoisting it on my shoulder. "Laura, you ready?"

"I guess," she said with a sigh.

"Enthusiasm. I like it."

The back stairway was, indeed, clear, and we made it down to ground level without incident. As I cleared the door out into the valet area, I could see Roth -- a guy about my size, dressed in the same black suit as all of his other Umbra Security pals. I crept up behind him and wrapped my left arm quickly around his throat, pulling it tight with my right. A couple of seconds later, Roth slumped to the floor.

"See? Told you I had this," I said, turning to Laura.

And that's when I lost two teeth.

The move I used on Roth was called a rear naked choke, and it usually put most motherfuckers to sleep in a matter of seconds. Not Roth, though, if the massive overhand right that crashed into my jaw and popped out two molars was any indication. Either he'd only gone out for a second or two, or he'd figured out what I was doing and gone limp, pretended to pass out before he actually did. Either way, I was dealing with a pissed-off ex-Israeli commando, and I was in way over my head.

I don't know how I managed to stay standing after that mule-kick right hand hit me, but I did. My vision was interlaced with angry red and yellow spots, but I saw Roth go for his coat, no doubt for a gun inside, and I managed to lurch my big stupid frame in his direction, plowing into him with all the skill and dignity of a stroke victim. Dumb luck was on my side tonight, though -- my shoulder slammed into his elbow, pinning his right arm against his torso and his back against the wall. He had his hand on his gun, but he couldn't pull it out. I could see that from my vantage point, what with my head nearly inside his jacket and all.

From there, though, I was stuck. As long as I kept pressure on him, he couldn't pull his gun, but he could throw any manner of knees and elbows into plenty of hurty spots on my body. I could do essentially nothing from where I was, with my right elbow smashed into his midsection and my left arm too low to even grab at anything except...

There are things you tell yourself you're never going to do in a fight, things that are just off-limits even when you're fighting for your life. But then, one day you've got an Israeli commando pinned up against a wall in a back corridor of a Vegas hotel, and he's raining down hell on the back of your head with his left elbow, and all of your notions of fighting fair go out the window.

And you grab a handful of that guy's junk and you pull and twist and crush with every ounce of strength you have in the left side of your body.

Roth must've been trained to handle pain, because he kept fighting a lot longer than I would have. For a couple of seconds, he seemed almost unaffected by the damage I was doing, still throwing elbows into the back of my skull. But I noticed his strikes weakening, and I pressed further, bending my legs and picking him up over my shoulders, my left hand still firmly crushing his boys. I ratcheted my back and threw him forward, bouncing him off the wall. As he hit the floor, his gun fell out of his hand, and I kicked him as hard as I could in the face.

He was out this time, I was sure of it. I waited several seconds, panting and trying to blink the spots and black edges out of my vision. He didn't get up, but I could see he was still breathing. Good. I didn't want to kill him, or anyone if I could avoid it.

"That was... well, that was about the most awful thing I've seen in my life," Laura said flatly from behind me.

"Let's go," I panted, grabbing Roth's gun and shoving it into my jacket.

As soon as we were out on the street, the heat hit me. It wasn't even that bad yet, in the mid-90s, but with the beating I'd just taken... well, it wasn't pretty. I vomited almost instantly, the two molars Roth had knocked out spilling out with a fair amount of puke onto the pavement. As I coughed out the last bit of blood and bile, my head started to spin.

"Man. It just keeps getting better with you, doesn't it?" Laura said, shaking her head. "You all right?"

"I'll live."

"Well, you don't look like it. We should probably get you cleaned up. No self-respecting shuttle driver will let you on looking like that."

"This is Vegas. Self-respect is pretty much only theory here," I said, digging through my pockets for something to wipe my face with. Finding nothing, I used the back of my left hand to wipe my face. It came away slick with blood. I checked -- my nose was bleeding pretty badly. Possibly broken.

"You're kind of pale. Can you walk?"

My legs didn't feel too solid underneath me, and I suddenly became aware that my back was killing me. Tossing Roth hadn't done my spine any favors. Still, I was putting one foot in front of the other without falling down, so that was something.

"Looks like it. Let's move. We'll get a few blocks down and try to flag down a ride."

"If you make it that far," Laura grumbled, hooking her arm under mine and marching me down the alleyway.

After a few blocks, Laura told me to stay put for a second and vanished off to the Strip. She came back a few moments later with a garish yellow plastic bag that read "Las Vegas' *Only* Souvenir Shop" across the front. I knew the bag was lying to me, and I realized I was a little punch-drunk when I started giggling at the bag.

Laura shook her head and pulled out a white "I Love Las Vegas" T-shirt, which she handed to me.

"It's a medium," I said. "No way that's gonna fit me."

"It's not to wear. It's to mop up some the Niagra Blood Falls you're working with there."

Of course it was. I felt a little stupid, but I used the T-shirt to towel away as much of the blood and leftover vomit as I could. The shirt came away red, and I realized that wasn't a great sign.

"Is my nose broken?" I asked Laura.

"I don't know. Maybe. It's pretty swollen. And your eyes are turning black like you got punched in both of them."

I nodded, which caused more dizziness than nodding ever should.

"Yeah, that's broken. Eh. I wasn't pretty anyway."

She dug into the bag and brought out another shirt, this one light brown. It had a skull in a top hat on the front, with the words "Las Vegas" in Gothic script across the bottom.

"I guessed on the size. XL?"

"It'll be a little tight, but..."

I took off the leather jacket and discarded my plain black T-shirt. I put on the new shirt, which actually fit OK, then put the jacket back on.

"OK. You still look awful, but at least you're not covered in blood anymore. There's a shuttle stop just up the street. Let's get moving."

The hot air wasn't doing me any favors, but I kept up with Laura as she bounded up the street. A shuttle bus with "MacCarran Airport" on the front was just pulling up to the stop, and Laura flagged it down. The door opened, and she got on. I followed.

"$20," the bus driver said, smiling and showing nicotine-stained teeth.

I pulled one of the many twenties Quentin had given me out of my jacket pocket and handed it to him.

"You don't look so good, brother. You all right?" the bus driver said, one eyebrow arched almost into his baseball cap.

"Yeah. King of the Cage," I said, surprised by how quickly the lie popped into my head.

"Yeah, I heard of that. New kinda streetfighting thing in the octagon, right? You a fighter?"

"Working on it," I said, forcing a smile and eyeing an empty seat. Sitting down was pretty much all I wanted to do, as I was starting to get dizzy again.

"I got a cousin who does that. Y'all are some crazy motherfuckers, man."

"Heh. Yeah."

"All right. Find a seat and we'll get you headed for the airport."

I collapsed into a chair in the second row, closed my eyes, and took a deep breath through my mouth.

The next thing I knew, Laura was shaking me awake.

"We're here," she said. "Get up."

It's amazing how much good a fifteen-minute cat nap can do for you. I was much more solid on my feet as Laura and I got off the bus, and didn't feel near as dizzy as we walked through the parking garage looking for Quentin's SUV. Of course, getting into his car wasn't my original plan in going to the airport.

See, as soon as Quentin had mentioned his vehicle was at MacCarran, a new plan formed in my head, one that had nothing to do with assaulting the Umbra facility in an insane attempt to snatch a nuclear bomb. I knew I'd have to do something about that, maybe tell the FBI or something, but I wasn't going to do anything about it. My new plan was to get Laura to the airport, slap the cuffs on her, and get her on a plane to Los Angeles. Then I'd collect my money, tell someone about the nuke, and go back to living my normal life.

Quentin would be OK on his own. All he'd have to do is wait a day or two for the heat to die down, then go get his car and come on back home. He'd seemed to be rapidly getting better, and the fact that he hadn't died already meant he probably wasn't bleeding internally. I'd give him a call when I had Laura safely turned over to the LAPD and break him off some of the bounty as a thank you for all his help.

But somewhere along the way -- and maybe this was the concussion (or the multiple concussions) talking, I realized I had to do something about the bomb. I hadn't really believed Laura until after the fight with Roth. If that guy was fighting as hard as he was to keep me from getting out, then it must have been a real threat. And if there really was a functional nuclear bomb in North Las Vegas, I couldn't afford to waste any time.

So instead of slapping the handcuffs on Laura and hauling her into the terminal, we found Quentin's car and started it up.

"OK," she asked, unaware that I'd been ready to turn her in until just a few minutes ago. "What's the first stop?"

"The liquor store, of course," I told her, winking.

Chapter Thirteen

Look, I'm a realist.

I knew I was lucky to have gone up against a guy like Meskhiyev three times without getting killed. I knew I was lucky the police hadn't caught up with me yet and thrown my ass in jail for any number of reasons. But I knew my limits, and I knew when I was out of my league -- which was over 48 hours ago, for anyone who was counting.

In over my head. It was quickly becoming my mantra. There was no way I could just assault a building crawling with security and snag a damn nuclear bomb out of there. I couldn't sneak in, either -- assaults and infiltrations weren't part of my skillset. Need someone to drive a car through a flaming building? Need a dumbass bail-jumper tracked down? I'm your guy. Need someone to go all one-man-army against a fortified building filled with an ex-military private security force? You're thinking of Rambo.

But right about then, I had a thought -- how would I handle this if it was a stunt?

Well, first off, I'd have a serious discussion with the guy who wrote this script, because this was an unrealistic scenario for a single guy to survive. But, barring that... well, I'd work the stunt out with the show's stunt coordinator. I'd get expert help.

And I know a guy who just might be able to help me out. I hadn't talked to him in years, but when I'd last talked to him, he'd told me to call if I ever needed anything. I was hoping he hadn't just been bullshitting. I didn't have his number on me, but it was in my files back at the office.

So I called Mike and asked him to look up Jason Black's number for me.

It took about an hour -- Mike had to go down to the office, after all -- but he called me back with the number.

"You realize it's, like, 6:00 in the morning, right?" Mike asked.

"Yeah. He's a military guy, right? He's probably up this early."

"Just do me a favor and don't burn any bridges, OK? That guy throws a lot of business our way."

I didn't know how Jason Black could be giving us business -- near as I knew, he was a military consultant on film sets. At least, that's how I met him. But I wasn't going to argue with Mike. He'd just done me a solid, and I could tell by his tone of voice he wasn't too happy about it. Could be that I woke him up early. Or it could be that he was still looking over his shoulder for an Umbra guy to put a bullet in his eye.

Yeah, I owed that guy one.

I jotted down Black's number on the notepad on the bedside table. It was a Nevada area code, I noticed. I thought he lived in Hollywood. I wondered if he would local -- that would be a big help. I dialed the number and hoped.

"HT-117," a female voice answered on the first ring.

"Uh, I'm looking for Jason Black? Uh, Captain Jason Black?"

"I'm sorry, sir. I don't know anyone by that name. Perhaps you dialed incorrectly," the woman said.

"Oh, uh, sorry about --" I started, but she'd already hung up.

I checked the phone number and started to dial again when my phone rang.

"Hello?"

"Jacob Harris. We met on the Delta Commando set, right?" a deep male voice said without the courtesy of a hello.

"Captain Black?"

"Call me Jason. What's up?"

"I just tried to call you."

"Yeah, you must have dialed incorrectly," he said, but there was a chuckle in his voice. "So what's going on?"

"I've got some consulting work, if you're interested. Should only take a couple of minutes."

"Oh, you're back into the movie business? I heard you were running down scumbags."

"Writing a script. Kinda, you know, in my off time. I'm in Vegas doing research."

"Ah. Cool, then," Black said. I could still hear the chuckle in his voice. "So, uh, I'm not really in the consulting business. That was just a one-time thing when you met me, favor for a buddy. But if it's only going to take a couple of minutes..."

"Yeah. Hey, if you're local to Vegas, I could meet you for a drink, talk it out."

"I was there last week, but I'm kind of way out of town right now. Can we just do it over the phone?"

"Yeah, sure."

So I laid out the situation -- assault on a covered, fenced, protected building. Corporate security and rent-a-cops. Cameras, patrols, and plenty of firepower.

"Right. And how many... characters... are you rolling with?"

"One."

"Armed?"

"Two pistols. A shotgun. A really thick skull."

"You're playing the lead role, then."

"Yeah."

"Look, I don't want to tell you how to... write your movie. But if you can get even one other person in the scene, it would help your chances a lot. Just someone to watch your character's back. More realistic that way."

"Right on. I can do that."

Jason Black laid out the perfect plan of attack, a broad-daylight raid that seemed so insane it almost had to work. I just listened and jotted down notes.

"Hey, thanks, man. I really appreciate it."

"No problem, man. Don't get yourself killed. Call me if you take down the building," Black said, chuckling and hanging up the phone.

After I hung up, I took a long look at my notes. Black's plan wasn't bad -- it was great, in fact. Better than anything any one of us could have come up with. But it came with a long list of things we'd need that we didn't have.

The first problem would be just getting out of that damn hotel room. Umbra knew we were in the hotel, and they'd have people watching every exit. It would be damn near impossible to get past them, as they were all trained by a former KGB agent. So that was one big problem right there.

Next was transportation. My car was still -- well, probably -- back at the Imperial Palace, but either Umbra, the police, or both would have eyes on it. None of us could go get it. If I went, I'd either get killed by one of Meskhiyev's people or detained for questioning by the police. Laura had warrants that I'm sure were in the LVPD system right now, and they'd even snatch up Quentin as a person of interest. And Umbra security knew all of our faces now, so even if the cops didn't get us, Meskhiyev's goon squad sure would.

Laura's car was out, too. It was at Caesar's, and we already knew Umbra knew about that one. They'd surely have at least one guy on it.

"Quentin," I said after a moment. "What did you drive here? That rusted-out Chevy in your driveway?"

Quentin started off laughing, but ended up in a coughing fit. As he finally got himself together, he just shook his head.

"Shit no, man. That thing was there when I moved in. I took my car. Pathfinder."

"Is it here in the hotel?"

"Nah. Stashed it at the airport, long-term parking. Always do."

I shook my head. Quentin's paranoia never ceased to amaze me, but it was probably that paranoia that had helped us out the most so far.

"All right. We're going to have to catch a shuttle to the airport somehow. And I'll need you to watch my back. You ready, Q?"

Quentin struggled to sit up.

"Yeah, man. I got your back."

Laura just shook her head.

"Seriously? The guy can't even stand up. He's got broken ribs, a cracked sternum, maybe even internal bleeding. He needs to go to a hospital, not on some crazy-ass raid."

"Who, then? You?" I asked.

"I'm the only other one here."

I wasn't wild about Laura backing me up. It wasn't because she was a woman -- OK, total honesty, that was part of it. It was that she was a scientist, not a fighter. I mean, Quentin wasn't exactly a fighter, either, but he was crazy. Crazy often went a long way toward keeping someone alive.

When I was doing stunts, I had to take a bunch of fight training. Nothing makes a movie weaker than when it looks too easy for the hero guy to take out the hordes of faceless opponents (read: me), so I had to look like I knew what it was doing when it came time to throw down for the cameras. The easiest way to look like you know what you're doing? Actually know what you're doing.

So, shortly after booking my first movie gig, I started taking lessons. Kung Fu, Muay Thai, Jujitsu, you name it. In one of my kickboxing classes, there was this little guy, 19-year-old kid with long hair and silly glasses, who was just fucking insane. After a while, none of us would even step in the ring with him. Punching him in the face or kicking him in the body -- even kicks and punches form a guy my size -- didn't seem to do much more than make him laugh. And when he hit, he hit like he had anvils for hands. Once, I saw him hop out of the ring and whip off his headgear, and he was bleeding from one eye and his nose. He calmly tossed the headgear, walked over to the water fountain, got a drink, and started talking to one of the other guys in class like nothing happened. Dude was crazy, and that's what made him dangerous.

Quentin had that spark. Laura, though? She just seemed smart. Too smart to go through with some of the seemingly crazy shit I'd ask of her if she backed me up.

Still, though, as she'd pointed out, Quentin could barely stand. Crazy or not, he was still more a liability than an asset in a fight. And another point -- she was the only other person available.

"All right," I said. "Ever fired a gun before?"

* * *

So it was decided. Laura was going with me. I gave her Meskhiyev's gun and gave her a quick primer on how to use it. I really hoped I wouldn't have to depend on her aim, but as she'd said, she was the only one vertical besides me at the moment.

The next step would be getting out of the hotel room. We'd have to figure a way to get past anyone who might be looking for us, which wouldn't be easy. I'm not entirely inconspicuous on my best day, and every member of Umbra security probably had Laura's face memorized. It was still early in the morning yet, and the casino wouldn't be busy -- so no real chance of blending in with the crowd, as the crowd didn't exist.

"Do you know how the Umbra Security guys keep in touch with each other?" I asked Laura, sitting on the couch and stretching out my legs. I didn't realize until I sat down how tired I was.

"Yeah. Radios. Little walkie-talkie things with earpieces plugged in, mics in the sleeves of their jackets," she told me.

"Quentin? Anything you can do with that?"

"I can run a scanner and try to pick up their frequency. At least we can hear what they're saying. I have some gear in the duffel bag over there if you'll bring it my way."

I did, and Quentin started digging through the bag. He paused for a second and looked up at me.

"This could take a couple of hours," he said. "You might want to use the time to get some sleep. You look like hell, and no use in going on a crazy suicide mission sleep-deprived."

I nodded. That was the best idea I'd heard in quite some time.