'Don't think so,' Ethan hollered. 'Probably doesn't need to be. You see the size of him?'

Ethan saw the big man turn left onto NW Thirteenth Court, Lopez in pursuit and rapidly closing the gap. Ethan pushed harder, reaching the street into which the man had vanished.

The street was narrow and quiet, lined with heavy steel fences on one side and rows of trees and a shabby chain-link fence on the other. Ethan slowed as he saw Lopez vault over the chain-link into an area of dead ground strewn with debris and wiry grass. Ethan leapt over the fence and came up short as he saw the big man facing them, his broad chest heaving.

A cruel smile split the man's heavy jaw as he waved Ethan and Lopez forward with a brief motion of one hand. His other was clenched into a fist the size of a football.

'Ladies first,' Ethan suggested.

'What was it you said?' she uttered back at him. 'The bigger they are . . . ?'

Ethan stepped forward and raised his fists, focusing all of his attention on the man's eyes. Keep moving, keep out his grasp and make him keep swinging. He wasn't able to keep running, so he'll tire soon enough.

The man raised both fists now, his biceps bulging, and without any warning shot a straight left directly toward Ethan's face. Ethan dodged right and blocked the blow with his left forearm. The huge fist ploughed through his guard like a cannonball through a window and hit his left temple with enough force to send him reeling back four paces.

Ethan's vision blurred as he shook his head and blinked to see the giant rushing at him with both arms outstretched.

Ethan dropped down low, twisting on his left heel and shooting his right boot out toward the man's groin. His size-10 hit the man squarely between his legs with a satisfying steel-toe-capped thump, and Ethan saw him gasp, his vivid blue eyes widening with shock as he folded over and staggered sideways to crash into a discarded trash can. Ethan leapt to his feet and kept his guard up as he circled the stricken giant. The man straightened, tears flooding his eyes, but he growled with fury as he charged Ethan again.

Ethan stepped left, locking his fists together and batting the huge arms aside with his own as he brought his knee up into the giant's stomach. The big man folded again but it wasn't enough to drop him. A pair of immense arms crushed Ethan's waist as he was lifted bodily off the ground and hurled sideways.

The breath blasted from his lungs as he hit the trunk of a tree, his head cracking against the unyielding bark. Ethan slumped onto the hard ground and struggled to get up as the giant towered over him and lifted one enormous boot. With a flourish of malice on his face he stamped it down toward Ethan's head.

A smaller boot flashed into view from Ethan's left as Lopez's sidekick slammed into the giant's torso with a dull thud. The big man toppled over sideways as his boot flailed past Ethan's head and into thin air.

Lopez danced past Ethan as the giant turned to face her and swung an enormous right arm like a battering ram toward her head. Ethan struggled upright as he saw Lopez duck down beneath the blow and step fearlessly in, one tiny right fist whipping up into the giant's eyes with a sharp crack. The man's enormous square head did not flinch, but the skin above his right eye split into a wet, red tear as Lopez leapt back out of range and began circling him again.

'Game's over,' Ethan rasped at him. 'You're outnumbered.'

The big man reached behind him and grabbed the discarded trash can, lifted it into the air above his head and hurled it at Lopez. Lopez leapt aside and hit the ground as it crashed past her and bounced across the dusty earth. The big man turned to Ethan and from his jeans produced a long, broad knife that flashed in the light as he whipped the blade toward Ethan's neck.

Ethan lurched back out of range of the blade as it flashed past, just in time to catch the big man's other fist square in the center of his chest. It felt like being hit by a train. Ethan hurtled backwards and tripped over Lopez's legs as he slammed down onto the ground and collapsed them both into an ungainly tangle of limbs. Through his hazy vision he saw the giant turn and vault back over the rickety fence as a brown Lincoln raced alongside the sidewalk and screeched to a halt. The giant threw himself into the vehicle and it accelerated away out of sight.

Lopez looked over her shoulder at him, her thick black hair plastered across her face.

'You wanna get the hell off me?'

Ethan rolled to one side, crawled to his knees and then got to his feet as Lopez dragged herself upright and swept her hair out of her face. 'I'd have had him if you hadn't got in the way.'

Ethan managed a bitter chuckle as he rubbed his back and coughed. 'Sure.'

'Told you we could have done with Bryson,' she suggested.

Ethan, already somewhat deflated, felt a new and unexpected hollowness form in the pit of his belly.

'Will you quit with the sailor worship? Captain Ahab's not playing ball, so let's just get back to the courthouse.'

Together, they walked and limped back to the scene of the wreck. Fire trucks and police cars swamped the streets in a blaze of flashing lights. Smoke hung heavily on the air but Ethan could see that the fires were already out. To his dismay, the red Pontiac was now a mangled black cage scorched by the flames. The front end of the convertible was also charred to the color of ash, a hastily erected white canvas sheet hung over the corpse of the driver still slumped in his now burned seat.

At the far end of the street, two television crews were avidly filming the carnage and setting up for the lunch-time broadcasts.

Doug Jarvis spotted Ethan and Lopez and hurried across.

'How the hell do you manage to get involved in these things?' he asked Ethan in exasperation. 'We only came here for a quiet chat with a lawyer. Now half the street's on fire. You keep this up and you'll be the ones facing jail time.'

'This was a hit, Doug, pure and simple. I don't suppose the prosecutor survived?'

Jarvis shook his head.

'No, and get this. She had the incriminating documents on her person when the accident happened. I just asked her assistant if she'd made copies before they took him to the hospital. But the documents were sent direct to her at the courthouse, so none had been made.'

'Which means the case literally goes up in smoke,' Lopez said without a trace of humor.

'Along with the Uhungu family's chances of a successful conviction against IRIS,' Jarvis agreed. 'Without those documents it's unlikely any charges can be brought against the company.'

'Which is a little too coincidental,' Lopez murmured. 'If Purcell worked for IRIS and decided to turn whistle-blower then it's possible, however unlikely, that IRIS is responsible for the murder of both Purcell's family and the prosecuting lawyer.'

'Are you telling me that Charles Purcell never made copies of these incriminating documents?' Ethan asked. 'Surely, with what's at stake, he would have covered himself for something just like this?'

'We can't know one way or the other,' Jarvis replied, 'unless we ask Purcell himself.'

Ethan clenched his fists in frustration.

'Damn it, how could that man we chased have known where and when these documents would come to light? He had to be in exactly the right spot at exactly the right time to know that he could destroy everything and make a decent getaway. Jesus, look at this place, it's a courthouse and crawling with cops.'

'I take it he did indeed get away,' Jarvis said, taking in their slightly bedraggled appearance.

'Not without a fight,' Ethan replied. 'But a kid with a cellphone got a shot of him at the scene which we can give to local law enforcement, see if they can't identify him. He got picked up in a brown Lincoln.'

'I've got the picture on my cellphone now,' Jarvis said. 'I'll have the local uniforms check out the getaway vehicle, but it'll most likely turn out to be stolen.'

'What about Katherine Abell?' Lopez asked. 'This all happened right around her. Maybe it's something that she might have arranged?'

Jarvis gestured over his shoulder to where a small knot of police detectives led by Captain Karl Sears were questioning Katherine and her assistant.

'The uniforms figured the same,' the old man said. 'I'm guessing that Katherine will be taken in for questioning, but I can't believe that she'd have any involvement in this.'

Ethan looked across at Katherine and made a decision.

'Supposedly, neither should Joaquin Abell,' he replied. 'But right now the only thing that connects all of this is IRIS itself. We need to talk to Katherine right now. Trouble is she's not going to just sing to us if her husband's involved in this.'

'I agree,' Lopez said. 'Let me handle it.'

30.

June 28, 12:42 Katherine Abell sat at a table in a waiting room inside the courthouse, two police officers guarding the door as Ethan and Lopez leaned against the wall opposite her. A knock at the door preceded Captain Karl Sears and Doug Jarvis, who closed the door behind them. Sears walked up to the table and looked down at Katherine.

'Mrs Abell, I understand that the chief justice has asked you to remain in the courthouse for the time being?'

Ethan watched as Katherine Abell nodded without looking up at Sears, her small fists clenched around a tissue and her eyes darkened where the little make-up she wore had smeared. There seemed little doubt that she was innocent of any involvement in the murder of Macy Lieberman but then again, beauty was often the veil that concealed hideous evil, and Karl Sears clearly saw just that.

'We would like to understand,' the detective asked her, 'what you know about what happened.'

Katherine looked up at him, speaking from behind her lawyer's facade of calm.

'I told the police outside everything,' she said. 'Both my assistant, Peter, and I saw it all happen from the courtyard. Macy got into her car and left, and then another vehicle crashed into her . . .'

Jarvis moved forward and took a seat on the edge of the table.

'That's right,' he agreed. 'But is it not true that, before the accident, you and Macy were involved in some kind of argument?'

Katherine sighed and nodded.

'Macy came out at me, trying to suggest that I was involved in some kind of conspiracy at my husband's company. She wound me up and I snapped.'

'You hit her,' Sears pointed out, 'in front of almost a hundred witnesses, all of whom will be on the record once the uniforms finish taking statements.'

'Then I guess those of them that were close enough will have heard what Macy was saying, too, won't they?' Katherine shot back.

Jarvis raised an eyebrow and glanced briefly at Ethan, who pushed off the wall and approached Katherine.

'You were defending IRIS in a lawsuit case brought by the Uhungu family,' he said. 'You can see why the uniforms are suspicious when the prosecution's star lawyer is killed just hours before she was due to deliver incriminating documents and evidence that might have resulted in convictions at IRIS.'

Katherine leveled a steady, cold glare at him, clearly not intimidated.

'Alleged documents, alleged evidence,' she snapped, 'and all of it brought to her by a man wanted for the suspected murder of his own wife and daughter. It meant nothing to the case unless whatever was in those documents could be verified.'

'Which it now can't,' Lopez said from further back in the room.

'No,' Katherine acknowledged softly, as though recalling the horror of what had transpired.

'IRIS has been accused of hoarding government funds instead of using them for charitable acts,' Jarvis said. 'Macy Lieberman was attempting to prove that accusation when she died. Do you know of anyone at IRIS who might try to do something like this?'

Katherine shook her head.

'No. IRIS is a charity and its employees are paid to help others, people in need. Going around killing lawyers isn't exactly part of the company's charter.'

'Are you sure?' Ethan asked.

'What the hell do you mean?' Katherine shot up out of her chair. 'Do you think that my husband is involved in this?'

'We don't know,' Ethan replied curtly.

'That's right, you goddamned well don't know!' Lightning flashed behind Katherine's eyes as she rounded the table to confront him. 'I'm a lawyer. Do you think that you can just waltz in here and start tossing accusations around? My husband has done more for the needy out there in the last ten years than most people do in a lifetime. Why is it that some people seem so determined to drag others down to their own goddamned level? How much does IRIS have to do before people start realizing that it's there to help, not to destroy?'

Ethan stood his ground before Katherine's wrath, but it was Lopez who stepped forward and spoke.

'This isn't a witch hunt, it's a murder investigation,' she said. 'We couldn't give a damn if Joaquin Abell and IRIS have found a cure for cancer, taken man back to the moon and found the original copy of the Bible. Everyone is a suspect when there's a possible motive, no matter how trivial or unfair it may seem. As a lawyer, you of all people should understand that, or maybe you're just too close to the client to have an objective view of what's happened?'

Katherine Abell glared at Lopez, but then suddenly all of the anger went out of her and she slumped back down into her chair. She rubbed her temples with one hand.

'I know how it looks, but surely it was just an accident?'

Lopez looked at Karl Sears, who nodded once.

Lopez slipped her hand into her pocket and retrieved a printed image taken from the cellphone of the kid who had witnessed the car wreck. The pixilated photograph showed a huge blond man turning to flee the scene. She turned it around and laid it on the table beside Katherine.

'This image was taken on a cellphone by an eyewitness,' Lopez said. 'Do you recognize this man?'

Ethan watched carefully as Katherine looked down at the picture, and he saw her lips part and her hand clench tightly around the tissue in her hand. Lopez didn't miss her reaction.

'Who is he, Katherine?'

Katherine shook her head. 'I don't know who he is.'

'You're lying,' Lopez said.

Katherine looked up sharply and for a moment Ethan thought that bolts of lightning might blaze from her eyes and strike Lopez down.

'I said that I didn't know him,' Katherine hissed, her words laden with venom, 'not that I didn't recognize him.'

'Where have you seen him before?' Ethan asked.

'He was in the public gallery,' Katherine replied, 'watching the case.'

'Are there cameras in the courtroom?'

'Yes, but they're not routinely turned on,' Katherine replied. 'Besides, what difference does it make?'

'He was driving the car that killed Macy,' Lopez said. 'Believe me, he had something to do with it all right. My partner and I chased him for three whole blocks. He got away but uniforms are looking for him. The car he was in belonged to the man in the passenger seat, who is dead. We'll have to wait for autopsy results to find out whether he died in the wreck or was killed by this guy beforehand.'

Katherine looked down at the image of the fleeing man.

'But if it was done on purpose then who would have wanted Macy dead? No supporter of IRIS would have wanted it, as it would have jeopardized my defense, and our detractors would have keenly awaited Macy's prosecution evidence. It doesn't make any sense.'

'Unless the accusations have a basis in fact,' Lopez pointed out, 'and somebody at IRIS needed the prosecutor to be silenced.'

'Based on the evidence of a suspected murderer?' Katherine challenged. 'You really think that there was something in those documents?'

'We don't know,' Lopez admitted, 'but we're here to find a killer, not bring IRIS to trial.' Lopez took a deep breath and decided to go for broke. 'Were you aware that earlier today an aircraft with almost twenty IRIS employees crashed, out in the Florida Straits?'

Katherine nodded.