The world didn't really count when you were out of it. Everything you did could be explained. This, though, there was no explaining it. No justifying it. If he accepted what was being proposed right now, he would wake up tomorrow the same Morgan Isaacs, remembering every detail and never be able to wash it away.

Which is, perhaps, to his great surprise, the reason he didn't feel the slightest hesitation.

The gun was heavier than he expected it to be. You always saw movies where guys swung guns around like they were made of tissue paper, aiming them sideways and backward and doing cool tricks. Not this gun, though.

He held it in his hand, and it felt just fine.

"This is a Glock 36, .45 caliber handgun," Chester 280.

said. He was looking at Morgan with dead seriousness in his face. Chester had been nice to him during the short time he'd known the man. A good conversationalist, even jokey at times, but right now Morgan got the feeling that if he even cracked a smile Chester would throw him out of the car.

They were driving uptown, pa.s.sing by the glistening Time Warner Center, the natural beauty of Central Park on the right as they drove up Central Park West. Morgan never spent a whole lot of time in the Park, or in any sort of nature. When he wasn't behind a desk, he was at home with a beer or at a club throwing back martinis like they were iced tea. At first the idea of traveling all over the city to hawk his wares worried him. What if he didn't like it? What if he couldn't take all the time on the subway, didn't want to deal with the a.s.shole who often paid with crinkled twenties and smelled like dirty socks?

But when that money started rolling in, when he saw the smile on Chester's face, Morgan knew he could hack it, and hack it quite easily.

"You sure you can do this?" Chester said. His eyes betrayed no sympathy; he was simply making sure that Morgan was up to the task.

"Yes," he said emphatically. "I am."

"Well, all right then. Once we pull up to the building, the office is number A17. You're going to walk straight past the receptionist. If she gives you a hard time, just tell her you're going to the bathroom. Her name is Carolyn.

Don't look at her, just walk right past and say, 'Just going to the bathroom, Carolyn, thanks.'"

"Got it."

"Once you enter the hallway past her desk, make a 281.

quick left, and it's the third office on your right. You know who your target is."

"I do. Why..."

"No whys," Chester said. "Once it's done, you run as fast as you can back here. The car will be idling in front of the entrance. The door will be open. You just climb in, hand me the gun, and we're gone. The gun will be disposed of before the police arrive on the scene. And we want you to wear this," he said.

Chester handed Morgan a baseball cap, underneath which and sewn in to the cap was a blond wig. Morgan put it on his head, and Chester adjusted it so that none of Morgan's black hair could be seen.

"Anything to throw them off a little bit. Carolyn will be the only witness, and she's an old lady. They'll be looking for a young blond guy wearing a baseball cap."

"Okay."

"We'll drop you off near the subway after we ditch the car. Call your girlfriend. Have her come over, get her good and drunk and screw the s.h.i.t out of her. She'll be another layer of protection, so to speak. Then wake up tomorrow, come to work and act like this never happened."

Chester handed Morgan a folded piece of paper. Theyoung man opened it. It was a money order for $50,000, made out to him.

"Just in case anyone asks, you've been doing some contracting work on the side," he said with a grin. "You'll get the second half once it's done. And Morgan?"

"Yeah?"

"Make sure n.o.body asks."

Morgan nodded, then folded the slip back up and slipped it into the inside of his coat pocket. It felt good to have it there, and it would feel even better tomorrow 282.

when he deposited a hundred thousand dollars into his bank account.

Those debts, the ones that had nearly crippled him for so long, would be wiped clean by the end of the month.

"You ready?" Chester said.

"Ready?" Morgan said with a smile. "I'm bored. Let's do this."

39.

"Go on," I said.

"Our troops invaded Panama because of Paz's death, but because he ran from a PDF blockade the Panamanian government claimed they did nothing wrong. So folks back home in the States began to feel the same way, especially when more people started dying on both sides of the conflict. Two weeks after Paz's death, a marine unit was supposed to infiltrate a Noriega drug lab, but instead they found themselves trapped in an alleyway where they were ambushed by the PDF. They all managed to get out alive, but there were some on our side that wondered if they were given the wrong directions on purpose."

I said, "That they were led into a trap in the hopes they'd be killed to strengthen the cause for the invasion."

"Exactly," Hollinsworth said. "n.o.body knew for sure."

"That day in January," Jack said, "when your squad was attacked...the same thing happened, didn't it?"

I could see Hollinsworth struggling to remain pa.s.sive, remain calm, but there was something behind those eyes that he was unable to hide. It wasn't grief or sadness; it was rage.

"I know we were set up," Hollinsworth said. "We were 284.

scheduled to join up with a Ranger regiment. I was given directions, instructions on when and where we'd meet. But by the time we got there, it was just us and the armed guard.

By the time the survivors got back to the base, Chester was dead. And the Rangers had no idea what the h.e.l.l I was talking about. The military discharged me a month after that, and I went back to school to get my master's degree.

I never saw anyone else from our squad again."

"So Chester Malloy was killed that day," Jack said, "but Rex Malloy and Eve Ramos lived."

"Rex, Chester and Eve were close," Hollinsworth continued. "The whole squad was like a family, but those three were the tightest. When Chester died, it hit Rex and Eve hard. Some of us thought Chester and Eve might have been seeing each other behind closed doors, but we never knew for sure."

I felt something then, a twinge, a faint bell going off.

I decided to go after it. I had a feeling we were close to the truth.

I pulled my cell phone from my pocket, searched through my e-mail in-box and found the message. Clicking on it, I opened the attachment. When it finished loading, I handed it to Williams Hollinsworth.

"Do you recognize that person?" I said.

Hollinsworth squinted, adjusting his gla.s.ses to view the grainy shot better.

"It's hard to tell, with the angle and the picture quality being, well, substandard. But if I had to guess...no...it couldn't be." He looked at me. "Chester Malloy?"

"Close," I said. "You knew both Malloy brothers. Look at the ear."

Hollinsworth took another glance, then nodded. "I remember Rex's ear. We used to call him Potato Head 285.

because his ear looked like a mashed potato. But everything else is wrong. The hair. Rex's hair wasn't blond."

"You're right there," I said. "Rex's wasn't. Chester's was. Rex Malloy is alive, and he's taken on his brother's look, his dress, even coloring and styling his hair like Chester used to."

"Okay," the professor said, "so you say. But so what?

I haven't seen Rex Malloy in almost twenty years."

"About a week ago," Jack said, "Rex Malloy kidnapped a woman and threatened to kill her daughter."

Hollinsworth's head snapped up, his eyes wide open.

"He did what?"

"You heard me," Jack said.

"Jesus, how do you know this?"

"Because the girl who took that photo was paid ten thousand dollars by Malloy to help him."

"I don't understand," Hollinsworth said. "Why would he do such a terrible thing?"

"The woman he kidnapped was a reporter," I said.

"Like us. He blackmailed her into writing an article for her newspaper."

"I don't read the papers," he said.

"So I gather. I just happened to bring a copy with me."

I took out the copy of the Gazette Gazette with Paulina's article with Paulina's article and slid it across the table to Hollinsworth. He picked it up.

And as soon as he read the headline, I knew the whole story was about to unravel.

"That's...that's impossible," he said.

Hollinsworth ripped open the paper to Paulina's story and read the entire piece. We sat there, watching his face, studying it, transfixed by the mult.i.tude of emotions that ran through it.

When he finished, the professor dropped the paper to 286.

the floor. The man's shoulders were slumped, his eyes nearly closed. He stared at the floor.

Then finally he said, his voice barely above a whisper, "I never thought they'd do it."

"Do what?" I said.

"Darkness...Ramos...Rex and Eve were always talking about some new drug Noriega's people were developing, something that if synthesized properly would be twice as potent but half the cost. But the way they were talking about it...it wasn't kosher. I always got the feeling that if we didn't keep tabs on them they could--"

Then, before William Hollinsworth could say another word, the door to his office banged open. Standing in the doorway was a young man wearing a suit along with a baseball cap. His hair was blond, but I noticed a tuft of black hair beneath it. He was wearing a wig.

And I knew what he was going to do even before he pulled the gun out.

Suddenly the world became a blur, and before I could get out of my seat the young man was holding a small, black gun and pointing it at William Hollinsworth.

The professor's eyes went wide and I heard him scream, "No!" "No!"

Then there were three deafening blasts, and three gouts of blood erupted from the former Special Forces agent's chest.

I couldn't breathe, couldn't think, watching helplessly as Hollinsworth toppled backward in his chair, a horrific spray of blood covering the back wall of his office, decorating the s.p.a.ce with grisly red where the professor himself had declined to hang any decorations.

The shooter's eyes met mine, and to my surprise there was no anger or malice in them, but pure and simple fear.

287.

His head shook as our eyes met, and suddenly he turned and ran away.

"Jack, call 911!" I shouted, jumping from my seat and racing into the hallway.

Peeking out from the doorway to make sure there wasn't a muzzle waiting for me, I saw the coattail of the man rounding the corner and heading for the lobby.

I ran after him, screaming and shouting echoing in the halls behind me. I couldn't sense anything else; my world narrowed to a tunnel.

Turning the corner at the end of the hall, I heard some sort of commotion and a loud crash. Again I leaned out from the corner, only to see that the shooter had tripped over Carolyn's desk and was gathering himself up.

Carolyn was screaming, holding her head in her hands and she stared at the man with terror etched on her face.

Then I saw it. The gun. It had fallen from his grasp and was sitting mere feet away.

I had one chance.

Without thinking, I sprinted forward and threw my weight into the man's back.

I heard a humph humph as his breath was driven from him, as as his breath was driven from him, as we both fell forward onto the ugly brown carpeting.

The man swung his elbow around at my head, but I was able to duck it. As he did so, the ball cap and wig fell off, revealing the man's hair and face.

His hair was short, black, and he was breathing heavy, sweating. One thing was for sure, this man was far from any sort of professional.

The suit. Something snapped together in my mind, and I knew why this man was here.

Then I heard him pleading with me.