"What do you mean?"

"I mean you've got to hit a puddle and you've only got one shot."

Cornhole.

"Okay," I said.

What the h.e.l.l else could I say? It wasn't exactly the best time to raise my hand and question how water could turn this liquid into a small bomb. Sometimes you've just got to go with the flow.

We grabbed our bags.

"Maybe there's only one guy out there, but I'm guessing more. We draw their fire, and we fire back," he said. "You throw left, I throw right, and then we both run straight as fast as we possibly can."

"What about the car?" I asked.

Owen looked at me, and of all things cracked a smile. We were at death's door-quite literally-and yet somehow he managed to seem more excited than scared, like a mad scientist about to flip the switch.

"Dude," he said. "If this works ... there won't be a car."

CHAPTER 73.

HERE GOES everything ...

I yanked open the door, barely jumping back into the bathroom in time to evade the barrage of bullets littering the hallway.

Owen had it pegged; there was definitely more than one shooter. The crisscrossing of all the red laser sights looked like a Pink Floyd concert, complete with the tear gas as smoke.

It was Us and Them, all right. They had a small army and automatic weapons. We had pistols.

Oh, yeah. And socks.

The split second the first wave ended, I crouched low and peeked outside with the xenon light, squeezing off shots while looking for the nearest potholes filled with water.

Not too near, though. Collateral damage is no way to die.

I jumped back as the second wave came; this one was even more furious than the first. The drywall was literally disintegrating all around us, every bullet launching a bit of white chalk through the air. Mixed with the tear gas, it was like we were in a snow globe from h.e.l.l.

"Where?" yelled Owen.

"Fifteen feet at ten o'clock," I yelled back.

"And yours?"

"Twenty feet at two."

He lit the bottom of his sock and tossed me the lighter. "I'll throw first, then you," he said.

"Fine. Age before beauty, dude."

I flicked my thumb. The sock caught fire immediately. I'd say the feeling was like holding a live grenade, but it wasn't like that. It was that.

Spinning around again, I sprayed bullets back and forth like a windshield wiper before stepping aside so Owen could throw. I was giving him light from my Glock the best I could. As soon as he released his sock, he unloaded the rest of his magazine and peeled to the side.

My turn.

There was no time to aim, but there was also no time to think about it and choke. I just let it fly.

It was the second little fireball tossed through the air. Who knows what they must have thought? Maybe nothing at all. They were too busy trying to gun us down as we dove back out of the doorway.

I tossed another magazine to Owen, who quickly reloaded. There was one thing he'd forgotten to mention. When this CTF stuff mixes with water, how long does it take before- BOOM!.

The explosion shook and shattered everything around us. Every wall, every nearby window. Suffice it to say, anyone standing outside was no longer on their feet. The proverbial rug not just yanked out from beneath them, but incinerated.

But how long until one of them got back up? Good question.

Run! Right now!

Owen and I did our best Butch and Sundance, launching out of the building with guns blaring. We were sprinting as fast as we could, hoping against hope that we'd bought ourselves enough time. That made for an even better question.

Was that boom the result of one sock or two?

That was when I saw him. Looking over my shoulder-it was one of the shooters. A clone of the two guys up in New York. Was there a factory somewhere?

Dazed but clearly determined, he was staggering to his feet with his arm raised, and it wasn't to wave h.e.l.lo.

Thank G.o.d it was only one sock.

BOOM!.

Owen and I caught the edge of the second blast; it seared our backs and sent us hurtling forward across the pavement for the Evel Knievel of road rashes. It hurt like a son of a b.i.t.c.h, like I was being skinned alive.

And I'd never felt luckier in my life.

As we helped each other up, we looked back to see we were the only ones still standing. Not that we were about to linger.

"I'd high-five you, but I have no skin left on my palms," said Owen.

"Me, neither," I said. "C'mon, I know a doctor we should see."

CHAPTER 74.

THERE'S ANGRY. Then there's smoldering. And then there's literally smoldering.

"What's that smell?" asked the cabdriver. "It's like something's burning."

"It's just our clothes," I said matter-of-factly. The smell was also our singed flesh, but I didn't feel the need to mention that.

Either way, that little tree-shaped air freshener hanging from the guy's rearview mirror didn't stand a chance.

We'd been burned, all right. Set up big-time.

And now it was time for a little follow-up visit with Dr. Douglas Wittmer. No appointment necessary.

He was so convincing in his kitchen. Of course he was. He was telling us the truth. The only lie was his allegiance. Who the h.e.l.l did he call after we left him?

We had the taxi drop us off one block down from his town house. There was no telling if Wittmer was still alone, but first we had to see if he was there at all.

Maybe he'd gone to church for confession.

If he had, he'd walked. His black Jaguar was still there, parked in the driveway as when we'd first approached him.

Too bad he hadn't given us a second key, the one to his front door.

"How soon before a neighbor calls nine-one-one?" I whispered to Owen, only half joking as I peered inside one of the windows.

With our tattered, bloodstained clothes and shredded hands, knees, and elbows, the two of us looked like we'd just wandered off the set of The Walking Dead. At best, we were a couple of burglars. At worst, it was the zombie apocalypse.

I turned back to Owen when he didn't respond. He'd been right behind me.

Now he wasn't anywhere.

Finally, I found him back down by the street. He was staring up at a telephone pole.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"Looking for the camera."

"What camera?"

"They were watching from either inside or outside. Actually, probably both," he said. "Inside, though, gave them audio."

I stood there trying to reverse engineer what he was saying. If we were being watched when we first showed up to see Wittmer, then that meant ...

"Jesus, why didn't you say anything?" I asked. "We were coming here to confront him; he ratted us out."

"I never said that."

"You didn't have to. It was a given," I said. At least, I thought it was. "You mean, he didn't tip them off?"

"Highly unlikely."

"Then why are we even here?"

Owen was still staring up at the pole. "To search for more evidence," he said. "Stuff he didn't share with us."

"What, you think he's going to let us just waltz right in and take what we want?"

Finally, Owen turned to me. "We're hardly going to need his permission," he said.

Before I could ask why not, he was already halfway back to Wittmer's town house, heading up the steps.

Once again, the best I could do was try to keep up with him.

CHAPTER 75.

THERE WAS zero hesitation, none whatsoever.

In fact, Owen had already taken off his T-shirt-what was left of it-and wrapped it around his hand by the time he reached the top step. I was only a few feet behind him, but I could see what was coming next a mile away.

What's a little breaking and entering among friends?

With a quick right jab, the window to the left of Wittmer's front door all but disappeared. Working clockwise, Owen knocked away the few holdout shards until we could both climb through without donating any more blood for the evening.

Just a guess, but being two pints down on a cavernously empty stomach is probably not recommended by the American Medical a.s.sociation.

Owen put his T-shirt back on, entering first. I followed. And at no time did I bother asking him what he wasn't telling me. I figured I'd know soon enough.

Even sooner, as it turned out, when our arrival in Wittmer's foyer was greeted with nothing and no one. Just a dead silence.

The proverbial "bad feeling about this" was suddenly spreading fast from my gut.

"Upstairs," said Owen.

He might have just been talking to himself. I couldn't tell. Either way, there was no sign of the doctor on the first floor.