He was pretty sure who wasn’t inside. There was a pickup truck in the drive, a late-model candy-apple red Dodge Ram, and the presence of a rebel flag decal on the back window gave Court the impression that the operation in the house probably wasn’t being conducted by the D.C. Blacks, the Crips, or the Bloods.

But Court didn’t really care about the occupants themselves; all that really concerned him was the security of the property, because he planned on making entry on the house. He wanted to know about any booby traps, false access points, mantraps, or other fortified areas. At this point he wasn’t really thinking about the presence of guns because he knew there would be guns—no self-respecting drug dealer would operate in the United States without an arsenal within arm’s reach—but to Court, this was not a problem.

In fact, he was counting on it.

He checked his watch. Twenty minutes till midnight. For a second he considered hanging out there until three a.m., when the average person’s body clock was at its lowest. But almost immediately he decided against waiting. Meth heads kept weird hours, after all, and Court knew they might well be more wired and ready at four a.m. than at four p.m., so he made the decision to act now.

He left the darkness of the playground and stepped out onto the sidewalk.

He didn’t go directly to the stash house. Instead he backtracked half a block, returning to an unlocked garage he had noticed as he was tailing the street dealer through the neighborhood. He entered the garage, felt his way around, and came across a pull cord for a lamp on a worktable. Before he pulled the cord, he took off his jacket and threw it over the lamp, so he could control the amount of light the bulb gave off.

He pulled the chain and then moved his jacket so that only a faint glow reached the rest of the little one-car garage. He saw a few items on the table, and a few more on a wooden shelf, and he took what he needed, turned off the lamp, and felt his way back to the exit.

Minutes later he crossed the street in front of the drug house, his hands empty and nonthreatening. As he approached he heard the sound of industrial heavy metal music coming from inside. He walked up the little driveway, passed the bikes and the Dodge pickup, and climbed up onto the porch. By now the frantic noise was blasting, which was impressive to Court, considering the windows were boarded and the door could not have been more secure.