Alicia may have been fairly cunty, but she was clueless; and there was no way in hell Denny was going to shoot a five-year-old girl who didn’t even know who Mitch was. The whole point of the assignment was threat assessment, and there was no threat here.

If the man back in DC didn’t like it, he could find himself another contractor.

Chapter 61

ACTUALLY, IT HAD been kind of a fun day — relaxing and surprising, especially Mitch’s pretty ex-wife. It was just after dark when they reached Arlington that night. Mitch had spent most of the trip watching the side of the road, sighing and tossing around like someone who couldn’t sleep.

But now, as they came up on the Roosevelt Bridge, he sat bolt upright, looking straight ahead through the windshield.

“What the hell is that, Denny?”

Cars were backed up on the highway in either direction. There were cruisers with lights flashing on both sides, and uniformed officers out on the road. It wasn’t just a traffic jam, and it didn’t look like an accident either.

“Traffic checkpoint,” Denny said, realizing what it was.

The city had been instituting them for a few years now, but only in the really violent neighborhoods. He’d never seen anything like this before.

“Something big must have happened. Like, really big.”

“I don’t like this, Denny.” Mitch’s knee started bouncing. “Ain’t they been looking for a Suburban since we made that hit in Woodley Park?”

“Yeah, but a dark-blue or black one. Besides, they’re stopping everyone, see? Hell, I wish we had some papers to sell in this traffic,” Denny said, as upbeat as he could make it. “Might earn back some of that gas money we spent today.”

Mitch wasn’t buying it. He stayed all hunched down and tense as they crawled along toward the head of the line.

Then, out of the blue, Mitch said, “Where did we get the gas money, Denny? And that envelope for Alicia? I don’t get how we’re paying for this.”

Denny gritted his teeth. The one thing Mitch could usually be counted on for was a distinct lack of probing questions.

“You know what happened to that curious cat, don’t you, Mitchie? D-E-D, dead,” he said. “You just focus on the big stuff and let me handle the rest. Including this.”

They were coming up on the checkpoint now, and an NBA-size officer motioned them forward.

“License and registration, please.”

Denny reached into the glove compartment and handed them over without a blink. Here’s where it paid to work for the right people. “Denny Humboldt” had a record as clean as a show cat’s ass — even that parking ticket would be history by now.

“What’s going on, Officer?” he asked. “It looks big.”