“I told him he could be hosed,” Razor concluded. “But in his defense, he had no idea his action would have any impact on us. I think he hoped it would demonstrate his willingness to take on dirty jobs and go to any length in service of friends.”

Wolf groped for the arm of the easy chair in his living room and sank onto the cushioned seat. “Doesn’t matter. Martinez will assume it was us.”

“That’s not the official verdict. I checked with my PD contact. It’s being classified as an attempted robbery.”

“He knows better.”

“Maybe not. He has to be thinking like us. That doing anything at this point to alert him we know who he is would be stupid. It would give him the upper hand, instead of us. And if we took him out, the investigation would continue—at a more intense pace than ever. They may really think it was a robbery attempt—or one of his other enemies trying to settle a score. A man with his background would have a lot of enemies.”

Wolf let his head drop back against the plush fabric and stared at the dark ceiling.

He’d like to believe the argument Razor had offered—and it did have merit.

But he’d have to do some heavy thinking before the next delivery. If they guessed wrong, they’d all be brought down.

And he was too close to his goal to let that happen.

Just one more delivery, that’s all it would take.

He wouldn’t end up quite at the target goal he’d set years ago, but greed had never been part of the equation. All he wanted was enough money to live comfortably the rest of his life.

He deserved that much at least.

“So what should we do, boss?” Razor sounded rattled.

Bad sign. The man was always cool under pressure.

Wolf rubbed his forehead. “I don’t know yet. I have to mull this over and—”

His other burner began to vibrate, and he stiffened. Sprang to his feet.

Of all times for his Mexican contact to call.

But this could be information about the next delivery—and it would help to know how many days he had to work through the issues and plan his strategy.

“I have to go. A call is coming in from our friends down south. I’ll get back to you.” He ended the conversation with Razor and pulled out the other burner phone. “Buenas tardes.”

The man returned the greeting, then switched to English. “I have a delivery date. January 29.”

Wolf stifled a curse.

That was much too soon. He’d expected to have at least a week more than that.

“That’s in five days.”

“Yes. Is there a problem?”

He couldn’t admit that.