Alicia started walking, just as he’d said, but then the terror of hearing a phut! and ending up like those two guards took hold. Repressing a scream, she began to run.

11.

11.

“Damn!” Sam Baker said and jabbed his thumb at the end button. “Why don’t they fuckin’ answer?”

He dropped the phone on the seat between him and the Arab and concentrated on driving. Mott and Richards were two of his better men, but they’d got snookered by the Clayton broad’s muscle. They’d been groggy when they first called in, but seemed to be coming around pretty fast. By the time they hung up they were almost a hundred percent and heading into the house to see if the guy was still there.

What Baker hoped was that they’d caught the guy and were too busy rearranging his face and innards to answer the phone.

If it’s the guy from the van, he thought, save a piece for me.

His kidney still ached from that punch.

But Baker was getting uneasy. After three calls, you’d think one of them would pick up the goddamn phone.

If this operation went south it would be his ass. He’d be blamed, and that meant kissing the bonus and a regular gig in Saudi Arabia good-bye. And it wouldn’t be his fault, dammit!

His unease grew as he turned onto Thirty-eighth and accelerated up the block toward the Clayton house. Something was wrong. He could feel it.

“Look!” Muhallal said, pointing through the windshield. “That is Alicia Clayton!”

Baker squinted at the figure coming down the front steps of the house and hurrying toward the sidewalk. Sure as hell looked like her. And then he saw the guy following right behind her—

“That’s him!” he said. “That’s the son of a bitch from last week—the one I told you about!”

Rage burst like a hollow point in Baker’s brain. He gunned the engine and the car leaped forward.

“No!” Muhallal shouted. He grabbed Baker’s arm. “No! Stop the car! I do not wish them to know we are here!”

“No way! I owe that motherfu—”

“Stop immediately or you are fired!” Muhallal said.

Baker knew from the Arab’s tone that he meant it. Shit. He eased up on the gas pedal and watched the two figures hurry away along the sidewalk.

“But they’ve been in the house,” he said, so pissed his hands were twitching on the steering wheel. “They probably stole something! Don’t you want it back?”

Baker didn’t give a furry rat’s ass about what they might’ve taken. All he wanted was to get his hands on that rotten lousy—

“If they stole a “thing” Muhallal said, “then yes, of course I want it back. And I will get it back. But if they are walking away with information—information that I do not have—then I want that even more.”