As Kenny stomped up the stairs, Baker looked around the cellar and shook his head. Too close. Too damn close. He’d damn near shit his pants when Kenny had called to say they’d caught a firebug in the house. He’d run over and found this weasel-faced wimp tied to a chair in the basement. The guy had been carrying a couple of gallons of accelerant in quart bottles stashed in pockets inside his overcoat.

Hadn’t taken long to break him down. Amazing how persuasive a filleting knife could be. Remove a couple of wide strips of skin and the words tended to pour out. The torch said some broad had hired him. Someone who fit the Clayton babe’s description to a tee.

Shit!

Didn’t that bitch know when to quit? What did it take to scare her off?

Baker had been so pissed, he’d gone a little crazy. Grabbed the nearest pistol and started bashing away. Softened the torch’s skull real good. He was out cold. Maybe he’d never wake up.

Baker had considered calling Kemel, but changed his mind. Little ol’ Ahab the Ay-rab was turning out to be something of a wimp. Look how bent out of shape he got over that itty-bitty car bomb. Probably work himself into a pretzel if Baker told him how he planned to take care of the torch.

Kemel just didn’t get it. You don’t play footsy with problems—you eliminate them. That way they don’t come back to haunt you.

Like this firebug.

This guy had been taught his lesson—maybe permanently. But that wasn’t enough. Baker wanted to send the Clayton babe another message. Her PI splattered on the street hadn’t done it. Her lawyer blown to pieces right in front of her hadn’t done it. Maybe the third time would be a charm.

But he wasn’t doing this one alone. He was gathering all eight of his crew for this. With the body count rising, it was time to take out a little insurance. Get everybody involved. Raise the stakes all around.

Baker knew these were tough, stand-up boys. Not of the caliber of the SOG teams he’d accompanied into Laos and Cambodia in the early seventies but they knew their stuff, all veterans of mercenary ops in Central America, Africa, and the Gulf. Over the years he’d used them when he’d hired out to the various players in Medellin and Cali to do their dirty work along the drug routes in Central America.

But now the Mexicans had pretty much taken over the trade, and they preferred to use their own boys when they needed muscle.