“I know I’m not there, Jack. I’m here. You on foot, or do you have your car?”

“I drove. Judge Dumas has a medical appointment this afternoon, so I’m off. Where the hell are you, Harry?”

“Get in the car and come here, 1454 Monarch Street. I followed the chick from the Watergate, and this is where she came. I’m waiting to see if her partner shows up. It’s in Mt. Pleasant, Jack. Just get here. I called some of my guys; we need surveillance here.”

Jack was already backing his car out of the skinny driveway. He debated all of one second before he reached down for the strobe and slammed it on the roof of his car. He cranked the siren, the sound splitting the air as the red-and-blue strobe warned drivers to pull to the side. One eye on the road, the other on the navigation system, Jack roared down the road, marveling at how the drivers of other vehicles moved out of the way. He loved every minute of it.

Three blocks from Harry’s stakeout point, Jack cut the siren, yanked the strobe off the roof of the car, and tossed it under his seat. He pulled to a curb a block from where Harry said he would be. It was obvious that Harry wasn’t budging from his parking spot, which meant Jack had to get out of the car and walk back to where Harry sat straddling the Ducati.

“You want to tell me what the hell you’re doing here, Harry? Why didn’t you call me?”

“Because you were in court, and I did leave a voice mail. Didn’t you get it?”

“I guess I should have asked what the hell you were doing at the Watergate. I told you to stay away from there. You cannot act independently on this. I told you that, too.”

“Listen up, Jack. It’s a damn good thing I didn’t follow your orders. And I just went there. I wasn’t going to do anything. It made me fucking nuts to know those skunks were hiding out in there after what they did to me and thousands of other people. Screw Charles and that Chinese fire drill he has going on. They got away. Somehow or other, one of those professionals spooked them, and they bugged out. I followed the woman, and here I am. I have two of my guys in the back. There’s an alley behind the houses and a row of garages. The guy hasn’t showed up yet, but he will. I think we need a few more guys. What do you think? Actually, it doesn’t matter what you think since they’re on the way.”

Jack didn’t know what he thought. “How do you know you followed the right person?”

“Read my lips, Jack. I-do-not-make-mistakes. I-have-the-eyes-of-an-eagle.”

“Okayyyyy. But who did you recognize?”