The Blonde

6:55 a.m.

One, two, buckle my shoe.

Three, four, shut the door.

Five, six, pick up sticks.

Seven, eight, lay them straight.

Nine, ten …

A big fat hen.

Kowalski gave it another few seconds, just to be sure.

He opened the door and found Jack white and sweating and writhing in his seat, but alive. The gym bag still lay in his lap. “What did you do?” he gasped. “How am I still alive?”

The tracking devices in Jack’s body seemed to have sensed the ones in Ed’s dead fat head inside the gym bag. The host didn’t have to be alive. The devices merely had to be present, within ten feet. Just like Jack had said.

Useful bit of info, that.

And that was pretty much all he needed. Now all he had to do was take back the gym bag, leave his guy in here, tell his pal Sarkissian to let him sit for a minute, let him process a few things … Ah, no. Not smart. What if Kelly White was indeed dead? He could use a living witness. For the short term, anyway. Until he got CI-6’s game plan figured out.

He admitted it. He’d never been pulled off an op before.

And it stung.

So okay, new plan: He’d take this guy, find Kelly White—if she was still among the living. Stick this guy in a closet, wish him well in the afterlife. Tell him to say hi to Mayor McCheese.

If Kelly White was already gone … then yeah, get to a safe house, lawyer up, and prepare for a shitstorm, because CI-6 might be deciding to part ways with one Michael Kowalski.

And he couldn’t let that happen. Not until he’d avenged his sweet Katie at least.

“You ready Jack?”

“For what? Didn’t you hear me? I asked you a question.”

“Yeah, I heard you. I wouldn’t waste time if I were you, though. That luminous toxin’s a nasty bastard. And according to your count, you’ve got less than two hours to live. We need to get you to a hospital.”

It took only a few minutes, and another look at that embossed foil with the holographic eagles, to have Eisley remanded to his custody.

While faking his way through the bullshit paperwork, Kowalski noticed a pair of wanted posters on the wall. One showed a crooked ex-cop believed to be on the run with his almost brother-in-law. Small world. Kowalski wished he could tell the FBI the truth, save them a little worry. Say that the crooked ex-cop was buried under thousands of pounds of concrete in Camden, New Jersey. Kowalski should know. He was the one who’d dumped him down that drainage pipe.

His almost brother-in-law, however, was another matter altogether. Kowalski had wanted to leave him for dead, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He had been a part of Katie. A half brother. But still a part of her. Most likely the only part left.

So maybe Kowalski wasn’t a monster after all. A monster would have let the guy die.