The First Rule

1

AT TEN FOURTEEN THE following MORNING, approximately fifteen hours after the murders, helicopters were dark stars over the Meyer house when LAPD Detective-Sergeant Jack Terrio threaded his way through the tangle of marked and unmarked police vehicles, SID wagons, and vans from the Medical Examiner’s office. He phoned his task force partner, Louis Deets, as he approached the house. Deets had been at the scene for an hour.

“I’m here.”

“Meet you at the front door. You gotta see this.”

“Hang on-any word on the wit?”

A slim possibility existed for a witness-an Anglo female had been found alive by the first responders and identified as the Meyers’ nanny.

Deets said, “Not so hot. They brought her over to the Medical Center, but she’s circling the drain. In the face, Jackie. One in the face, one in the chest.”

“Hold a good thought. We need a break.”

“Maybe we got one. You gotta see.”

Terrio snapped his phone closed, annoyed with Deets and with the dead-end case. A home invasion crew had been hitting upscale homes in West L.A. and the Encino hills for the past three months, and this was likely their seventh score. All of the robberies had taken place between the dinner hour and eleven P.M. Two of the homes had been unoccupied at the time of entry, but, as with the Meyer home, the other four homes had been occupied. A litter of nine-millimeter cartridge casings and bodies had been left behind, but nothing else-no prints, DNA, video, or witnesses. Until now, and she was going to die.

When Terrio reached the plastic screen that had been erected to block the front door from prying cameras, he waited for Deets. Across the street, he recognized two squats from the Chief’s office, huddled up with a woman who looked like a Fed. The squats saw him looking, and turned away.

Terrio thought, “Crap. Now what?”

She was maybe five six, and sturdy with that gymed-out carriage Feds have when they’re trying to move up the food chain to Washington. Navy blazer over outlet-store jeans. Wraparound shades. A little slit mouth that probably hadn’t smiled in a month.

Deets came up behind him.

“You gotta see this.”

Terrio nodded toward the woman.

“Who’s that with the squats?”

Deets squinted at the woman, then shook his head.

“I’ve been inside. It’s a mess in there, man, but you gotta see. C’mon, put on your booties-”

They were required to wear paper booties at the scene so as not to contaminate the evidence.

Deets ducked behind the screen without waiting, so Terrio hurried to catch up, steeling himself for what he was about to see. Even after eighteen years on the job and hundreds of murder cases, the sight of blood and rent human flesh left him queasy. Embarrassed by what he considered a lack of professionalism, Terrio stared at Deets’s back as he followed him past the criminalists and West L.A. Homicide detectives who currently filled the house, not wanting to see the blood or the gore until absolutely necessary.

They reached a large, open dining area where a coroner investigator was photographing the crumpled form of an adult white male.

Deets said, “Okay we touch the body?”

“Sure. I’m good.”

“Can I have one of those wet-wipes?”

The CI gave Deets a wet-wipe, then stepped to the side, giving them room.

The male victim’s shirt had been cut away so the CI could work on the body. Deets pulled on a pair of latex gloves, then glanced at Terrio. The body was lying in an irregular pool of blood almost six feet across.

“Be careful of the blood.”

“I can see fine from here. I’m not stepping in that mess.”

Deets lifted the man’s arm, cleaned a smear of blood off the shoulder with the wet-wipe, then held the arm for Terrio to see.

“What do you think? Look familiar?”

Lividity had mottled the skin with purple and black bruising, but Terrio could still make out the tattoo. He felt a low dread of recognition.

“I’ve seen this before.”

“Yeah. That’s what I thought.”

“Does he have one on the other arm, too?”

“One on each side. Matching.”

Deets lowered the arm, then stepped away from the body. He peeled off the latex gloves.

“Only one guy I know of has tats like this. He used to be a cop here. LAPD.”

A blocky, bright red arrow had been inked onto the outside of Frank Meyer’s shoulder. It pointed forward.

Terrio’s head was racing.

“This is good, Lou. This gives us a direction. We just gotta figure out what to do about him.”

The woman’s voice cut through behind them.

“About who?”

Terrio turned, and there she was, the woman and the two squats. Wraparounds hiding her eyes. Mouth so tight she looked like she had steel teeth.

The woman stepped forward, and didn’t seem to care if she stepped in the blood or not.

“I asked a question, Sergeant. Do about who?”

Terrio glanced at the arrow again, then gave her the answer.

“Joe Pike.”

2

FIRST TIME JOE PIKE saw the tattooed woman, she was struggling up the eastern ridge of Runyon Canyon, Pike running down, both of them blowing steam in the chill before dawn. The eastern trail was steep; a series of slopes and terraces that stepped from the apartment-lined neighborhoods at the base of the canyon to Mulholland Drive at the top of the Hollywood Hills. Seeing her in the murky light that first morning, the young woman appeared to be wearing tights, but as she drew closer, Pike realized her legs were sleeved with elaborate tattoos. More ink decorated her arms, and metal studs lined her ears, nose, and lips. Pike had only two tattoos. A red arrow on the outside of each deltoid, both pointing forward.

Pike saw her two or three times each week after that, sometimes in the early-morning dark, other times later, when the sun was bright and the park was crowded. They had never exchanged more than a word or two.

The day Pike learned about Frank and Cindy Meyer, he and the tattooed woman left the park together, jogging easily past the small homes north of Hollywood Boulevard with their whispers of faded dreams. They had not run together, but she had been at the bottom when he finished, and fell in beside him. Pike wondered if she had planned it that way, and was thinking about it when he saw the first man.

The first man waited beneath a jacaranda tree on the opposite side of the street, jeans, sunglasses, knit shirt tight at the shoulders. He openly stared as Pike passed, then fell in behind at a casual jog, three or four car lengths back.

The second man was leaning against a car with his arms crossed. He watched Pike and the woman pass, then he, too, fell in behind. Pike knew they were plainclothes police officers, so he decided to give himself room. He grunted a good-bye, and picked up his pace.

The woman said, “See you next time.”

As Pike drifted to the center of the street, a blue sedan pulled out from a cross street two blocks behind. One block ahead, a tan sedan pulled from the curb, boxing him in. Two men were in the front seat of the tan car, with a woman in back on the passenger side. Pike saw her turn to see him. Short brown hair. Wraparound sunglasses. Frown. The man in the passenger seat dangled a badge out the open window, letting Pike see.

Pike eased to a stop. The sedans and trailing officers stopped when Pike stopped, everyone keeping their distance.

The tattooed woman realized something was happening, and nervously danced on her toes.

“Dude, what is this?”

“Keep going.”

She didn’t keep going. She edged toward the nearest house, clearly frightened as she glanced from car to car.

“I don’t like this. You want me to get help?”

“They’re police. They just want to talk to me.”

If they wanted to arrest him, they wouldn’t have approached in the middle of a residential street. If they wanted to kill him, they would have already tried.

The man with the badge got out of the lead car. He was balding, with a thin mustache that was too dark for the rest of his hair. His driver got out, too, a younger man with bright eyes. The woman remained in the car, twisted around to watch. She was on her cell phone. Pike wondered what she was saying.

The man with the badge said, “Jack Terrio, LAPD. This is Lou Deets. Okay if we come over there?”

They knew who he was, and so did the officers who had established a perimeter behind the two sedans. They had blocked the street and were rerouting traffic onto the cross streets.

“Sure.”

Pike unshouldered his rucksack. He ran with a weighted ruck, and also wore a fanny pack, a sleeveless gray sweatshirt, New Balance running shoes, blue shorts, and government-issue sunglasses. The sweatshirt was dark with sweat.

When Terrio and Deets reached him, Deets stood to the side.

“That’s some nice ink you have there, Pike, the red arrows. Don’t see many like that, do we, boss?”

Terrio ignored him.

“You armed?”

“Gun’s in the fanny pack. With the license.”

Deets toed the ruck.

“What’s in there, a rocket launcher?”

“Flour.”

“No shit. You gonna bake me a cake?”

Deets fingered open the ruck, then frowned.

“He’s got four ten-pound bags of flour in here.”

“That’s what he told you, didn’t he? C’mon, let’s stay on topic.”

Terrio put away his badge.

“Don’t touch the fanny pack, okay?”

Pike nodded.

“You know a man name of Frank Meyer?”

A chill spread through Pike’s belly. He had not seen Frank Meyer in years, though he frequently thought about him, and now his name hung in the mid-morning air like a frosty ghost. Pike glanced at their car. The woman was still watching, and still on the phone, as if she were reporting his reaction.

“What happened?”

Deets said, “Have you seen him in the past week or so?”

“Not in a long time. Ten years, maybe.”

“What if I told you I have a witness who claims you were with Meyer recently?”

Pike studied Deets for a moment, and read he was lying. Pike turned back to Terrio.

“You want to play games, I’ll keep running.”

“No games. Meyer and his family were murdered in their home two nights ago. The boys and the wife were executed. A woman we’ve identified as their nanny survived, but she’s in a coma.”

No part of Joe Pike moved except for the rise and fall of his chest until he glanced at the tattooed woman. An older woman in a dingy robe had come out of her house, and the two of them were watching from the door.

Deets said, “That your girlfriend?”

“I don’t know who she is.”

Pike faced Terrio again.

“I didn’t kill them.”

“Don’t think you did. We believe a professional home invasion crew killed them. We believe that same crew has hit six other homes in the past three months, murdering a total of eleven people.”

Pike knew where they were going.

“You don’t have any suspects.”

“Nothing. No prints, pix, or witnesses. We don’t have any idea who’s doing this, so we started looking at the victims.”

Deets said, “And guess what, Pike? Turns out we found something the first six have in common. Three were drug traffickers, one was a pornogra pher who laundered money for the Israeli mob, and two were jewelry merchants who fenced stolen goods. The first six were as dirty as yesterday’s socks, so now we’re seeing what’s up with Meyer.”

“Frank wasn’t a criminal.”

“You can’t know that.”

“Frank had an import business. He sold clothes.”

Terrio fingered a photograph from his jacket. The picture showed Frank, Pike, and a chemical-company executive named Delroy Spence in the El Salvadoran jungle. The air had smelled of rotten fish and burning oil when the picture was taken. The temperature had been one hundred twelve degrees. Spence was dirty, lice-ridden, and wearing the remains of a tattered blue business suit. Meyer and Pike were wearing T-shirts, faded utility pants, and M4 rifles slung on their arms. Meyer and Spence were both smiling, though they were smiling for different reasons. Spence was smiling because Pike, Meyer, and a man named Lonny Tang had just rescued him after two months of captivity at the hands of a band of narco terrorists. Meyer was smiling because he had just cracked a joke about retiring to get married. Meyer looked like he was fourteen years old.

“What does this have to do with now?”

“You and Meyer were mercenaries.”

“So?”

Terrio studied the picture. He flexed it back and forth.

“He’s all over the world in shitholes like this, hanging out with the wrong kind of people. Maybe he started importing more than clothes.”

“Not Frank.”

“No? None of his friends or neighbors knew what he used to do. Not one of the people we interviewed. This little picture is the only thing from those days we found in his house. Why do you think that is?”

“Cindy didn’t approve.”

“Whether she approved or not, the man kept secrets. Maybe he wasn’t the man you thought.”

“I can’t help you.”

Terrio slipped the picture into his pocket.

“This home invasion crew doesn’t pick homes at random. They don’t drive around, and say, hey, that one looks good. Sooner or later, we’re going to learn Meyer had something they wanted-dope, cash, maybe the ayatol lah’s secret jewels.”

“Frank sold clothes.”

Terrio glanced at Deets, then returned to the tan sedan without another word. Deets didn’t follow.

Deets said, “So you haven’t seen this guy in ten years?”

“No.”

“Why is that? You have a falling-out?”

Pike thought how best to answer, but most of it wasn’t their business.

“Like I said, his wife.”

“But it was your picture he kept. And your tattoos. What’s up with that, Pike? Some kind of unit thing?”

Pike didn’t understand.

“The arrows?”

“Yeah, here and here, like you.”

On the day Frank’s contract expired and he left the contract service for good, Frank Meyer had no tattoos.

Pike said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Deets made a stiff smile, then lowered his voice.

“I never met someone who’s killed as many people as you, still walking free.”

Pike watched Deets walk away. Terrio was already in the car. Deets walked around to the far side, and got in behind the wheel. The woman in the backseat was talking to Terrio. They drove away. The plainclothes officers followed. The neighborhood returned to normal.

Everything was normal except Frank Meyer was dead.

The tattooed woman trotted up, excited and anxious.

“Dude, that was crazy. What did they want?”

“A friend of mine was murdered.”

“Oh, shit, I’m sorry. That’s awful. They think you did it?”

“Nothing like that.”

She made a ragged laugh, nervous at the edges.

“Dude, listen, they do. I’m tellin’ you, man, those cats were scared of you.”

“Maybe.”

“I’m not.”

The tattooed woman punched him in the arm. It was the first time she had touched him. Pike studied her for a moment, then shouldered his ruck.

“You don’t know me.”

Pike settled the pack, and continued his run.

3

WHEN PIKE REACHED HIS JEEP, he drove directly to Frank Meyer’s home. Pike had lied to Terrio. He had seen Frank three years ago, though they had not spoken. A mutual friend told Pike about Frank’s new house in Westwood, so Pike cruised by. Pike also cruised by the little ranch home Frank and Cindy owned in Studio City a few years before that. Frank Meyer had been on Pike’s team, so Pike liked to make sure he was doing okay even though the two hadn’t spoken in years.

The Westwood house was taped off as an active crime scene, though the crush of lookie-loos and newspeople that would have been present the day before were gone. A black-and-white radio car was out front, along with two SID wagons, an unmarked sedan, and a single TV news van. Two female officers posted to protect the scene were slumped in the radio car, bored out of their minds with nothing to do except listen to their iPods.

Pike parked a block behind their car, then studied Frank Meyer’s house. He wanted to know how Frank died, and was thinking he would break in later that night when a tall, thin criminalist named John Chen came down the drive to an SID wagon. Chen was a friend. Pike would have called Chen anyway, but Chen being here was a stroke of good fortune that would save time.

Chen’s vehicle was directly in front of the radio car. If Chen left, Pike would follow. If Chen returned to the house, Pike would wait.

Pike was waiting to see what Chen would do when his phone rang. The caller ID read John Chen.

Pike said, “Hello, John.”

Chen was a paranoid. Even though he was alone in his vehicle his voice was guarded, as if he was worried about being overheard.

“Joe, it’s me, John Chen. I’m at a murder scene in Westwood. The police are coming to-”

“I’m behind you, John.”

“What?”

“Look behind you.”

Chen emerged from his wagon. He stared at the radio car as if the officers would jump out to arrest him.

Pike said, “Farther back. I’m on the next block.”

Chen finally saw him, then shriveled back into his wagon.

“Did the police already come see you?”

“A detective named Terrio.”

“I was calling to warn you, bro. They found a picture of you with the vic. I’m sorry, man. I only heard about it this morning.”

“I want to see what happened in there.”

Chen hesitated again.

“It’s a mess.”

Chen, warning that he would see something awful, but Pike had seen awful things before.

Chen sighed.

“Okay, listen-two dicks from West L.A. are inside. I don’t know how long they’ll be.”

“ I’ll wait.”

“They might be here all day.”

“ I’ll wait.”

“All right. Okay. I’ll call when it’s clear.”

Pike could tell Chen wasn’t comfortable with him being out here, but Pike didn’t care about that or how long he might have to wait. Chen reemerged from his wagon and slouched back to the house, shooting nervous glances at Pike over his shoulder.

Pike got out of his Jeep, pulled on a pair of spare jeans and a plain green windbreaker so he would be less memorable, then climbed back behind the wheel. He studied Frank’s house. A sloping front lawn led to a two-story brick home with a steep slate roof, surrounded by elm trees and feathery hedges. The house looked stable, traditional, and strong, and was suited to the Frank Pike knew. Pike liked that. Frank had done all right for himself.

After a while, a man and woman who were likely the West L.A. detectives came down the drive, got into the unmarked sedan, and drove away. Chen called as Pike watched them.

“You still out there?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll come get you. We won’t have much time.”

Pike met Chen on the sidewalk, then followed him to the house. The two uniforms appeared to be dozing, and no one was visible in the media van. Neither of them spoke until they reached the front door, when Chen handed Pike a pair of blue paper booties.

“Gotta put these over your shoes, okay?”

They slipped on the booties, then stepped into a large circular entry with a winding staircase up to the second floor. A towering grandfather clock stood guard at the stair, standing tall over a rusty crust of blood footprints that dotted the floor.

Pike felt odd, entering Frank’s home, as if he were intruding into a place where it was understood he would never be welcomed. He had glimpsed Frank’s life from the outside, but never from within. He had never met Cindy, or the boys, and now here he was in their home. Pike heard movement upstairs, and Chen glanced toward the sound.

“That’s another criminalist, Amy Slovak. She’ll be up there a while.”

Pike followed Chen through the entry to a large, open family room adjoining a dining area. An irregular pool of drying blood covered the floor midway between the dining table and the hall. Bright green yarn had been stretched from the blood pool to two metal stands in the living room, two strands to one of the stands, a single strand to the other. These stands marked the probable location of the shooters. A jumble of footprints crossed and crisscrossed the drying pool where one or more of the shooters had walked through the blood. A second, smaller stain was visible across the family room.

Chen nodded toward the big stain at their feet.

“Mr. Meyer was here. His wife and one of the boys there by the French doors. The nanny was in her room. I can give you a pretty good take on how it unfolded.”

A blue three-ring binder was open on a nearby table where Chen had been making sketches. He flipped to a scaled floor plan showing the location and position of the bodies, along with recovered shell casings.

“The family was probably having dinner when the shooters broke in. You saw the door. Bam, they scared the shit out of everybody. Meyer probably advanced on them, brief struggle, boom, boom-he had cuts on his face like they hit him with a hard object, probably a gun-and that’s when they killed him.”

Pike studied the three strands of yarn.

“They shot him three times?”

“Yeah, once high on his hip, once in the side, and once in his back. Two shooters, like they were trying to put him down fast. This suggests he was fighting. The others were shot once in the forehead at close range, which suggests a deliberate execution.”

The others. Cindy and the boys.

The ugly stain where Meyer bled out looked like the Salton Sea. Meyer had been a good fighter. He had superb training and great instincts, else Pike would never have made him part of his team.

“How many men all together?”

“Four, which makes this one a little different. The earlier invasions, there were only three guys. They added a fourth.”

“Four guns?”

“Looks like, but we’re still running the casings and bullets. It’s the shoe prints. We’ve got four distinct shoe prints.”

Pike glanced at the black smudges on door jambs and handles.

“Fingerprints?”

“Gloves. We didn’t get anything from the earlier crime scenes, either. No identifying prints, no DNA, no nothing except the shoes. C’mon, I’ll show you where we found the nanny.”

Chen led Pike across the dining room, through the kitchen, then past the laundry room to a tiny bedroom where the door and jamb were split.

“See how they crunched the door? It was locked. She was probably trying to hide.”

Chen glanced at his notes.

“Ana Markovic, age twenty. Two shots close range, one in the face, one in the chest, two casings here in the room. Both nine-millimeter. Did I mention that?”

“No.”

“These guys used nines. All the bullets and casings we found-nines.”

The room was a small place to die, filled by a bed and a table, with only a casement window for light. Pictures of a smiling young woman hugging Frank’s boys were taped over the desk, part of a birthday card the kids had made of construction paper. We love Ana.

Pike said, “Her?”

“Uh-huh. An au pair.”

Smears of blood on the floor and the door indicated she tried to crawl away after being shot.

Pike said, “Did she describe them?”

“Uh-uh. She was unconscious when the uniforms found her. They got her over to UCLA, but she’s not going to make it.”

Pike stared at the streaks of blood. It was easy to imagine her outstretched hand.

“Does Terrio have any suspects?”

“No one we’ve identified. If he has someone from the other side, I couldn’t tell you. They haven’t issued any warrants.”

SID was the science side. The other side was shoe leather-whatever detectives turned from informants and witnesses.

“How many people have they killed?”

“Four. If the nanny dies, five.”

“Not here, John. All together.”

“Eleven. Hey, that’s why they set up a task force. They’re using divisional dicks from all over the city.”

Chen suddenly glanced at his watch, looking uncomfortable.

“Listen, I gotta get busy. Those dicks are coming back.”

Pike followed Chen back to the dining room, but he still wasn’t ready to leave.

Pike said, “Let me see the pictures.”

Criminalists, coroner investigators, and homicide detectives photo-documented everything. Chen would have photographed the scene before he made the sketches.

“Bro, these people were your friends. You sure?”

“Let me see.”

Chen went to his case and returned with a black digital camera. He scrolled through the images until he found what he wanted, then held it so Pike could see.

The image was tiny, but Pike saw Frank splayed on the floor. He was on his back, his left leg straight and right leg cocked to the side, floating in a pool of deep red that shined with the flash. Pike had wanted to see if the red arrows were inked on his arms like Deets said, but Frank was wearing a long-sleeved shirt, rolled to his forearms.

“I want to see his face. Can you zoom it?”

Chen adjusted the picture, then held out the camera again. Frank was cut beneath his right eye in two places, indicating he had been hit more than once. Pike wondered if Frank had been trying to disarm the man or men closest to him when the men across the room shot him.

Pike said, “Was a time, he would have beat them.”

Chen said, “What?”

Pike felt embarrassed for saying it, so he didn’t answer.

“You want to see the wife and kids?”

“No.”

Chen looked relieved.

“You knew him pretty well?”

“Yes.”

“What was he holding?”

“Frank wasn’t a criminal.”

“All the other vics in the string were dirty. That’s part of the pattern.”

“Not Frank.”

Chen read something in Pike’s voice.

“Sorry. They probably made a mistake. Assholes like this, they probably hit the wrong house.”

“Yes,” Pike said. “They made a mistake.”

“Listen, I gotta get back to work. I gotta get you outta here.”

Pike followed the hall back to the front door, but he did not immediately leave. On the way in, they had passed what appeared to be a home office.

Photographs of Frank and his family hung on the walls. Movie posters from The Magnificent Seven, Shane, and the original Star Wars, Frank’s three favorite films. Frank used to joke he was a Jedi. He called Pike Yoda.

Pike studied the pictures, comparing the Frank he had known with the Frank who had lived in this house. When Pike met Frank for the first time, Frank was fresh out of eight years in the Marine Corps, having seen service in Central America and the Middle East. Frank had been young and lean, but had the chunky build of a kid who would put on weight quickly if he stopped working out. The Frank in these pictures had gained weight, but looked happy and safe.

Pike found a picture of Frank and Cindy, then moved to a picture of Frank and Cindy with the two boys. Cindy was squat and sturdy, with short brown hair, happy eyes, and a crooked nose that made her pretty. Pike studied more pictures. The two boys, then the four of them together, father, mother, children, family.

Pike moved through the office until he came to a space on a shelf with an empty frame. The frame was the right size for the El Salvador picture.

Pike took a breath, let it out, then found Chen back in the dining room.

“Show me his family.”

“You want to see what they did to his wife and his kids?”

Pike wanted to see. He wanted to fix them in his mind, and have them close when he found the men who killed them.

4

PIKE LIVED ALONE IN a two-bedroom condo in Culver City. He drove home, then stripped and showered away the sweat. He let hot water beat into him, then turned on the cold. Pike didn’t flinch when the icy water fired his skin. He rubbed the cold over his face and scalp, and stayed in the cold much longer than the hot, then toweled himself off.

Before he dressed, he looked at himself in the mirror. Pike was six foot one. He weighed two hundred five pounds. He had been shot seven times, hit by shrapnel on fourteen separate occasions, and stabbed or cut eleven times. Scars from the wounds and resulting surgeries mapped his body like roads that always came back to the same place. Pike knew exactly which scars had been earned when he worked with Frank Meyer.

Pike leaned close to the mirror, examining each eye. Left eye, right eye. The scleras were clear and bright, the irises a deep, liquid blue. The skin surrounding the eyes was lined from squinting into too many suns. Pike’s eyes were sensitive to light, but his visual acuity was amazing. 20/11 in his left eye, 20/12 in his right. They had loved that in sniper school.

Pike dressed, then put on his sunglasses.

“Yoda.”

Lunch was leftover Thai food nuked in the microwave. Tofu, cabbage, broccoli, and rice. He drank a liter of water, then washed the one plate and fork while thinking about what he had learned from Chen and Terrio, and how he could use it.

Jumping Pike in broad daylight on a residential street to ask a few questions was a panic move. This confirmed that after three months, seven invasions, and eleven homicides, Terrio had not developed enough evidence to initiate an arrest. But a lack of proof did not necessarily mean a lack of suspects or usable information, what Chen had called “shoe leather” information. Professional home invasion crews almost always comprised career criminals who did violent crime for a living. If caught, they would be off the streets for the period of their incarceration, but would almost always commit more crimes when released. Experienced investigators like Terrio knew this, and would compare the date of the original robbery to release dates of criminals with a similar history, trying to identify high-probability suspects. Pike wanted to know what they had.

Pike went upstairs to his bedroom closet, opened his safe, and took out a list of telephone numbers. The numbers were not written as numbers, but as an alphanumeric code. Pike found the number he wanted, then brought it downstairs, sat on the floor with his back to the wall, and made the call.

Jon Stone answered on the second ring, the sound of old-school N.W.A pounding loud behind him. Stone must have recognized Pike’s number on the caller ID.

“Well. Look who it is.”

“Got a couple of questions.”

“How much will you pay for a couple of answers?”

Jon Stone was a talent agent for professional military contractors. Stone used to be a PMC himself, but now placed talent with the large private military corporations and security firms favored by Washington and corporate America. Safer that way, and much more profitable.

Pike didn’t respond, and after a while the N.W.A was turned down.

Stone said, “Tell you what, let’s table that for now. You go ahead, ask, we’ll see what develops.”

“Remember Frank Meyer?”

“Fearless Frank, my man on the tanks? Sure.”

“Has Frank been working?”

“Frank was one of your guys. You tell me.”

“Has he been on the market?”

“He retired ten years ago, at least.”

“So you haven’t heard any rumors?”

“Like what?”

“Like Frank getting involved with people you wouldn’t expect.”

Jon snorted.

“Fearless Frank? Get control of yourself.”

“He didn’t like being called Fearless Frank. It made him uncomfortable.”

Stone lapsed into silence, probably embarrassed, and Pike went on.

“Less than two hours ago, a police detective named Terrio told me Frank was dirty. He believes Frank was using his import business for something illegal.”

“Why was a cop talking about Frank?”

“Frank and his family were murdered.”

Stone was silent for a time, and when he spoke again, his voice was low.

“For real?”

“A robbery crew broke into their home two nights ago. Frank, his wife, their kids. They zero in on targets with a cash payoff-dope dealers, money launderers, like that. Frank wasn’t their first.”

“I’ll ask around, I guess. I can’t believe Frank went wrong, but I’ll ask.”

“Another thing. You have juice with Fugitive Section or Special Investigations?”

Now Stone grew wary.

“Why?”

“You know why, Jon. If Terrio’s task force has any suspects, Fugitive Section or SIS will be trying to find them. I want to know what they have.”

Fugitive Section detectives specialized in tracking down and apprehending wanted felons in high-risk situations. Special Investigation Section were elite operators who ran long-term, covert surveillance on criminals suspected of committing violent serial crime. With their expertise, skill, and experience, retired Fugitive Section and SIS operators commanded top dollar at private security firms, and Jon Stone had placed more than a few into fat corporate jobs.

Stone hesitated, and Pike listened to the N.W.A tracks behind him, back in the day before Ice Cube went legit.

“C’mon, Jon. You have ins with those guys.”

Stone cleared his throat, sounding uncomfortable.

“I might have a friend who has a friend. I’m just saying, is all.”

“I need this information before they make an arrest.”

Stone lapsed into another silence, and now seemed thoughtful when he spoke.

“I guess you would, then, Joseph.”

“Frank was one of my guys.”

“Listen, that business about Frank, I have an idea. Ask Lonny. Lonny might know.”

Lonny Tang. The man who had taken the picture in El Salvador. Thirteen days later, on a job in Kuwait, Frank Meyer would save Lonny Tang’s life on what would turn out to be Lonny’s last job.

Pike said, “Why would Lonny know?”

“Frank kept in touch with him. You didn’t know? He sent Lonny Christmas cards, stuff like that. I’ll bet you ten bucks his wife never knew.”

Pike didn’t respond because Pike hadn’t known, either. He hadn’t spoken with Lonny in years, and Frank even longer. Stone went on, finishing his idea.

“If Frank was mixed up in something, he’d tell Lonny if he was gonna tell anyone.”

“That’s a good idea, asking Lonny. I will.”

“You gotta set it up through his lawyer. You want the number?”

“I have it.”

“I’ll let you know about the other thing after I talk to my guys.”

“Thanks, Jon. How much do I owe you?”

Stone cranked up the N.W.A. Something about guns in Compton. Something about making a muthuhfucka pay.

“Forget it. Frank was one of my guys, too.”

Pike lowered the phone, thought over what he needed to do, then raised the phone again. Pike owned a small gun shop not far from his condo. He had five employees who were expecting him that afternoon.

“Gun shop. This is Sheila. May I help you?”

Sheila Lambert was a retired FBI agent who worked part-time at the store.

“Me. Everything good?”

“Yeah, we’re groovy. What’s up?”

“I won’t be in this afternoon. That okay?”

“Not a problem. You wanna speak with Ronnie?”

Ronnie managed Pike’s store.

“Just pass the word. If he needs me, I’m on the cell.”

“Roger that.”

Pike hung up, cleared two other appointments he had that afternoon, then called Lonny Tang’s attorney, a man named Carson Epp.

Pike said, “I need to speak with him. Can you set it up?”

“How soon?”

“Soon. It’s a family emergency.”

“May I tell him what this is about?”

Pike decided Lonny should hear about Frank from him, and not Epp or someone else. Lonny had been one of Pike’s guys, too.

“Frank the Tank.”

“Frank the Tank?”

“He’ll know. Let me give you my cell.”

Pike gave him his number, then lowered the phone, thinking he couldn’t wait for Stone to come up with something Terrio might or might not have developed. He wondered if Ana Markovic was still alive, and if she had managed to speak. Chen said she hadn’t, but Chen was only repeating what he had heard from the cops, and the cops would have left as soon as a doctor told them she was not going to wake up. Pike wanted to talk to the nurses. Even unconscious, she might have mumbled something after the cops were gone. A word or a name could give him an edge. Pike wanted the edge.

Pike changed into a pale blue dress shirt to make himself presentable, then bought a bouquet of daisies and drove to the hospital.

5

THE INTENSIVE CARE UNIT was on the sixth floor of the UCLA Medical Center. Pike stepped out of the elevator and followed signs to an octagonal command post at the end of a hall lined by glass-walled rooms. Curtains could be pulled for privacy, but most of the rooms were open so the staff could see the patients from the hall.

Pike walked the length of the hall checking for officers, but any officers who had been present were gone. He returned to the nurses’ station, and waited until a harried female nurse turned to him. Her name tag read BARBARA FARNHAM.

“May I help you?”

Pike and his dress shirt held out the flowers.

“Ana Markovic.”

The nurse’s expression softened when she saw the daisies.

“I’m sorry. Are you a relative?”

“I know the family.”

“We limit our visitors in ICU, only one person at a time, and then only for a few minutes. Her sister’s here now, but I’m sure she wouldn’t mind.”

Pike nodded.

“Room twelve, but you can’t leave the flowers. If a patient has an allergic reaction, it could weaken their immune system.”

Pike had expected this, and handed over the flowers. The nurse admired them as she placed them on the counter.

“Pretty. I like daisies. You can pick them up when you leave or we can send them to another part of the hospital. We usually send them to Maternity.”

“Before I see her, I’d like to speak with her primary nurse. Is that possible?”

“Well, that’s all of us, really. We work as a team.”

“The police told me she wasn’t able to make a statement when they found her. I was wondering if she came around after surgery.”

“No, I’m sorry, she hasn’t.”

“I don’t mean a conversation. Maybe she mumbled a name. Said something that might help the police.”

The nurse looked sympathetic.

“You’ll understand when you see her. She’s unconscious and completely uncommunicative.”

“Would you ask the other nurses?”

“I’ll ask, but I’m sure she hasn’t spoken.”

A light mounted outside a nearby door came on, drawing the nurse’s attention.

“Room twelve. Only for a few minutes, all right?”

The nurse hurried away, so Pike went down the hall to room twelve. Like the other rooms, the door was open and the drape pulled back so the nurses could see the patient. Pike expected to find the sister, but room twelve was empty except for the bandaged figure in the bed.

Pike hesitated at the door, wondering how far he should take this, then went to the bed. The left side of Ana’s face and head were hidden beneath heavy bandages, but the right half of her face was visible. She seemed to be trying to open her eye. Her eyelid would lift, the eye beneath would drift and roll, then the eyelid would close.

Pike knew she had not spoken as soon as he saw her, and thought it unlikely she would regain consciousness. The shape of the bandage on her head suggested a bullet had entered beneath her left eye, angling away from the midline. The way the visible part of her face was swollen and discolored suggested bone fragments from the maxilla had exploded into her sinuses, mouth, and eye like shrapnel. The pain would have been excruciating. Pike lifted the sheet enough to see the incisions taped across her chest and abdomen, which were still orange from the Betadine solution used to clean the area. He lowered the sheet, and tucked it beneath her. The upper chest wound had done the most damage. The bullet had likely deflected off her ribs or clavicle, and punched down through the diaphragm into her abdomen. Between the time she was shot and the time she was wheeled into surgery, her left lung had collapsed, the chest cavity had filled with blood, and the blood had drained through the diaphragm into her abdomen. As she lost blood, her blood pressure dropped until it was so low her organs began shutting down, like a car engine without enough oil. A car engine without oil will run, but the engine will damage itself. Let it run long enough, you can replenish the oil all you want, but the damage will have been done, and the engine will die. Ana Markovic had bled out internally, and now she was dying.

Pike had seen men die this way before, and knew if this young woman was ever going to offer what she had seen, she would have to offer it soon.

Pike said, “Ana?”

Her visible eye flagged, rolled, drooped.

Pike touched her cheek.

“Ana, we need your help.”

The eye rolled, then drooped again, an autonomic move without conscious thought.

Pike took her hand. He stroked it, then pinched the soft flesh between her thumb and index finger.

“What did they look like?”

She did not respond.

“Who shot you?”

A rigid female voice cut him from behind.

“Move away from her.”

Pike calmly turned. A woman in her late twenties who was probably the sister stood framed in the door. Eyes like flint chips, black hair pulled tight, and a pronounced East European accent.

Pike said, “I was trying to wake her.”

“Leave go her hand, and move away.”

She wore a suede jacket over designer jeans and cradled an oversized leather shoulder bag with one hand. The other hand was inside the bag, and ominously still.

Pike placed Ana’s hand on the bed.

“I’m sorry. I came to see if she was awake. The Meyers were friends of mine.”

The woman’s eyes narrowed suspiciously.

“The people she worked for?”

“Frank and Cindy. Ana cared for their boys.”

“You know Ana?”

“We never met, no.”

The woman didn’t soften in any way Pike could see. Her eyes charted his face, his build, his shades, and cropped warrior hair. She didn’t like what she saw. Not even the shirt.

She stepped aside to clear the door.

“You should leave now. They don’t like the visitors.”

Her hand stayed in the purse.

Pike said, “Has she said anything that could help us?”

“Us. Now you are the police?”

“I misspoke. A name. A word. Something that could identify the people who did this.”

“I think you go. She tells us who did this thing, I will tell the police.”

Pike considered her for a moment, then went to the door.

“I understand. I’m sorry about your sister.”

The woman edged further to the side as Pike left. He glanced back, and saw her watching from the door as if sizing him for a coffin. He glanced again when he reached the nurses’ station, but this time she was gone.

Pike waited at the station until Barbara Farnham returned, then asked if she had checked with the other nurses. She had, but all of them had responded the same. Ana Markovic had made no sounds, nor shown any signs of recovery.

“I’m sorry, but you’ve seen her. I wish I could be more optimistic for you.”

“Thanks for checking.”

When Pike reached the elevator, Ana’s sister was waiting. He nodded, but she looked away. The elevator arrived with three other people aboard, so they rode down in silence, Pike on one side, Ana’s sister on the other.

The sister exited the elevator first, but stopped at a lobby newsstand as Pike continued to the parking structure. He saw her watching as he passed, and caught her reflection in a wall of glass when she followed him.

Pike crossed to the parking garage, then stopped on the ground floor for the elevator. Pike always took the stairs no matter how many flights he had to climb, but now he waited for the elevator. He was not surprised when Ana’s sister stepped up beside him.

This time, she made a tight smile.

“We are destined to see each other.”

Pike said, “Yes.”

The elevator was empty when it opened. No one else waited to board. Pike held the door, letting her go first. The woman stepped aboard, and moved to the back corner. Pike followed her, as certain of what she was about to do as if he could see it on a Sunset Boulevard billboard. Her hand was still in her purse.

Pike said, “Which level?”

“Three.”

As the doors closed, her hand came out of the purse with a small black gun that Pike twisted away even before she raised it. She swung at him, trying to hit, but Pike caught her arm, careful not to break it. She tried to knee him, but he leaned in just enough to pin her with his hip. He pulled the button to stop the elevator. A loud buzzer went off, but not for long.

“I didn’t come here to hurt her.”

She was trapped. Breathing hard, eyes cut to slits, she looked like she wanted to rip his throat with her teeth.

Pike said, “Calm down. Look.”

Keeping her pinned, he one-handed the clip from the pistol, and jacked the slide to clear the chamber. A nice little Ruger.380.

Pike kept his voice calm and measured.

“You see? I wasn’t one of the men who killed them.”

He stepped away, raising his hands.

“Frank Meyer was my friend.”

Pike held out the unloaded gun.

“You see?”

She straightened herself, maybe embarrassed, but maybe not altogether convinced. She clutched the gun with both hands, her back pressed to the wall.

“How did you find her?”

“The police told me.”

“Those bastards might find her, too. What if they come to kill her?”

“So you’re standing guard?”

“They leave her here with no one! I do what I have to do.”

Pike’s phone vibrated, so loud in the closed space she glanced toward his pocket. Pike would have ignored it, but he was expecting Carson Epp, and that’s who it was. Pike took the call, staring at her as he spoke.

“Pike.”

“I will have Lonny on the line in twenty minutes. Will you be able to take it?”

“Yes.”

“Twenty.”

Pike returned the phone to his pocket, then tipped his head at her pistol.

“Put it away.”

She put the Ruger into her purse. Pike added the clip and the loose cartridge, then offered his hand.

“My name is Pike.”

She stared at him, the dark eyes remaining suspicious. Her cheekbones were high and prominent, her cheeks were lean, and a small scar capped the bridge of her nose where she had been cut as a child. Pike’s hand had been cooked dark by the sun, but her skin was pale as milk.

She gripped his hand quickly.

Pale and warm, but hard underneath.

She said, “Rina.”

“Karina.”

“Yes.”

“Russian?”

“Serbian.”

“Leave the gun home. They won’t come here. Their risk would be larger than the chance she could identify them. They know that, so they won’t take the chance. The police know the same thing, which is why they didn’t post a guard.”

Her eyes narrowed again, mapping him like before.

“You are not a policeman?”

“Frank was my friend.”

The elevator buzzed again, anxious to move.

Pike said, “Which floor?”

“Here. I am not parked in this building.”

Pike reached for the button to open the door.

“When we got on, what were you going to do, shoot me?”

“I thought you might be one of them. If you were, then, yes, I would have shot you.”

Pike opened the door. A round man got on as Rina Markovic stepped off.

She said, “Perhaps someone will find these bastards, yes?”

“Someone will find them. Yes.”

She studied him for a moment as if taking his measure, and Pike thought her eyes were haunted.

“I am sorry for your friend. I think many families have been lost by this.”

She walked away as the door closed. Pike took the elevator up to his Jeep. He took off the blue dress shirt, slipped on the sleeveless gray sweatshirt, then wound his way down to the exit.

Eight minutes later, he was in a Best Buy parking lot when Lonny Tang called.

6

PIKE WAS WATCHING UCLA students cut between cars on their way home from campus, not far from Frank Meyer’s home, when his phone finally vibrated, three minutes late.

Pike said, “I’m here.”

Carson Epp said, “Lonny, can you hear him okay?”

Lonny’s voice was high-pitched and soft.

“Yeah, I hear him fine. Hey, Joe.”

Epp said, “I’m going to hang up now. That will leave the two of you on the line. Lonny, when you’re finished, just hang up. I’ll check back with you to make sure everything is all right.”

“Okay. Thanks, Carson.”

“Righto, then.”

Pike heard a click as Epp left the line, then the hush of Lonny Tang’s voice.

“Must be bad, you calling like this.”

Pike didn’t know how else to say it, so he gave it to Lonny head-on.

“Frank’s dead. He was murdered two nights ago. Frank and his family.”

Lonny was silent on the other end, but then Pike heard a gentle sobbing. Pike let him cry. If any of them had a right to cry, it was Lonny.

Lonny said, “Sorry. I don’t mean to carry on.”

“It’s okay.”

Lonny got himself together and cleared his throat.

“Thanks for letting me know. I appreciate it, Joe. The bastard who did it, they get him?”

“Not yet. The police think it’s a home invasion crew. Frank’s house was the seventh home they’ve hit.”

Lonny cleared his throat again.

“Okay, well, I don’t know what to say. When they get these pricks, will you let me know?”

“I have to ask you something.”

“What’s that?”

“This crew, they work on good intelligence. Their first six targets were all people like dope dealers and money cleaners. You see where I’m going?”

“Frank had an import business. He imported clothes.”

“If Frank was importing something else, he was in business with someone who gave him up. That person knows who killed him.”

“You think I’m holding out on you, Joe?”

“I don’t know.”

“This is Frank, man. Are you serious?”

“Did he tell you something I should know?”

Lonny was quiet for a while, breathing, and his voice was calm.

“He came to my trial. Not every day, but a couple of times. This once, I asked him if he was sorry he saved me, you know-because if he hadn’t saved me, those men I murdered would still be alive. So I asked if he regretted it. He told me guys like us had each other’s back, so he had my back. He didn’t have any choice.”

“Way it was, Lonny. What would you expect him to say?”

“I know. I just wanted to hear it, I guess, that I still meant something to someone, and wasn’t just a murdering piece of shit.”

Pike remained silent, which spurred Lonny to laugh.

“Thanks for chiming in there, boss. Appreciate the support.”

Lonny suddenly burst out laughing, but the laughter shivered into a sob.

Lonny said, “Shit. I’m sorry.”

“C’mon, Lonny, yes or no. Did Frank tell you he was into something? Maybe ask about certain people or say something that left you wondering?”

“You think if I could help get the pricks who killed him, I wouldn’t be all over it? I’d kill those fuckers myself.”

“ You’re sure?”

“Yes. He was the same Frank we knew. Being an Eagle Scout was in his frakkin’ DNA.”

Pike felt the tightness in his chest ease, feeling a sense of relief.

“Okay, Lon. That’s what I thought, but I had to be sure. You’re the only one he stayed in contact with.”

“I know. She drove a hard bargain, that girl.”

Cindy.

Pike was finished. He wanted to hang up, but he hadn’t spoken with Lonny in a long time, and now he felt guilty. Lonny Tang had been one of his guys for eleven years, on and off, until Lonny got hurt.

Pike asked the obvious.

“How you doing in there?”

“You get used to it. Thirteen years to go, I’m on the beach with a smile.”

“You need anything?”

“Nah. I get all the free meds and medical care I need. I crap blue nuggets and can’t eat spicy foods, but other than that I’m fine.”

On the day Frank Meyer saved Lonny Tang’s life, an RPG explosion sent a rock the size of a golf ball through Lonny Tang’s abdomen. Lonny lost his left kidney, a foot of large intestine, two feet of small intestine, his spleen, part of his liver, half of his stomach, and his health. He was left with a growing addiction to painkillers and no way to pay for them. The Perco cets led to harder drugs, and finally to a bar in Long Beach, which Lonny robbed. When two longshoremen tried to stop him, Lonny shot and killed the bar’s owner and an innocent bystander. Lonny Tang was arrested less than three hours later, passed out in his car after scoring enough dope to deaden the pain. He was tried on two counts of first-degree murder, convicted, and was currently serving twenty-five years to life at the California State Prison in Corcoran.

Pike didn’t know what else to say, so he decided to tie off the conversation.

“Lonny, listen, the police are investigating Frank-”

“They’re not going to find anything.”

“When they go through his phone records, they’ll see he talked to you.”

“I don’t care. I’ll tell’m just what I told you.”

“Tell them whatever you want about Frank. Don’t tell them about me.”

“You didn’t call me. My lawyer called.”

“That’s right.”

“You going after these people?”

“I gotta get going.”

“I hear you, brother.”

Pike was about to hang up when he remembered something else.

“Lonny, you there?”

“I’m here. Where else am I going?”

“One more thing. The police told me Frank had my ink.”

“You didn’t know?”

“No.”

“That was years ago, man. This time he came to visit, he showed me. He’d just had’m done.”

“The arrows.”

“Big ol’ red arrows like yours. Cindy was livid. She damn near threw him out of the house.”

Lonny laughed, but Pike felt embarrassed.

“He say anything?”

“Why he got them?”

“Yeah.”

“Remember all the shit she gave him about being a contractor, and how she wouldn’t marry him unless he settled down?”

“Sure.”

“The rest of us were all over him to dump her-what, you’re going to give this chick your balls? But Frank said you told him to go for it. Told him, if he wanted that kind of life, he had to make it happen. He really appreciated that, Joe. It was like you gave him permission.”

Pike considered that for a moment.

“Was he happy?”

“Yeah, brother. Hell, yeah, he was happy. It was like he woke up in someone else’s life. What’s the word? He was content, man.”

Pike said, “Good.”

“Said somethin’ weird, though. Said he’d wake up sometimes, scared God was going to realize he made a mistake, say, ‘Hey, that’s not your life, Frank, you belong back in the shit,’ and take everything away. He was joking when he said it, but still.”

Pike didn’t respond, thinking that sounded like something Frank would say.

“You think that’s what happened? God realized he made a mistake?”

“Someone down here made the mistake, Lonny.”

“I hear you. Joe? Thanks for calling about Frankie. I don’t get many calls.”

“I have to go.”

“Joe?”

“I gotta get going.”

“You were a good leader. You really took care of us, man. I’m sorry I let you down.”

Pike closed his phone.

7

THE EARLY-EVENING SKY PURPLED as Pike turned toward Frank Meyer’s house for the second time that day. He drove slowly, buying time for the twilight sky to darken. Pike loved the night. Had since he was a boy, hiding in the woods from his raging father; loved it all the more as a young combat Marine on long-range patrols, then again when he was a police officer. Pike felt safe in the darkness. Hidden, and free.

Frank’s house was dark when Pike drove past. The bright yellow tape across the door was now ochre in the gloomy light, and the SID wagons and criminalists were gone. A radio car remained out front, but Pike noted the windows were up and the glass was smoked. Pike recognized the car as a scarecrow vehicle, left to discourage intruders, but posted without a crew. This made Pike’s task easier.

Pike circled the block, then parked in the deep shadow of a maple tree two houses away. He moved quickly and without hesitation, sliding out of his Jeep and into a row of hedges. He crossed the neighbor’s yard, then hoisted himself over a wall. He followed the side of Frank’s garage into the backyard, then stood for a moment, listening. The neighborhood was alive with normal sounds-cars shortcutting to Beverly Glen on their way home to the Valley, a watchful owl in the maple tree over Frank’s pool, a faraway siren.

Pike went to the edge of the pool, smelling the chlorine, then touched the water. Cold. He went to the French doors, popped a pane near the handle, and stepped into the deeper black of the family room. Pike listened again, then turned on a small flashlight that produced a dim red light. He covered the lens with his fingers, letting out only enough light to reveal the room. His hand glowed as if filled with fire.

The heart-shaped stain where Cindy Meyer and her younger son died was a darker smudge on the dark floor, one murky red over another. Pike studied it for a moment, but Pike wasn’t looking for clues. He was looking for Frank.

Pike circled the family room, the dining room, and the kitchen, moving as silent as smoke. He noted the furniture, toys, and magazines as if each was a page in the book of the family’s life, helping to build their story.

A hall led to the master bedroom, which was large and spacious. Photographs of the kids and Frank and Cindy dotted the walls like memories captured in time. An antique desk sat opposite a king-sized bed with a padded headboard, a plaque on the desk reading: Empress of the World. Cindy’s desk, where she had paid bills or helped with the business.

Something about the bed bothered Pike, and then he realized the bed was made. The family room and Frank’s office had been upended, but the bed here in the master was undisturbed. It had likely been made that morning, and was still waiting for a bedtime that would never come. This suggested the home invaders had either been frightened away before searching the master, or had found what they wanted. Pike concluded there was no way to know, and that John Chen might be right. The invaders could have realized they hit the wrong house, but by then they had killed Frank, so they killed everyone else to get rid of the witnesses.

Pike played the red light over Cindy’s desk, and saw more snapshots. Frank and the kids. An older couple who might have been Cindy’s parents. And then Pike found the picture he was looking for. He had not known he was searching for it, but felt a sense of completion when he saw it. The snapshot showed Frank in a swimming pool with one of the boys. Frank had heaved his son into the air amid a geyser of water, both of them laughing, Frank’s arms extended. This picture was the only photograph of all the photos that showed the blocky red arrows inked onto his del toids. Pointing forward, just as the arrows on Pike’s delts pointed forward. Identical.

Pike studied the picture for a long while before he returned it to the desk and left the bedroom. He moved back along the hall, thinking how different his own home was from the home that Frank Meyer built. Pike’s furnishings were minimal, and the walls were bare. Pike did not have a family, so he had no pictures of family on the walls, and he did not keep pictures of his friends. Pike’s life had led to blank walls, and now he wondered if his walls would ever be filled.

When Pike reached the entry, the outside of the house lit up like a blinding sun. Vengeful bright light poured around curtains and shades, ignited the cracks in the broken door, and streaked through the windows. Pike closed his hand over the tiny red light, and waited.

A patrol car was spotlighting the house. They had probably been instructed to cruise by every half hour or so. Pike was calm. Neither his breathing nor his heart rate increased. The light worked over the house, probing the hedges and side gates for three or four minutes. Then the light died as abruptly as it appeared.

Pike followed his crimson light upstairs.

The house seemed even more quiet on the second floor, where a stain on the carpet marked the older son’s murder. Little Frank. Pike counted the years back to a deadly night on the far side of the world when Frank told Pike that Cindy was pregnant.

That time, they were protecting a collective of villages in Central Africa. A group called the Lord’s Resistance Army had been kidnapping teenage girls they raped and sold as slaves. Pike brought over Frank, Jon Stone, a Brit named Colin Chandler, Lonny Tang, and an ex-Special Forces soldier from Alabama named Jameson Wallace. They were tracking the LRA to recover sixteen kidnapped girls when Frank told him that his girlfriend, Cindy, was pregnant. Frank wanted to marry her, but Cindy had stunned him with an ultimatum-she wanted no part of his dangerous life or the dangerous people with whom he worked, so either Frank would leave his current life and friends behind, or Cindy would never see him again. Frank had been shattered, torn between his love for Cindy and his loyalty to his friends. He had talked to Pike almost three hours that night, then the next, and the next.

Pike closed his eyes, and felt the carpet beneath his feet, the chill air, the empty silence. He opened his eyes, and stared at the terrible stain. Even in the bad light, he could see where fibers had been clipped by the criminalists.

Those African nights led through the intervening years like a twisting tunnel through time to this spot on the floor. Pike covered the red light, turning the world black.

He went downstairs to Frank’s office.

The drapes had been left open by the SID crews, so the office was bright with outside light. Pike turned off his red flash. He sat at Frank’s desk with his back to the window. Frank the Tank’s desk. A long way from Africa.

THE NIGHT IN AFRICA when Frank decided to change his life, he had thirty-one days remaining on his contract, but was still thirteen days from earning his nickname. Two days after Africa, Joe, Frank, and Lonny Tang flew to El Salvador. Frank had not been able to reach Cindy until they landed in Central America, but that’s when he told her. She wanted him to fly home immediately, but Frank explained he had made a commitment for the duration of his contract, and would honor that commitment. Cindy didn’t like it, but agreed. Joe and his guys spent five days in El Salvador, then flew to Kuwait.

It was a British contract, providing security for French, Italian, and British journalists. That particular job was to transport two BBC journalists and a two-person camera crew inland to a small village over the mountains called Jublaban, untouched and well away from hostile forces.

Pike was responsible for three different groups of journalists that day, so he split his crew, giving the Jublaban run to Lonny, Frank, Colin Chandler, and an ex-French Foreign Legion trooper named Durand Galatoise. Two Land Rovers, two operators per Rover, the journalists divided between them. A fast thirty-two miles over the mountains, leave in the morning, back after lunch. Durand Galatoise packed two bottles of Chablis because one of the journalists had a nasty smile.

They left at eight that morning, Lonny and Frank in the lead truck, Chandler and Galatoise in trail, and reached Jublaban without incident. There to do a story on rural medical care, the journalists were interviewing Jublaban’s only physician when an incoming RPG hit the second Rover, flipping it onto its side. The operators and journalists immediately came under small-arms fire.

Galatoise was killed within the first sixty seconds, the remaining Rover was hit, then Lonny Tang caught the piece of shrapnel that tore him inside out. Frank and Chandler realized they were facing eight or ten men, then noticed an approaching nightmare: Four armored vehicles and two full-sized battle tanks were rumbling toward them across the desert. With both Rovers disabled, the operators and their journalists were trapped.

Frank pushed Lonny Tang’s intestines back into his body, then wrapped him with pressure bandages and belts to keep him together. While Chandler laid down cover fire, Frank ran to his burning Rover for radios, more ammunition, and a.50-caliber Barrett rifle they used for sniper suppression. The Barrett, a beast of a rifle that weighed over thirty pounds, could punch through engine blocks at more than a mile.

Chandler herded the journalists to a more defensible location, but Lonny Tang could not be moved. Frank stashed him in a stone hut, then moved forward with the Barrett gun. Frank later said he was crying during the entire firefight; blubbering like a baby, he would say, running, then firing, then running again.

Pike heard much of it through his radio, with Chandler broadcasting a play-by-play as Pike coordinated a rescue mission with a British air controller.

Frank Meyer fought on like that for almost thirty minutes, running and gunning with the Barrett even when the tanks and armored vehicles crunched into the village, Frank banging away like a lunatic to draw them from Lonny Tang.

Everyone later assumed the big boomers turned back into the desert after they picked up their troops, but Colin Chandler and the BBC journalists reported that a young American named Frank Meyer had shot it out toe-to-toe with four armored vehicles and two heavy tanks, and driven the bastards away.

Frank’s contract expired five days later. He wept when he shook Pike’s hand for the last time, boarded an airplane, and that had been that, changing one life for another.

Pike officially retired from contract work sixty-two days later, and maybe Frank’s decision had something to do with Pike’s decision, though Pike never thought so. Pike had told Frank to do it. Build the family he wanted. Leave the past. Always move forward.

PIKE WAS STILL AT Frank’s desk when his cell vibrated, there in the cool blue light.

Stone said, “All right, listen. They’re watching a guy named Rahmi Johnson. Been on him for almost a month. I’ve got an address here for you.”

“If they’re on him, he didn’t murder Frank.”

“Rahmi isn’t the suspect. Cops think his cousin might be involved, a dude named Jamal Johnson.”

“Might be, or is?”

“Gotta have proof for it, but he looks pretty good. Check it out. Jamal was released from Soledad two weeks before the first score. He crashed with Rahmi when he got out, but moved out three days after the score. Four days after the second score, Jamal dropped by with a sixty-inch plasma to thank Rahmi for putting him up. A week after the third score, Jamal tools up in a brand-new black-on-black Malibu with custom rims. He gives the car to Rahmi, too. Can you imagine? My guy’s telling me this, I’m thinking, shit, I wish this asshole was my cousin, too.”

Stone broke out laughing, but the laughter was too loud and too long. Stone had been drinking.

Pike said, “Where’s Jamal?”

“Nobody knows, bro. That’s why they’re sitting on Rahmi.”

“Maybe Rahmi knows. Have they asked him?”

“They did, and that’s where they fucked up. Rolled by something like two months ago, when Jamal was first identified as a person of interest. Heard he was crashing with Rahmi, so they went by. Rahmi played stupid, but you know he warned Jamal the second those cops were out the door. That’s when Jamal dropped off the map.”

Pike thought about it. Thought how he would play it.

“They should ask him again.”

Stone laughed.

“Well, they’re cops, not you. That timeline business, that’s not proof, but it’s convincing. They don’t want to arrest the guy, they want to follow him. They want to catch him in the act or clear him, one way or the other.”

“So SIS is covering Rahmi, hoping Jamal will come around again.”

“They got nothing else, man. Jamal’s their only good suspect.”

Pike grunted. SIS was good. They were patient hunters. They would shadow their target for weeks like invisible men, but Pike didn’t want to wait that long. Stone was right. The police were trying to build a case, but Pike didn’t care about a case. His needs were simpler.

“What’s that address?”

Stone cleared his throat, suddenly uncomfortable.

“Okay, now listen, we can’t have any blowback here. You go barging in and it comes back to me, the SIS guys will know who gave them up. You ruin their play, my guy is fucked.”

“No blowback. They’ll never see me.”

Stone laughed again, still too loud and too long, and now more than a little nervous.

“Only you could say that, Pike, talking about SIS. Jesus Christ, bro, only you.”

Stone was giving Pike the address when light exploded into the office, so bright the walls and furniture were white with glare. Pike, still in the chair with his back to the window, did not move. The patrol car had returned.

Pike said, “Sh.”

“What’s wrong?”

An enormous blue shadow crossed the office wall as if someone had moved in front of the light. Pike heard faint radio calls, and listened for approaching footsteps.

Stone’s tiny voice came from the phone.

“You sound weird, man. Where are you?”

Pike whispered, as still as a fish at the bottom of a pond.

“Frank’s. The police are outside.”

“You break in?”

“Sh.”

The light swung away, moving to another part of the house like an animal tracking a scent.

“What the fuck are you doing at Frank’s?”

“I wanted to see what his life was like.”

“You’re a strange cat. I mean, really.”

The light snapped off. The yard plunged into darkness. The radio chatter faded. The patrol car rolled on.

Pike said, “Okay.”

“Hey, is it nice?”

“What?”

“Frank’s house. Does he have a nice place?”

“Yes.”

“Fancy?”

“Not like you mean. It’s a good family home.”

Pike heard Stone swallow. Heard the glass tink the phone.

“You think it’s true, he went bad?”

“Chen thinks the people who did this got the wrong house.”

“Like, what, they got confused about which house they wanted to rob?”

“It happens.”

“What do you think?”

“ Doesn’t matter.”

“No. No, it surely doesn’t.”

Stone made a deep sigh. Pike thought it might have been a sob, but then Stone had another sip of whatever he was sipping, and went on.

“Assholes like this, they go in these houses, right house, wrong house, murder people like they were nothing, probably sleep like a baby after it’s over. How many times have they done this?”

“Frank was the seventh.”

“You see? This is my point. Six times before, they got away clean. Murdered some poor bastard, and there have been no consequences. Hence, these people do not fear the dead. They LOVE the dead, Joe, because the dead-and I apologize if my assessment here seems harsh-but, the dead have not been effective when it comes to consequence and retribution.”

“What are you drinking?”

“Scotch. I am drinking scotch in honor of our friend Frank. I would rather rip off a twenty-one-gun salute out in the backyard, but my neighbors prefer the drinking. Where was I?”

“Consequence and retribution.”

“Right-”

Jon Stone was grieving, so Pike let him continue.

“But then… then they hit Frank the Tank, them not knowing he was Frank the Tank, them thinking he was just another ordinary dead guy without recourse to consequence. So dig this-and this is my favorite part-those assholes are somewhere right now, shootin’ up, corn-holing each other, whatever-they are somewhere right now, and they do not know a shit storm is on the horizon, and it is coming for them.”

Pike said, “Jon? Do you have photographs on your walls?”

“What, like naked chicks?”

“Pictures of your family. Friends.”

“Shit, yeah. I take pictures of everything. I got pictures of fuckin’ human heads. Why?”

“No reason.”

“Hey, man. Those fuckers. Those fucks fucked the pooch this time, didn’t they, fuckin’ with Frank?”

“Get some sleep.”

“I want in on this, bro. I mean it. Whatever.”

“Get some sleep.”

“I’ll call Colin. Colin will be on the first plane.”

“Don’t call Colin.”

“Wallace would come.”

“ Don’t.”

“Fuck it. Hey, Joe? Joe, you there?”

“What?”

Stone was silent for so long Pike thought he had fallen asleep.

“Jon?”

“None of us had families. You never married. Lonny, Colin, not them, either. Wallace got divorced. I’ve been married six fuckin’ times, man, what does that tell you? None of us had kids.”

Pike didn’t know what to say, but maybe Stone voiced it for him, soft, and hoarse from the booze.

“I really wanted Frank to make it. Not just for him.”

Pike closed his phone.

He sat in Frank’s office for almost an hour, alone with himself and the silence, then walked back along the hall to Cindy’s desk. He took the framed picture of Frank in the pool, tucked it into his pocket, then let himself out the way he had entered, and drove home for the night.

They call this the city

The city of angels

All I see is death-dealin’ dangers.

– TATTOOED BEACH SLUTS