The wake-up

5

"Best behavior now, Warren. This is a dangerous man," said Billy, introducing them. "Everybody in the shop thought Frank was a brainiac, but I knew better."

Warren looked up from his beeping GameBoy, pushed aside a nest of light blue hair, the silver chains around his wrists making slinky sounds. He was in his twenties, a sullen punk in torn jeans and a black leather jacket, a barbell stud through his left eyebrow, blue mascara matching his hair and nail polish-the geek as rough trade. He propped one black engineer's boot on the plastic bench of lane number 24, the last lane of the Hollywood Bowlerama, eyeballing Thorpe.

Thorpe held up his right hand. "I come in peace."

Warren went back to his GameBoy, one of those modified units sold only in Japan.

"You'll have to forgive Warren-he's very territorial," said Billy.

"I'll survive." Thorpe felt like he had to shout to be heard over the thundering din, but Billy's silky voice somehow cut through the noise, slipped under the disco blaring on the sound system. No wonder Billy had wanted to meet here: there wasn't a parabolic mike or laser recorder that could pick up conversation through the auditory soup.

"Of course you will," purred Billy, a tall, powerfully built man in his mid-fifties, with large liquid eyes, a broad, flat nose, and skin the color of polished anthracite. His gray hair was cropped and thick, an aristocrat in burnt-orange trousers and a shimmering yellow rayon bowling shirt. He plucked his bowling ball from the return chute, hefted it in his huge hands. "Good to see you, Frank. The shop should have never let you go, but then, Hendricks always had a limited imagination."

"Maybe I was due for a change."

"Nonsense." Cheers erupted from the next lane. Old ladies in green team shirts-Keglar Kuties-were clapping, high-fiving each other. A wizened bottle redhead called to Billy, and he waved back, then moved to the approach line, stood there, the bowling ball clasped to his chest. His matching yellow bowling shoes whispered across the polished hardwood as he glided forward. A smooth release and the ball whipped down the alley. Strike! He sauntered back.

"Two forty-one," said Warren. "Today's three-game average is two twelve. Two seventeen for the week."

Billy tapped the side of his head. "Warren keeps it all up here. You should see him at the supermarket-he knows the final bill before the clerk scans the last item. Comes in handy, Frank. They can't subpoena what's not written down." His face reflected the red neon lane lights as he took inventory of Thorpe's dark gray Versace. "Tres chic, as always. You're the best-dressed killer I ever met." He grinned. "One dead in the parking lot, another cut down charging out of the underbrush, and another so badly wounded, he died that afternoon." Pins crashed around them, echoing off the concrete-block walls. "My whole career, I never hefted anything more dangerous than a butter knife, and you kill three men in the fifteen seconds it took you to reach your car." Billy's eyes were bright now. "What does that feel like?"

"Like it wasn't nearly enough."

Billy nodded. "Yes, Kimberly was a talented girl, intellectually very agile. Weeks… well, I always thought he was a little careless."

"Shut up, Billy."

"Eggs and omelettes, Frank, and you did draw blood yourself. If you were an ancient Egyptian, those three dead men would be added to your slaves in the afterlife."

"I don't want any slaves."

"Might be nice to have someone to send out for ice water."

"You think I'm going to need a cold drink, Billy?"

Billy reached for his rum and Coke. "We're both going to be parched for all of eternity. Of that, I'm certain." He peered at Thorpe over the rim of the glass, a lepidopterist examining a particularly interesting butterfly, imagining how he would look with pins through his wings. "How are you physically, Frank? I heard you were lucky not to lose your spleen. I warrant you've been doing push-ups for weeks now, building your strength, working up a good healthy sweat-"

"Did you check out the Engineer like I asked?"

"Congratulations." Billy rattled the ice cubes in his drink. "You were right. He was a virus. You have no idea how many markers I had to call in to get confirmation."

"Does the Engineer's shop know where he is?"

"What are you guys talking about?" Warren looked from one to the other, his narrow fox face framed by the upturned collar of his leather jacket. "Speak English, okay?"

"A virus is a player who inserts himself into an existing criminal enterprise, then directs it toward his own ends, or the ends of his shop," explained Billy.

"I should have picked up on him," said Thorpe. "Lazurus was into extortion, credit card fraud, money laundering… nothing particularly interesting. Then the Engineer joined the crew and they shift into overseas transfers of dual-use hardware. I figured Lazurus had brought him in to oversee the technical part of the operation, but I should-"

"You weren't the only one fooled." Billy chuckled. "Lazurus probably thought it was his idea to go into the arms business. The Engineer was going to roll up some very nasty operators when the time was ripe. He was going to take down the whole network. You can understand him being vexed when you stepped on his toes. All that hard work spoiled."

"Vexed? You saw what he did at the safe house."

Billy shrugged. "These deep-cover boys are always twitchy, and the Engineer was positively subterranean. The way you and Kimberly duped him must have touched a nerve."

"Why didn't he just say something?" asked Thorpe. "We were on the same side."

"Actually, no." Billy played with the crease in his trousers. "Different shop."

"Same fucking side, Billy."

Billy flicked a speck of lint away. "The Engineer took out Lazurus's crew before he disappeared. Did you know that? Wiped the slate clean, every one of them, except for his own bodyguard. Disappeared with an unknown amount of cash and the cigar box of D-flawless diamonds that Lazurus was so fond of. The Engineer's old shop is as interested in finding him as you are."

"Sure they are."

Billy smiled. "Perhaps I have overstated their commitment."

"I want to talk to your contact at his old shop. I want to find out-"

"Who would ever trust me if I did that?" Billy laughed. "Besides, I've already asked about the Engineer. He's as much a mystery to them as he is to you." He stroked his chin. "I have good news, though. Your personnel file got hacked yesterday afternoon."

Thorpe stiffened. "Who was it? Did you run him down?"

"Regrettably, no," said Billy. "Warren put in a trip wire, but the intruder managed to cover his tracks. Temporarily at least. We can't be sure who it was, but the Engineer is the most likely candidate."

"He's got some sweet moves," said Warren, his eyes on the GameBoy. "I've been slingshot all over the planet, bouncing from one ISP to another, but I'll find him."

"Warren changed the file, just as you asked," said Billy. "I had him tweak your postdischarge assessment. Fine piece of work, too, getting past the shop's fire walls."

"A defcon four-quality crack job," said Warren. "I could bring down the space shuttle if Billy asked me to."

"But you can't trace the Engineer."

"Not yet," said Warren.

"According to your file, you're now a very bad boy, Frank, as corrupt as they come. There's even a notation that you may have lifted a few million in cash from an al Qaeda banker who didn't survive his arrest. For your sake, I hope the Engineer doesn't take the bait."

"We're not done with each other," said Thorpe.

"I'm sure it will be a lovely reunion," said Billy. "Give Warren time to locate the Engineer. Warren's an artist. When I met him, he was wasting his time as a card counter in Vegas, and hot-sheeted at most of the casinos. Now he has a calling." His face was radiant. "I hate seeing talent wasted. That's the only sin there is."

"Oh, there's a few more," said Thorpe.

"Indeed." Billy sat on the bench, arms and legs spread wide, staking his turf. "How do you like it on the beach, Frank? Not much fun being just a taxpayer, is it?"

"I'm still getting used to it."

"You don't have to get used to it." Billy crunched the ice cubes from his drink between his strong white teeth. "Retirement is overrated. Even with perfect weather and congenial companions, I couldn't wait to get back into action. We've been spoiled, Frank. Playing God, it's the best game in the world." He winked at Thorpe. "You can talk about the nobility of the cause, but if all we cared about was the red, white, and blue we could have just bought a war bond."

Thorpe was going to disagree, but Billy would have known he was lying.

"I've started a… consulting firm, Frank. I'm in the process of assembling a team, the best of the best. Strictly corporate accounts. My clients are as eager for information as our former employer, just as ready to secure an advantage over their competitors, but without any presidential findings or pesky oversight boards to finesse. For us, there's just the paycheck and the pleasure of making the chickens tap-dance."

"What do we need him for?" asked Warren. "Just another soldier boy grown up and no place to go."

"Not just a soldier boy," said Billy. "Frank was Delta Force, the warrior elite, and freelancers by nature and training. No snappy salutes in Delta, no parades or public ceremonies; they actually call their officers by their first names."

"That's enough, Billy," said Thorpe.

"You should be proud of yourself," said Billy. "Frank here actually started a war by himself, set a leftist guerrilla army up against a Colombian drug cartel, and they never even knew who lit the match. Sadly, though, our government doesn't take kindly to such initiative. If I hadn't stepped in, Frank here might have ended up in Leavenworth."

"Are you done, Billy?"

"I just wanted to explain to Warren why I value you so highly," said Billy. "You're a rare individual, Frank, creative and highly adaptive, willing to spill blood, but not enamored of violence. Kimberly was the same way." He showed his teeth. "She was tougher, though. You're a little too tenderhearted."

"You want to bet?" said Thorpe.

Billy folded his hands in his lap. "Actually… no."

"What about Gavin Ellsworth?" Thorpe said lightly. "Is he on your team?"

"One of my first hires," said Billy. "A very cautious fellow, but a brilliant forger." He bent forward, started unlacing his bowling shoes. "We're going to have such a grand time working together again. I've got a new client, a software-development firm under considerable pressure in the marketplace. They have their sights on a rival firm's chief designer. I need one of your signature three-cushion shots, Frank. I need to get the man fired, to make his work product suspect to his former employer, and then have our client pluck him from the depths of despair. Nothing more grateful than a rescued man, right?" He slipped off his shoes, grinned at Thorpe. "When can you start?"

Thorpe didn't answer.

"The shop isn't going to take you back, if that's what you're counting on. The shop isn't even going to exist much longer, not as an off-the-books entity. None of them are." Billy wiggled his toes. His burnt-orange socks had a pattern of tiny black clocks. "Control and accountability are the watchwords of the day. Your imbroglio with the Engineer is already being cited as a rationale for the shops' being subsumed into traditional agencies. No fun in that, I can assure you. I can just see you sitting at an FBI meeting when the agent in charge starts droning on about work sheets and…" Billy narrowed his eyes, wagged a finger at Thorpe. "You rascal. I must be getting rusty."

"Just a little."

"You asked me about Gavin Ellsworth, and I let it slip right by," said Billy, annoyed with himself. "What do you want with him?"

"I can fool you, Billy, but I can't fool you for long."