“Who was the guy whose cell phone you called this morning?”

“That's him. The same guy who was waiting for me in the parking lot that night.”

“He have a name?”

“He told me to call him Atrios.”

“Okay. Why were you calling Atrios this morning?”

“He called me yesterday. He was looking for Alex.”

“What did you tell him?”

“That Alex had been in that morning, but I hadn't seen him since. He told me to call him if that changed, and that I should check in periodically regardless.”

That checked out with what he'd said on the phone earlier, and with what Ben had run into in Alex's backyard. But who was Atrios? Who was he working for?

“Atrios,” Ben said. “How did you communicate with him?”

“I have his cell phone number. That's all.”

Ben thought about what he could do with that. Trace it back to the owner, sure, but Atrios had clearly been a pro and there was virtually no chance he had registered the phone, or rented a car, under a name that would mean anything. Damn it, it looked like killing the guy had closed off his only avenue of information. Not that he'd had a lot of choice at the time, but still.

His phone buzzed in his pocket. He pulled it out and looked at it. It was dark. He thought, What the hell? His pocket buzzed again.

Son of a bitch. Atrios's cell.

He pulled out the phone he took from the Volvo and looked at the display. It was a 202 area code. D.C.

“I'm going to answer this,” Ben said. “Grip the steering wheel, look straight ahead, keep your mouth shut.”

Osborne complied. Ben clicked the Answer Call button and raised the phone to his ear. “It's done,” he said, in the same low voice he had used with Osborne earlier.

“Why the hell haven't you checked in?” the voice on the other end responded.

Ben had been prepared to improvise in a dozen different directions. But he hadn't been prepared for this. He froze, suddenly having no idea what to do or say.

The gravelly baritone… the rich Georgia coastal accent…

“Hort,” Ben said. “What the hell?”

There was a pause. Hort said, “Who is this?”

“It's Ben.”

Another pause. “Ben? What the hell are you doing, son?”

“Hort, what's going on here? Who was Atrios? Is my brother the target of someone's op? Am I?”

“Your brother… who's your brother? Oh, Jesus Christ almighty, are you talking about the lawyer?”

Ben desperately tried to sort through the bullshit. Was Hort playing dumb? What were the chances…

“What happened to Atrios?” Hort said. “How did you get this phone?”

“Atrios is gone.”

“Oh, damn. You… oh, damn, Ben, you have no idea of the mess you're making.”

“What mess? I'm in the middle of a mess. I'm trying to clean it up.”

“Listen to me. You are to stand down. Immediately. Do you understand? Stand down.”

“Stand down from what?”

“Are you still in San Francisco?”

Alarm bells went off in Ben's mind.

“Yeah, I'm still here.”

“So am I. We need to meet.”

“What are you doing here?”

“I'm running the op you've been fucking up.”

“Your op has been targeting my brother.”

“I think I understand that now. I didn't before. We need to straighten it out. Jesus Christ almighty.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“I'm at the Grand Hyatt on Stockton. Meet me in the lobby in fifteen minutes.”

Ben was ambivalent about the suggestion. On the one hand, fifteen minutes wouldn't give Hort time to set anything up. On the other hand, he never liked a face-to-face when someone else suggested the venue.

No. He needed to mix things up, give himself time to think, make sure he didn't surrender the initiative.

“I'm south of you right now,” Ben said. “It'll take me an hour to get there. Let's make it ninety minutes to be sure.”

That would sound good to Hort. If Ben agreed to the place and was comfortable with a later time, it would mean he was feeling trustful. Although he very much wasn't.

“All right. Ninety minutes.”

Ben clicked off. He looked at Osborne. Osborne kept his hands on the wheel.

“You knew about the inventor, right?” Ben said, his head beginning to throb again. “Hilzoy. You knew what happened to him.”

Osborne stared straight ahead. When he spoke, his voice was an octave higher than usual. “The police say he was killed in a drug deal.”

“Yes, that's what the police thought, it's what they were supposed to think, but I asked you what you fucking knew.”

Osborne didn't answer. And that was answer enough.

His head throbbed harder. This piece of shit knew what it was about. He knew they were going to kill Alex. Which was the same as if he'd tried to kill Alex himself.

A part of him marveled at his own inconsistency. A couple of hours earlier, he'd wanted to kill Alex himself, had on some level longed to do it. But that was different. Alex was his brother. Maybe that was a paradox, maybe it was screwed up, but there it was.

He tried to think whether Osborne presented any further exposure. If taking him off the board would improve the state of play, he would do it. But he couldn't think of anything. He didn't know how to feel about that. Part of him wanted to do it anyway. And in fact, killing Osborne was exactly what he'd had mind when he'd forced him out to this deserted spot. But watching him grip the steering wheel, seeing and even smelling the man's fear, he found himself reluctant. He'd killed a lot of people-in combat, in self-defense, in cold blood. But he'd never killed someone when it wasn't sanctioned, or when it wasn't necessary. He'd crossed a lot of lines over the course of his life, and he was surprised to realize he didn't want to cross this one.

He looked at Osborne. “Get out of the car. Leave the door open.”

Osborne glanced back at him, his eyes pleading. “Don't. Please don't.”

“If that's what I was going to do, asshole, I would have done it already. And you wouldn't have seen it coming.”

They both got out. Osborne raised his hands in front of him, half plea, half stick-'em-up.

“Put your keys and your phone on the seat,” Ben said.

Osborne complied.

“Now move away from the car. You'll be able to find it back in your parking lot. Have a nice walk.”

He drove back to Sullivan, Greenwald, parked the car, and got into his own. He wanted to trust Hort. He always had. It made him sick that now he had doubts.

But maybe there was a way out of this. Maybe things could be straightened out. If he could sit down with Hort, hear what he had to say… Maybe there was an explanation. Maybe he could call off the dogs. Maybe.

But he needed to make sure Alex was on board first.

29 STING

Sarah took a taxi from the hotel to her apartment in the Mission. She was exhausted and felt strangely numb. The night before, with Ben… it had been overwhelming. She didn't know whether anything more could come of it, whether she even wanted anything more to come of it, but something had happened between them, and even in the midst of all the craziness, it had affected her profoundly. And then the next morning, he had walked out with about as much regard for her as for a comfortable chair he'd enjoyed sitting in. Because, what, he had a fight with his brother? That made her trash, to be just thrown away?

Or maybe the fight with Alex was just his excuse. She'd known he was damaged from the moment she met him, and she should never have done anything other than keep him at a sensible distance. She was as furious at herself for her ridiculous lapse of judgment as she was at Ben for treating her like she was some disposable thing.

Alex. She hadn't meant to hurt him. She hadn't even known she could. What was it going to be like now, when they saw each other in the office? Would he still want to work with her? Or would he blackball her somehow?