Arlene didn't like to use obscenities, but she had to admit that her goose was well and truly cooked here.

"Arlene? Are you all right?"

"I'm fine. Is the phone charged?"

"Yes."

"Good. Dial nine-one-one."

"What? Is there an emergency?"

"Not yet. But dial nine-one-one. But don't hit the 'call' button yet."

"All right. What do I tell them the emergency is?"

"Tell them that there's a man having a heart attack—in cardiac arrest—just outside the Rainbow Centre Mall."

"Rainbow Centre? That place up in Niagara Falls?"

"Yes."

"Are you there? Is there someone in cardiac arrest? I can talk you through the CPR until the paramedics get there."

"This is just private-eye stuff, Gail. Just tell them that a man's having a heart attack outside the Rainbow Centre Mall… And tell them he's in a van near the south main mall doors and the van has Total Pest Control written on the side."

"Wait… wait… let me write that down. What was the…"

"Total Pest Control. Like in the cereal."

"There's a cereal called Pest Control?"

"Just write it down." Arlene usually enjoyed Gail's odd sense of humor, but there wasn't time tonight.

"Won't they arrest me for false reporting?"

"They won't find you. Trust me. After you make the call… if you make the call… just take a hammer and smash that cell phone and throw the pieces away. I'll provide a new one."

"It looks like a pretty expensive phone. I'm not sure…"

"Gail."

"All right. A man undergoing cardiac arrest at the south entrance to the Rainbow Centre Mall—that one near the convention center in Niagara Falls… and he's having this heart attack in a van with Total Pest Control written on the side of it."

"Yes." Arlene looked at her watch. Eleven minutes before midnight. It was almost too late to…

The van had started up. Arlene could see the oil-rich exhaust in the humid air. She could hear the engine even with her window up.

Oh, thank God. I don't have to…

The van made a fast left turn and headed in Arlene's direction. For a second the headlights pinned her like a deer.

She immediately dropped sideways onto the passenger seat and fumbled in her purse for the.44 Magnum. The cell phone fell off her lap and bounced and for a second Arlene was sure that she'd disconnected with Gail.

"Hello? Hello?" Gail and Arlene were both shouting.

The van stopped fifty or sixty feet in front of Arlene's Buick, the headlights turning her windshield a thick milky white.

"Call nine-one-one," Arlene whispered urgently. "Call nine-one-one. On the cell phone. Keep this line open."

"Oh, my God. Arlene, are you all right? What's…"

"Call nine-one-one!" shouted Arlene. 'Tell them what I said."

Arlene lowered herself to the floor, her back against the passenger-side door. She set the cell phone on the seat, pulled her legs over the console and set her feet on the carpeted floor. She set the heavy Magnum on her knee and cocked it, keeping the muzzle pointing at the ceiling. If the Burned Man came to the passenger side, she might not be visible in the shadow of the footwell here, especially with the headlights making everything else so bright She aimed the gun at the driver's door.

The van's headlights went off and the van's engine fell silent.

"Arlene!" It was a screech, but not a panicked one. Gail had been a nurse for a long time. The more tense things got, the more calm Gail became, Arlene knew. On the job.

"Husssshhhh," whispered Arlene, leaning left to hiss into the phone. "Don't talk. Don't talk."

There was no further noise. No footsteps. But the van's engine stayed off and the van's headlights stayed dark. Arlene looked across at the driver's door window, aiming the muzzle of her weapon. What seemed like hours passed in the silence, but she knew it must have been just a minute or two.

Oh, dear Lord. Did I lock the doors?

It was too late to lunge across for the locking controls on the far door now. She considered reaching above her head and locking the door on her side—If he swings it open, I'll fall out backwards like a bag of laundry—but knew that the power lock driving home would sound like a gunshot. She left it alone.

The van door slammed. Arlene set her finger in the trigger guard. She'd practice-fired this weapon enough to know that it required quite a bit of pressure on the trigger to fire. And the recoil was serious. She propped her head more firmly on the door behind her so that the recoil wouldn't catch her on the chin, cradled the big gun on her knee with her left hand under her right hand to steady it and thumbed the hammer back until it clicked.

She could bear the footsteps on the concrete now. He was walking toward the driver's side.

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

As the big helicopter plummeted, Kurtz banished the blue-pill haze from his mind and body.

He willed away the false good-feeling and tinge of good humor that overlay everything. He willed away the cloud of painlessness and let both his headache and his resolve flow back in like black ink. He willed away the soft pharmaceutical fog and summoned the hard-edged core of Joe Kurtz back to duty.

The big Bell Long Ranger hit hard, jarring Kurtz's spine and sending the old familiar spikes through his skull, slid a few yards across slick grass, and came to a stop. Immediately Gonzaga and his man Bobby were out the side door and running. Angelina and her bodyguard, Campbell, followed a minute later, carrying Mp5s, the ditty bags filled with ammunition rattling at their hips.

Kurtz struggled with the four point straps for a few seconds, slapped them away, grabbed up his bag, set the folded aluminum and web litter over his shoulder on a sling, and went out through the side door just as Baby Doc stepped out his pilot-side door and pulled two long tubes from behind his seat. The pilot hung one of the tubes over his shoulder with a sling and carried the other. They looked like RPGs, the old Russian and Eastern European rocket-propelled grenade launchers.

"What're those?" whispered Kurtz. The two were jogging toward the house now in the dark, passing the dark shape of the Major's Huey.

"RPGs," said Baby Doc and turned in the direction of the driveway.

"Wait!" called Kurtz.

Baby Doc turned but did not stop jogging.

"I thought you were staying with the chopper," whispered Kurtz.

Baby Doc grinned. "I never said I would."

"What if you get killed?"

The grin stayed in place. "You guys will either have to take flying lessons or start walking." He turned his back and ran toward the head of the driveway.

There was a dead man lying in the guardhouse gazebo. Nothing stirred except the six of them jogging toward the house. The external security lights were on in the back, but the house remained dark.

Angelina Farino Ferrara set the C-4 charge on the door, triggered the tuned detonator, and stepped back with the other three just as Kurtz came jogging up. The blast wasn't as loud as Kurtz expected, but it was pretty sure to wake everyone in the house. The door flew inward, showing steel reinforcements blown off at the hinges.

Gonzaga went in first. His bodyguard followed a second later. Angelina and her man lunged in a second after that.

This is nuts, thought Kurtz, not for the first time that night. One did not assault a house without knowing the houseplans intimately. He raised the Browning and threw himself through the door.

The foyer and hall lights had come on, which was not good. The layout was as he remembered—the foyer opening on the center hall straight ahead, staircase to the right—Angelina and her man were already pounding up it—a dark, formal living room was visible to his left, closed doors along the hallway to the left and right.