His eyes shifted left, and he said, "What are you talking about?"

"I am never going to forgive you for taking Pepper. If you don't stop this stupid plan, and give her back, you're dead. I will see to it. Now get off my set."

"Not a chance," he said, and then J.T. came up behind him and deliberately shoved him out of the way.

Nash wheeled around, and J.T. said, "Back off."

"Fuck you," Nash said and walked off.

"That was immature," Lucy said. "I liked it. Next time knock him off the damn bridge."

Wilder punched buttons on the phone, listened, and then said, "It's me. Did you get the coordinates?" He nodded. "She give you any trouble?" He nodded again. "Bring it on in close." He clicked off and then dialed another number.

"What's going on?" Lucy said.

"LaFavre got the coordinates from Karen. Someone text messaged them to her on his phone."

"Karen just gave him her phone?"

"No." He put his attention back on the phone. "This is Wilder." He held it out so Lucy could hear. Crawford, he mouthed.

"What?" Crawford said.

"We got a lot of shit going on here," Wilder said.

"Just stay out of the way and-"

"Got a five-year-old girl kidnapped."

There was a long silence. "There's nothing that can be done about that right now."

"Letsky is more important than the life of a five-year-old?" Wilder asked, but Lucy could tell he already knew the answer.

"What did you call for?"

"I know where the meet is. Got the coordinates. I'll give them to you, if you do something for me."

"What?"

"You're missing a Major LaFavre. Supposed to be there in one of your birds."

"Yeah?"

"He's not AWOL. You assigned him to me."

"Hell, I don't care. The coordinates?"

"You assigned him to me. If he gets any backlash from this, people are going to find out how bad you fucked this up."

"Okay, hell, fine, I assigned him to you. Give me the coordinates."

"Tango-Alpha, Six, Four, Four, Seven, One, Eight."

"We'll check them out," Crawford said. "But-"

"Take guns when you check it out," Wilder said. "Take real Army guys who know how to shoot and stuff. Or even SEALs."

Crawford hung up and Wilder said, "Asshole," and turned the phone off.

"Will he do it?" Lucy asked.

Wilder nodded. "Yeah, but getting Pepper back is up to us." He started punching numbers into his phone again. "Okay, now we do leverage." He waited, holding out the phone so Lucy could hear.

"She's still breathing and talking," the voice came.

"I'm not as slow as you think, Ghost Boy," Wilder said. "You have something I want back, and I have something you want back."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"I've got your helicopter."

There was a long silence. "Bullshit."

"Karen was picking it up at Hunter when she ran into some trouble." Wilder spoke slowly and clearly. "The trouble's a friend of mine named LaFavre and he has your bird. Thus, I have your helicopter. You want it back, you give me Pepper."

"I don't fuckin' believe you."

"Do you need the chopper to pick up the art or just for the rendezvous?" Wilder asked.

Again there was a long silence.

"Answer me," Wilder demanded. "Time's-a-wasting."

"Just the rendezvous."

"Good. You guys do whatever it is you're doing on the bridge. We'll stay out of your way. Bring Pepper to the rendezvous, I'll call in the chopper. Then we trade and you can get the hell out of our lives."

This time Wilder waited.

"Fuck you. All right."

The phone went dead, and Lucy let out her breath. "Is this going to work?" she asked, her heart pounding.

"Hell, yes," Wilder said. "Sufferin' Sappho, woman, have some faith."

"Okay then," Lucy said, really wanting to believe him. "It's showtime."

Chapter 20

Wilder moved to his position near the railing. A container ship pushed by two tugboats came around the bend in the Savannah River, approaching the city's riverfront, about a mile from the bridge. It was much larger than the one they had seen the other day, a real mother of a-

Screw me, he thought and punched in Crawford's number on his satellite phone even as he looked to the right and saw Nash standing at the edge, also staring at the cargo ship, weapon slung over his shoulder, fast-rope tied off to the railing next to him.

Crawford didn't sound happy. "What do you want?" The sound of a helicopter thudded in the background and Wilder knew Crawford was flying toward the meeting location.

"Letsky's art is on the damn cargo ship, isn't it?"

"No."

Liar, Wilder thought angrily. "Don't-"

Crawford cut him off. "Letsky thinks his art is on the ship. Finnegan thought it was. Nash thinks it is. Because we let it leak that it was. There's a container holding cases that look like the cases the art was in on board the ship."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"What difference would it have made?" Crawford was speaking fast, trying to explain his way out of the shit hole he'd dug. "We never thought it would go this far. It was a setup from the very beginning to draw Letsky out to where we could get him. We thought that Finnegan and Letsky would try to steal the art off the ship on the high seas, where we could take them down with no civilians involved. The whole movie thing caught us off guard. That's why we had to scramble and put you on that set."

"The SEAL platoon?"

"They're with me. And they're not going to do a damn thing to stop Nash from taking the stuff. Their job is to take out Letsky."

"You're an asshole," Wilder said and hung up.

He looked at Nash, who seemed mesmerized by the approaching cargo ship. Three minutes, tops. Think fast, he told himself. If Nash looked in the containers to check them and found out the jade wasn't there… No leverage.

No Pepper.

Damn it, he thought and headed for the rail.

Tyler scanned the container ship through his thermal scope. It was almost abreast of his location, less than a hundred feet away, so large it was blocking off the view of the Savannah riverfront completely. There was a cluster of warm bodies on the bridge, but as far as he could tell, there was no one forward of midship.

He went back and leaned the sniper rifle against the metal door leading to the staircase and picked up another gun with a regular sight on it. There was enough light coming off the bridge, the town, and the spotlights on the ship itself, that he could check the containers stacked up on the deck. The source in Mexico had said the one they wanted would be on the top layer, starboard side, so it could be one of the first off.

"What are you doing?"

Tyler gritted his teeth and ignored her. He read letters and numbers, starting from the very front. Bingo. Fifth one back from the bow, on top, starboard. Tyler adjusted for distance and wind, then pulled the trigger. The specially loaded paintball arced through the air and splatted against the side of the container, marking it with a splotch of glowing chemical mixture.

"Cool. What'd you do that for?"

Tyler tossed the paintball gun away. He saw that the Kid was right next to the sniper rifle. "Get away from that."

The Kid started and hit the gun, which slid toward the roof.

"Damn it!" Tyler grabbed for it, but the rifle hit the ground. He picked it up, checking for damage, but there didn't appear to be any. He hissed at the Kid, doing his best gator imitation, and went back to looking at the ship.

"What are you doing?"

"Nothing."

"Are you gonna shoot somebody?"

"Yeah. You."

There was a long silence and then he turned around.

She was sitting with her back against the wall, big tears rolling down her fat little filthy cheeks.