“Not here, you’re not. Not now.”

He drove down the parking lot until he saw what he was looking for-an early nineties Ford Taurus. He pulled up next to it and stopped.

“Take the wheel,” he said. “I’m going to hot-wire that Taurus, and you need to follow me when I’ve got it going. We don’t want to leave the van right here for the police to find when they get a stolen-vehicle report. We’ll leave it a couple miles away and then drive the Taurus.”

Paula nodded meekly, and he wondered whether she was going into shock.

“You okay?”

She nodded again.

“You going to be sick? That’s normal. It’s okay.” She shook her head. “I’m okay. I’m just… I’ve just never…”

“I know. We’re going to get you someplace quiet. You can clean up. And we’ll talk. Okay?”

She nodded again.

“Just follow me now. It won’t be long.”

He got out and was happy to find the car unlocked. Not exactly a model chop shops were salivating over. He could have broken a window easily enough, but someone driving with a window down in the rain is sufficiently abnormal to draw law enforcement attention. Unbroken was better.

He got in the car, closed the door behind him, slid the seat back as far as it went, and took out his tools: the SureFire mini-light; a key ring from which a number of handy items dangled, including two screwdriver bits, flat point and Phillips head; a Benchmade 9051SBK folding knife; a short strip of duct tape from around the mini-light. An old drill sergeant had once told him a soldier with thousand-mile-an-hour tape and a few other small items was a wonder to behold, and Ben had since found it to be true.

He got down under the steering wheel, holding the duct-tape-wrapped SureFire between his teeth, and used the Phillips head screwdriver to remove the steering wheel access cover. He found the primary power supply wire and the electrical circuit wire, used the Benchmade to strip about an inch of insulation off each, and twisted them together. He stripped a half inch of insulation off the ignition wire and touched it to the wires he’d connected a moment before. The engine kicked over. He pumped the gas pedal with his hand and the engine caught. He wrapped the duct tape around the connected primary power and electrical circuit wires, put his tools back in his pockets, sat up, and nodded to Paula. He turned on the headlights and pulled out, watching Paula follow in the rearview mirror.

This time he drove southeast, in case anyone had reported a green van fleeing west on the highway from the crime scene. Ten minutes later, he spotted another shopping mall from the road and pulled off the highway. Paula pulled in next to him. He left the engine running, got out, and opened the driver side of the van.

“We need to wipe it down,” he said. “We might not get everything, but it’s better than nothing.”

There was a canister of bleach wipes in back intended for this very purpose. They spent a few minutes going over everything they’d touched. When they were done, they got out. They left everything unlocked, the driver-side door open, and the keys in the ignition. With luck, someone would steal it, contaminate it, and drive it far away.

“It’s okay,” Paula said, walking around to the driver side of the Taurus. “I can drive.”

“I know you can. But you wouldn’t be human if you weren’t shaken up by what just happened, okay? And it’s also human not to realize it until later.”

“You’re not shaken up?”

“I’ve seen this kind of thing before. You haven’t. Come on, I’m not trying to give you a hard time. You can drive tomorrow if you want. Let me take over for now.”

She looked at him as though trying to gauge his intent, then nodded and went around to the other side. They pulled away and Ben took out his phone.

Hort picked up on the first ring. “What happened?”

“Larison killed them. Showed up on a motorcycle and dropped all seven in front of the condo. They put a tranquilizer round in his neck, it didn’t do shit. What is the guy, a vampire?”

“A tranquilizer… goddamn, he must have dosed himself with an antagonist. Damn.”

“Plus five more in front of the office.”

“I told them. I told them.”

Ben heard only anger in Hort’s voice. Nothing that indicated he’d known about the two guys in the brown sedan.

“I had the shot,” Ben said. “I could have taken him out. Not in time to save anyone, but still.”

“Your orders were only to observe. Technically, you weren’t even supposed to be there.”

“I did. I’m just… saying.”

“I understand how you feel. But if you’d dropped him, the dead-man trigger would probably have published the tapes already. You did the right thing.”

“I tried to get to the second team. I couldn’t reach them in time.”

“I’m sorry, son.”

“There’s something else. As we were pulling away from the office, a car pulled up. Brown sedan, I didn’t get the make, not that it would matter. Two guys got out. Caucasian. American, from the accents. They knew Lanier’s name. It was a hit.”

There was a pause. “A hit? You sure they weren’t Ground Branch, part of the snatch team?”

“I’m sure.”

“You’re okay?”

“I’m fine. They’re not. I didn’t have time to check for ID, and I doubt they would have been carrying any. But you need to find out who those guys were and who’s coming after Paula and me.”

“Roger that. How’s Lanier?”

Ben glanced over. “She’s okay.”

“Do you need anything?”

“No, we’re good. Unloaded the van, we’re going to find somewhere to bunk down for the night.”

“Good. Get some rest. Stay safe. I’m going to find out what I can and get back to you.”

“What’s our next move? Larison’s still out there.”

“I know. And maybe now, these idiots will listen to me when I tell them how this needs to be handled. Before we lose any more people.”

29. Doubt

Larison rode hard to the southeast, rain splattering against his visor and soaking his shirt. He’d dosed himself with Benzedrine to counter the post-combat parasympathetic backlash and felt like he could ride forever. With light evening traffic and breaks at a minimum, he would reach the Panamanian border in about five hours. The weather was slowing him down for the moment, but the wind was blowing north and he could see breaks in the clouds ahead of him. With luck, he’d be riding out of it soon.

He wasn’t worried about CIA opposition-he knew they’d thrown everything they had at him in Los Yoses and all of it was gone now. It would take them time to regroup. But the carnage in the capital was outlandish enough to possibly lead to a heavier than usual police presence at airports. Safer, for now, to leave the country by land. He’d stop late tonight, find a place to stay, shower, shave, buy some fresh clothes in the morning, and cross the border looking presentable instead of like the half-mad, juiced-up death machine he felt like now.

His working theory was that the two teams were CIA Ground Branch. He hadn’t recognized any of them from ISA selection, and he’d been around long enough to have known at least a few faces if ISA had indeed been part of the op. Or maybe they were contractors. It didn’t matter. If they were CIA, the opposition was now thinned by an even dozen. If they were contractors, it meant the CIA was hurting for operators in the first place and had to reach out to the private sector. Either way, he’d bought a little time.

The one thing he wasn’t sure of was the guy he’d seen outside Nico’s office, crouched between two parked cars, a pistol steadied against the hood of one of them. He’d looked vaguely familiar, but he was wearing a baseball cap and shades and Larison couldn’t be sure. Someone he’d reviewed during selection? Maybe. But if the guy was ISA, why hadn’t he taken the shot? Larison had been wide open, and the guy had just watched him go by. Was he afraid of the dead-man trigger on the tapes? He ought to have been. But who was he, and what was he doing there?