4

Atlanta

A few minutes later

When Lang and Grumps came back in, he nuked a frozen enchilada in the microwave and fed Grumps the dog food he had finally remembered to buy. From the sounds of voracious eating, Lang judged he had made a good choice.

Lang's meal was laced with so many chilies it could have constituted an act of war by the Federal Republic of Mexico. He scraped his leftovers into Grumps's bowl. The dog gave him a reproachful glare and retreated to a corner, Lang's offering untouched. Apparently Lang was more a connoisseur of canned dog food than international cuisine

Lang selected a tubular steel chair· with minimal padding, one in which it was unlikely he would be very comfortable, putting it just to the side of the door to the outside hall. As the door opened, the chair would be behind it. Then he moved a three-way lamp to the other side of the entrance, its lowest setting enough to silhouette anyone coming through the doorway but dim enough not to spill into the hall outside. He put the Browning in his lap, although he didn't intend to use the automatic unless he had to. He wanted answers, not bodies.

Then he began to wait.

There wasn't enough light to read. So he just sat, observing Atlanta's skyline. Far to the south, he could see jets, pinpricks of light, as they approached or departed Hartsfield-Jackson International. Somewhere between Lang and the distant airport, beams of searchlights aimlessly crisscrossed the night sky. He resisted the impulse to check the luminous dial of his watch. Time passes more slowly when you keep track of it.

Maybe he was mistaken; maybe he was in no danger. Maybe, but unlikely. Whoever had obliterated the place in Paris and started a fire in Midtown wasn't likely to spare him. The only question was when it would happen.

Well after what Lang estimated was midnight, past the time he usually turned out the lights and retired, he detected, or imagined, something from the floor beside him, not so much a sound as an undefined interruption of clinging silence. A growl from Grumps, increasing until Lang put a comforting hand on the furry head. The dog had taken Lang's rebuke after the burglary to heart.

Lang stood, silently moving the chair aside and putting the Browning in his belt again. Caterpillars with icy feet were marching up and down the back of his neck where muscles were tightening in anticipation. Years had gone by since he'd last had that feeling. He had missed it.

A series of soft clicks came from the door. Lang was glad he hadn't had time to install a new lock. The replacement would have alerted whoever was on the other side of that door that the occupant knew the intruder could gain entry, make him even more cautious than committing a burglary would.

Lang tensed and tried to breathe. deeply to relax mind and muscles. Tension begot mistakes, his long-ago training had taught. And mistakes begot death. Tension and training were both forgotten as the door slowly opened inward, a square of darkness against the pale, buttery light of the lamp.

Lang resisted the impulse to lunge and throw his weight against the door, pinning the intruder against the jamb. Too easy for him to escape into the hall. Or shoot through the door. Instead, Lang waited until he could see the entire form of a man, a dark mass, arm extended as it entered and quietly shut the door. Something glittered in the man's hand.

A weapon, Lang was certain. He felt the fury for Janet and Jeff boil up in his stomach like bile. But he made himself wait.

Wait until the intruder turned from closing the door. Then Lang moved, pivoting to face him. Before Lang's brain even registered the shock on the invader's face, Lang's left hand came down like an ax against the other man's right wrist in a move designed to shatter the small. fragile carpal bones. Or at least knock a weapon loose. Simultaneously, Lang smashed 'the heel of his open right hand into the throat. Done correctly, the blow would leave an opponent helpless, too busy trying to force air into a ruined larynx to resist.

Lang was only partially successful. Something clattered to the floor and there was a gasp of breath as the man, still a solid dark form, staggered backwards. Lang's weight had shifted with his attack and he followed through, pirouetting to put his full bulk behind a fist aimed at where he gauged the bottom of the intruder's rib cage would be, the place where a blow to the solar plexus would double him over like a jackknife.

Lang hit ribs instead.

Lang's opponent lurched sideways, stumbled over the mate to the chair in which Lang had been sitting, and sprawled onto the floor. Lang flipped the light switch.

The man on the floor, scrabbling to his feet, was dressed in black jeans and a black shirt, with leather gloves. He was about Lang's size, his age difficult to guess. He backed away, reaching into a pocket as he measured the distance to the door.

Lang thumbed the safety off the Browning as it came out of his belt and he assumed a two-handed shooting stance. "Don't even think about moving, asshole."

There was a click as a switchblade flashed in the light. The stranger lunged forward clumsily, his legs still shaky from Lang's punches.

Like a matador evading the charge of a bull, Lang sidestepped, spun and brought the heavy automatic down across the back of the man's skull with all the fury accumulated since the night Janet and Jeff had died. On one level, Lang wanted to split his head open even more than he wanted answers.

The impact reverberated through the Browning and set Lang's hands trembling. The stranger went down like a marionette when the strings are cut.

Lang stamped a heel into the hand holding the knife, forcing the fingers open. A kick sent the weapon skidding across the room. Lang straddled his unwanted visitor's back, his right hand pressing the muzzle of the Browning against the man's cranium while his left explored pockets.

Nothing. No wallet, no money, no keys, no form of identification, the absence of which was a form of ID itself. Professional assassins carry nothing that yields information as to their own persona or those who hire them.

There wasn't even a label on the inside neck of the T-Shirt. But there was a silver chain around the man's throat, the sort of plain strand that might carry a woman's locket or lavaliere. Lang bunched it in his hand to snatch it free.

The guy bucked and rolled violently, tossing Lang aside like an unwary bronco rider. Lang rolled up on his knees, the Browning in both hands again. "Give me an excuse, asshole."

The intruder shakily got to his feet, his eyes darting to the door at Lang's back. Lang thought he was going to rush him, make a try for the hall outside. Instead, he spun, staggering for the glass door that separated the living room from a narrow balcony outside.

Lang got to his own feet in a hurry. "Hey, wait, hold it! You can't…"

But he could. With a crash, he went through the glass and over the edge. The room's light played off knifelike shards to make patterns on the ceiling as Lang struggled with the latch to the sliding glass door. There was no need, he realized. Lang simply stepped through the jagged hole the man had made. He heard traffic twenty-four floors below and the tinkle of the remaining broken glass falling from the door frame.

People were already gathering in a tight bunch below, six or seven of them obscuring all but a leg twisted at an impossible angle. Lang recognized the uniform of the night doorman as he looked up, pointing an accusing finger. In the landscape lights, his mouth was an open, black "0."

Lang went back inside to dial 911, only to learn a police car had been dispatched along with an ambulance. He returned the Browning to its drawer before conducting a hurried inspection of the living room. Two chairs were overturned, the rug in front of the entrance bunched as though from a scuffle. The switchblade glistened evilly from under an end table. In front of the couch, the light caught another knife, this one a broad dagger with a curved blade and a narrow, decorative hilt. A jimbia, the knife carried bare-bladed in the belts of nomadic Arabs, a weapon worn as commonly as a westerner wore neckties.