"So?" Rhino put in impatiently.

"So Herrera's probably got chips stashed all over the damn place. Maybe Humberto thinks Muñoz hasn't got the only one. Or even the right one. They go through this negotiation dance, but it's really a stall for time."

"He cuts the chip out of his own arm every week?" Fal asked, skepticism in his voice.

"Maybe not. Maybe he's got a dupe. I don't know. This much is for sure: we got to take him at the airport. The deal is for half a million. That's a hundred grand apiece," he said, glancing around the room.

"You want to dust him at the airport, then chop off his fucking arm right there?" Ace asked caustically.

"No. We got to take him out of there. I think I know how to do it. Something I've been working on. But he won't be there alone. I figure we take him when he comes out. Just as he gets into his car. Buddha can get an ambulance real close. What we need is a hideout…someplace close to the airport…where we can do the rest."

"How you figure a hundred G apiece?" Rhino asked, leaning forward, his bulk imposing on the room.

"Me, you, Ace, Fal, and Buddha," Cross replied. "What's the problem?"

"The way I figure it, Princess is in for a share, too."

"Princess?" He's the genius who got us into this mess," Buddha said.

"Right," Rhino responded. "So he's the one who brought us the job, too."

"Give him half of your share," Buddha suggested.

Rhino slowly turned, focusing his small eyes on the short pudgy man, not saying a word. Buddha gazed back, unfazed.

"If we each give up a tenth, he gets a half–share. How about that?" Fal suggested in a mild tone of voice.

"Okay by me," Ace agreed.

Cross nodded.

Buddha waited for a slow count of ten, then said "What the fuck…sure."

•     •     •

Cross plucked the cellular phone from his jacket pocket in response to a soft, insistent purr.

"Go!" he said.

"He's in. On schedule," Fal's voice, quiet but clear. The voice of a man accustomed to speaking from cover.

"You have his ride tracked?"

"Black Mercedes. Four door. S class. Driver's still with it, parked on the roof. Probably on call."

"Roger that. How many we looking at?"

"One in the car, one with the man."

"See any backup?"

"Negative."

"We're rolling," Cross said, breaking the connection. He turned to Rhino. "They'll probably call the driver as they get close to the exit. He pulls off the roof, swings around, so he's waiting when they step out. You get the bodyguard, I get Humberto. Ace is riding with Buddha–the driver's their job. We ride crash–car on the getaway, meet back at the spot if we get separated."

Rhino nodded. "You really think that contraption's gonna work?" he asked, pointing the index finger with the missing tip at what looked like a particularly awkward pistol–instead of a butt, the pistol's handle was a long, narrow canister.

"It's freon," Cross said. "Like they use in air conditioners. We should get around five hundred feet per second. And it won't make a sound."

"It only works for one shot."

"One's all we need."

"Why don't we just ice this fuck? What do we need him alive for?"

"Because Muñoz wants him dead," Cross said. "And he only paid us for an arm, not a whole body."

The phone purred again. Cross snapped it to his ear. "What?"

"Moving," Fal's voice said.

"Who?"

"All of them. Me, too. You got two minutes, tops."

"Later," Cross said, pointing a finger at the windshield. Rhino keyed the motor of the shark car, threw it into gear. Cross was punching a number into the phone.

"Go!" is all he said when it was answered at the other end.

Humberto stood on the wide curb, his broad–chested bodyguard at his side, tapping his foot impatiently. The bodyguard spotted the Mercedes rolling toward them, stepped forward, reaching for the handle to the back door. Cross moved out of the shadows cast by a thick concrete pillar, the freon gun up. Humberto grabbed at his right hip just before he fell. The bodyguard whirled just in time to meet a .22 hollowpoint with the bridge of his nose. Rhino pocketed the silenced pistol and charged forward as the ambulance pulled to the curb. The Mercedes driver was trying to stare through the darkened side window, when the back of his head mushroomed into tomato paste. The rear doors of the ambulance popped open. Rhino tossed Humberto inside as easily as if he were a sack of grain, then immediately turned to the bodyguard and did the same thing with his dead body. The ambulance doors closed and it took off for the exit, lights flashing. Rhino ran to the shark car and dived into the open back door, his movements acrobatic despite his bulk. Cross mashed the pedal and the shark car chased the ambulance.

By the time the airport police arrived, they found one dead man at the wheel of the Mercedes. And a good many highly contradictory accounts from spectators.

The ambulance pulled to a stop in the shadows of a bridge abutment, just a few yards off the Freeway. The shark car cruised in a few seconds later, Cross skidding the anonymous vehicle so that it lay parallel to the ambulance. Cross stood watch as Rhino tossed Humberto's limp body over his shoulder and transferred it to the shark car's trunk. Buddha took the wheel of the shark car, Cross the shotgun seat. Ace and Rhino took the back, weapons out, each man covering a different rear window. As the shark car pulled away, Buddha said: "I dusted it down good, boss. But you never know what they're gonna find when they vacuum it out."

Cross pulled a small radio transmitter from his jacket, checked the blinking red LED, and threw a toggle switch. A heavy thumping whoosh sounded and the sky behind them was brightened with a red–and–yellow fireball.

"What they're gonna find is some dead meat," Cross said. "Well done."

As the shark car entered a quiet community of tract houses, the phone in Cross's jacket sounded. He picked it up, but didn't say a word.

"I'm out," came Fal's voice.

Cross broke the connection, gave the thumbs–up signal to Rhino.

Buddha pulled into a driveway of packed dirt, nosing the car forward until it was inside a garage that had been standing open. He popped the trunk, and Rhino tossed Humberto's still–limp form over one shoulder.

In another five minutes, Humberto was strapped to a straight chair in the basement of the house. The men waited another half–hour, each watchful and alert against the possibility they had been followed.

Finally, Cross stood up from his post. He slipped a stocking mask over his face, signaled Rhino to do the same. "All clear," he said quietly. "Let's get to it."

This should do it," Rhino said, squeezing the plunger of a hypodermic. He compressed Humberto's arm with one huge hand, tapped a likely looking vein, and drove the needle home with unerring precision.

Cross waited as the adrenaline took hold, watched as Humberto gradually regained consciousness. Cross signaled Rhino to stay where he was–looming over Humberto's back, but not visible.

"Wha…What is this?" Humberto mumbled, his eyes struggling for focus.