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As he did so, he listened to Tony Harris talking on his cell phone with Charley Bell, the hefty thirty-year-old detective who was sitting undercover in the old Philadelphia Electric Company van.

“Okay, got it,” Harris said into the phone. He broke the connection and looked at Payne. “He said nobody’s come or gone since the last two went in. And that it’d be a good idea to go around the back and check that first. Said it’s the house with the black Cadillac Escalade in the drive.”

Payne nodded.

Harris then said, “Give me your phone.”

Payne did, and he saw Harris key in a number, then call it.

“It’s Harris,” Tony said. “Just making sure you have Matt Payne’s number. Now you both have each other’s number ready to speed-dial in your LAST CALL list.”

He ended the call without another word, then handed the phone back to Payne.

Because the Crown Vics had been on loan from Homeland Secur

ity and no one knew for sure how long the loan program would last—What the Fed Giveth, the Fed Can Taketh Away at Any Damn Time—the police department had had no intention of spending the money to buy more of its police radios and installing them in the cars when they’d have to uninstall them at the end of the loan. It had been decided that the portable handheld police radio units could be used. And, failing that, a cell phone.

As Matt made the right turn onto westbound Allegheny, he reached down and tugged the plug for the light bar out of the cigarette lighter receptacle. Harris then flipped the two sun visors up, concealing the light bar and the POLICE sticker.

Payne turned left onto Richmond, then left again at the next street, which provided access to the rear of the properties. It was next to the interstate highway, and there was plenty of traffic noise along the back side of the buildings.

Some of the row house backyards still had grass, but it wasn’t well kept. Others were cluttered with anything from storage buildings to busted aboveground swimming pools to junk cars.

And one had a shiny black luxury SUV.

“There’s the ride,” Payne said as he pulled out his Colt Officer’s Model .45 from inside his waistband. With the muzzle pointed at the floorboard, he thumbed back the hammer to cock it, then thumbed up the lever at the back of the slide to lock it. Then, as he continued to scan the area, he held it on his right thigh. “But I don’t see anything happening at the house—or any of the others, for that matter.”

“Me neither. Go up a couple more drives past it, and I’ll get out and cover this back here while you and Charley take the front.”

Just before making the right turn to get back to Richmond, Matt saw in his rearview mirror that Tony was rolling two rusty drums from the yard next door and putting them behind the Escalade.

That probably won’t stop someone trying to get away, but it ought to slow them.

Then Matt saw ahead of him, at the corner of Richmond, the nose of Charley Bell’s PECO van. It was parked against the right curb.

The row houses here were mostly identical, all three-story and faced with red brick, the front door right at the sidewalk. And many of them had plastic garbage bags stacked at the curb.

As Matt rolled toward Richmond, he saw a late-model plain white Ford minivan going up Richmond. Its brake lights were lit. In the split second when it passed, Payne saw a white male at the wheel, and he thought that the driver wore some kind of uniform shirt.

He stopped the Crown Vic just shy of Richmond, nosing it up on the sidewalk. He shut off the car. Then he put in his left ear a wireless speaker-microphone device for his phone, speed-dialed Charley Bell, and slipped the live phone into his pocket.

Matt heard Bell’s voice in the earbud: “Hey, Matt, that white minivan that just went by has pulled up to our house.”

“No shit?” Payne said, opening his door. “Can you make out the driver?”

“Just that he’s a white male, older. He’s getting out now. Moving slowly.”

Payne closed the door of the Crown Vic. He quickly went to the corner, near the front door of an abandoned storefront. He held his Colt along his right leg as he peered around the brick edge of the wall and up the street. He thumbed down the pistol’s lock lever. Now when he went to squeeze the trigger, the hammer could freely fall to fire the round in the chamber.

Matt could clearly see the man.

That is a FedEx uniform, and he’s carrying an envelope.

But he is moving really slow. Almost like he’s not going to make it to the door.

No doubt whatsoever that’s Will Curtis. . . .

Bell said: “What do you want to do, Matt?”