Page 36

“Ulrich,” I said softly. “Tell me this . . . kid’s . . . name.”

“Charlie Myczyk.”

Which is what I thought.

“Excuse me a moment,” I said, remounting the toilet.

I pushed out into the alley once more. Once past the ledge, rain fogged my goggles, rendering me almost blind, while my brain clicked a mile a minute, connecting the dots.

Charlie shadowing Vandecker, taking the loot and killing the old man, leaving his body in the same secret hiding place where the diamonds were hidden for so long. Then me, all unaware, torching the place on contract, and getting the blame for the bones in the ashes.

Very neat.

I felt around the corner for Harry’s arm and shook him sharply.

“Harry, wake up.”

No response. I shook him again, and listened closer. Still nothing.

Then I noticed the hilt of an icepick jutting from his neck.

I wheeled back to the window, locking eyes with a couple of bouncers just walking in—bench-pressed, Armani-clad, their twin stares flat under bad New Wave haircuts. Ulrich stood safe behind. Revenge was not an option, so I cut my losses and ran for the fire escape.

The sirens which had hovered shark-like in the distance ever since leaving the Nova Express suddenly intercepted me at the bottom. One squad car, one unmarked car, and something I hadn’t seen since the bad old days: A matte-black Impala with a doctor-soldier double-date behind the wheel.

Military Intelligence.

Ulrich’s Elvis-esque pompadour had already unravelled into a stew of greasy forelocks, obscuring his eyes as he climbed through the window. As the spooks got out of their cars he met them with a showman’s flourish.

“The Flare, gentlemen,” he said. “She’s all yours.”

Two pairs of shaded eyes flicked over me, already simultaneously fitting me for cuffs and a hospital gown. I got it then—Charlie had believed my boasts after all. Not able to take out his own trash unaided, he had called in the big boys—my erstwhile, purely accidental, patrons. Now they would collect on the government’s investment. With interest.

“Private Vosloo,” said the doctor. “I’ve read your file.”

I’ll bet you have.

“We’ll take it from here,” the soldier told Ulrich, and slapped a thick packet of bills into his hand. Ulrich just smiled past him, at me.

“Drop me a line sometime when you know how the Spiro job comes out, huh, Maia?” he said affably.

I ignored them all. The soldier asked me something as the cops frisked me, but his voice was static on an empty channel. I numbed my knees and fell unprotestingly backward into their waiting arms, allowing myself to be pushed inside the patrol car. By the time my mind began to work again I was already on my way to who knows where, hands limply cuffed in my lap. A grill separated me from the bulging nape of the driver’s neck. His partner gazed out the fogging window, lighting a cigarette. A curl of fragrant smoke grazed my eyes.

Now.

And I brought my right foot down against the floor of the car so hard the boot-heel shattered, igniting the flare concealed within it.

The driver recoiled from the sudden rush of phosphorus-blue flames licking at his back, barely avoiding giving himself a concussion on the juncture of the roof. His partner dropped the cigarette into his lap. “Christ!” he exclaimed, scrabbling for it.

With this distraction as cover, I ducked, took the end of the electric tape in my teeth—

—and pulled, reopening the rip.

The radio spat out, “Red one, red two: Where’s the fire?”

An apt choice of words.

Because I was starting to feel the rush, now. The glow—palm-centred, and spreading.