Hosts

"Oh, it's his all right. His girlfriend told me it wasn't her place, so that means it's his."

"All right, let's say it is his place. What if he's out all night? If the place blows without him there, then we've tipped our hand. He'll know—"

"He'll know that his girlfriend is dead and that he's next." Joe's voice dipped to a cold rumble. "Let him stew awhile, let him suffer a little, let him be scared, wonderin' when the next shoe's go

"It's not our style, Joe. We always placed just the right amount in just the right place to get the job done with a minimum of collateral damage. We were surgeons, Joe."

"Yeah, well, this is a special case. This will send a message that if you mess with the Kozlowskis you die. And not only do you die, but your family and friends and neighbors die. You mess with the K brothers you invite a whole shitload of death and destruction. So think twice. Think three times. Better yet, don't think about it at all."

Stan sighed. No talking to Joe on this.

He glanced in the rearview mirror where he had the apartment house entrance framed. The car seemed far enough away to be safe from the bigger chunks of debris. And it would be downstream from the explosion, which meant they'd be able to cruise away immediately after the blast.

He watched a black Crown Victoria pull into a space directly in front of the doorway. He had to smile. Here was a guy probably thanking his lucky stars for finding such a primo parking spot. He wouldn't be thanking anyone if his car was still there when Joe's bomb blew.

"Joe!" Stan whispered when the driver stepped out of the car. "Take a look!"

Joe did a casual one-eighty in his seat, then jerked up straight when he recognized the man on the sidewalk.

"Yes!" He started punching Stan on the shoulder. "Yes-yes-yes-yes!"

"When does this go down?"

"Soon," Joe said softly. "But not soon enough."

17

"You let him inV Jack said, not quite believing this.

Kate shrugged. "He had a Bell Atlantic ID, with his picture and everything. What was I supposed to do?"

Jack didn't want to go into how easy it was to fabricate photo ID. Someday he'd show Kate his extensive personal collection. But maybe it was all right. Maybe the guy had really been from the phone company and Jack was making more out of this than he should. But the fact remained that Terrence Holdstock seemed to know too much about what went on in this apartment. Maybe one of the bugs had gone bad and he'd sent someone to replace it.

"All right, what did he do while you were here? Tell me exactly."

"I… I don't know exactly. You see, he needed someone talking on one of the extensions while he…" She flushed as her voice trailed off. "Boy, that really sounds dumb, doesn't it."

Jack wanted to shout Yes! But this was Kate, so kept his voice level.

"It's okay. You simply don't have a fine-tuned sense of paranoia."

"Like you."

"Like me. How long was he alone in here?"

"Five minutes tops."

Jack looked around the front room. This wasn't good. The guy could have hidden any number of bugs in a zillion places, or—

Wait. Kate had said the guy carried a Bell Atlantic ID. Bell Atlantic didn't exist anymore.

He motioned Kate closer and cupped his hands around her right ear.

"Ignore anything I say out loud from now on," he whispered. "Got it?"

She gave him a puzzled look but nodded.

"Only five minutes?" he said aloud. "I guess he couldn't have stolen anything significant in that time. Nothing missing, right?"

He motioned for Kate to chime in.

"Missing? No. Everything's here."

The best thing would be to go home and retrieve his bug detector for a 5-to-1,000 MHz sweep of the room. And he might yet have to do that. But for now a simple visual check would have to suffice. All he needed to vindicate his paranoia was to find a single bug. After that it was like being a little pregnant—didn't matter how many more there were, he'd know they were under surveillance.

Which could work to his advantage by allowing him to spread some customized disinformation to the listeners.

He turned on the radio—loud—and started with the kitchen wall-phone. A seemingly obvious place, but only to someone looking for a bug. He disassembled it but found nothing. A search of all the lighting fixtures and the undersides of the counters and cabinets yielded nothing either.

Time for another perspective: he lay on the floor and slithered around like a snake, looking for anything that didn't belong. His joints felt a little stiff, his muscles sore. He wondered why. Hadn't done any-thing strenuous lately. And it felt kind of good to lie down. If he had a choice between a nap and hunting for bugs right now, he knew which one he'd take. But he had to keep looking.

He glanced at Kate who was staring at him as if he were crazy as he wriggled out of the kitchen into the dining area, checking out the underside of the chairs, the table—

"Holy shit!"

Jack's saliva drained away as he stared at the bomb duct-taped to the underside of the table. And no question it was a bomb—fine wires ru

"What is it, Jack?" Kate said.

Looked for the readout on the alarm clock but it was dark. Had the battery died? Couldn't risk it. Might already be too late. Had to get Kate out of here as fast as—

Wait. Nothing sophisticated here. In fact a pretty basic piece of work. Could see the ends of the blasting caps jutting from the plastique. All he had to do…

"Jack, what did you find?"

Jack dried his hands on his pants and reached up to the bomb. His fingers trembled as he gently tugged the caps from the plastique—the one in the left end came loose first, then the right. As they fell free, dangling from the clock, Jack ripped the plastique from the underside of the table and rolled away.

Panting, sweating, he lay on his back with closed eyes, pulling himself together.

"What is that?" Kate said.

Jack sat up and looked at the block. As soon as he saw the olive drab wrapper he knew it was C-4.

"Enough plastique explosive to make a real mess of this building."

One of Kate's hands flew to her mouth while the other fluttered behind her, searching for a chair. It found one and she dropped into it.

"No!" Her blue eyes were wide in her ashen face. "You can't… you must be mistaken!"

"I wish I were."

"But that looks like modeling clay."

Jack lay the C-4 on the floor and reached back under the table. He found the little clock, ripped it free of its securing tape, and held it up.

"And here's the timing device."

He placed the clock on the kitchen counter, found a carving knife, and chop-severed the wires to its two dangling detonators, scarring the Formica in the process. Had to be done. Blasting caps can do some mean damage on their own.

Kate had risen from the chair. She eyed the timer like she might a snake. She opened her mouth to speak but no words came out.

"I know," Jack said. "Who and why, right?"

She could only nod.

"Let's think about that," he said.

Possibilities were buzzing through Jack's head like a swarm of killer bees. He retrieved the brick of C-4. Holding that in one hand and the timer in the other, he did his thinking out loud.

"Here's the situation: We've got two people living in this apartment at the moment, one of them acting real strange. The other resident and her brother hear the strange one say some weird things, things they maybe weren't supposed to hear. The strange one's cult leader arrives out of nowhere and removes her from the premises. A couple of hours later someone calling himself a phone repairman shows up, maneuvers himself into being alone in this room, then leaves. Immediately after that we find a bomb. Let's guess who the target might be."