Collision

In the sudden gleam of the van’s headlights on the street, Pilgrim saw Hector hauling himself over the stone wall.

Lights flickered on at the safe house. Upstairs, downstairs.

Pilgrim hit the stone wall, vaulted over it. Agony flamed his shoulder. The Cellar van kicked to life and in the rising glow of lights from the safe house he saw the van tech, not Hector, at the wheel, slowing long enough for the woman with the broken arm to stagger inside.

Where was Hector?

The van surged at him, pedal to the floor, closing on him, and he dodged the impact, jumping into high weeds, a bullet snipping off the tops of the grasses by his head. He went low and ran and the van accelerated past him, took off.

Four lots further down, a car started on a cracked driveway that lacked a house. No lights.

Hector. Pilgrim turned and dashed through the yards, the empty lots, hauled himself over a newly built fence, reached his own car.

He revved back onto West End, saw Hector’s car in the distance. Hector turned onto Veterans Boulevard heading west, his car’s headlights coming alive. Pilgrim followed long enough to believe that Hector was not heading back to the Cellar safe house in Metairie but further west, toward the airport.

Toward where Ben thought Hector had a hiding hole.

Run home, your sorry-ass bastard, Pilgrim thought. His arm ached. He steered with his elbow, did a one-handed click through the call log to the stolen cell phone Ben had, dialed.

No answer.

Run home, your sorry bastard, he thought. Run home so Ben and I can kill you.

44

Ben turned onto a darkened street near Louis Armstrong International. Warehousing and storage facilities lined the street. He saw signs for FEMA and a bevy of government contractors, some of whom had once been clients of his.

The address he had was for an entire complex of warehouses, with a darkened, empty guard station. But the wooden arm was down. He noticed there was a passkey reader. He tried the passkey he’d taken from Jackie and the arm lifted and he drove into the complex.

A scattering of cars sat in the parking lot slots near the various warehouses-there were at least four large warehouses. The one he wanted, B, lay dark, no cars close by. He parked Jackie’s rental near the door-let Hector see Jackie was back, safe and sound. The sign on the door indicated this was “MLS Limited.” The name of one of the shell companies used by Hector; he must have rented the space in this name, not Hector Global. Ben tried the two keys on Jackie’s ring that didn’t have the rental car company tag on it. The second one worked. With his heart in his throat, he eased open the door.

Darkness. He locked the door behind him; it closed with a soft click. He held the gun in one hand. Even if he died now, Vochek would have enough to put pressure on Hector.

But he was not going to wait on juries and lawyers and trials to avenge Emily.

Ben took a shambling step forward in the darkness, hand out. He touched wall, found the hinge and frame of the door. He slid fingers along cool steel and closed them around a doorknob. He stepped into a darkened hallway, where a gleam of light lined the frame of a big set of double doors. He headed for them, his heart pounding loud enough, he thought, to echo against the walls.

He found a light switch, flicked it on. He tried the pilot’s cell phone again-the battery was completely drained. Useless. He closed it and began to explore.

Half the warehouse space was a maze of cubicles, thrown up in apparent haste; the other half held nothing. Most of the cubicles were empty, bare of computer or chair. He went to the largest office, guessing it belonged to a senior manager. He broke the door open with a fire extinguisher.

The laptop inside wasn’t passworded. He began to search the network’s file hierarchy.

Most of MLS’s business seemed tied to contracts for rebuilding government offices in New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Nothing of interest.

He searched for the name “Reynolds.” Found payment spreadsheets financing months of software development. He picked up the desk phone, called the Hotel Marquis de Lafayette, asked to be

connected to suite 1201.

“Vochek?”

“My God, Ben, where the hell are you?” She sounded furious.

He gave her the address. “I found Hector’s records of underwriting Reynolds’s research. He funded a lot of stuff through one of these shell companies. You should get over here.” He gave her the address and she hung up.

What else was here? He thought of what he’d found about MLS when he hunted through the business databases back in the Blarney’s bar. Its founding had been close to the time of Emily’s death. He opened the e-mail database, hunted for messages from Hector from the time that the company was founded. He found several, searched through them. One included a spreadsheet from Hector with a note: Here are payments we need made, please do electronically only. He clicked on the file. It opened.