The Tower

"One of these days, I'm gonna beat you to it," Lieutenant Hawkins said, fumbling over his beer belly to find his holster. Hawkins's eyes were as deeply brown as Jade's were green. He had a thick black mustache. They always have a mustache, Jade thought.

"I wouldn't count on it."

"Trapp dead?"

"Yeah. And the kid." Jade pointed with his gun at Dave's body, still sprawled out, reaching for the door. "The commissioner gave me him to work with. Almost got me killed."

"He break cover?"

"Yeah." Jade shook his head. "They never listen."

Hawkins sighed, running a hand over the top of his head. "Poor kid was just a rent-a-cop. Worked security at night to support his family."

Jade's mouth tightened. "You guys took long enough to get here. What, was there a cat stuck in a tree somewhere?"

"We didn't get the call till you'd already cornered them, then we came as fast as we could. You should've waited for us to back you."

"I didn't have the luxury."

Hawkins grimaced and glanced back at the house. Goatee's arm was visible in the doorway, lying in a pool of blood. Cops stepped over the bodies and headed inside to examine the scene. The sound of the boys weeping upstairs became softly audible.

"Jesus Christ, Marlow, you left the kids in there?" Hawkins asked in disbelief.

"Oh yeah, shit, that's right."

"'Oh yeah'? You leave three kids alone in a room with a corpse and that's the best you can do? 'Oh yeah'?" Hawkins scratched himself angrily.

"Look, Hawkins, I don't see baby-sitter anywhere in my job title."

Hawkins gestured to a newly arrived paramedics team. "You three-upstairs. Let's go." He turned back to Jade, shaking his head. "You bounty hunters are sick fucks."

The paramedics rushed out carrying the kids. The children were sobbing freely now, all three of them. Jade looked down as they passed, studying the ground. "I'm not a bounty hunter," he said. "I'm a tracker. It's an art."

"A madness, Jade." Hawkins wiped his mouth on his sleeve. "A madness."

Chapter 13

" T R A C K E R " was the term that Jade used to describe the new profession he had carved out for himself after resigning from the FBI. When he broke his second case, the media began referring to him as a "TDer" or "tracker and destroyer," but the phrase was too strained for his style. His language, like his actions, was quick and efficient.

Being a tracker set Jade apart from the bumbling military Soldiers of Fortune and the trained dogs that the bail-and-loan companies sent out. He was the only one, and he worked alone.

Tracking didn't entail following a physical trail, it involved more subtle measures. Jade had learned that there was no straight line to a criminal's door. He began a case by going backward, studying a criminal's history-his motivations, his weaknesses. Once he got a profile, he could close in on him with the precision and determination of a shark circling its prey.

He said that he quit the feds because he couldn't stand the bullshit of hierarchy. But there was a truer, more difficult explanation: He didn't get along with people. And in general, they didn't get along with him either.

There were people in his life, of course, but they came and went as the weeks passed. He was always going somewhere else, always looking for something else. He was a hunter by trade, and hunters never stay in one place for very long.

Jade didn't like covering the same ground twice. And he didn't like the feeling that settled in once he stopped chasing. He pursued his prey with such fervor that it sometimes seemed he himself was fleeing from something. And it was true that he sometimes heard voices behind him, voices from his past. The singsong, manic voices of children spinning nursery rhymes in the hot summer air.

Eeni meenie minie moe, they sang, the notes of their song burning into his memory.

But eventually, after blisters, calluses form. They're much easier to live with.

When it came to himself, Jade didn't have time for complexity. Because he spent his days dredging society's murky waters, he had little energy for introspection. As a result, he viewed himself as fiercely independent, not isolated, as self-reliant, not difficult. It was easier that way.

Jade left the FBI after his rambunctious attitude landed him in trouble. He had upbraided the Head of Operations of the Hostage Negotiation Department for allowing a terrorist to escape. The incident came after the agents had been ordered to stand down because hostages were in the line of fire. So when Jade had seen his shot open up for a split second, he had forced himself to resist. The terrorist had escaped and had been taken down by another agent in Maryland the next week. There had been other casualties along the way.

"You always shoot," Jade had yelled at the balding Head of Operations. "You shoot and ask questions later. So he takes out a hostage, big deal. If you let him escape, who knows who he'll do next?"