We Know

"Are you Nick Horrigan? " I nodded, still fighting to draw in a proper breath. A warm, salty trickle ran from my split lip down my chin. The other men-fifteen of them? -had spread through the condo, dumping drawers, knifing open the couch cushions, overturning chairs. I heard flatware tumble onto the linoleum. My clock radio blared on-a jingle for antifungal ointment-and then I heard someone curse, and it abruptly cut off.

The gray-haired man frowned at me, then surveyed the others, radiating authority. "The hell's the matter with him, Sever?"

"I hit him in the chest when I rappelled from the roof." A faint southern accent-Maryland or Virginia, maybe. The guy tugged off his hood, revealing a square face further accented by a military-looking flattop. He was much wider than the boss man crouching over me. Younger, too- probably in his mid-forties, though his creased tan aged him up a bit. His bearing suggested he was the alpha dog among the jumpsuits.

The boss returned his gaze to me. "Nick Horrigan, born 6/12/73? Son of Agent Frank Durant?"

"Stepson," I managed.

He shoved a photograph in my face. A man shown from the chest up, wearing a blue blazer and the scowl of the unphotogenic. A wide mouth and slack lips lent him a slightly wild quality. His blond hair was slicked back, the camera catching furrows left by the comb.

"What's the last contact you had with this man?"

"I don't know this guy," I said.

"Then you've been in phone or e-mail contact with him."

I caught a worm's-eye view of a man with tactical goggles peering into the empty Cup o' Noodles I'd left on the kitchen counter. The photo moved abruptly in front of my nose again. "I told you," I said. "I don't know who the hell he is."

The boss grabbed my arms and tugged me to a sitting position. Over his shoulder I could see my framed Warner Bros, still, sitting shattered at the base of the wall. Yosemite Sam was looking back at me with an expression of matching bewilderment. Glancing down, I stared numbly at the boot-size red marks on my bare chest. "Who are you?" the man asked, pulling my focus back to him.

My voice still sounded tight. "You already know. I'm Nick Horrigan."

"No, I mean what do you do?"

"I just left a job at a charity group," I said.

One of the guys behind me guffawed.

Another appeared in the doorway of my bedroom, holding my now-empty nightstand drawer by the handle. "I got nothing."

The boss swiveled to face a guy wanding the kitchen with a magnetometer. The guy shook his head. "Sorry, Mr. Wydell."

"Okay." Wydell ran a hand through his gray hair. It fell back precisely into the side part. His exacting demeanor fit his professional bearing- the sole suit among rugged operators. "Okay. Get him a shirt."

A T-shirt flew from the vicinity of my bedroom, hitting me in the head.

"Put this on. Let's go."

My Pac-Man shirt. Great. I tugged it on, and two guys hoisted me to my feet. Figuring I'd want ID wherever I was going, I grabbed my money clip from the kitchen counter and stuffed it into the floppy pocket of my drawstring pajama pants.

"Let's go, let's go," Wydell said. "You got sneakers, something?"

I stopped moving, and the two men commanding me to the door stumbled into me. "Can you please show me a badge?" I said, though I pretty much figured.

Wydell's lips pinched. His hand darted behind his lapel, withdrew his commission book with its recessed badge. Hunched eagle and flag, rendered in gold. U.S. SECRET SERVICE. His commission was behind plastic inside the leather book. JOSEPH WYDELL, SPECIAL AGENT IN CHARGE. He was from the Los Angeles Regional Office, which meant he wasn't on the protection detail of a particular politician but oversaw general intelligence in Southern California. Why was the head of the Secret Service L.A. office on site at a raid instead of waiting back in his air-conditioned office?

"What do you think I did?" I asked.

Someone handed him my sneakers, and he thumped them against my chest. I took them. He hustled me out into the hall, Sever in front of us, another agent behind, one at each side. They held the diamond formation as we barreled toward the stairs.

Mrs. Plotkin stood in her doorway in a white spa bathrobe, her copper hair heaped high, showing off white roots. She looked worried-one of her favorite expressions.

"Get back in your apartment, ma'am," Sever said, the accent more pronounced now.

We were approaching fast, but she held her ground. "Where are you taking him?"

"I'm okay, Evelyn," I said, wiping blood from my chin.

"What did he do?"

"Out of the way, now."