Part 28 (2/2)

Jim, the bartender, stood fearfully regarding the damage from inside the bar as Jade approached.

”Don't you ever lock me in!” Jade yelled. Reaching through the broken window, he seized Jim by the s.h.i.+rt, lifting him off his feet. He yanked him outside, hurling him to the ground. Jim skidded to a halt facedown on the street, and Jade was on him immediately, pulling his head back with a fist laced with his hair. His other hand was around Jim's throat.

”I didn't do anything,” Jim said, struggling to catch his breath. ”Don't . . . don't hurt me.” He tried to shake his head but his chin was ground into the pavement.

A station wagon turned onto the street, its headlights catching Jade in the face. He squinted into the light. The vehicle slowed as it approached, and Jade saw a young couple gazing at him in horror.

As they pa.s.sed, he noticed a young girl in the backseat. She wore a bright yellow slicker and had one hand raised, palm open, pressed to the window. There was a look of fright in her eyes, a confused terror about the world outside.

Jade felt a flash of shame. G.o.dd.a.m.nit, he thought. What's she doing up so late?

Her eyes continued to watch Jade as the car pa.s.sed and disappeared into the night.

Jade blinked heavily, fighting through the rage clouding his mind. What the h.e.l.l am I doing? he thought. He looked down at his knee in the bartender's back, his hands gripping the man's head like claws.

Like an animal squatting over its kill, Jade thought. Like a f.u.c.king animal.

He released Jim's throat and rose carefully from his back. ”Jesus, I'm . . . Jesus, I'm sorry.”

Jade reached to help Jim to his feet, but Jim jerked away from his touch. His chin was bleeding and Jade could see that he was crying. Jade's face was red with regret and self-loathing. He took a step forward, but Jim cowered away from him.

Jade opened his mouth but nothing came out. Silently, he turned and walked to the BMW. There was a squealing of tires, and Jim was alone in the parking lot.

Allander sucked the cool night air through his teeth. His feet swayed beneath him, dangling off the roof as he watched the black car speed away.

Jade had nowhere to direct his rage, and Allander sensed that he knew he was losing ground. I'm so far inside him I can touch him wherever I want, Allander thought.

He tilted his head back and stretched his arms before getting up to head back to the new house. His house.

48.

A leg protruded from the glade of trees, a blue-and-brown hiking boot on the foot. A line of blood ran over the exposed calf, matting the thick black hair.

Allander stood with his back to the body, gazing through the last line of trees to the edge of the cliff. The sun was rising gloriously, its golden rays glittering off the ocean surface.

There was a drop of several hundred yards that ended in a small forest just outside the grounds of Maingate. The gates were laid open to the world as workers scuttled back and forth, towing out ruined materials and bringing in new equipment and tools.

What the prisoners would have done to see the gates spread like that for just a moment during their captivity, Allander thought. The entire facility was emptied of inmates for these weeks of repair. With the exception of Claude Rivers and the single guard watching him on the Tower, Allander had emptied it. He had emptied Maingate.

As he looked out over the main prison and saw the Tower in the distance, he slid his hand under his s.h.i.+rt to his nipples. They were hard in the crisp San Francisco air, and he ran his fingers over them, one at a time.

He had taken a new house for himself in the western hills of San Francisco. It was being entirely remodeled, so it had no decorations or heating, just bare walls and a few pieces of covered furniture. For some reason, construction had ceased, but Allander had still prepared a careful escape route in case workers showed up.

He was quite content with his new home. And how wonderful that he could keep the lovely red Jeep from his former house in Palo Alto.

He had found a small motorized saw in the front closet of his house, no doubt left there for use in the remodeling. He had used it last night, employing one of the extra-long, heavy-duty extension cords he had found, and wrapping a water-cooler insulator around the saw to try to dull the noise, since he was working out in the open, away from the protection of his home. But he needn't have worried; the traffic had drowned out everything anyway. And now it was ready-waiting, hidden. His entrance. That was for later, however. He had to focus on today, on completing the first part of his plan. There was so much to do, so many things he'd set in motion.

For the past week, he had been timing the workers at Maingate. They usually left the site at around four o'clock (bless those government workers). The guard on the Tower switched at 6:00 A.M. and 4:00 P.M. There was never more than one guard, probably because the rest had been moved to San Quentin to deal with the Maingate overflow. They were accustomed to having two men guard eighteen Tower prisoners; they probably figured one-on-one was a breeze.

Someday soon, he'd have to go down and take care of things. He'd have to wait until after they left, of course, although he had no choice but to hide his supplies there during daylight. Aside from the Tower guard and Claude Rivers, Maingate was pretty much abandoned by four-thirty. He'd have to remember to wear the pair of dusty overalls from his house, though, just in case someone saw him-that way they would think him one of the workers.

He took pleasure in the solid, unwavering path of his plans.

Walking over to the green Blazer on the path, he opened the door using a key from the carabiner key ring he had lifted from the body. He drove the Blazer far enough into the woods so that it was no longer visible from the road. Leaving it behind a cl.u.s.ter of trees, he got out and headed back to the body, looping his arms under its shoulders so he could drag it to the Jeep. He grunted with effort as he lifted it in the back, pus.h.i.+ng it facedown across the seats. He would dump it somewhere down at the base of the hill.

Throwing the car into drive, he glanced over at the second body he had propped up in the pa.s.senger seat. He leaned over and patted its knee.

He would keep this one.

Jade's eyes opened; the ringing was so loud that at first he thought it was inside his head. He rolled over and lifted the phone off the cradle.

”Marlow. Travers.”

He groaned and rolled onto his side. ”If you want to gloat, I'd prefer a singing telegram.”

”No time, thanks. We got him located. Placed a call and stayed on the phone sixty-three seconds. Three seconds too long. Must've mistimed it.” Travers's voice was charged with excitement.

Jade pulled on his sungla.s.ses in an attempt to s.h.i.+eld the onslaught of light from the crack beneath his curtain. No way, he thought. No way he f.u.c.ks up like that, not by three seconds.

”Who'd he call?”

”His former defense attorney. Made a few threats, shook the guy up pretty bad.”

Jade rubbed his eye with the heel of his hand. It wasn't adding up. Allander would've known that line was hot. ”Where's he fixed?”

”Mountain View. Cross section of Fisk and Glen Boulevard- 4512. We have it listed as unoccupied. Perfect hideout. We're set up and we're moving in twenty. Be there in fifteen.”

”I'll be there in ten,” Jade said, and was immediately out the door.

The complex was surrounded when Jade arrived. It was a two-story strip of small apartments, guarded by a thick brown railing. The apartments were arrayed in two wings that met in the middle, giving a sense of enclosure to the front parking lot. Heavy green curtains were visible through most of the windows on both floors. Probably low-income rental units, he decided.

The building sat back off a fairly busy four-lane street. Jade glanced up the street and saw road workers in orange vests diverting traffic. Jade stood tall next to the officers crouching behind their car doors. FBI all the way. Flas.h.i.+ng lights on undercover cars. He walked through the vehicles lined in the front parking lot.

McGuire looked up at him. ”Get behind a door, Marlow,” he hissed.

”He's not gonna shoot from far away,” Jade said, surveying the scene broadly. ”Not intimate enough.”

McGuire yanked him down by pulling beneath his knee. ”You don't know that. He's never been cornered before,” he said.

<script>