It took him four minutes to cover the fifty feet to the wooden fence enclosing Alex's backyard. It wasn't a high fence, only six feet, built less for privacy than to contain the family dog, Arlo, a mildly neurotic poodle their mother had doted on but whom Ben had mostly just tolerated, and who in any event had long since shuffled off that mortal canine coil. He stood on his toes in the shadows of a clump of oak trees and looked over the fence. He could see the spot at the corner of the house and garage as clearly as though someone had thrown a spotlight on it. It was empty. He glanced around the yard. It was exactly as he remembered. The clubhouse their father had built them when they were kids. The hot tub no one ever used. It was like Alex was living in some kind of family museum. It was pathetic.

He scanned the yard and, seeing no one, put the Glock back into the holster and pulled himself carefully up onto the fence. He turned sideways, eased over his right leg, then his left, then slowly lowered himself to the ground. He brought out the Glock again and waited, looking and listening. Nothing.

Most of the yard was covered in wood chips or gravel. He avoided those areas, keeping to the grass, staying in the shadows. Step. Stop. Look and listen. Step. Stop. Look and listen.

The spot by the garage was so perfect an ambush point that once he had confirmed it was empty he doubted anyone was here. Probably they were short on manpower at this point. Or they figured Alex wasn't coming back tonight. Or both.

Still, best to be certain. The only other spot that would make any sense as an ambush point was the opposite corner of the house, which faced the street at the end of a narrow dog run framed by the house on one side and the fence on the other. You could stand at the front corner in the dark and still see the street, then head back toward the garage when you saw a car turn in.

He moved carefully toward the house, stopping at the raised wooden deck that led to a pair of sliding doors and the kitchen. Step. Stop. Look and listen. He hunkered low, taking advantage of the cover and concealment the deck offered, and began to move laterally.

He was almost at the left corner of the house, and getting ready to take a quick peek past the edge, when he heard a voice from behind him, quiet but cutting with deadly intent through the silent night air.

“Don't turn around. I'm wearing goggles, too. I'm behind cover, and there's a laser dot right on your spine.”

Ben had a nanosecond to decide whether to instantly turn and engage or to comply. The calm confidence in the voice, and the facts it had just articulated, persuaded him the second choice was better. For now.

He remained motionless. Where was the guy? From where the voice had come from, he must be behind the hot tub.

“Drop the gun and lose the goggles,” the voice said. “Move very, very slowly. The laser is attached to a Taurus Judge.”

Ben knew the model-a revolver that could be chambered with.410 shotgun ammunition, rifled to disperse the shot and shred a fist-sized hole from twenty feet out.

In instant mental shorthand, his mind processed the available information. The accent was American, the diction idiomatic. He understood Ben knew firearms, otherwise he wouldn't have been able to count on the mention of the Taurus having the desired effect. He didn't want Ben dead-yet-otherwise he'd be dead already.

So they wanted something from him. He would find out what soon enough. In the meantime, he had a few advantages. Very small, under the circumstances, but better than nothing at all. He closed his eyes.

“Drop the gun and lose the goggles,” the voice said again.

He waited, figuring he'd get one last warning, using the extra seconds to think, to give his eyes more time to adjust to the dark he would face without the goggles.

He understood the nature of his mistake. He'd assumed they would be laying an ambush for Alex, a civilian. Instead, they'd been ready for an operator, him, and adjusted their tactics and positioning accordingly. He was furious with himself for failing to have foreseen this. After they'd lost two at the Four Seasons that morning, they would have known there was serious opposition. They'd outthought him. And outplayed him.

Then he realized. The girl. Goddamn her. Goddamn himself, for letting his guard down. She was plenty smart, smarter than you'd have to be to figure out what he was planning on tonight. She'd made a call, after their little moment in the corridor. And that clueless pat-down in the bar… she played dumb like a pro.

“One more chance to lose the gun and the goggles, and then I put you down.”

Without turning, Ben extended the Glock away from his body, moving very slowly as though trying to reassure the guy of his docility, but in fact giving his closed eyes precious seconds more to adjust. The Glock dropped to the wet grass with a quiet thump.

“Now the goggles. Slowly.”

The empty holster felt like a hollow in his guts. The knowledge that Alex had his backup made him want to puke. Slowly, slowly, he loosened the headgear and eased off the goggles. He opened his eyes. He had a little night vision back. But not enough. Not yet. He extended the goggles to his side and let them fall.

“Where's the one who lives here?” the voice asked.

Thank God he'd put Alex in the extra room. They must have checked the one where the girl thought he was sleeping. It was something, but it wouldn't last. In just a few hours, Alex would wake up and probably knock on Sarah's door. Without Ben to warn him, he'd be toast.

He didn't answer. The guy had given him three tries on the gun and goggles. Now that Ben was disarmed and running blind, the guy could be expected to be at least that patient again.

“Where is he?” the voice asked.

“I don't know,” Ben said.

“We don't want to hurt him. He has something we need. If he hands it over, he walks away. Simple.”

If he hadn't been a hair away from being eviscerated with buckshot, Ben might have laughed. He knew what the guy was doing: helping Ben rationalize giving Alex up. Don't help us, and you die, went the implicit calculus. Do help us, and your brother will be fine. Easy, right?

“I really don't know,” Ben said. He shifted his eyes left, then right. Things were coming into focus now in the faint moonlight. And he knew the layout, knew it by heart.

“Let me tell you how it's going to be,” the voice said. “You tell me where he is. I make a phone call. Some people go talk to him. You and I wait here, in his nice, warm house. When the people call me back to tell me they have what we need, we all go away, and everyone lives happily ever after. Sound good?”

This time, Ben did laugh. “Yeah. Like a fairy tale.”

He was five feet from the corner of the house, a gap that in his present circumstances looked as wide as the Grand Canyon. There was something just on the other side he could use. Assuming it was still there, of course. If it wasn't, even if he made it around the corner, he was dead. But Alex hadn't changed anything else. And regardless, it was his only chance.

“Listen, buddy, you're in a bad spot, I know. But here's the way it is. Maybe I'm bullshitting you. Maybe I'm not. But trust me on this, okay? When I ask you again? This one more time I'm going to ask you? If you don't tell me something I can work with, the thing you'll see a second later, the last thing you'll see ever, will be the mist that used to be your insides.”

Without letting any sign of it come to the surface, Ben tensed to move faster than he had ever moved in his life. Then he laughed, long and hard and with a confidence he absolutely didn't feel. The laughter was inappropriate and incongruous, and no matter how good the guy was, trying to process it was going to momentarily suck up a few precious neurons.