Killing the blonde had put a bolt of lightning up their collective asses. They’d turned the lawyer’s house into a bunker. And now they were all packing guns. This was like trying to run with a load of lead in their pockets. They couldn’t fly, not commercial, not with all the metal. The guns would tend to keep them grounded and offered little protection as far as Liquida was concerned. He liked to work in close with something sharp.

Liquida knew something was up the minute the other lawyer’s car moved in the middle of the night-3:42 in the morning to be precise. It went from the parking lot behind the lawyer’s apartment to a location in downtown San Diego.

This was strange because for two days running, the car’s owner had been shacked up in Madriani’s house, barricaded with the rest of them.

Since Madriani and the investigator were in the car that just went by, Liquida figured that the girl and the other partner must have been in the van. He knew the house was empty. He’d watched Madriani going to all of the windows, locking everything up. It didn’t take a law degree to figure out where the van was headed. Liquida could take care of business, watching his computer, until the other lawyer’s car, the one in San Diego, started to move again. There was nowhere they could hide that he couldn’t find them. If they crawled under a rock, Liquida and his stiletto would be there waiting for them.

The phone rang in his study and Bart Snyder picked it up. “Hello.”

“Mr. Snyder?”

“Speaking.”

“Volney Dimmick here. Got your message. Sorry I couldn’t get back to you sooner. I’ve been meaning to dictate a report and get it off to you, but I’ve been so damn busy…”

“Don’t worry about the report. Tell me what you found out.” Snyder was no rube. The fact that Joe Wallace, the young FBI agent, had refused to share information wasn’t going to slow him down.

Dimmick was a private investigator in a Washington, D.C., agency known as the Brownstone Group. Brownstone had a reputation for cherry-picking many of their employees from key government agencies, including the FBI, CIA, and Defense Department. They were well connected. Besides investigations they did consulting and had a number of high-profile clients, including some major corporations. Snyder knew that if you couldn’t get information one way, you could always get it another.

“We’re still working on it but we have some information,” said Dimmick. “First off, the police are now operating on the theory of foul play, that your son’s death was not an accidental overdose.”

“I knew it,” said Snyder. “What did they find?”

“This is confidential,” said Dimmick.

“I understand.”

“If word leaks, the police will know where it came from and it’s going to be very difficult to get further details.”

“Yeah, I know. What did they find out?”

“The point of injection was on the back of the hand,” said Dimmick, “which is very unusual, especially for somebody who is inexperienced in shooting up. The veins can be harder to find. So you have to ask yourself why he would pick that location instead of the inside of the forearm.”

“That’s it?” said Snyder.

“No,” said Dimmick. “It was the fact that the injection was in the back of the left hand that caught their attention.”

“Jimmie was left-handed,” said Snyder.

“Correct,” said Dimmick. “He’d need his left hand to operate the syringe. If he was going to shoot up, he’d do it in the back of the right hand.”

“That’s why the police asked me whether Jimmie was right-or left-handed,” said Snyder.

“Evidently. And there’s more. Forensics found loose hair and fibers on the body. The fibers didn’t match anything your son was wearing that day, and the way they laid on the surface of his clothing indicated that they were transferred after he was on the bed. Long and short of it is somebody else was in the room when your son died, and no doubt was handling the syringe.”

“Good work,” said Snyder. “Did you get any information on the Mexican?”

“Nothing solid. No mug shots, no rap sheet, but according to our sources at DEA, drug enforcement, he does exist. Up until about a year ago he was one of the Tijuana cartels’ major badass soldiers. Word is he would kill anybody for a fee and was highly efficient at what he did. Of course, if he was involved in your son’s murder, he stepped in it.”

“How could he know Jimmie was left-handed?” said Snyder.

“Good point.”

“You said up until a year ago he worked for the cartel. Who’s he working for now?”

“According to the information he’s always been freelance, but the cartel was his principal client. According to DEA he’s branched out. He was involved last year, you probably read about it, in that attack outside the North Island Naval Air Station near San Diego.”

“I’ll be damned,” said Snyder.

“What is it?”

“Never mind.” Suddenly the pieces started to snap together, the Internet research he’d done on Madriani. His name had popped up in connection with the same event. And according to Madriani, Liquida was after him. “Go on,” said Snyder.

“It’s not exactly clear what Liquida’s involvement was in the San Diego thing, but word is he’s now hiring out to multinational terror groups. I don’t know if you remember, back in the seventies, Carlos the Jackal. It’s like that except without the ideology. Apparently, according to our sources, the only thing Liquida believes in is money.”

“Do they have any idea where he is?”

“No. A man like that doesn’t leave forwarding addresses. I may be stepping out of line,” said Dimmick, “but I’m not sure exactly why you’re doing a parallel investigation with the police. Although I understand that families sometimes just want to stay on top of things. You’re paying us, so it’s none of my business. But if you want some advice…”

“What’s that?”

“If this guy is involved, this Liquida, you do not, repeat, do not want to be looking for him yourself. Leave it to the police.”

“Do you know if they’re looking for him in connection with Jimmie’s death?” said Snyder.

“We ran the name by them, but our sources didn’t know,” said Dimmick.

“There you go,” said Snyder. “What about the other name, Thorn?”

“You were right about that one. The FBI does have an open file on him. We should be able to get some photos, wanted posters, in a day or so. We went to the Internet, but the online Justice Department photos don’t go back that far. I have to say the FBI was not terribly helpful,” said Dimmick. “But we did find information elsewhere. One of the intelligence agencies has a good-size file on this guy Thorn. And the fact that it’s open would indicate to us that they still see him as active.”

“Can we get a copy of the file?”

“No chance,” said Dimmick. “They won’t even let us look at it. But they did give us a few tidbits. They confirmed everything you told me. In fact, they wanted to know where I got the information.”

“Did you tell them?”

“Of course not. Thorn, under the name Dean Belden, was subpoenaed to appear before a federal grand jury in Seattle about ten years ago. But he never showed. He was reported killed in a plane accident shortly afterward, but the accident, according to the authorities, was staged. Thorn was apparently involved in a terrorist plot in D.C., though the details were sketchy and the agency we talked to would not provide clarification. A few months later, U.S. authorities tracked Thorn to Africa, Somalia, where he was in hiding. After that, nothing.”

“Any associates, contacts, people he knew?” said Snyder.

“No.”

“So all they would tell us was what we already knew,” said Snyder.

“A few other items,” said Dimmick. “Thorn, aka Belden and a score of other aliases, is believed to be Australian. He specializes in weapons technology and transport, mostly aviation. He’s done a lot of business with the boneyards over the years.”