Lee spilled – about Corsco, about Hernandez, all of it.

“But you don’t know where Hardin is now?” Husam said, leaning forward a little, opening the shears.

“NO! Man. Fuck no. I mean, I told you. My main gig is Chicago, right? Got eyeballs on everybody down there. Out here? I mean, I can hack systems and shit, been running checks on his Hardin ID, on that Fox ID he used. But I got nothing.”

“All right,” said Husam, fitting the shears around the next toe.

“FUCKFUCKFUCK! Hey, wait! One more thing. I mean probably nothing, right? But I got a call from Hernandez’s guy like an hour back, wanted me to run a check on an address. Turned out to be some chick who works for the DEA.I mean, I didn’t tell you cause I figure that’s just day-to-day stuff for him, nothing to do with Hardin that I can see, but I mean that’s something, right? I’m not holding back on you here.”

Husam pulled the shears away from Lee’s foot, sliced the tape off Lee’s wrists, and turned the chair toward the computer terminal on the desk.

“Print out that address.”

Lee clacked away at the keys for a moment. A printer to the left started spitting out a sheet.

Husam al Din shot Lee three times through the back of the head, close enough that one of the slugs punched through, coming out Lee’s eye socket, blowing some gore onto the monitor. Amazing what these Americans would believe. He pulled another of the disposable cell phones from his pocket and called a number in Tokyo.

“What do you need?” Al Din asked.

“Are you at the terminal?” answered the voice on the other end.

“Yes.”

“Good. Sit down. This will take a few minutes…”

Al Din followed the instructions from the hacker – not the MOIS middleman, but his own contact, one he had used before. After several minutes of entering commands, his contact told him he had what he needed – he could access the Chicago system remotely now. Al Din alone would have access to the surveillance system – not the Mexicans, not the Italians, and not his friends in Tehran. If knowledge was power, sometimes you became more powerful not by learning something yourself but instead by insuring the ignorance of your enemies.

“This system,” al Din asked, “you can use it to find specific people?”

“Maybe,” said the voice on the phone. “If you’ve got a good photo and you can narrow down the locations I have to search.”

“I’m texting you a picture,” said al Din. “He would be in a local hotel.”

“OK,” said the voice. “If he’s in a hotel covered by the cameras, I’ll know in a few hours.”

Al Din ended the call, pulled up the picture he needed on his phone and sent it to his contact. The Stein murder, the stolen diamond shipment, these things would not escape the notice of Western intelligence agencies. And the size of the shipment would raise alarm. Mossad, they would know about the shipment, and they would want al Din’s head for Stein. They weren’t beyond operating in the US on their own, but most likely they would work through channels. Their relationship with Washington was too important to them. But how would the US react? Officially? Or had they sent Munroe?

If this was being pursued through normal channels – the theft of the shipment noted, the intel routed to Langley for threat assessment, notices forwarded to CIA residents in the usual places, and then to the FBI for domestic processing, perhaps some coordination with local authorities regarding Stein – then it was just business as usual. The CIA was very good at what it did, but it was bureaucratic, which meant it moved slowly and, to anyone who had dodged them before, somewhat predictably.

But if they had sent Munroe, that was another thing entirely. In al Din’s twenty years playing this game, Munroe was the only man who had ever gotten close to him – and he’d done it twice. Al Din’s Japanese friend would run the picture, then al Din would know.

Al Din grabbed the sheet from Lee’s printer. The address was in Downers Grove, the next town east and on his way back to the hotel. Worth a stop.

CHAPTER 47

Seephus Jones would get his payday. If you want to keep the troops motivated, they have to know that you will hold up your end. But Hernandez hadn’t been to war with Jones. He didn’t want any second-string talent fucking this up. Julio, Roberto, Miko, Gomez, they’d all shed blood for Hernandez before, theirs and others.

“Jones, you take the corner here,” Hernandez said as they got to the side of the condo building. “Watch the garage, watch the side door. You see that fuck coming out, you put him down and call me. You got it?”

Jones nodded, a little relief on his face, the kid not ready for combat. Hernandez knew he’d made the right call.

The condo was on the second floor. Guns out now, Hernandez and Miko took the elevator; Gomez and Roberto took the stairs, just in case. Middle of the day, the building was quiet.

Husam al Din was sitting in the easy chair in the living room of the woman’s condo. He had been there for almost twenty minutes. When he arrived, he had knocked on the door, double-checked the paper he had taken from Lee.2B. He had the right door. The hallway was empty, so he stood and listened for a few minutes. He knew what an empty room sounded like. The woman was a member of the American drug police, so she would be concerned with security. It took a few minutes with the picks. He took the .22 from under his jacket and eased the door open, waiting another moment for any reaction. None. He stepped in and looked at the back of the door. There was a thumb lock she could throw when she was inside, one no one could access from the hall. That’s when he knew for sure no one was home. She would lock that if she were here. He shut the door. He searched the rooms briefly to see if there was anything to learn. Then he sat to wait for the woman to return. Perhaps more to learn that way. He had the shears and the duct tape in the messenger bag on the floor next to him.

Roberto and Gomez went up the stairs quickly, Gomez moving into the hall first, then motioning for Roberto. The stairs came out one door away from 2B.The elevator was at the far end of the hall. They would have to wait a moment.

Hardin and Wilson watched from a table in the window of the coffee shop, saw Hernandez’s group come up Warren. Hernandez left the scrawny kid in the red polo shirt at the corner – the same kid Hardin had seen hanging around the last few hours, eyeballing the condo.

“Looks like you were right,” said Wilson.

“Paranoia pays,” said Hardin. “You see the Escalade anywhere?” He’d watched the black SUV turn off of Main, the kid following it down to the alley.

Wilson shook her head.

“So there could be another guy or two we can’t see,” Hardin said.

“Yeah,” said Wilson

“Sorry,” he said.

“For what?” she asked.

“I shouldn’t have been on the balcony. Dumb move.”

“Fuck that,” she said. “Water under the bridge.”

Hernandez’s cell buzzed again, then the ping that told him he had a text. It had buzzed a couple times as he walked up the street, but he wasn’t taking calls right now. Only a few people would text him, though. It would be a second before the elevator got there. He checked his screen.

OWNER OF 2B IS A DEA AGENT

Shit. A trap? They bring this Hardin in to set him up? He hit the speed dial for Gomez. No answer. He was about to call Roberto when he heard the gunfire upstairs. He called Julio instead, yanked Miko out of the elevator, and headed for the door.

Husam al Din had waited long enough. There were very few papers in the apartment, nothing that told him anything. A few pictures, the same attractive woman in several of them, must be the drug agent. The woman would probably not be home until the end of the workday, and the building would be more crowded then. Probably not the time to have the kind of discussion he would need. He would come back later, pick up her trail, and find an opportunity. He opened the door to leave.