If he’d hit a home run, Tomas would have whooped and pumped his fist in the air. This is way better than a home run, but he knows he’s running out of time. So instead of celebrating he gets on his knees and uses both hands to burrow into the pink insulation, sending chunks of it flying over his head. Exposing the gray backing paper of the Sheetrock that forms the outer wall of his prison.

Not plywood, but Sheetrock. He recognizes it as the same stuff from the inside of his closet at home. It looks hard, but it’s not as strong as plywood, and he knows that, too.

Tomas starts clawing at the Sheetrock with his bleeding nails.

Dr. Stanley Munk is striding through the gleaming halls of his exclusive clinic when the cell phone in his Canali trouser pocket starts to vibrate. He considers not answering. He considers throwing the damn phone to the floor and crushing it underfoot. Instead, he ducks into his office, locks the door and flips open the phone.

“Yes.”

“Good afternoon, Doctor. How’s every little thing?”

Munk recognizes the voice of his oppressor. The fake cop or phony FBI agent or whatever he is. Paul Defield, if you can believe it. Man with the gun, and with the power to shatter his world. Also the man who can make everything better.

“Fuck you,” says Munk.

“I see you’ve recovered your sense of well-being. That’s good. I want you at the top of your game.”

Munk has been awaiting the call. Dreading it ever since Defield pressed the phone into his hands. “What you ask is impossible,” he says, repeating what he’s been rehearsing in his own mind for hours. “Can’t be done on short notice.”

“Oh, you can make it happen, Doctor,” the voice says, sounding oddly cheerful. “I checked the schedules for your surgical team.”

“How could you possibly—?” Munk stops himself. Of course, the spyware. The bastard not only knows about the laptop, about the perfect tens, he knows everything that happens in the clinic, and when. It makes Munk feel unclean, violated, and his burst of anger morphs into a cold, lingering fear. He has to find a way to get this man out of his life. Tells himself he’d cheerfully kill the son of a bitch, but Dr. Munk has never killed anyone. Not intentionally.

“The new patient will be delivered to you in Scarsdale tomorrow morning at 0600 hours,” says the cool, confident voice. “Six o’clock sharp, at the rear entrance. You will meet the ambulance yourself. You will not delegate the task, do you understand?”

“Listen to me,” Munk says, whispering fiercely as his eyes flick to the locked door. “What you ask can’t be done! It takes days to prep a patient for surgery like that. Dammit, we don’t even know the blood type.”

“Blood type is A negative,” responds the voice.

“It’s more than blood type. You don’t know what you’re asking.”

“Here’s what I know about your clinic, Dr. Munk, and what you can do on short notice, given the proper motivation. Two years ago you performed a similar procedure on a certain Arab gentleman, a member of the Saudi royal family. Do you recall the gentleman?”

“Yes,” Munk admits. “But that was different.”

“Not so different,” insists the voice. “His private air ambulance landed at JFK at 5:00 a.m. and was whisked through customs. By nine he was in surgery. It’s all in the files.”

Munk sinks into his custom-built ergonomic chair. Eight grand and it feels like a chunk of lumpy ice under his buttocks. Cold sweat runs from under his arms, soaking his shirt. He feels like puking, and forces himself to swallow the gorge rising. He remembers the Saudi prince vividly, and the enormous fee paid by his grateful family.

“A million bucks,” says the voice. “Not bad for a day’s work. I don’t blame you for not declaring a nice tidy sum like that, or keeping most of it secret from your partners. They have any idea what a deceptive bastard you are? Any idea what you’re doing when you go to Thailand twice a year?”

The doctor feels his stomach slip away, as if he’s just gone over the top of a particularly steep roller coaster. A roller coaster with no bottom, no end in sight.

“You still there?” the voice wants to know. “Cat got your tongue?”

“Who are you?” Munk asks. “Who are you, really? And how do you know these things?”

“My sources are not your concern. Your only concern is the surgery you’ll be performing tomorrow.”

“We had full medical records on the prince,” Munk protests. “We knew exactly what to expect. This is different.”

“My son comes with full medical records, too,” says the voice. “You’ll have them tomorrow morning. The driver will hand you a file. It’s all there. Everything you require.”

“You’re insane.”

The voice chuckles, very intimate, as if he’s right there in the room with Munk. “Maybe I am,” he says. “That doesn’t change what will happen if you don’t do exactly as I say. We have a deal, Dr. Munk. A deal that keeps you out of jail. A deal that keeps your ugly little secret. As soon as we conclude this discussion, you will put your surgical team on alert. Tell them it’s another celebrity. The son of a politician or a movie star. Another Saudi prince, if you like. Very hush-hush. Use your imagination.”

“They’ll never believe me.”

“Of course they will,” says the voice. “You’re a really good liar, Dr. Munk. World-class. Make them believe.”

35 when the dark lightning strikes

Our first big break comes at five after two in the afternoon. Connie has helped me raise the ten grand for the bail bondsman and now we’re back at my dingy motel to pick up the rental. Shane looks almost as discouraged as I feel. The inquiry into the adoption records has been a bust and he’s about to tell me how bad it is when his cell phone chirps.

He glances at the incoming number. “I have to take this call in private,” he explains, somber-faced.

I offer to leave the room, but he waves me off, and a moment later he’s outside. I can see him through the window, holding the phone to his ear with one hand while he extracts pen and notebook from his shirt pocket. The fact that he’s avoiding eye contact is more than a little disturbing. Is this more bad news on the way, is that why he doesn’t want me to overhear the conversation?

Maybe the worst has happened. Maybe the state police have found a body. Maria would surely contact him first, let him break the bad news.

It’s a fairly mild day for late June, but the room suddenly feels claustrophobic and it’s all I can do not to open the door and bolt.

Please, God, don’t let this be when the black lightning strikes.

When Shane finally slips back into the room my heart is pounding so hard it makes my ribs hurt. But his eyes are crinkled up in a slow smile, so it can’t be the news I’ve been dreading. Something else has happened, and he’s quick to let me know, sensing my anxiety.

“My contact at the Pentagon came through,” he announces, holding up his notebook. “We’ve got a list of Army Special Operation Forces personnel in the area, active and inactive, and several of them fit the general description.”

I’d forgotten to breathe, and take a deep, shuddering lungful. The air burns, but it feels oh so good.

Reading from his notes, Shane begins to go into detail.

“There are five men within the thirty-five-to-forty age group who would be likely to wear the unsheathed-dagger tattoo,” he says. “No specific confirms on the tats, unfortunately. Not yet anyhow. But get this, one of the guys has a ten-year-old son. An adopted son with medical problems. We’ll start with him.”