David Lindsey - The Rules of Silence

“And if Macias doesn't buy that story? ”Norlin persisted.

Burden turned to him. “Think about it, Gil. We wiped out this entire operation. Hell, I can hardly believe that myself. That's got to scare the hell out of him. I've got to guess that at this point Jorge Macias is entirely focused on saving his ass.”

“But what if he doesn't buy the lie about the swallowed bug?”

“Then he'll take Cain with him. And even if he does that, he'll have to be thinking, in the back of his mind, that maybe he's guessed wrong. That maybe I'm watching this monitor, and I can see Cain's bug leaving with Macias and not staying with the Navigator like we'd agreed. He'll remember that I said that if he did anything other than what we agreed on, then he's a dead man. The second he deviates from our agreement- if he does-he's going to be sweating blood. People who sweat blood make mistakes. ”He looked at the monitor. “Calo's still on him.”

“Yeah, way back, ”the technician said. “More than a mile.”

The van was on the move again, too, just about a mile behind Calo.

Burden kept his eyes on the LorGuides. Up until now everything had worked far better than he'd had any reason to expect it would, but now he had no men to spare, and what happened next was largely out of his hands. All he could do was listen to it happening.

“There's another way to look at his thinking, ”Burden said. “He knows damn well that his security is tied to Cain. He may hang on to him like a drowning man hangs on to a piece of driftwood. There's that possibility. If that's the way it goes, and if he tosses that gun for any reason at all, or loses it, or forgets it in the panic, Calo will go straight to it, and we're screwed.”

“Cain's screwed, ”Norlin corrected him.

“They've turned off onto South Loop One, ”a technician said.

“Pull up the maps in the southwest part of the city, ”Burden said.

“If Macias continues on his course”-Norlin leaned across and pointed to the map on the largest of four screens-“he'll go into Oak Hill. He's headed for an intersection where he'll have to make a choice between two highways. One, a state highway, goes toward the lakes and on to Llano; the other one, a U.S. highway, better condition, can take you to Fredericksburg or south to San Antonio. All of them go through ranch country.”

Burden stared at the map. Macias was headed into his escape plan. For it to work, he was going to have to drop off the LorGuides somehow. He had to disappear.

Titus's hands were shaking on the steering wheel from the rush of adrenaline that just didn't stop coming. They drove south on Loop 360, where the city had effused into the rolling hills with up-market developments that overflowed into the wooded valleys and crawled along the crowns of the ridges, their lights spreading like a sparkling mildew into the rolling landscape. They stayed with the Loop as it turned back east on the southern side of the city, and when it intersected Loop 1, Macias told him to turn right and head south.

Macias wasn't talking, and Titus found it particularly unnerving that he didn't ease off with the automatic, which he kept screwed into the base of Titus's skull. He could actually feel the roundness of the barrel, and it felt like a coffin to him.

When Loop 1 intersected Highways 290 and 71, Macias directed him to exit on the access road. From there they headed off into the more traditional housing developments, street after street of ranch houses interspersed with shopping centers and apartment complexes.

“Pull in here, ”Macias said, and Titus wheeled into a new shopping center carved out of acres and acres of new ranch houses. There was a twenty-four-hour supermarket, a twentyfour-hour home repairs complex, a twenty-four-hour pharmacy franchise, a twenty-four-hour restaurant franchise, and several smaller businesses, their common sprawling parking area brightly lighted by towering halogen street lamps.

“Park here, ”Macias instructed, directing Titus to one of the largest clusters of cars in the area. He got out and opened Titus's door.

“Come on, ”he said, but as Titus turned to get out, Macias reached in and put the barrel of his pistol to Titus's Adam's apple. He said nothing, but he pressed so hard that Titus could feel the cartilage of his trachea rolling under the steel. Then Macias jabbed the gun sharply for emphasis, bringing tears to Titus's eyes.

“Get the keys and hand them to me, ”Macias said.

Titus did, and then Macias stepped back and let him get out.

Standing next to the Navigator, he watched Macias pull out his shirttail to cover the automatic with the suppressor and the mole, which he crammed into the front waistband of his pants. Titus cringed, hoping he didn't rake the mole off in the process.

Macias put his arm around Titus and draped his left hand over the top of his shoulder. “I know you want to keep your kidneys, ”he said. “Let's go.”

But Titus froze. “Hold it. This isn't what we agreed on. They'll kill you if I don't stay with the Navigator.”

“They'll have to find us first.”

“Look, ”Titus said, “I've… I'll be honest with you. I'm hot. I've swallowed a bug. They know where I am every second. When they see my signal leaving the car, you're screwed.”

“Then why in the hell are you telling me this?”

“Because I'm not an idiot. I don't want to get killed in a shoot-out, and I'm telling you, if I leave this Navigator, they're going to come after you.”

They were standing face-to-face, and Macias smelled of stale cologne and perspiration. Both men were dealing with fear and with the mystery of the odds of chance. Titus could smell Macias's breath, too, and he thought it smelled of desperation.

Rita looked out of the backseat windows of Kal's Jeep Cherokee as it pulled off the Loop 1 South expressway and into the parking lot of the La Quinta Inn. Kal was driving, Ryan was sitting in the front passenger seat beside him, and Janet was sitting next to Rita behind them.

They pulled up beside a van just as its rear door opened, and Garcia Burden stepped out into the parking lot. They all got out of the Cherokee and stood at the opened door of the van to talk. Rita could see inside the van, its cramped, dark interior glittering with banks of computer screens covered in colored lights. A clutter of transmission noises wafted out to her.

Burden spoke directly to her. “Two things: I don't have any more people, and before this is over I may need your three bodyguards here. So this is good for me. The other thing, you're right. If he's going to die, you shouldn't have to watch it like that. If this involved a lot of people, as it did earlier in the evening, I wouldn't have allowed this. But it's down to just Titus and Macias.

“Titus's signal has stopped moving, ”he went on, “and it's coming from somewhere in all those shopping center lights over there.”

He pointed across the expressway. The back of his saggy shirt was black with perspiration. He seemed wrung out. “Calo's over there, trying to get as close as he can. If we're lucky, that's where Macias is planning to leave Titus with the telephone.”

Ryan turned and stepped inside the van and immediately came back out with one of the technicians, who was carrying a LorGuide that they'd disconnected. They went to the Cherokee and started installing it between the driver and the passenger in the front seat.

“Hey, ”Norlin said from inside the van. “It looks like the signal's leaving the Navigator.”

Burden was instantly back inside the van, and the others crowded around the opened rear door.

“This's a big supermarket, ”Norlin said, pointing to the schematic graphics on one of the screens. “It looks like the signal's going in.”