Gregg Hurwitz - Troubleshooter

Tim and Bear pulled behind the pool, keeping an eye on the shadow in the living room. Bear radioed in for backup, speaking in a murmur.

Tim got Guerrera on the line and gave him a whispered summary.

"So you think the AT's in the case on the bike?" Guerrera asked.

Tim could hear the squeal of tires as Jim banked sharply-they were hauling ass. "I'm guessing. Why?"

"I don't see him making a getaway on a theme bike. Kind of dumb-ass for Laurey, no?"

"You think it's a decoy?"

"He wouldn't leave without his bike. Was it his bike?"

"I don't know. The new paint job."

"What was the engine? Panhead or knucklehead?"

"I couldn't see clearly."

"Were there aluminum heads on the engine?"

"Yes."

"That's a panhead. Not his bike. Remember, Den rides a knuckle-head."

Tim flashed on the unlikely trailer he and Bear had passed in the alley. "I gotta go check something out. Get here soon."

"Twenty minutes and closing."

Bear came back and crouched beside Tim.

"Comm center said twenty minutes for backup," he whispered.

"That's what Guerrera gave me. Could mean thirty."

"True."

"Guerrera thinks the garage bike's a decoy."

"So where's the real bike?"

"I'm thinking back there. With the AT."

Bear followed him only as far as the rear gate so he could keep an eye on Den's form moving in the living room. Tim climbed up the already lowered ramp to the lonesome horse trailer-an inconspicuous getaway vehicle if ever there was one. He picked the lock swiftly and swung the gate open. Pointing out at the ramp, a chopper. Spray-painted black. Knucklehead engine.

The bike looked the same as when Den had ridden up to the Suicide Clutch bar, except that a thick-lidded metal container the size of a shoe box had been bolted, then arc-welded, to the frame behind the seat. Tim took one look at the dense Medeco double-cylinder lock and knew he couldn't get through it with a pick. Or, from the look of it, with a blowtorch. He tapped it with a fist, and it gave off a hollow ring. Quarter-inch steel or thicker. A hefty safe for the product.

Ten yards down the alley, Bear was on his tiptoes, keeping the living room in view. Tim snapped Precious over and directed her nose to the box. She was explosive-detection trained, not a drug dog, so she hit on the booby trap under the seat first. It took some direction to get her refocused on the box, but when she was, she reacted strongly, licking the seam of the lid. Tim ordered her to seek, and she sat immediately; she'd registered a strong scent. It was hard to believe the small metal box could contain nearly $50 million of product.

At his post, Bear looked from Precious to the motorcycle. "This bike cannot leave here," he said. "No matter what."

Tim reached into a pocket and came out with his knife. He leaned over the bike for a moment, cut a wire in the frame tubing, and straightened up. "It won't," he said.

He and Bear made their way back to the veranda. They crept to the windows.

Den was where they'd left him, on his knees in the living room before the TV. He zipped up his bag and gave it a pat. His hand tapped what looked like an empty sheath, hung over his arm shoulder-holster style, and he cursed and headed back into the house's interior.

Bear gestured to where his watch would have been and whispered, "He's splitting. We gotta make a move."

"We should cover the trailer and let him come to us."

"What if he catches wind?" Bear pointed at the vivid Harley in the garage. "Just because it's a decoy doesn't mean it don't run."

"True. But we've got more doors and windows than we can stay on top of. We go in after him, he could get around us, and the AT's wide open." Tim ground his teeth, hoping Dray would contribute to the debate. It occurred to him that she'd been off the air for a time now, and he dreaded what that could mean. He'd never thought of himself as superstitious, but his inability to find her voice in himself-her vanishing-seemed a bad omen.

A deep breath fluttered Bear's nostrils. "You took care of the bike already."

"Not the Camaro. He can just pull the trailer pin and take off."

"If he's willing to leave his bike. And the drugs."

Tim stepped away from the glass. "Why take the gamble? I'll run back, disable the Camaro."

Approaching footsteps creaked the floorboards. Tim froze-too late.

He and Bear regarded each other on the back porch, Precious waiting silently behind them, pressed to their calves. Despite the cold, big drops of sweat stood out on Bear's forehead. They hung at the hairline, defying gravity. Tim felt his own heart pounding, making his face flush, his ears throb. His hands tightened around the grip of his Smith amp; Wesson.

He nodded.

He freed his Mag-Lite from his cargo pocket and pointed it at the ground. He would have preferred night-vision goggles to breach the dark house, but the heavy flashlight would have to do.

Den returned from the far room, now wearing a black tank top. The bowie knife gleamed, showing off its sinister curve until he jammed it into its sheath. He sank to his knees again, partially disappearing behind the couch, and dumped a few more items into the backpack.

"…authorities believe that Den Laurey, considered armed and extremely dangerous, remains at large in the Greater Los Angeles area…"

Den's head snapped up, the TV framing it almost perfectly. Then he reached for something on the floor. His shoulders rippled with an unseen motion of his hands, and then he rose, street-ready in his originals, the flame-ensconced laughing skull ascending into view from behind the couch.

Melissa Yueh continued, "…locates this man, Den Laurey, they are urged to contact…"

For once the local news star's irritating habit of hogging live screen time was a blessing. Den hovered in front of the TV, waiting to hit the "power" button until his coverage was done.

Tim and Bear exploded through the back door. "Freeze! U.S. Marshals!"

"Hands up! Get 'em up!"

The circle of Tim's light captured Den's face, frozen in surprise. His hands were raised, the FTW tattoo peeking out from the collar of his tank top. The leather jacket hid his knife and at least one gun.

Backing slowly to the wall, he squinted into the light. His stubbled cheeks tensed, then relaxed as his lips pursed in an intimation of a grin, his expression a perfect match for the mug-shot smirk filling the TV screen. "Troubleshooter." He might have been greeting an old friend.

"Freeze," Bear said. "Now."

Den took another half step back, his shoulder brushing the blank wall by the staircase. An upside-down sheriff's deputy patch had been added to the filthy leather, right over the heart, a fresh addition.

Tim's anger flared, then burned down to a cool blue flame. He lined the sights just below Den's collarbone tattoo, right on the clean badge. His hands were steady, as steady as they'd ever been. At fifteen feet Den didn't have a prayer.

"This is your last chance to live," Tim said. "You run, you die."

His hands still held high, Den rubbed against the wall, like a grizzly scratching his back on a tree trunk. At the last instant, it hit Tim what he was doing, and he shouted and lunged forward as the light switch clicked on and the light-socket bomb exploded. A brilliant flash lit the room with instant, eye-scorching clarity, and BBs shot past his head. A hunk of shrapnel blew out the TV. Tim got the Mag-Lite back up while BBs were still rattling on the floor, but Den was gone.

Bear rolled to his side, coughing. "Yawright?"

Tim leapt to his feet. Den could've taken off through the garage on the Harley by now, but the door remained open, the painted bike in place. Footsteps pounded across the ceiling, and then came the smash of the second-floor window, the tinkle of falling glass, the creak of a drainpipe. Precious was barking as Tim ran out onto the veranda and Den's shadow thundered overhead, firing down in yellow starbursts, the whole structure creaking with his weight. Tim dove behind a post, skidding on the distressed wood.