Gregg Hurwitz - The Program

"The license plates on your Hummer are registered to Tom Altman. Nice touch. But you see, we're more thorough than that. So I sent my investigator down to the Radisson to peek through the windshield and run the VIN number. It seems the vehicle traces to a Theodore Caverez of La Jolla. Theodore was indicted on drug charges two months ago, his vehicle seized by the federal government. And I can't believe our friend Tom Altman bought his Hummer at a police auction – doesn't match his carefully constructed profile, does it?"

Tim tried not to shiver, not wanting to broadcast weakness.

"You came here for a purpose, Tom."

"Doesn't everyone, Teacher?"

"A seditious purpose." His grin growing strained, TD tugged at a freckled ear, his first sign of impatience. "Do you think you're the first virus to try to infect our organization? You're all after something, someone. I may have been fooled by your facade, but I know what you run on underneath. I can read you – I always could. You were heading back to home base. Clearly you got whatever it was you were looking for. What was it?"

"Fulfillment."

TD leaned forward, training his eyes on Tim's. "You think you've got something on me."

"I'm just a guy who decided to Get with The Program."

TD's smile showed off the muscles of his cheeks, his neck. He nodded at Randall, who stepped back and opened the door. Skate remained immersed in his grooming.

Tim regarded the open door skeptically. "That's it. I can just walk out of here?"

"Of course. What do you take us for? Criminals?"

Tim rose and moved sideways to the door, keeping all three men in his field of vision.

"Best of luck, Mr. Altman."

Cautiously, Tim brushed past Randall. He jogged down the hall, glancing over his shoulder, and burst through the double doors. The rain had stopped finally, but the air felt wet and heavy. The paved drive sparkled, the asphalt slick beneath his rubber soles.

Skate had carried Leah back, delivering her into Janie's arms. She was surrounded by doting attendants in Cottage Three and in no shape to run, even if she did want to risk blowing cover.

He would come back for her.

At the front gate, Chad paused in his patrol and squinted from beneath a yellow southwester. As Tim neared, he turned silently and shoved the gate open.

Watching him warily, Tim slipped through. He continued jogging on the dirt road, still unconvinced of his easy freedom.

The mud-sloppy road slowed him. Each step pressed hard denim edges into his thighs. It seemed he was walking forever, but each turn only revealed another stretch of road. When at last he reached the swollen creek, he had to stop and rest, hands on his knees, gathering his courage before another plunge. He grimaced and waded in.

The flat-laid chain-link fence intersecting the creek bed aided his crossing, but during a few weightless steps in the middle, the current threatened to sweep him away. He managed to slog forward, a spray of water slapping him in the face. Sputtering, he crawled out and staggered to his feet.

His elbows and knees ached. Dirt gave way to asphalt. Finally he stepped out onto Little Tujunga. The road was quiet this time of night. He jogged south a quarter mile in surreal silence, stepping over felled branches. The dilapidated pickup drew into view, nestled in the overfall of a weary pepper tree. He located the key beneath the rear plate. Just as he slid it into the door, he heard the rattling approach of a vehicle.

He turned as the van braked sideways, tires chirping. The rear door slid open, and Stanley John, Chad, and Winona climbed out, followed by Dr. Henderson. Randall kicked open the driver's door with a grin, his size-fourteens shattering a glass-still puddle.

Tim stood slightly stooped, panting, as they unhurriedly fanned out around him. Randall's shirt bulged at the belt buckle. Stanley John and Henderson wore Sig Sauers in right-side hip holsters, Winona a. 32 cal and a salacious grin.

"Funny," Stanley John said without a smile, "we were just leaving the ranch, too."

"And we happened upon you," Randall said.

Slowly, deliberately, they drew near, a lasso contracting – they wanted to take him alive.

Randall all but blotted out the gaping door of the van. He tugged a Dirty Harry. 44 Magnum from his belt – the same gun Doug had pulled on Tim the day before yesterday. They were almost within reach. Tim put his back to Winona, the weakest threat and least likely first assailant, keeping Randall directly in front of him.

Chad's lack of weapon betrayed him as the takedown lead; he shifted his weight from leg to leg, then dropped one foot back in a boxer's stance. Tim's head swiveled to keep the four men in view. Randall clutched his gun at waist level, pointed at Tim's feet. His compact frame rippling with energy, Stanley John held his hands loose in a chopping style that announced martial-arts training.

Tim willed time to slow, and it obeyed him. In his peripheral, he picked up the flutter of Stanley John's nostrils, the silver button of the holster snap just under the hammer. He sensed Winona step back, Henderson sidle to the rear position. Chad tensed through the shoulders and bladed left to protect his vitals, the final move before a charge. Randall's neck flexed, his mouth creaked open to issue the go command.

Tim snapped his head back, cracking Henderson's cheek, his arms already moving to snatch the Sig from Stanley John's hip. His left hand popped the holster snap as the right found the grip. He fired the instant the gun cleared leather, the shot blowing through Stanley John's right hip, the recoil momentum propelling Tim's cocked elbow back into Chad's throat as Stanley John's disbelieving howl wavered high and thin. Since Chad had lost the drop, Randall wisely skipped back out of reach, gun rising to level as Tim swung the barrel, seeking the expansive target of his chest. A kick to Tim's knee from behind wobbled him – the reverse head-butt had not connected with Henderson as brutally as Tim had hoped – and the Sig drifted wide, the sights floating across a drift of asphalt and rocky roadside banks. Randall's fingers tightened on the Magnum, his face a malicious smear that Tim barely had time to register before his vision detonated into a white blaze that diminished swiftly to black.

Halfway up the hill, Leah sensed the throb of the kettledrum, badly played by someone other than Stanley John. It found resonance in the pit of her stomach, the soles of her feet, the pulse at her nape. Janie and a huddle of Pros attended her like handmaidens, crowding her line of sight, stealing her oxygen, seeming to note her every expression.

A seam of yellow showed between two clouds, a wink of the just-risen sun. Leah's mouth remained cottoned, though her splitting headache had subsided; her concern for Tim had allowed her only fitful sleep. From the buzz around the ranch, she'd gleaned that TD had let Tim walk away, but she knew better than to trust anything.

When she entered the Growth Hall, she returned TD's cryptic grin from the stage, then broke free from the others, standing to the side, steeled with some inner conviction.

Her teeth stayed clenched, her neck firm.

The drum continued with cardiac regularity. The lights dimmed. TD began his Orae.

Her arms crossed, Leah watched him pace as one hour dragged into the next. A band of sweat glittered across her brow. She swayed once, twice, then sank down to the floor.

Her shoulders slumped.

Her eyes glazed.

Sunday passed in slow motion. Since Dray didn't have a shift to take her mind off the clock, she tried to keep busy, plodding out a five-mile run in the morning, painting the garage door, logging some trigger time at the range, even going to McLane's with Mac and Fowler and pretending not to be bored as they ranked the asses of the Dixie Chicks between gulps of Rolling Rock. When pressed, she cast the tiebreaker for Martie.