Brad carried his bike inside the house—the garage had been broken into many times, so nothing of value was kept in it—and even inside the house, he locked it up with a big ugly-looking chain and oversize padlock. The neighborhood wasn’t crime-ridden, but kids were always jumping the fences, peering through the windows, and occasionally trying the doors, looking for something easy to snatch, and Brad hoped that if they saw the bike chained up like that they’d move on to easier pickings. For the same reason, he kept his laptop’s backpack out of sight in his closet and never left the laptop out on the desk or kitchen table, even if he was in the yard or going to the store a few blocks away.
He rummaged through the refrigerator, looking for leftovers. He vaguely remembered his father, a single dad after the murder of his mother, making macaroni and cheese with sliced hot dogs for his son quite often when he was home, and that always made Brad feel good, so he always had a half pot of the stuff in the fridge.
Damn, Jodie felt good too, he told himself. Who knew the friendly but normally quiet Aussie science geek wanted stuff like “hooking up”? She was always so serious in class or in the lab. Who else, he wondered, was like that? Casey Huggins was a little more rambunctious but was pretty serious most of the time as well. He started going down the list of the few women he knew, comparing them to Jodie . . .
. . . and then he whipped out his cell phone, realizing that the main reason he hadn’t hooked up with Jodie or anyone else was probably waiting for him to call. He speed-dialed her number.
“Hello, this is Sondra,” the message began. “I’m probably flying, so do your thing when you hear the beep.”
“Hi, Sondra. Brad,” he spoke after the tone. “It’s almost eight. Just wanted to say hi. We made the pitch today for Starfire. Wish us luck. Later.”
Sondra Eddington and Jodie Cavendish, it turned out, were very similar to each other, Brad realized as he found the pot of macaroni. Both were blond-haired and blue-eyed; Sondra was a little taller, not quite as thin, and several years older. Although Jodie was a student and Sondra had already graduated with bachelor’s and master’s degrees in business along with a number of pilot’s certificates, both were professionals in their own domains: Jodie was a master in a laboratory, while Sondra was completely comfortable and highly proficient in an airplane—and soon to be spaceplane, once she finished her training in Battle Mountain—cockpit.
And, most of all, both were not hesitant to speak their minds and tell you exactly what they wanted, whether it was professional or personal, and definitely on every level of personal. How in the heck do I attract women like this? Brad asked himself. It had to be just plain ol’ dumb luck, because he certainly didn’t . . .
. . . and at that moment he heard the scrape of a shoe against the wooden kitchen floor and sensed rather than saw a presence behind him. Brad dropped the pot onto the floor and whirled, finding two men standing before him! One was holding a backpack, and the other had one as well, along with a rag in his right hand. Brad half stumbled, half jumped backward against the refrigerator in surprise.
“Neuklyuzhiye ublyudok,” the first man growled at the other in what Brad thought was Russian. “Clumsy idiot.” He then casually pulled an automatic pistol with a silencer affixed to the muzzle from the waist of his pants, held it level at his waist, and aimed it at Brad. “Do not move or cry out, Mr. McLanahan, or you will die,” he said in perfectly good English.
“What the f*ck are you doing in my house?” Brad said in a shaky, broken voice. “Are you robbing me? I don’t have anything!”
“Otpusti yego, durak,” the first man said in a low voice. “Put him down, and do it right this time.”
Advancing with amazing speed, the second man whipped something out of his waistband and swung it. Brad’s vision exploded into stars, and he never remembered the object hitting his temple or his body crumpling to the floor like a sack of beans.
FOUR
Be like the fox who makes more tracks than necessary, some in the wrong direction. Practice resurrection.
—WENDELL BERRY
SAN LUIS OBISPO, CALIFORNIA
“Finally you did something right,” the first man said in Russian. “Now watch the back door.” The second man put the bludgeon back inside his pants, pulled out a silenced pistol, and took a position where he could watch the backyard through the kitchen window curtains.
The first man started to set out objects from his backpack on the dining room table: small bags containing small pea-sized white chunks of powder, black- and soot-stained spoons, butane lighters, rolled-up one-hundred-dollar bills, votive candles, a bottle of 151-proof rum, and hypodermic needles and syringes. After they were arrayed on the table just as an addict might organize his works, the first man dragged Brad over to the table, took off his left athletic shoe and sock, and began deeply poking his foot between his toes with a hypodermic needle, drawing blood. Brad moaned but did not awaken.