Dixon pulled a slip of paper from the back pocket of her shorts and handed it to him. He put it in his pocket without looking. He asked, “How did you get this?”
“Is there anything gained by you knowing the answer to that?”
“No. So here’s another question: Why are you doing this?”
Dixon looked at the dark ocean as the kids threw their naked bodies into the cold waves and screamed. She said, “The person I’d sent the Praetorian code to was an old friend of mine named Greg Meeks. Brilliant man who used to work for DARPA.” She looked at Brodie. “Four days ago, armed men broke into his house in Arlington and shot him in his bed. They stole his computer and hard drives, left everything else of value. Not even subtle.”
“Jesus. I’m sorry, Caroline.”
She shook her head. “This is big, Scott. Maybe so big we’ll never see it all, and it will consume us too. But you know what? You’ve got to get your punches in when you can, and where you can. Let the bastards feel it. Let them know you were there.”
Brodie looked at her and nodded. “Thank you.”
Dixon leaned over, gripped his hair, and kissed him on the lips. It was brief, but intense. Then she pulled away and said, “It was good knowing you and fighting alongside you, Scott Brodie. Godspeed.” Then she got up and walked down the dark beach toward the parking lot.
He sat there, a little dazed, a little confused, but more resolved than ever to go through with this.
The mother of the Hispanic family was now yelling at the naked kids, while her own teenage daughter was burying her face in her hands in embarrassment. One of the boys tried to apologize to her in Spanish and she told him in English that his Spanish sucked, and then no one could hear each other over the roar of the airplanes, and Brodie laughed to himself about what a beautiful mess this world was.
And then he saw the Rangers’ bodies in the road, and his smile faded. He’d hold on to that one forever. More ghosts to bring along for the ride. It was the least he could do for them.
No, actually, it wasn’t. He took the slip of paper from his pocket and opened it: 17 Aurora Drive, Las Vegas, Nevada. That was where he’d go. That was where he’d get his punches in.
CHAPTER 59
SCOTT BRODIE PARKED HIS MIDSIZEsedan rental at a far corner of the Lowe’s parking lot and checked the time: 2:16A.MHe looked out the window and saw a few RVs and other cars scattered about. This was the best spot he’d find. Places like this generally allowed overnight parking, so the car would fit right in.
He got out and grabbed a green duffel bag from the back seat, locked the car, and went for a walk.
It was a warm night, and nearby he saw the blinking neon of the off-strip casinos. About ten miles to the east was the main drag, visible from here as a chain of glittering golden light.
He kept away from any businesses or other establishments where there might be cameras, which was easy around here. He went beneath a desolate highway overpass, then stripped off his outer layer of clothes and shoved them in the duffel to reveal black athletic pants and a black hoodie. He put on black leather gloves, then removed a small canvas bag from the duffel and slung it over his shoulder. He walked to a sloping embankment of rocky sand and desert scrub, stashed the duffel inside one of the fuller-looking bushes, and continued on.
In fifteen minutes, he’d reached the entrance to the gated community, which, like most of these places, practiced security theater instead of actual security. Keeping his distance from the main entrance with the guard booth and rent-a-cop, he walked along the black metal fence, which was obscured by bushes on the other side so that the residents didn’t have to see the unsightly thing. He looked around to confirm he was alone before scrambling up the fence and hopping down.
He kept his hood up and his head down as he walked along the empty road. No sidewalks. Houses with big lawns set far back. He knew the route without looking up at street signs. He’d studied the map. Three blocks down, two blocks to the left, then the cobblestone driveway would be on the right. It was the biggest house in the community.
He kept his eyes on his sneakers, only occasionally allowing himself to peek and make sure there was no security doing a drive-around. Six blocks ahead he spotted a slow-moving car gliding across the road. He froze. The car didn’t stop, and he continued.
He reached the cobbled drive and kept walking past it. The outer fence would run about one hundred and sixty paces. He counted.
When he reached the end of the property, he rounded the corner of the fence. The neighbor’s property would be on his left. A more modest home, but most likely with a security camera over the door. He kept his head down.
He walked another two hundred paces until he was roughly in line with the back of the house. He crouched and looked through the fence, where he saw lights scattered around the large, grassy backyard. He removed a pair of infrared binoculars from the canvas bag and used them to scan the area. Ten yards to his right was an infrared beam detector mounted on a pole about three feet off the ground, one piece of a virtual security perimeter that likely surrounded the entire property.
He returned the binoculars to the bag. Then he climbed up and over the fence, landed as quietly as he could, then marine-crawled along the grass beneath the infrared beam. Once he was clear of the device, he stood and looked around.
The house was massive, some oversize quasi-European villa. A glowing, rippling swimming pool sat amid the manicured grass. Beyond it was a landscaped garden and tree orchard. Quite a setup for the desert. This place’s water bill was probably higher than the GDP of some countries.
The house had big windows with large windowpanes. He had aglass cutter and suction handle in his bag, and a bastardized Glock-style ghost gun in his rear waist. One of the benefits of being a criminal investigator was that you knew criminals. One particular criminal, an arms smuggler in SoCal who’d done his time and claimed to be out of the game, knew a guy who knew a guy who knew a guy. Enough degrees of separation for everyone to be comfortable.
Still, it had been a risk. And it still was. There could be motion detectors he hadn’t spotted—in which case a home security service might already have been alerted. Or maybe the house had laser trip wires along the windows, and even if he managed to cut the pane properly and not set off a glass-break detector, he’d trigger the alarm anyway.
Well, what was the worst that could happen? Death or prison. He’d already made his peace with either.
He heard a sound to his right near the pool and spun toward it. He heard it again. It was snoring. Loud snoring.
He approached the pool. Sprawled on a tufted chaise longue was a sleeping sixty-year-old man in bathing suit trunks. He was flabby and balding. Next to him was an oversize cocktail glass, half full of watery-looking margarita with a floating lime wedge.
