Stretched out in a room of the Crowne Plaza Hotel in San Diego, Nathan Daniel McBride stared at the ceiling. With a sigh, he touched his face where three deep scars reminded him of another time, another world. The longest scar started at his left ear, ran down the side of his face, and ended at the tip of his chin. The next followed a diagonal path from the top of his forehead, across the bridge of his nose, and etched his left cheek. Visibly the worst, the third drew a deep arched line from temple to jaw. Nice touch, that one. At six-foot-five, 240 pounds, he kept himself in top physical condition. His forty-fifth birthday was right around the corner.
He rolled toward the woman beside him. In contrast, Mara had flawless skin. Her kind brown eyes and black hair perfectly complemented an athletic physique. In her mid-twenties, she was nothing short of stunning. But perhaps what he appreciated the most about her was that she rarely broke their silent moments.
“Have I ever really thanked you?”
She slid a leg over his hips. “Thanked me? I should thank you. You’re not like the others.”
The others. It felt like slap in the face. Denial was so self-serving. Mara was a prostitute. He was a john. One of her johns, he reminded himself. Sure, they’d seen each other twice a week for the last eight months, but what kind of relationship was that? Empty. Going nowhere. She was so beautiful and he was… What? Did the scars make him ugly? Or something else. Like what he used to do for a living? He wondered how different his life would be if he hadn’t become a Marine. Would he have a wife and children? A home? Not just a roof over his head, but a real home with a sense of purpose and belonging? None of that mattered now. Fresh out of college, he’d joined the Marines and discovered a natural aptitude he’d never known about. He could shoot and it didn’t take the Marines long to identify him. He spent seven years with the Corps as an elite scout sniper before the CIA recruited him.
More than a decade ago, his career abruptly ended after a botched mission. He’d fallen into the hands of a sadistic interrogator and endured three weeks of pure torment. His Nicaraguan interrogator had carved him like Thanksgiving turkey. An inch apart, dozens of crisscrossing scars marred his torso, making him look like a human wicker basket. At the end, his interrogator crucified him in a tight vertical cage that forced him to stand. After four days and nights on his feet with no food or water, the pain in his legs had been literally blinding. He’d been hammered from infection and fever, drifting in and out of consciousness.
“Where are you?”
“Huh?”
“You were gone again.”
“Sorry.”
She traced one of the grooves on his chest with a forefinger.
“Are you happy, Mara?”
“You’ve never asked me that before.” She smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “I can’t meet you Friday.”
He sat up. “What? Why not?”
“Shh… It’s okay. I have another meeting. Some drug company bigwig. Karen set it up.”
“Mara, if it’s money…”
She touched his lips. “You’re so generous to me. It’s not the money.”
“You could work at my security company. I can get you an apartment. You don’t have to do this. It’s dangerous.”
“I’m glad you care. Will I see you next week?”
His cell interrupted them. He reached over to the nightstand.
“Nathan? It’s Karen. That big guy’s here again. He’s got Cindy!”
“I’ll be there in seven minutes. Can you make it out to the patio?”
“I think so.”
“Do it. Turn off all the lights.”
Two minutes later he was striding through the hotel’s lobby with Mara in tow. Once outside the automatic glass doors, he sprinted over to his Mustang. Mara’s heels clicked on the concrete as she hurried to keep up.
After turning west onto Hotel Circle North, he accelerated to fifty. Mara fastened her seat belt as he swerved into the oncoming lane to pass an SUV.
“I thought it was over with that guy.”
“Apparently he didn’t understand my warning.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Give him a stronger warning.”
He ran the red light and smoked the tires merging onto I-8. Within ten seconds he was doing eighty miles an hour as he screamed under the Morena Boulevard overpass. He followed a minivan down the I-5 north on-ramp before punching his Mustang up to 110 miles an hour.
Four minutes had passed since Karen’s call. A lot could happen in four minutes. He forced the thought aside and concentrated on driving. His phone rang. Seeing his business partner’s name on the screen, he answered it. A call this late at night raised concern. “Are you okay?”
“Me?” said Harvey. “Yeah.”
“I can’t talk right now.”
“Are you okay?”
“Ten minutes.”
“You got it.”
Nathan felt additional pressure because Karen called him, not the police. She could’ve dialed 911. He suspected the police knew about her escort service, but her women were high-class and low-key. Karen’s women weren’t hookers who trolled for twenty-dollar tricks to feed meth or heroin habits. They were escorts, sophisticated corporate types. Expensive. Besides, her operation was small and no one had blown the whistle. Karen had also called Nathan because of his relationship with Mara. He looked out for her and the other women. Several years ago, he’d personally installed a high-tech security system in Karen’s house.
Nathan looked at his watch as he exited the freeway. Six minutes. Too damned long.
After slowing for a stop sign, he accelerated to sixty miles an hour.
“Nathan!”
He saw it.
An orange cat darted out from the left. It skidded to a stop in the middle of the street and froze. Shimmering in the headlights, its bluish-green eyes looked like tiny flashlights. Nathan executed a smooth adjustment of the wheel to the right and hugged the curb.
“Did we hit it?”
Mara whipped her head around. “No. It’s still there.”
Nathan eased away from the curb and braked hard for the next turn. Half a minute later, he parked fifty yards north of Karen’s place and left the engine idling. It needed a cool down after being worked so hard.
“Stay here. Turn the engine off after a couple of minutes.” He reached across Mara, popped the glove box, and grabbed his Sig Sauer P-226 9-millimeter. Climbing out, he jacked a hollow-point round into the chamber and lowered the hammer, using the pistol’s de-cocking lever. He tucked the weapon into his blue jeans at the small of his back and sprinted up the sidewalk. Several houses distant, a dog barked three times, then went silent. Beneath orange cones of streetlight, chest-high recycle bins were stationed in the street like sentries.
An off-road pickup sat in Karen’s driveway. It was hyped with oversized tires and augmented with floodlights mounted on a roll bar above the cab. Nathan shook his head. Everything oversized and out of control, just like its owner. He paused in Karen’s yard and listened, then placed an ear against a dark window. No music. No sounds of a struggle. Nothing.
At the side yard, he reached over the top of the gate and unlatched the locking mechanism from its cradle. The gate swung silently. He advanced to the corner of the house and peered over a planter full of barrel cactus. Karen looked cold, hugging herself in the damp air. He issued a low, warbling whistle. She hurried over.
“What’s the situation?”
“He’s inside with Cindy.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
“Has he hurt her?”
“I don’t know!”
“My Mustang’s down the block.”
“I can’t leave Cindy.”
“I’ll handle this.”
“Nathan-”
“Karen, please. Get going.”
Anger begin to stir as he pictured Cindy being brutalized by the guy. It tightened his body with adrenaline, threatening to overwhelm him. He closed his eyes, slowed his breathing, and relaxed his hands. When he’d calmed his mind, he removed his shirt and dropped it to the deck. He didn’t want to give his opponent anything to grab.
He pulled his handgun and followed the rear wall of the house, his movements precise and silent. At each dark window, he paused and listened. All quiet. No sound at all. Working his way through the maze of potted plants and patio furniture, he approached the sliding glass door. Detecting no movement, he slipped inside.
He heard it right away. A man’s voice. Muffled, from down the hall behind a closed door.
Another surge of adrenaline swept through him, this time under his command. A smile touched his lips. Nathan McBride, in his environment.
The next sound banished the smile, an unmistakable sound of a hand slapping flesh. Nathan kicked the door so violently it tore away from its hinges. Fully clothed, Cindy cowered on the floor in a corner, her legs tucked against her chest. The left side of her face showed a fresh impact.
The man leaning over her whipped around and squinted. “You.”
“Yes, me.”
Just as Nathan recalled, this guy was solid muscle and huge, taller by an inch or two. With his shaved head and hourglass torso, he looked like a bouncer. To anyone else, he might’ve looked intimidating. To Nathan, he was three hundred pounds of hamburger with an amphibian’s brain attached.
Nathan stepped forward and slapped him with his free hand, a wet, meaty impact on the man’s cheek. He moved back and waited for the reaction he knew was coming.
He looked Nathan in the eyes, looked at the gun, and then looked him in the eyes again.
“What, this?” Nathan tossed the Sig Sauer onto the carpet at the man’s feet.
His expression confused, the bouncer looked down at the gun and unconsciously wiped his nostrils with his thumb and forefinger. Cocaine.
If this guy had any sense of reality, he would’ve surrendered right then and there, because he was now face-to-face with a shirtless opponent, covered in menacing scars who looked like he belonged in a bare-knuckle, cage-fighting match on an alien war planet. But this man wasn’t thinking straight. No doubt he was accustomed to winning fights. Well, that was about to change.
Ignoring the gun at his feet, the bouncer lowered his head and charged.
Nathan saw it coming.
He sidestepped and shoved the man into the wall. The guy’s head struck the drywall and left a cereal-bowl impression in its surface. Nathan kicked him in the ass, making the impression deeper. The man grunted, cursed, and yanked himself free.
Nathan stepped back. “It’s a little cramped in here,” he said. “Shall we finish this in the living room?”
“No problem.”
Nathan gestured toward the door and moved aside, allowing the bouncer to exit the bedroom first. He pointed at Cindy. “Stay here.” Following at a safe distance, he sensed his opponent disappear around the living room corner more than he saw it. Then he heard a metallic sound and knew what it was.
The fireplace iron.
Nathan took loud, deliberate steps down the hall and stopped four feet short of the corner. The poker’s black form whooshed and penetrated the wall where he would’ve been had he kept going. He kicked the bouncer’s arm, pinning it to the wall, and had the satisfaction of feeling the mid-ulna and radius bones snap. The hand released the iron and fell away.
“That’s gotta hurt,” Nathan said. “Had enough?”
He stepped into the living room and the bouncer charged again, surprisingly fast, but not fast enough.
Nathan ducked low before thrusting upward with all his strength.
The man literally flew over Nathan’s back and landed with a grunt. He rolled onto his belly, tried to get up, and seemed surprised when one of his arms didn’t work.
“Broken,” Nathan said.
“You’re a dead man.”
Nathan spread his arms and looked down at himself.
The bouncer struggled to his feet and lunged forward with a left jab zeroed at Nathan’s jaw. Anticipating the punch, Nathan jerked his head to the right and snapped up with his left elbow, smashing the man’s nose. That was a bingo. For 99.9 percent of Earth’s population, that level of blunt-force trauma did the trick. Party over. Lights out. Send the babysitter home. But this man simply wiped his nose and squinted at the fresh blood on his fingers.
“It was cocked about thirteen degrees to the right,” Nathan said. “It’s straight now. No charge.”
The bouncer grabbed a toppled chair with his good hand and hurled it. Nathan ducked. Behind him, the glass door shattered.
Roaring like a maniac, the bouncer charged a third time.
He never made it.
His foot caught on the corner of the coffee table. Had the fall not landed him squarely on an overturned chair, it would’ve been comical, but his left eye socket made solid contact with the bottom of the chair’s leg. Three hundred pounds of momentum… With a little luck the eye could be saved, provided it wasn’t dangling out of the socket.
The man rolled into the fetal position and cupped his eye with his good hand.
Nathan felt it, a tangible presence evaporating from the room.
This fight was over.
An absurd memory flashed through his mind, something his mother used to say: It’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye. He hoped that wouldn’t be the case here. Spending the next fifty years with a glass eye and no depth perception wouldn’t be a fair trade for slapping Cindy. A broken arm and pulverized nose should be punishment enough.
“Come on,” Nathan said. “Let’s have a look. It’s over, okay?”
The big guy staggered to his knees, still holding his left hand over his eye.
“I’m gonna look at that eye. If you try anything, we’ll start over.”
No response.
Nathan flipped a wall switch and squinted at the sudden brightness. Clutching his eye, the bouncer looked broken and bloody, like a bully who’d finally met his match.
“Let me see your eye. Easy now. What’s your name?”
He slowly removed his hand. “Toby.”
Blood was streaming out of Toby’s nose and running down his lips and chin. Nathan examined the eye from a safe distance. Fortunately, the impact hadn’t been directly on the orbit itself. It had missed by half an inch, but the skin was laid open on the upper brow.
“Well, Toby, I’ve got good news. You aren’t going to lose your eye, but you’ll have one hell of a shiner. You had a close call here.” He paused to make sure he had Toby’s full attention. “You can blow this experience off, or you can use it to turn your life around, to walk a different path.” Nathan watched him ponder the comment for a few seconds. Toby was a big man-huge, really-and people often associated his kind of size with stupidity. Nathan was also big, not like this guy, but he often felt people treated him as though he was all muscle and no brains.
“I lose my temper,” Toby said.
“I noticed. Did you notice things I said were designed to make you lose your temper?”
“I can’t help it.”
“Yes, you can.”
Toby said nothing.
Nathan crouched down. “Here’s what I do. When I feel anger coming on, and I really want to hurt someone, I stop it by using a mental image. I call it a safety catch. You can call it anything you want. For me, it’s a safety catch. With me so far?”
Toby nodded.
“Okay. Picture autumn-colored leaves falling from trees and gently settling on the ground all around you. Give it a try. Start by closing your eyes and imagining it.”
To Nathan’s surprise, Toby closed his eyes.
“You’re standing under the trees with your head tilted up, your arms out the sides, palms up. The leaves are falling all around you, brushing against your skin. Breathe in deep. Let it out slowly. See the leaves as they flutter past you. They’re moving in perfect harmony. Each leaf picks up a small piece of anger and carries it away. Take another deep breath and let it out slowly.”
Toby looked pretty calm for a moment, then winced. “Oh man, my arm hurts.”
“You’re just now noticing that?”
Toby nodded again.
“How high are you?”
“A couple lines.”
“Do yourself a favor and lay off the blow. You’ll save a ton of money, and you’ll enjoy life a whole lot more. Life is rich with detail. You need to see the world around you, be aware of its details. You may need some help to quit, but as soon as you realize you don’t need drugs to have fun, you’ll have the problem licked.”
“I’ll try. You fight well.”
“Like I said, it’s all about details. I knew you were on some sort of amphetamine high because your pupils were too small for the ambient light in the room. I knew you were right-handed because you used it to wipe your nose. You’re right-footed because you took your first step toward the door with your right foot. I wanted that info in case you were a kickboxer. I knew when you were going to charge because your eyes gave you away. Stuff like that. It can save your life. It’s all about the details.”
“Those scars all over your body?”
“What do they tell you?”
“Somebody did that to you on purpose.”
“Why did they cut my stomach and back?”
Toby thought about it a few seconds. “No major arteries.”
“That’s right.”
“You were a soldier and got captured, they tortured you.”
“Sit tight for now. You’re going to need some stitches and that arm needs to be set. When you get to the emergency room, don’t lie to them. Tell them you were in a fight. Observe the doctors and nurses closely. Learn from them. Ask them questions. Ask them what they’re looking for when they examine your eyes and take your blood pressure. Ask them how broken bones heal.”
Toby said nothing, just looked around the room as if he were already seeing things from a new perspective.
“Make sure the vision in your left eye doesn’t become blurred or doubled over time. If it does, see a specialist right away, okay? Your retina got jarred. Hopefully, not too badly. I want you to wait here while I bring the women back in. They’re human beings, Toby, not just objects of entertainment. They have feelings. Like you and me.”
“I should leave.”
“Not yet. You need a few butterfly bandages to control the bleeding.” Nathan retrieved a clean washcloth from the kitchen and folded it into a quarter of its original size. “Hold this over the cut with pressure. Is your truck an automatic or stick?”
“Automatic.”
“Think you can drive?”
“Yeah, probably.”
Nathan patted his shoulder. “Details. Start noticing them.” He retrieved his 9-millimeter from the bedroom and told Cindy to follow him. They left the house through the front door and found Mara and Karen sitting in his Mustang.
“Party’s over,” Nathan said.
Karen climbed out and hugged Cindy. “Are you okay?” She looked at Nathan. “Is he gone?”
“No, but he will be soon. I think you’ll find he’s sorry for what he did.”
She stared at him for several seconds. “We’ll see about that.”
He led the women back into the house. As Nathan hoped, Toby apologized and offered to pay for all the damage he’d caused. Karen said she’d forego the money if he agreed to never come back and they struck a deal. When Nathan was sure things had cooled down and Toby was no longer a threat, he motioned for Mara to follow him. Once outside, he removed his wallet and handed her a wad of hundred-dollar bills. “To cover the damage.”
She was reluctant to take the money, but accepted it with thanks and a long hug.
“You could’ve hurt that guy a lot worse than you did.”
Nathan didn’t respond.
“Did you want to?”
“At first.” He answered her unspoken question. “I saw something in him.”
Mara stared for several seconds, hugging herself in the cool air. “If you ever want to talk, I mean, you know, just talk.…”
He turned to leave.
“Nathan?”
“I’ll call you soon. Thanks, Mara.”
He retrieved his shirt from the rear deck and pulled it on. On his way back to his Mustang, he diverted over to Toby’s truck, pulled a business card from his wallet, and set it against the Plexiglas cover of the speedometer where it wouldn’t be overlooked. It was a dual message he was sure Toby would understand. He slid into his car and waited. Sitting there, he ran the whole encounter back through his mind. Mara was right. He could’ve hurt Toby, hurt him badly. He knew the consuming rage Toby felt. Knew it well. But over the years since his captivity, he’d learned to control it, to use it like a tool and make it work for him, not against him. Maybe Toby could too.
His cell rang. “Harv. Sorry about that.”
“No worries. Everything okay?”
“Yeah. I’ll call you right back.”
“You got it.”
Toby walked out the front door a few minutes later, his right arm hanging uselessly. Using compact field glasses he kept in the glove box, Nathan watched Toby grab the business card from the dashboard. The big man stared at it for several seconds before backing out of the driveway. Keeping his headlights off, Nathan followed Toby’s truck until it was clear of the neighborhood.
He called Harvey back.
His partner answered after the first ring. “All right, tell me what happened.”
“One of Karen’s girls got slapped around by that big guy I told you about last week.”
“And.…”
“I put a reprimand in his personnel file.”
A pause. “Did you kill him?”
“Now would I do something like that?”
“Yes.”
“I’m deeply hurt by that comment.”
Silence on the other end.
“I didn’t kill him,” Nathan said. “The circumstances didn’t warrant it.”
“I would’ve helped.”
“There wasn’t time. I broke a few traffic laws getting there and a few bones after I arrived.”
“How many?”
“Bones or laws?”
“Is there a difference?”
“Radius, ulna, and a nose. Nothing serious.”
“I’m proud of you.”
“Thank you. Now, is everything okay with you?”
“I’m fine. But Frank Ortega’s not. He’s worried about his grandson.”
“Frank Ortega? The former FBI director?”
“The same.”
“Who’s his grandson?”
“Third-generation FBI. He’s currently undercover inside some kind of arms smuggling racket.”
“What kind of arms?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“Where?”
“Up north. Lassen County. Nate, he’s missing. Ortega wants our help. I didn’t promise anything, but I said we’d meet with him.”
“What, tonight?” Nathan heard his partner sigh.
“Yeah, tonight. Hold tight. I’m already on my way.”