Fun and Games (4 page)

Wait.

The girl had obviously helped herself to the keys, but how did she manage to deactivate the alarm? It had been set when Hardie had opened the sliding doors.

The story in his head changed.

Maybe this wasn’t a college girl. Maybe this was one of Lowenbruck’s barely legal exes. She didn’t have keys, but she knew the security code because he never bothered to change it. She runs into trouble, goes to the first place that comes to mind.

Either way, Hardie had to get her out of here and the police thing over with. He was exhausted. Being stabbed in the chest didn’t help his mood either. He hoped it was a few stitches and a couple of Vikes kind of situation… not a go-to-a-hospital-for-major-surgery-because,-oh,-your-lung-is-collapsing kind of situation. He still didn’t want to look down at the wound.

Hardie took a step forward, held out his hand. “C’mon.”

The girl seemed outraged by the suggestion.

“Don’t you come anywhere near me.”

“We both need a trip to the hospital. We can sort this all out in the waiting room.”

“You don’t understand. I’m not leaving this house. I don’t care what you say or what you do, but I’m not leaving.”

No, Hardie didn’t understand, but add it to the long, long list of things he didn’t understand.

And then the world around them fell silent.

5

Arnold Schwarzenegger:
Where did you learn how to do that?

Rae Dawn Chong:
I read the instructions.

—Commando

H
E FOUND
the transformer, traced the power lines to the underside of the house. Slashing the wires was foolish; you wanted to be able to resume power quickly if need be, or cover your tracks. So he used a putty knife to strip away the layer of gray utility clay bunched around the cable, carefully placing the chunks in his jacket pocket. Soon the copper cables, insulated in layers of lead and rubber, were revealed, and he carefully disconnected them from the digital meter.

A few feet away, the HVAC unit, resting on a pad of concrete, shut down and spun out to a total stop.

“Power’s out. Hooking up the governor now.”

“Good.”

He screwed the loose wires into a small hard-plastic box that could be controlled by remote. Power was gone, but it could be back on line if needed.

Next up: security system, satellite dish, gas lines, water. All the things you took for granted until you pushed a button, flipped a switch, or turned a knob and nothing happened. And the security system? That was a joke because it depended on a battery, as well as a landline to notify the company. Disable both and they’d have no idea. Nope, nothing wrong here.

Hardie looked around the recording studio. It was hard to tell at first what was wrong—just that something suddenly felt
wrong.
He stood up, glanced down briefly, then up again. Maybe it was him. Maybe his brain was shutting down, his soul preparing to depart his body and simply shutting off all of his senses before it left.

No… the girl seemed to hear it, too. Her head snapped to the left, then the right. She touched her lips.

“What was that?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” Hardie said. “Stay here.”

“Where the fuck are you going?”

Hardie ignored her, then started climbing the stairs, keenly aware of his heart pumping the blood that enabled his limbs to move. In his mind’s eye, he saw his heart working okay, just hanging in there… until a fat artery suddenly popped out of his heart, twisting and leaking like a severed garden hose, whipping around his chest and spraying his lungs with dark blood.

Knock that off, Hardie told himself. You’re going to think yourself into the grave.

As he wound his way back to the first floor, the cardboard action heroes seemed to raise a collective eyebrow.

Buddy, you have no idea what you’re getting into.

“Shut up,” Hardie muttered.

This house-sitter guy could still be one of Them.

Easy.

He didn’t act like it. But that would be just like them, wouldn’t it? All jokes and smiles and friendliness, all meant to put you at ease, help you relax, then,
wham!
You were done.

Just like her Good Samaritan on the 101. Walking up to her car, needle in hand, jabbing it into her arm when she was at her weakest—

Now “Charlie” here was turning his back on her. Probably on his way to the front door to let his buddies inside. The bastards had needles on the highway. What would it be this time?

Sorry, Chuck,
she thought to herself.
You may be telling the truth. You may be one of Them. Either way, I’m going to have to stop you.

Lane pulled herself up, using the edge of the kitchen counter. She had to move quickly. He was already halfway across the dining room.

The alarm had clued her in—snapped her out of a half sleep, actually. She’d set the alarm system for that very reason. While the intruder walked around, Lane got herself together. Listened. Waited. The intruder’s steps were methodical. Whoever was inside was clearly searching. She heard the faint creak and hum of the refrigerator door opening. The rattle of a doorknob. The opening of cabinet doors. Slowly. Carefully. Searching. Searching for
her.

So when he made it to the second floor, the choice was simple. Him or me.

Now Lane limped up the staircase behind him. Damn it—he was almost at the front door. She hurled herself up after him, speed-hopping, resting her injured foot for a fraction of a microsecond before using her good foot to vault herself forward. If he opened that door, it was all over.

Hardie stepped into the vestibule, looking around for something out of place. All at once the silence was overwhelming. He was tempted to open the door to see if something had happened outside, like maybe the Rapture or Armageddon, but then a thought occurred to him. Hardie moved into the media room, then saw his reflection in the darkened flat-screen. After a few seconds he figured out what was missing: No digital time readouts on the components.

The girl appeared in the room, bloodied mic stand still in her hand. The fact that it was
his
blood vaguely bothered Hardie.

She leaned forward and whisper-yelled: “What are you doing?”

“The power’s out,” Hardie said.

“Oh God. So they know I’m in here. They saw you walk in, and they think I’m in here…”

“Uh, you
are
in here.”

“They didn’t know that before you showed the fuck up!”

“Please, for the love of God… who is
they?
”

But the girl was already starting to panic, looking around at the windows and doorways, as if expecting a heavily armed unit of commandos to come storming into the house, spraying mace grenades and bullets.

Hardie had to admit, it was all starting to feel seriously strange to him, too. The power
just so happens
to go out just after he got his dumb ass stabbed in the chest? None of the previous explanations his lizard brain had come up with seemed to fit now. If it was just the girl, that would be one thing. People on drugs cooked up some truly weird shit in their fevered brains. But this was no simple cocaine-fueled delusion. Hardie was living in it, too.

He went to the front door, and, as predicted, the digital security panel was still lit. These systems always run by backup battery. That way, if home invaders cut the power, you can still call for help.

The girl appeared behind him and took him by the wrist. Hardie flinched at her touch.

“Come back downstairs with me,” she said. “
Please.
I don’t want them seeing us through the windows.”

“Hold on. The security’s still working. There’s got to be a panic button or something on here.”

“No! Don’t you dare touch that!”

“Why not?”

“They could be anybody. What if they just put on a bunch of fake security team uniforms and come knocking? How would you be able to tell the difference between what’s real and what they want you to see?”

“Just curious—do you realize how little sense you’re making right now? Or is this the drugs talking?”

BEEP.

Hardie’s eyes flicked to the right.

The security display panel?

Dead.

“Security’s out, power’s out, everything.”

“Okay. O’Neal—the wasp nest on the door?”

“Mounted, loaded, and ready.”

“Okay, let’s get bags ready, A.D.”

“On it. How is your eye, by the way?”

“Focus on the task at hand.”

“Sorry—just asking.”

“Ask me when the production is over. Now go.”

By the time Hardie put it fully together—that, yeah, someone on the outside was fucking with them—the girl had already taken up a position in front of the heavy oak door, mic stand in hand. Her whole body trembled. She was wild-eyed. She pressed her free hand against the door, as if trying to sense what was on the other side through the power of touch.

Hardie took a step forward. “You need to let me through.”

She whisper-yelled at him: “No, I will
not
fucking let you through. Don’t you understand? That’s what they want! You open this door, and we’re both dead.”

“If you don’t let me through so I can get to a hospital, then I might be dead, and
you
might be going to jail. Is that any better?”

This was wonderful. Already this gig had earned its place in the House Sitter Hall of Fame.

Hardie took a step forward. The girl raised her weapon—the bloodied mic stand—and pointed it at him.

“Want me to go now?”

“No. Wait to see if he comes out on his own. He might think the whole area is out and step outside to check.”

“How about I get into position, anyway, and wait for your signal?”

“Go ahead.”

Hardie didn’t know if he should swat the mic stand to the side, try to snatch it out of her hands, or give up.

“Are you really threatening to stab me with that thing?”

“I won’t let you open this door.”

“Look. I believe you. There is some kind of
They
out there.
They
are most definitely fucking with us. But I don’t want to sit here and wait for them to make a move. I used to be with the police. I think I can handle myself.”

Even Hardie knew that last line sounded full of shit. Yes, he sort of used to be something like a cop. But that had been three long years ago. A lot of drinking and poor eating and general sloth had atrophied his muscles. He was slower, larger. His liver wasn’t talking to him anymore, and his heart gave him little friendly reminders every so often that he might want to get his ass up and move around a little. The mornings he felt good simply meant that he’d passed out before he could have any more to drink.

So…
I can handle myself
?

Sure, Unkillable Chuck. Whatever you say.

The fact remained—he wanted to look outside and see what the hell was going on. Maybe it wasn’t just this house but the whole block. Maybe World War III had kicked off, and he’d be able to see downtown L.A. go up in a flash of blinding light.

But the girl was still stubbornly blocking his way.

“You can’t handle these people. Believe me.”

“Still nothing.”

“Playing it safe, I guess. Okay, go head. Take it.”

“On it.”

Hardie heard a car engine rev, though at first he thought it was the power kicking back on. Then came the screech of tires, which quickly receded into the distance. Wait a second now…

He went for the door handle. The girl held up the edge of the mic stand so that it pointed at his throat.

“Don’t. I’m warning you.”

Hardie said, “Let me look.”

“Use a window.”

Hardie didn’t want to get into another wrestling match with this psycho chick. She might end up stabbing that damned mic stand in another part of his body. His luck, his goddamned eye. So, fine, he’d open the front door later. Hardie sidestepped away from the girl and made his way to the wide-screen windows in the living room. He pulled aside the dusty curtains, then looked outside, and then immediately muttered,

“Fuck
me.
”

Hardie had pulled up what… thirty minutes ago?

His Honda Whatever was gone.

6

A far-fetched story must be plausibly told,
so your nonsense isn’t showing.

—Alfred Hitchcock

T
HE
L
ANE
Madden production was supposed to be the easy one.

After Mann received the green light, O’Neal observed the actress for a few days. He reported back, which only confirmed that Mann’s original idea was best: a “Sleeping Beauty”—late-night OD after a party. The narrative in Mann’s head went something like:

After a career slump and well-publicized descent into booze and drugs, and eventually a court-ordered alcohol-monitoring anklet, a B-list starlet is given a second chance with a part in a new indie prestige film. Feeling good, she decides to celebrate. She can’t handle it; she relapses hard. She ODs in her Venice Beach apartment.

If all went well, Mann thought, the actress wouldn’t even wake up for her own death. She might feel a slight pinch somewhere in her dreams, and then she’d feel wonderful, and then she’d feel nothing at all.

Mann had a three-man support team (O’Neal, A.D., Malibu) all set to move when SURPRISE—the actress got her ass up and went for a late-night drive up the PCH. They reported it to Mann, who told Malibu to follow her, see if any opportunities presented themselves. Malibu pushed for a Decker Canyon Road crash, but the thought made Mann uneasy. Too many wildcard factors—including the idea that the actress might survive a plunge into the canyon, or live long enough to place a 911 call describing the car that had run her off the road. When it seemed that Lane was headed down the 101 toward Hollywood, Mann put a new plan into play—an old reliable. Drug overdose followed by a crash. Easy, simple.

Only not so simple. A.D. and O’Neal had tracked her up into the Hollywood Hills while Mann staggered off to have an eye patched and Malibu stayed at the scene to give a report to the police.

The court-ordered ankle bracelet made it easy to trace Madden’s movements through the Hollywood Hills. They’d hacked into it the day before and had been following her movements on their phones ever since. Toward the end of the chase, however, she got smart and used something—probably a rock—to break the bracelet and tossed it into a clump of eucalyptus bushes down at the bottom of a steep hill. All seemed lost until they picked up some blood splatters near Alta Brea Drive.

There was only one house on this flat steep slope. A quick phone call revealed the owner’s name, and that settled it. The actress was obviously there, slipping inside like some fucked-up Goldilocks who knew the bears were about to devour her ass.

They weren’t bears, though.

They were highly trained professionals, part of something they loosely (and semijokingly) referred to as the Guild.

The Guild was a small brotherhood that specialized in invisible acts. They considered themselves the unseen architects of modern history. No footprints, no forensic evidence, no hint of the hand behind the act. Mann and her kind didn’t provide something as crude as a “hit”; rather, she strived for an
airtight death narrative.
You could look, but you would not find anything. You could question, but there would be no answers—other than the obvious.

Few people knew they existed.

Those who did called them by their nickname:

“The Accident People.”

O’Neal and A.D. were ordered to watch the house until Mann could make it up to Alta Brea. Once Mann arrived, O’Neal and A.D. reported that no one had entered or exited in the past hour. With one good eye—and oh, the cut eye almost made it personal, it truly did—Mann noticed a small white house down the hill below Alta Brea Drive. A quick call to Factboy confirmed that the occupant, an actress, was away on a horror-movie shoot in Atlanta. The house would be a perfect staging area. Mann broke in, secured it, then set up a surveillance post.

So now Mann watched from below and started to craft a new narrative:

Drugged-out B-list starlet crashes her car on the 101, staggers away in a haze, thinks she can just leave her mess behind for someone else to clean up. Wanders into some poor bastard’s home (celebrities were known to do that, too) only to die in a guest bathroom… or no, wait, she wanders the hills for a while, which explains the scrapes from tree branches, and the grass stains on the bottoms of her feet.

Once they had her again and made sure she was dead, they’d dump her in the canyon. Even better: march her body out to the edge of a mini-canyon, then
whoops,
good-bye, Lane Madden.

Cars and drugs were popular methods of celebrity death, but accidental falls were surprisingly popular, too. Maybe Lane would enjoy a lucky trifecta? People wouldn’t focus so much on the wrecked car or the speedball as on her stupid plunge off the edge of a cliff in Hollywoodland. That was it. Right there. Lane Madden’s final narrative.

But they had to get her out of the house first.

And they had to do that
just right.

Celebrity deaths were always scrutinized. By reporters, by cops, by fans. Even your average American idiot, having put in years of forensic study watching
CSI,
knew that the evidence told the story.

So if you needed everyone to believe your narrative, you had to get the details perfect.

Mann could not kick down the doors, guns in hand, screaming, looking for their target. That was
not
being invisible. They had to use their brains and pinpoint her location by other means. Mann was smart, and was regarded in extremely small circles as the best. Lane Madden was a vain little bitch, probably still out of her mind from the injection. This shouldn’t be too difficult…

They needed to operate within the parameters of the narrative. Narrative was
everything.

But first, they needed to get rid of the intruder.

He had shown up unexpectedly. Parked right in front of the garage, then went to the mailbox and flipped the top like he owned the place. Which was not the case. The owner was a man named Andrew Lowenbruck, who was currently landing at Sheremetyevo International Airport in Moscow. Who was this guy? Did the actress figure out a way to call for help? Had she left him a note in the mailbox somehow?

This intruder was fucking with Mann’s narrative. She needed him identified, then eliminated from the scene.

“Okay, go ahead,” she told O’Neal. “Take it.”

Number of vehicles stolen in Los Angeles every year: 75,000.

Hot-wiring cars? For punks and crackheads. O’Neal preferred to go high tech: hacking the onboard navigation system, popping the locks, and firing up the engine courtesy of a hunk of metal flying twelve thousand miles above the surface of the earth. It took maybe fifteen, sixteen seconds from the first keystroke. He was getting better at it all the time. New skills, new ways to pay the bills.

Then again, O’Neal shouldn’t go breaking his arm to pat himself on the back. Rental cars were notoriously easy picking. Nobody thought twice about override commands and remote starts—if anybody was looking. Which they weren’t.

The only disappointing thing was that the vehicle was… well, a Honda. Perfectly okay car, don’t get him wrong, if you were a suburban dad who worked in a cube and equated kinky with jacking off to photos of a New Jersey Housewife. The instant he slid himself behind the wheel, O’Neal felt that much lamer. Good thing he’d be driving it for only a couple of minutes—off the road and into a safe haven. In this case, a storage facility on Vine, right under the 101.

O’Neal made an efficient search of the interior, reporting details to Mann over a hands-free unit as he worked.

“Okay, nearly full tank, one twelve on the odometer. Small black duffel bag in the passenger seat.”

Then O’Neal popped the glove box and found the rental papers—the driver had simply stuffed them in there, like every other human being on the planet.

“Vehicle rented to a Charles Hardie, eighty-seven Colony Drive, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania one nine one five two.”

“Good,” Mann said, then thumbed the vitals into the phone, sent it off to the researcher. Within minutes, a short but complete summary of Charles Hardie’s life would be winging its way back.

Soon the man who called himself “Factboy” had the basics nailed down. Factboy knew better than to bore Mann with the minutiae of Charles Hardie’s life—high school attended, last book checked out of the library, blood type. What mattered now was what Hardie did for a living. Why he was here, at this address on Alta Brea Drive, right now, in the middle of their business.

“He’s a former consultant with the Philadelphia Police Department,” Factboy said. “Now he’s a freelance home security specialist, working with an agency out of Dallas.”

“Home security?” Mann asked. “We didn’t trip any alarms.”

“No, he’s not a guard. Hardie’s just a house sitter. The owner of the house, one Andrew Lowenbruck, is away for a month. Hardie’s here to watch the place.”

“And he shows up now, of all times?”

“Seems legit to me. Lowenbruck left just last night according to the agency’s records. Hardie caught a red-eye, made it here this morning.”

“So he wasn’t called in because of the target,” Mann said.

“There’s no indication. No phone calls have been made from the residence, or from the target’s phone.”

Factboy waited for the smallest indication that Mann was impressed by how much he’d cobbled together in such a short span of time, but Factboy knew better. Mann wasn’t impressed by miracles; they were expected.

Factboy had a large array of digital tools at his disposal, but lately his weapon of choice was the National Security Letter, something the FBI invented over thirty years ago but really came into its own after the Patriot Act. NSLs were lethal little mothers. If presented with one, you had to open up your files, no questions asked. Didn’t matter if you were a used-car dealer or a US Customs official—all your base belong to them.

And the NSL came with a nifty feature: a built-in gag order, lasting until your death. Say one word about the NSL, and you can be thrown into prison. Before 9/11, the FBI used NSLs sparingly. But in the hazy, crazy days that followed, the FBI handed them out like candy corn on Halloween—something like a quarter of a million in three years alone.

Factboy had quickly learned how to fake them. He could even send one digitally. No voice, face, no human contact whatsoever.

This was just like his relationship with Mann—which, like “Factboy,” was a code name. They had never met. They probably never would. But hey, as long as the checks cleared.

“You said he was a consultant,” Mann said. “What kind?”

“I’m still working on that.”

“Work harder.”

Mann disconnected. Factboy stood up, slid the phone into the pocket of his cargo shorts, stepped on the metal handle to flush the toilet, then opened the stall. The men’s room was crowded. He walked over to the one open sink, splashed some lukewarm water on his hands and face, then went outside to rejoin his family.

They were on vacation.

Factboy had a real name, but he made it a point never to reveal it. His real identity wasn’t even known to Mann, who accounted for roughly seventy percent of his income. Factboy presented himself as a ghost in the system, a man (or maybe a woman!) living off the grid somewhere in a country where extradition laws do not apply, with servers spread throughout the globe with a nominal headquarters in Sweden. Trying to catch Factboy would be like trying to grab a fistful of smoke—physically impossible. But if you needed information quickly, Factboy could find it for you quickly, cleanly, untraceably.

In reality, Factboy was a suburban dad, thirty-four, with two laptops, a smartphone, and really,
really
good encryption software.

And right now, he was on vacation with his wife and two kids at the Grand Canyon, ready to have a nervous breakdown.

This was unusual for Factboy, who spent most of his waking hours in his attic office “programming.” A total lie. He was busy retrieving information, then selling it to people who would pay him a lot of money for that information. This took anywhere from ten seconds to a couple of minutes, depending on the type of information. Nothing—
nothing
—took more than a few minutes. The rest of the time Factboy watched 1980s-era horror movies, prowled message boards, and jacked off. Which was pretty much his life twenty years ago, too, come to think of it, down to the same movies. A wife and kids hadn’t changed things all that much.

The problem was, Factboy had to be available to Mann more or less all the time. While the info retrieval might take ten seconds, the request might come in at 3:13 a.m., and Factboy was expected to respond within seconds.

Factboy excused himself to go to the bathroom quite often.

So much so that Factboy’s wife thought he had irritable bowel syndrome. Instead, he was usually sitting on top of the toilet, thumbs flying over the tiny keypad on his phone, fielding a request, hoping he wasn’t too late.

Then he’d flush.

Lately, though, the wife had started in on him about spending more time with his family. Usually this was something that politicians or executives said after being caught with a dead ladyboy in their secret apartments, but the wife meant it for real. More time.
Quality
time. She thought they should travel. They should go see the Grand Canyon, she said.

Factboy and his family lived in a modest three-bedroom in Flagstaff, AZ—just an hour away from the Canyon. They’d never seen it.

Sensing that refusal might lead to separation, possibly divorce, and a smart enough lawyer might start taking a close look at Factboy’s revenue streams, jeopardizing pretty much everything, Factboy caved.

They went to the Grand Canyon. Stayed at the El Tovar, the oldest resort hotel, which looked like a huge pile of smoky timber perched within yards of a big gaping hole in the earth.