She fingered the box of prophylactics. “What do you plan on blowing up?”

  I squeezed her hand, glancing around to see if anyone had heard. She bit her lip and grinned wickedly.

  “Well, if things go right, might not have to blow up anything. Of course, if they go wrong… ah hell, who am I kidding? I’ll probably blow up Rogan himself, and then maybe burn down his house just to make a point.”

  “And what point would that be?”

  “That we’re coming for them. That we found Rogan, we found the hard drive, and they’re next on the list.”

  “Nothing makes a statement quite like a good fire,” she agreed.

  We wrapped up our purchases and headed back for the car. Mel pouted about relieving Hector, but I insisted. “He’s been there two hours. You gotta spell him.”

  “But I’m gonna miss all the fun.”

  “Don’t worry.” I kissed her cheek. “You’ll get your chance.”

  ***

  I dropped Mel off at our agreed upon spot and retrieved Hector. He looked a little better than he had last time I’d seen him, which confirmed my suspicions that he’d found himself something to take the edge off. But it wasn’t my problem, and I was determined not to care. We transferred my purchases to the trunk of his car first, and then drove off back to the empty office suite where Dr. Carson kept his business. All I really needed was one of the empty offices to cook in, and I didn’t think Carson would mind.

  The doctor wasn’t in when we arrived, and it didn’t take a whole lot before we found a way inside. I had Hector bring in the supplies while I set up a makeshift workstation in one of the empty suites.

  Getting power involved running an extension cord from Carson’s office, but since he wasn’t using it at the moment, I didn’t think he’d mind that much. I just wanted to run the hot plate.

  Once I had the bleach cooking near an open window, I showed Hector how to remove the light bulb filaments from their glass enclosure. He only broke three of them, which was why I’d bought so many.

  “So what are we doing with all this stuff?” he asked. I wondered if he’d found the condoms that had Mel so worked up.

  “We’re setting the stage,” I murmured, extracting a filament and setting it to one side. Gently, I lay the delicate glass on the counter.

  Once all the bulbs had been taken apart, I sent Hector out to fill a jar with water and bring it back. Meanwhile I began attaching wires to my razor blades, which I spaced a blade’s width apart from each other with a little of the glue. This done, I attached leads to either of the blades and connected each of these to a pair of bolts I’d run through the plastic lid of the jar. Through the remaining hole, I shoved one end of the plastic tubing and attached the funnel to the other side.

  Hector returned a moment later with the water and the jar. He stared quizzically at me as I screwed the jar’s lid in place, with the razor blades and wire just inside the water, and the funnel at the top of the jar.

  “Got a lighter?” I asked.

  He readily produced one. I pinched the tube with a binder clip and plugged my device in. The water quickly turned a roiling black as bubbles ran up through the tubing. I lit the lighter and held it near the tube’s end, then released my pressure on the tube. A jet of flame burst in the air.

  “Whoa,” he exclaimed. “What was that?”

  “Hydrogen gas.”

  “From the water?”

  “Water’s nothing more than two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom. The electrical current separates out the hydrogen, which we can collect in this tube because it’s lighter than air. Or, in this case,” I lifted one of the empty bulbs and submerged it in the bucket of water, then slipped the tube inside and turned it over, “trap it inside a light bulb.” Presently, the hydrogen gas began to displace the water inside the bulb.

  I let the bubbler run a while, gently filling each bulb before crimping the tube shut with my binder clip and slipping a condom over the end of it. I quickly replaced the bulb with another one. Hector helped in this department while I gently took the bulb, removed the condom and reinserted the filament, and then taped it shut with a band of electrical tape. Hector looked at me. “That gonna blow up when he turns on the light?”

  “That’s the idea. I call them ‘bang bulbs.’ It won’t make much of an explosion. Might not even break the bulb, but the resultant pop and flash should be quite spectacular.”

  We assembled over twenty bulbs this way. I didn’t know how many we’d have to use, but it wouldn’t hurt to have a healthy supply.

  Once the bang bulbs were ready, I checked on my bleach solution, which had begun to boil and precipitate out the crystals. I took it off the burner and showed Hector how to mix it into an explosive powder.

  He watched with growing fascination as we worked, and for once I felt like I was actually teaching something of value to the young man.

  “Where’d you learn to do all this?” he asked.

  “In the military. Some of it, anyway. When I was a kid, we often had to mix our own explosives for stump removal and such.”

  “Oh.” He fell silent for a while as we worked. Once the explosives were mixed, I next set about creating a pressure switch. The biggest challenge, of course, would be getting it into place. I tested it with a light bulb, approaching it from different angles and at different speeds to see what would happen. Each time I stepped on it, it turned on the light.

  “This is for like, a booby trap or something, isn’t it?”

  “You catch on quick. It’s kinda like a pressure mine.”

  “Think I saw one of those in the movies one time. Guy stepped on the mine and whammo! Blew his frickin’ leg off.”

  “Except in this case, we don’t want to do that. We don’t want his leg blowing off until after he steps off the plate.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “That way, we can have a moment to talk to him.”

  Just then, my cellphone rang. I frowned and answered. “Hello?”

  “Ger? Rogan just left the house. You boys ready?”

  “Any idea when he’s coming back?”

  “Nope. But I’m on his tail right now.”

  “You’re what?!”

  “Don’t bark at me. I’m staying a couple car lengths back.”

  “Mel!” I crushed the phone to my ear.

  “Look,” she said, “we already know he’s on to us. Or at least suspects that we’re around. What better chance are we gonna have to get inside his house? For all we know, he may be getting groceries for a prolonged siege. Or skipping town. Or maybe even going to see his lawyer.”

  “Or leading you into a trap.”

  “I’ll take my chances.”

  “Mel don’t—!”

  “Just trust me. I got this.”

  With that, she hung up. I stared at the phone. “Unbelievable.” I turned to Hector. “Pack it up. We gotta go.”

  “She in trouble?”

  I shoved the phone in my pocket. “She’s gonna be.”

  ***

  Hector and I loaded everything into the car just as ex-doctor Randall Carter rolled in and climbed out of his Volkswagen. Times have been tough on you, I thought.

  “What are you doing here?” he protested.

  “Leaving.”

  “This is not a motel! You cannot just come and go whenever you want.”

  “Oh?” I shut the trunk. “Is this the part where you tell me this is a legitimate place of business?”

  “You know what this is. I have clients!”

  “That’s right. You do. And that’s also why you ain’t saying or seeing nothing. Capisce?”

  I didn’t wait for an answer as I climbed into the driver’s seat and started the car. As I peeled rubber out of the parking lot I heard him shout, “Don’t come back!”

  I don’t plan to, I mused.

  ***

  We reached Rogan’s house in less than twenty minutes. I called Mel for a status update, and she tersely informed me that if Rogan had been on his way back, she’d have called me.

  “And where is he now?” I demanded.

  Hector had gone around back to find a way in. I was pretty sure the alarm would go off, but he seemed confident that he could get inside no problem.

  Mel said, “He’s sitting down at a Cuban restaurant.”

  “Alone?”

  “No. Two other guys are at the same table. Looks real chummy.”

  I frowned. “Think you can get a picture of them?”

  Hector opened the front door and invited me in. “How’d you do that?” I asked him.

  “I got my ways.”

  “No alarm?”

  He tapped the alarm box beside the wall. The indicator light glowed green, signaling all clear.

  A moment later I heard Mel say, “Done.”

  I nodded at Hector and shut the door. To Mel I said, “Good. Now we just need to find out who they are.”

  “I’m sending them to you now,” she said. Abruptly, my phone chirped. I stared at it, unsure what to do next.

  Hector signaled me, and then gently took the phone from my hands.

  “Did you get them?” Mel asked.

  “Uh…”

  Hector pressed a button and the images appeared on the screen. He handed me the phone.

  “Yes,” I answered, nodding gratefully to Hector. “Yes, I got them.” I looked at both pics a moment, flipping back and forth between them. “Don’t recognize either, though.”

  “Me neither.”

  “All right. Well, maybe we can get Rogan to tell us.”

  “You got it,” she answered, and hung up.

  I turned to Hector. “You’re proving to be quite the butler, you know? A regular Alfred.”

  He grinned, and together we went to work.

  Chapter 23

  I called Mel after an hour had gone by and I hadn’t heard anything from her yet. The call went straight to voicemail. Frustrated, I left a message and hung up. Doubt gnawed at the edges of my mind. Why didn’t she pick up? What happened to her? Had Rogan found her? Had she tried something and gotten caught?

  What if she was dead?

  These questions took me no place good. I assigned Hector with replacing the light bulbs with my ‘bang bulbs’ while I went about installing my pressure plate under the floor mat in Rogan’s kitchen. He had one of those island counters with a sink and a range top right in the middle of the kitchen. It was one of those set ups my wife used to coo over whenever she’d read a home and garden magazine, pointing out to me the kind of room she always wished we had—the kind I would never be able to afford for her.

  Pissed me off that Rogan had one, frankly, and I booby-trapped it with glee.

  I was just putting the finishing touches onto it when Hector came up behind me. “All set. Anything else you wanna do?”

  I attached the wires and secured them to the molding with some masking tape, then hit the arm switch. The indicator light I’d rigged atop the device flickered a pale green color. Gently, I closed the cabinet. “Whatever you do,” I told Hector, “don’t step on that.”

  “Wow. What’s that gonna do to him?”

  I shrugged. “Nothing until he steps off of it.”

  “So, you’re gonna like, kill him?”

  I glared at him. “Of course not! What do you take me for?”

  “Kinda like a bad-ass version of Batman. Maybe like Big Daddy on the movie Kick-Ass, you know?”

  I grimaced. We were back to the comic books. “Never saw it.” I rose from my crouch and led Hector out of the kitchen. “As far as what I’m gonna do to Rogan—I’m gonna trap him here and leverage what we want from him.”

  “That’s the hard drive you guys were talking about.”

  “That’s right.” I pulled out my cell phone and tried Mel’s number again. Once more, it went straight to voice mail. I was getting worried.

  “So what happens after he gives you the hard drive? You gonna let him go?” Hector asked. He reset the alarm system and then handed me the best news of the day: a remote control.

  “What’s this?” I asked.

  “This is a smart home,” he explained. “Everything’s wired up to remote control. Lights. TV. You name it. That’s how I got inside.”

  “How’s that work again?”

  “Just the remote. Look,” he started pointing at the buttons.

  I held it up. “I meant about how you got in.”

  “Oh. Something my cousin showed me. Smart homes like this got a design flaw—a hard reset makes the whole system go down for about a minute as it tries to figure out whether or not there’s been a power outage. Then it comes back online again and sends the security company a notice about the fault. That’s all you gotta do, you know? Hit the reset and then pop the window just after the reset goes through. Alarm companies think it’s a glitch. I know, ‘cause he used to work for one. Man, we scored a lot of bank that way.”

  “I see.”

  “So you didn’t answer my question. You gonna let Rogan walk or not?”

  He seemed kinda chatty this evening. It was getting on my nerves. “I don’t know. Depends on what kind of mood I’m in.”

  “Oh.”

  I tried Mel again. The phone rang, and once more went straight to voice mail. I hung up without leaving a message. “Damn. Something’s wrong.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t know. Mel’s not answering her phone.”

  “You think something’s happened?”

  “I said I don’t know!”

  He flinched when I raised my voice, reminding me momentarily of a beaten dog. I didn’t want to apologize, though. Too worried about Mel.

  I tried her number again. This time, the phone was answered.

  “Mel! Where the hell have—”

  “Hello Gerrold,” drawled a voice that was not Mel’s. I felt my insides turn to ice.

  “Who is this?”

  “You have been a busy man. A lot of people are very interested to talk to you.”

  “Where’s Mel?”

  “All in good time.”

  “Hang up,” said Hector.

  “Don’t hand me that,” I told the man on the phone. “You tell me where Mel is right now or so help me God, I’ll—”

  “You’ll what?”

  “Hang up!” Hector insisted.

  “I’ll—”

  Hector grabbed the phone from my ear, threw it to the ground and smashed it with his foot.

  “What the hell?!”

  “They’re tracking you, man! They use the GPS in the phone to get your position down, and then when you least expect it…” He made a sound like a missile hitting something and blowing up. “UAV’s, man. Killer drones, you know? That’s how they get you.”

  I stared at him. “Hector, nobody’s flying a drone that’s gonna launch a missile at us and take us out.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  I bent down and picked up the remnants of the phone. It was toast. Holding it in my hand, I returned to the kitchen and unceremoniously dumped it in the trash. Hector followed.

  “They always get you when you least expect it.”

  “D’you know the beauty about being paranoid, Hector? It’s that you never actually have to face up to the real demons in the world. You just spend all your days running so scared from the ones you’ve made up in your mind that you don’t have to face the truth. Mel’s in trouble. But we don’t know what kind of trouble, because we don’t know who has her phone and why. And d’you know why we don’t know that?”

  He stared at the trash can a moment. “‘Cause I smashed yours?”

  “‘Cause you smashed mine. Now, give me your phone so I can call her back.”

  His hand strayed to his jacket pocket. “No.”

  “No?” I felt my hands raise, poised for his throat.

  “No way, man. You’re not thinking straight.” He turned away from me, heading toward the stairs.

  “I’m not thinking straight? Come back here you little paranoid freak! Give me the damn phone!”

  He ran from me, leading up the steps to the second floor. I followed, close on his heels, feeling my ribs begin to ache from the exertion. At the landing on top, he hesitated only a moment—not quite long enough for me to catch him. I reached out, but my hands clutched on empty air. He danced away, heading for what looked like one of the bedrooms.

  “Get back here you meth-head!”

  I chased him into the room, and slowed as soon as I arrived. It wasn’t a bedroom.

  Hector stood beside the window, anxiously peering at the roof outside.

  I stared instead at the contents of the room. Around the walls stood a bank of monitors showing numerous video feeds, including several images of the surrounding yard, as well as the street outside. From the looks of it, Rogan might even have had a shot displaying the street where we first changed seats so that Hector could do his little pizza delivery thing.

  Beside the video monitors, two computers ran atop a small desk. One of them displayed a stream of random numbers.

  The other showed a continuous feed of news articles, along with percentages beside the headlines in a column entitled “PROBABILITY.”

  A few had been highlighted in red and no longer scrolled like the rest. These sat at the top. The probability indicators beside the headlines each read better than ninety five percent. I leaned in close, reading the headlines. The first one announced the poisoning at the prison where I’d been incarcerated till Mel sprung me. It had a ninety five percent rating. Just below it was the news headline about the explosion at the gas station on the expressway. This had a ninety nine percent rating. Then came the report of a stolen car, along with the fire at the crack house.

  I did not see a report about the raid on the illegal fighting ring, nor anything about the car we’d borrowed from Larry. So Rogan didn’t know everything, it seemed. But he knew enough. He’d been keeping tabs on our progress—or rather, this little computer set up had been doing it for him.

  “Hey,” Hector said from the window. “We gotta roll.” He poked his head out, nervously scanning the skies. “Looks overcast. That’s good for us. Means they can’t see as well through the cloud cover. Messes with the ultraviolet cameras.”