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“Get that briefcase to my office in San Francisco,” Paolini said. “We’ll discuss it then. In the meanwhile, find Stryker and finish the job.”

Konrad hung up the phone and finished the glass in one long swig. “Bitch,” he grumbled. He glared at the laptop. Water pooled on the table around it. Konrad lifted it out of the puddle and set it on his lap. He opened the screen. It looked dry on the inside. The thing seemed to be waterproof. It was surprisingly light. It must have been expensive. He twisted it around to see if any water would run out of the case. None did.

Konrad smiled. He didn’t normally pry into other people’s business, but he was a little too curious. Whatever was on that computer was important enough to have Stryker killed. It was important enough that Stryker could blackmail Paolini over it. Maybe Stryker had the right idea.

Konrad hit the power button and waited. The little green light at the bottom of the screen came on. The computer beeped. And then it beeped again. And again. Konrad got a sick, twisting feeling in his gut as he heard the third beep. It occurred to him suddenly that the computer had been too light, too waterproof. That was because it wasn’t a computer. It was a bomb.

The explosion disintegrated Konrad’s body and blew a hole through the main deck of the boat. The ensuing fire sank the luxurious three-story floating home and spread to two more boats before the fire department got it under control.

Chapter 46

Stryker jammed the stick shift into fourth gear and watched Brandy Jackson disappear into the rear view mirror. Sara watched him through slitted eyes. A moan escaped her lips, and it caught his attention. He touched the bleeding wound on her shoulder and she let out a whimper.

“Are you going to kill me?” she said. Her right hand moved up to compress the wound. Stryker gave her a once over.

“You look like hell,” he said. “Better check the glove box for some tissues or something.”

Sara didn’t move. “Don’t hurt my family,” she said. Her voice was weak, her speech slurred. “Just don’t hurt my family.”

Stryker whipped around a slow-moving car as they entered the Waldo Tunnel. It got dark. In the dim light, Sara’s pale skin looked green. She looked like she was dead. Stryker shook his head.

“You surprise me, Murphy,” he said. “You’ve been surprising me a lot lately.”

Sara stared at him through half-lidded eyes. “Why?”

“To be honest I still don’t understand it. You’re out of profile. You broke out of your mold. Do you know how unusual that is?”

“I don’t like being shot at,” Sara grimaced. Stryker laughed.

He was quiet for a minute. He gave Sara a long look, his eyes darting back and forth between the road and the passenger seat. “You want your life back?” he said.

Sara’s eyebrows narrowed. She wasn’t sure if Stryker was joking with her or if it was a real question. Sara had completely given up hope that she’d ever get her life back. Scott and Bree were gone, her home was in ruins. She’d even pulled a gun on her boss.

“Why would you say that?” she said, her voice cracking. Tears streamed down her cheeks. “You’re going to kill me. Isn’t that enough?”

Stryker pursed his lips. “I’m not going to kill you,” he said with a mysterious half smile. “I’m going to give you a way out.”

Sara raised her head. She hardly dared to believe what she was hearing, but something about the way Stryker said it made her believe he meant it. “How?”

“You’re going to help me.”

Sara leaned back against the headrest. “Help a terrorist?” she murmured. She shook her head. “How could you give me my life back? You took everything. My family, my job. Even my reputation.” She had a little trouble getting that last word out. It had a lot of syllables and her mouth wasn’t quite up to the task.

Stryker nodded slightly. “You’re right. I can’t give you everything back. Some of the stuff I did is going to haunt you. You might never get it all straightened out. But, I can give you your family back. Isn’t that enough? Hell, I can even give you what you need to prove you’re innocent.”

“How?”

“That doesn’t matter. What matters is that we have an understanding. Do we?”

Sara nodded. It was like a game. Stryker lied, made promises he couldn’t keep, and she agreed to play along. What would it hurt? She might live a little longer. But she didn’t trust him, or believe him. How could Sara put her trust in someone who killed people for a living; someone who could take her life as casually as switching channels on television?

“What do you want from me?”

“I already told you. You’re going to help me.”

Sara bit her lip. She closed his eyes and felt the world twisting out of balance. What was Stryker up to? He knew that Sara would have done anything to get her family back. Anything. Was Stryker toying with her? How could he possibly do everything he promised, without putting himself in danger? It didn’t make sense.

“How? How could I help you? What do you want from me?”

“You’re going to help me kill Paolini.”

Chapter 47

When the flames cleared, Brandy was there. She’d barely gotten out of the parking lot when her phone rang. The surfer had called 911, and Lee was going to interview him. Brandy followed him and they found the ambulance in a parking lot on the south side of Sausalito. EMT’s were treating the victim as they pulled up. Brandy stepped out of her car just in time to see the explosion of light over the hill as Konrad stole his last secret.

An hour later, Brandy strolled through the carnage with Inspector Lee. There wasn’t much left of the boathouse; charred framing and a soggy hull buried in the mud, twenty feet below the surface. They stood at the edge of the dock, staring at the murky scene.

“You think this was Konrad’s doing?” Lee said.

“I don’t know how he could have survived that fall,” Brand said, “but the windsurfer’s description fit Konrad to a tee. This would have been a good place for him to hide out for a few hours.”

“So he jumps off the bridge, attacks a windsurfer, and then blows up somebody’s house. What’s the point?”

“I have no idea.” Brandy stared at the ash and smoldering boards floating on the water. “He still had the briefcase,” she said absently.

“Briefcase?”

“Thursday, remember? Michael Turner on the Bay Bridge.”

A look of understanding dawned on Lee’s face. “Right… what the hell is in that briefcase?”

“Whatever it is, it seems to be worth a lot of killing. Konrad jumped off the bridge with it, according to the witness reports. He was willing to leave behind everything else, but he took that briefcase.”

Lee glanced across the way, to where the divers were setting up their equipment. “This is going to be a few hours,” he said. “You want some dinner?”

Brandy almost said yes. Then she grimaced as she thought of Matt at home. He was probably trying to cook dinner again. Hopefully he hadn’t burned the apartment down already.

“Tell you what, I’m going to go grab a bite at my place. I’ll be back in an hour.”

“Sure. In fact, why don’t I just call you if anything comes up? There’s really no need for you to hang out here all night. Even if there was evidence to be found, it’s probably been washed away by the fire hoses.”

Brandy thought about it. She felt a little guilty leaving Lee there to do all the work. He did have a point, though. She wasn’t going to be any help hanging out there all night. In fact, she’d probably be getting in the way. “Okay,” she said. “I’ll stay by the phone.”

“Third time’s a charm,” Lee said. “Maybe this time, you’ll actually make it home!”

Brandy laughed. “Thanks, Inspector.”

“No problem. Oh, I’ll also let you know if I hear anything on that APB. Watch your step on the way out of here. This place is a hazard.”

Brandy was halfway home when her cell phone rang. She snatched it up and said, “Hello?” She was expecting it to be Lee. It wasn’t.

“Brandy Jackson?”

“Who is this?”

“The name’s Stryker. I’ve got something you want.”

Brandy’s eyes widened. She’d been trained for this kind of situation. She tried to remember what to do.
Listen for background noise,
she thought.
Try to get information out of him.

“Are you talking about Sara Murphy? Is she with you?”

“Relax, she’s fine.”

“I want to talk to her.”

There was a short silence and then Brandy heard heavy breathing. Sara Murphy began to talk. “I didn’t do it,” she said. “I didn’t kill anyone.”

“I know. Are you hurt?”

“I’ll be fine. Make sure my family’s okay, please?”

“Okay, that’s enough,” Stryker said. “Murphy’s fine. Got herself a flesh wound but she’ll be alright as long as she gets some medical attention in the next couple hours.”

“What do you want?”

“I want Paolini. That bitch owes me.”

“Paolini? The senator?”

“That’s her. I want the money she owes me. I want her to bring it to me.”

Brandy frowned. In the back of her mind, she had been working out a way to zero in on Stryker’s location. She was listening for background noise, trying to think of ways to get Stryker to reveal more information than he meant to. She had been going about it the wrong way.

“Where are you?” she said.

“I’m in a warehouse in Bodega Bay. The old Blue Star factory, past the marina.”

That was easy.
“Why does Paolini owe you?”

“Because I work for her. I
used to
work for her. Our contract ended when she had Konrad blow my car up yesterday.”

Brandy narrowed her eyes. Was he lying? She thought about the scene where Stryker’s car had been blown up; about the innocent people that had died there. She didn’t doubt Konrad had something to do with it, but what about Paolini? How could she be involved? If Stryker was telling the truth, that explained why there were two assassins in town at the same time. That led to a whole flood of questions.

If Stryker had been working for Paolini, and she tried to have him killed… “Did you kill Fortress? Is that why you’re here?”

Stryker chuckled. “Forget about Fortress. Worry about Sara Murphy. I’ve just about reached the end of my patience.”

“Fine. What do you want me to do?”

“I’m not greedy,” Stryker said. “I figure half a million should cover it. That’s my pension, my hazard pay. I calculated it all in there.”

“All right, half a million. What was Paolini’s part in this?”

“Why don’t you ask her?”

There was a click and the line went dead. Brandy stared down at her cell phone.
Paolini?
She thought.

Chapter 48

Wendy Paolini was in her car when Stryker called. She was halfway between Sacramento and San Francisco. After the phone call with Konrad that afternoon, she had decided it would be best to drive to the city and spend the night there. She wanted to meet with him personally, as soon as possible. She wanted to get that briefcase and make sure it was destroyed once and for all.

Then her phone rang
.
Caller ID said
unknown.

Wendy held the phone to her face because she’d lost her Bluetooth headset. She didn’t like the thing anyway. It was too small, too hard to find, too hard to remember to charge. It was a clever little accessory, to be sure, but Paolini was too scattered to get any real use out of it. It wasn’t like she was going to get a ticket for using her cell phone while driving anyway. She was a senator.

Ironically, she’d supported the bill that made wireless headsets mandatory. She’d gotten kickbacks from two different wireless manufacturers -to the tune of more than fifty thousand dollars- for her endorsement. She’d also made a killing on the surge in stock prices that followed the introduction of the bill.

Wendy had gotten quite a few angry phone calls from the Department of Transportation and the universities who’d conducted studies on cell phones and found they were no more distracting than a conversation or a stereo, and that the wireless headset made no difference whatsoever. A study in 2010 by the Highway Loss Data Institute confirmed the findings. The cell phone ban had made no difference whatsoever in traffic accidents. It was a bad law. But why should she care? Paolini got her money and the state had a new revenue stream from ticketing people.

It didn’t matter to her that the law undermined peoples’ confidence in the state, or that most civil rights advocates viewed it as a tax. The law had passed. If they wanted to repeal it, they were welcome to. As long as they didn’t ask Paolini for a refund.

“What is it Konrad?” she said.
Unknown
always meant Konrad.

“It’s not Konrad.”

A chill went down her spine at the sound of Stryker’s voice. “What do you want?”

“You know what I want. We had a deal, remember?”

Wendy’s mouth went dry. “What happened to Konrad?”

“If I was you, I wouldn’t be worried about Konrad. I’d be worried about Wendy.”

Her palms were slick against the leather steering wheel. Her heart was racing. Wendy eased over to the slow lane. “You’re upset, I understand that. That’s perfectly normal.”

“Are you trying to smooth-talk me?” Stryker said. “I don’t think you understand what’s at stake here, Paolini. I’m an assassin. You do get that, don’t you?”

“Yes,” she said breathlessly.

“Good. I’d hate for something bad to happen because we weren’t communicating. Now, listen carefully. I want you to call the bank and tell them you’re withdrawing half a million dollars.”

“But-”

“No, no
buts
. I don’t care how late it is. I don’t care if the bank is closed or the manager is on vacation. I don’t care. You’re going to get my money and deliver it to me. If you don’t, Sara Murphy’s going to die. Then your husband is going to die. Then your mother at that nursing home in Mendocino. You see where I’m going with this?”